North London, mainly

Saturday starts well with a lovely bike ride along the Thames path out to Hampton Court only spoiled by a 30 mph wipe out in Richmond Park due to dodgy front wheel butterfly nut loosening. Nothing broken. Hopefully. Old Peugeot Mixte now in garage awaiting safety work. Bruised still. Wish it had been videoed but where's CCTV when you need it. Then down to Waterloo to watch The Arsenal boss Villa to get our record number of FA Cups. Celebrate with a couple of drinks with Pete people watching on the South Bank. Back home to watch MOTD highlights to end a great day despite near death experience. Wimp out of Sunday's parade due to weather although Jack says it was crowded. Tuesday evening north of the river near the home of football, well Drummond Street, to meet my 90s Highbury mate Shaun who I've nearly lost contact with but now back again to find that we're both avid cyclists and still click. I just missed him at the Cote de Chevin for Le Tour de Yorkshire which he impressively rode in the sportif. A drink and a dosa / bell poori meal go down well. We're accosted by an interesting ex con who regales us with tales of prisons and shootings back in the day when screws were bossed by the blokes inside. Shaun is an inspiration to him as he's able to sit outside a pub drinking pints (Shaun that is) and talks knowledgeably about various prisons. The guy thinks Shaun's done time rather than works with prisoners. Anyways I have to leave Shaun and hot foot it up to Highbury Corner for the gig tonight. Now Howe Gelb is someone I've seen before with various muso stars but wasn't overly impressed although thought some promising songs if that ain't too condescending for someone who's obviously a bit of a cult star (see previous post). Pete has persuaded me to give him another go and so I find myself in the Union Chapel which is a nice enough church but with it's pews and nowhere to stand and pogo is no place for a rock and roll band. Deal was that Pete goes to see George Clinton with me (11/10 rating - see previous post) and I go see Giant Sands (1/10 rating*). You got the better deal Pete! Starting at 7.40 there are various band members doing solo or duo slots before the full band appear. To be frank it's not my scene sitting in reverence listening to slow droning C&W with twiddly bits that don't excite. And as for the inter song banter which is mumbled by Howe and the audience guffawing at the droll (read weak) in jokes it's, well, let's just say putting my experience in the red. Lovely bar upstairs tho (no drink in the pews of course) and the boys (Pete, Chris, Nick) plan world domination with our band. OK so we're still deciding who does what and whether any of us can sing. Or even play any instruments. But with a week in a Welsh cottage in the autumn how can we fail...  And surely we have a sympathetic journalist in Julia who happens to be sat in the pew just along from where we are so we have a lovely chat after the gig been too long. Now although I'm dismissive of Giant Sands lots of others seem to love him / them. There again look how many voted Tory and UKIP. I know I'm right. After too much time in the bar and hanging outside we're off and I leave Nick promising to bring my front light to the party on 18th for the 18th. It's going to be a weird mix of 18th birthday and partial retirement apparently and I assume that us footie blokes have only been invited as entertainment seeing as Old Men Grooving is hip and out there. There's only one team in north London. Well, excepting Barnet, which is Middlesex anyway, there will be when the Spuds have to take over Upton Park for a season or two.

* the 1 is cos at least we could go up to the bar which is more than I could do back in my church going days where they watered down the wine but I guess watered down beer was par for the course back in Watney days and why should the church behave any better than dodgy pubs.

My best photo of the night was this when we had light relief with the two girls and just so this isn't a wasted blog there's one of my favourite bits of graffiti...

Lovely when the light streams in

Banksy ? alongside brilliantly ironic life choice statement