Libertines

The night began with a trio of support acts comprised of bands from Peter Doherty’s own label Strap Originals. It is a very tight schedule with short five-minute changeover periods between the artists which isn’t helped by the doors opening quite late at 7pm and the first band due on at 7:20pm.  

First up are Nottingham’s Vona Vella, who are Izzy Davis and Dan Cunningham, a pair of harmonious singer songwriters who turn up as four piece tonight. They trade vocals over lively guitar driven melodies with a mishmash of styles but are generally mellow and summary, very Lloyd Cole, and highly likable. They come over as a group of mates having a great time. They’re possibly too nice and I’m not sure where they take this act from here. 

Up next are Real Farmer, a band from Groningen in the Netherlands. Their lead singer walks on stage, promptly throws away his mic stand, jumps in the air a few times and spits. Ugh. Then he starts pacing up and down. This is just his warm-up I think. Then...  It’s Play Dead! Or Killing Joke maybe. This is more my thing, spitting apart.

Finally, we have Reverend and the Makers guitarist Ed Cosens who gets a few songs in while the roadies are busy resetting the stage behind him for the Libertines. He’s missed his first assigned slot and now he gets to play a mere three acoustic numbers while fighting a battle against a now restless crowd.

Then… just as we’re expecting the main event to start rather than the whole band, we get just the one Libertine as Pete Doherty strolls on to the stage alone and introduces a poet he allegedly found on Upper Parliament Street while walking his dog last night. I think it’s fair to say that said poet goes down a bit mixed.

Fifteen minutes later Doherty is back, now in his raincoat but this time with the rest of the band. Then things really took off ‘Up The Bracket’ style as they opened with a classic that is now amazingly 22 years old.

Doherty spends most of the night loitering to one side as Carl Barat, kitted out in a trilby hat and blazer, commands things from centre stage. Everyone took a turn up front though with both drummer Gary Powell and Barat taking turns on the piano and bassist John Hassall taking a turn on vocals. 

 

The set was a mix of the classics and the brand new with plenty played from their new album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ in a night that was riotous but retrained too. These days you are assured that the Libertines will not only turn up to play but they'll be on time and they’ll play through to the night’s conclusion rather than being prone to curtailing things at any moment.

After an eighteen song set that finished with ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ the band returned for a long encore of a further seven songs that Doherty even took his coat off for. This included ‘Gunga Din’, which was one of only two included from their third album 2015’s ‘Anthems for Doomed Youth’, ‘Time For Heroes’ from album one and to round things off standalone single ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’.

(Monday 21^st October)

A Neglected Childhood

L is in work on Monday so again misses the ecstasy of a trip to Sainsbury’s as she awaits her boss who is taking several hours to pump up his car tyres. Later I have cycling, the Exeter and a scotch egg to look forward to.

Having recovered from the illness I gave her, L is back at PT on Tuesday. As L leaves, Daughter pops home for a power nap, a shower and breakfast then heads out again. In the evening L is at ‘An Evening with Kate Summerscale’, which is a book event at Waterstones, while the Lad and I dog train.

Then she’s out again the next night, this time at Nottingham Playhouse with Harriet Walter and Friends. Something about Shakespeare’s women. I’m at the much less salubrious surroundings of the Viceroy Indian in Derby with my old school friend enjoying their £20 for 4 courses deal after a few pints in the Alexandra first. We pass on the dessert but I come home with plenty of Naan for the Lad.

It is good to see that the evening Red Arrow is now running every half an hour during the week as well as at weekends which is progress. 

On Thursday I’m out with my Dad and having another meal at the New Inn. Obviously, he’s on the fish and chips but I have a curry. We even have dessert. L meanwhile is on the healthy option of the gym and an evening swim.

On Friday we drive up to York for a weekend away and, yes, it includes Parkrun. We arrive early and find the centre of York all dug up and a congested nightmare. When we eventually park up we find the quirky Perky Peacock cafe for coffee and cake.

Then after we drive to our hotel, I find out that I’ve booked the wrong Holiday Inn. I had wanted the one adjacent to the Racecourse where parkrun is but the one I’ve actually booked is on the other side of York, miles away. It’s a bit isolated but we do have the Toby Carvery next door where we go for tea. They even let the Lad in to the bar.

There is actually a parkrun near where we are staying but we find out that it’s been called off. The next nearest one is mind numbing five laps. So we opt to drive back to the Racecourse where we splash round the waterlogged course and the lad finds plenty of puddles to rest up in. We then somehow manage to get all the way back to our hotel in time for breakfast which was being served until 10.30.

Then we get the bus into York, as it’s too far to walk. The Lad not only copes with that but with a bus tour around the sights as well although this consists of mostly getting stuck in the traffic again. After that we walk him along the city walls before slipping into the Slip Inn for a drink and then to a Black Sheep pub that serves the best curry I’ve had in a quite a while, better than last few restaurant ones I’ve had. We get a different bus back which goes a different route and we get off at the wrong stop but we manage to navigate our way down some country lanes back to the hotel.

On Sunday, after breakfast at the hotel, we then head back onto the previous night’s bus route because we had noticed that they’d been setting that up for the Yorkshire marathon which we go and watch. Storm Ashley has caused the Great South Run to be cancelled but up here in the north life goes on as normal. After we’ve watched all the runners, we head home but first L puts up with me going to York’s famous Railway Museum. A treat I was denied as a kid. She hides in the coffee shop with a book while I relive my neglected childhood. The Flying Scotsman is not there but at least the Mallard is. 

(Sunday 20^th October)

250%

L is in work on Monday and with a boss, so she stays there and is annoyed to miss the thrill of Sainsbury’s.

My health is not yet 100%, so I cancel my cycling session as that requires at least 250% health. Daughter is away but having the house to ourselves sadly coincides with me passing my germs on to ill who retreats to bed at 7pm where she stays for most of Tuesday having cancelled her PT and stayed off work. She briefly emerges for the dog walks in the morning and evening but returns to bunker in between.

We defer Tuesday's Steak Night until L is better and instead I take my Dad out to a very quiet New Inn amidst heavy rain.

By Wednesday L is recovering but very slowly and still cancels Wednesday’s yoga and book club. She also moves her usual Thursday with her parents to Saturday.

By Saturday L is firing on all cylinders and just in time for Alvaston Parkrun. After which, while L is visiting her Dad I take mine to a pair of doctor’s appointment and then to Brenda’s cafe on London Road for lunch.

In the evening, we walk down to Caning Circus where after having found the Blue Monkey to be too busy, we have one in the Good Fellow George before settling in the Borlase where we get to flirt with an eleven-week-old whippet puppy.

On Sunday we do a joint gym and then we do our third cinema week in a row. It is by far the oddest of the three and is called Timestalker. 

Alice Lowe plays a woman who continually regenerates after death into another person, forever in pursuit of the same man and forever destined to die for him or because of him, usually horrifically. In the 17th Century she is a maidservant who is enamoured with a preacher about to be executed. In 18th Century she is a noblewoman who has a fascination with a highwayman. In the 1980s she is a superfan chasing a pop star. 

She also pops up in between but some of these are so fleeting you lose track of what's going on as the film gets forever messier and you perhaps come to the conclusion that she, and perhaps everyone else, are just totally mad.

We try to debrief afterwards over a Thai curry in Paste. 

(Sunday 13^th October)

Shorter Distances Are Available

L is in work briefly on Monday but as her boss again doesn’t turn up for duty she soon comes home. 

I’m at cycling and on Tuesday L is at PT where her trainer is considering, but only considering, taking up running. However when he asked L how long a half marathon was and she told him, he was a bit shocked. Of course shorter distances are available and we look forward to seeing him at Parkrun.

In the evening L is dining out posh with friends at Le Bistrot Pierre in Derby while the Lad and I are slumming it at dog training where he does ok for the second week in a row.

On Thursday we do another early morning run, doing the legendary ‘Rodney’ route covering 6k in total.

On Friday we’re in Burton for a curry at Balti Tower with friends before which we grab a pint in the Devonshire Arms.

I wake up with a bit of a temperature which L thinks is curry induced but I beg to differ. I do decide that it would be prudent to skip Parkrun even though it is Forest Rec’s 500^th event. The Lad is frustrated to not get to run as we go to support L.

Later Derby beat QPR 2-0 and then we’re in the Plough where the advertised Porters are not on but at least Supreme is.

To my surprise the Supreme doesn’t seem to have cured whatever illness I seem to have picked up and I’m still ill on Sunday morning as L runs off to outdoor yoga at Wollaton Hall. We meet for coffee and a bacon roll afterwards.

Then we’re at Broadway later for a meal and to see the film 'Lee' about former model and photographer Lee Miller played by Kate Winslet. 

The film focuses on Miller’s time as a war correspondent during WWII after she refused to be pigeonholed as a has-been model. She travels to the frontline in Europe and then later becomes one of the first to discover the Nazi concentration camps. This tale of the chain-smoking and hard-drinking Miller features gratuitous topless scenes and the most dubious attempt ever to get sex by use of camouflage paint, that oddly seemed to work.

The story is built from the significant collection of photographs and manuscripts that were discovered in Miller's attic following her death in 1977, a collection that became the Lee Miller Archives. Most of which seemed to be unknown to her family.

The story is told in retrospect in what initially appears to be an interview with her late in her life by a man who later turns out to be her son Antony Penrose and the interview is in fact a memory from his perspective. 

(Sunday 6^th October)