Dog Alarm Failure

I have a second day in London today which is for a meeting at a different site and where we agree to lots of extra work which will extend the project to mid-2018 at least.

Without me to wake her, L oversleeps. Seems the dog alarm didn’t work either.

My colleagues and I are scheduled on a nice early 13:58 train back from London, so I’m home in plenty of time for Honeyblood.

 

Honeyblood are a band I’ve wanted to see for ages and who I finally saw last year at the Handmade Festival in Leicester. However that was a very short set cut even shorter due to the whole festival running behind schedule. I’m hopefully for more than just six songs tonight.

First though are Nottingham’s Super Furniture who openly confess that they don’t have any music to sell us but they are very keen for us to buy a t-shirt. They are also back in July. I think the lead singer mentioned that... several times.

They are a fairly bog standard indie four piece guitar band, pleasant enough but not of the required level to buy the t-shirt.

Honeyblood are still at that nice stage where they set up their own instruments while trying to pretend that they aren’t the band before sneaking off stage to make a grand entrance and everyone’s supposed to go ‘oh, you ARE the band’. Problem is that’s not working any more because they’re becoming too well know. As is shown by the fact that this gig, originally scheduled for the Bodega, got upgraded.

It is their second album ‘Babes Never Die’ that has got them the recognition and it is from that they open with acerbic ‘Justine, Misery Queen’. Understandably it is that album, slightly more polished that their first, that provides the majority of tonight’s set.

However, their first album ‘Honeyblood’ is arguably as good as shown by the more rift-ful ‘Choker’ which is up next and which sets the tone for a night of good noisy fun with the odd

reflective moment thrown in such as on the excellent ‘Cruel’.

The band of Stina Tweeddale on guitar and Cat Myers on drums are one of just many two-piece bands around at the moment. It must be quite a feat for two people to create the sound that is usually associated with a full band but these two manage it and think of the lower overheads that must bring. It makes you wonder why everyone isn't doing it.

There’s also less chance of your band members falling out but then if you do it's probably terminal or perhaps not because, although Honeyblood were formed in Glasgow back in 2012, Myers has only been on board since 2014.

The only misstep is when Stina says ‘Thank you Bristol’ after one track, oops, but after a bout of booing, mainly orchestrated by herself she is forgiven.

After three of their big numbers ‘Sea Hearts’, oldie ‘Killer Bangs’ and album title track ‘Babes Never Die’ end the set we find out that a band who, apparently, didn’t believe in encores now do.

They come back for two more, another oldie ‘Super Rat’ and one of their recent big singles ‘Ready for the Magic’.

Excellent stuff and, oh, Honeyblood have t-shirts on sale too.

(Tuesday 19^th December)

An Interesting Development

The dog alarm oversleeps a touch and L refuses to be nudged awake in a timely fashion, so it ends up having to be a really fast bike into work this morning but I was nicely hyped up for it, so can’t complain.

L is totally re-thinking her fitness because of her ankle, which isn’t improving. She’s even considering giving up walking, which is an interesting development as I know she doesn’t mean driving everywhere. There’s always the unspoken 'B' word. 

I buy tickets for the opening night of World Athletics Championship next year in the Olympic Stadium. Any excuse for a wild weekend in The Smoke. It includes the Men’s 10k final which may or may not have Mo Farah in it as he could have moved up to marathons by then. I prefer the long stuff rather than the short and fast stuff. Although we get that as well, as the Men’s 100m qualifying is on the same session.

The ride home is a tad damp. No squash tonight. 

(Thursday 19^th May)

The 37th Derby Camra Summer Beer Festival

L misses her swim, I miss my bus. We oversleep, I can’t even offer a more interesting excuse. At least we can slag each other off over a beer tonight at the Derby Beer Festival.

It’s Derby’s 37th annual Summer Beer Festival and I’ve been to most of them. I meet L in Derby and we head there straight from work.

This year, due to the closure of Derby’s Assembly Rooms, the whole thing will take place in a marquee on the market square. This is fine apart from a chronic lack of seating.

Every year has a theme and this year’s is 50 years of Derby Mountain Rescue. They also claim to have at least one beer from every Derbyshire brewery, of which at last count there were 28. We stall try a few of them

Me (all halves)

1 Townes Pynot Porter 4.5%

2 Cornish Crown Porter 5.2%

3 Castle Rock Midnight Owl 5.5%

4 4Ts Chocolate Stout 5.5%

5 Fullers ESB 5.0%

6 Caveman Clovis Point Brown 5.2%

7 Cornish Crown Porter 5.2%

8 Fullers ESB 5.0%

L (all thirds)

1 Raw Dark Peak Stout 4.5%

2 Deventio Cleopatra 5.0%

3 Deventio Cleopatra 5.0%

4 4T's Master Forever 4.2%

5 Fullers ESB 5.0%

6 Ashover Liquorice Alesort 5.0%

7 Deventio Cleopatra 5.0%

8 Bollywood??? (not on the menu)

(Friday 11^th July)

A Bit Gloomy

Something I rarely do is oversleep but today I do, meaning I’m too late to bike or catch the bus. So I drive in and bizarrely arrive far too early because there was no traffic. No idea why.

We go to the Waterfall for our pub lunch solely because the Abbot Ale is on. Allegedly. This isn’t strictly accurate as it doesn’t taste very on. I think it’s back to the Brunswick next time.

I attempt to book tennis for tonight but the online system won’t give us a court because apparently there’s not enough light to play at 7pm any more and all four of the floodlit courts are booked. We vow to go anyway and if they won’t let us pay we’ll have to play for free instead.

They take our money and the light is fine at 7pm but gets a bit gloomy by half past and gloomier still by 7:45. Still we get two long sets in, 6-4 6-4 (pleased with that), which takes us to about 8:10 by which point it could probably be described as dark. We book a floodlit court for next week.

(Thursday 5^th September)

The Agony Dulls With Time

I oversleep but manage to cycle anyway, quickly, out of necessity but it’s not good for the legs. I’m exhausted and there’s not even much windy today.

Then I decide to return via the hillier route through West Hallam for variety and stupidity, also not good for the legs.

L enters us for one of those horrendous off road fell things in the Lake District, this time in Staveley courtesy of Lakeland Trails on 1^st June.

We do one of these every so often and I spend the entire duration wishing I was somewhere else but the agony dulls with time and we usually enter another one.

There are two distances and L decides to enter the 17k with the theory that she can soon drop down to the 10k if she’s feeling like a wimp. Which means I also ought to enter the long one as well... or come out as a wimp. Oh well, you never know they may have tarmaced over the fells by then and it won’t be so bad.

I beat L home and as requested run a hot bath for her. Well for both us, but it’s so hot all I can do for twenty minutes is sit and look at it. So I pour the wine and light the dog smell dispersing candles. 

(Friday 5^th April)