Oh. (Russ L going to and fro in the Earth)

Going Deaf For A Fortnight 2007 looms alarmingly large. Take up thy cross and follow.

Standard disclaimers: I can’t ensure that these events will go ahead, that they’ll be good, or that I will be going to them. Please do not contact me to ask for your event to be included. That’s not the way it works.

Monday the 1st to Saturday the 6th – Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes @ The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton - A staged version of episodes that have been deleted from the archives, which is a nifty idea. Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring and suchforth.

Wednesday the 3rd to Sunday the 7th – Horse Of The Year Show @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham - Abbreviated to HOYS, which is a bit like an Ulsterman saying ‘hoss.’ I therefore predict that a Northern Irish ‘oss will win whatever the biggest prize is.

Wednesday the 3rd – “Thomas Telford: His Life And Works” @ The Thinktank Theatre in Millennium Point, Digbeth, Birmingham - “A talk by Roger Cragg for the Newcomen Society in association with the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Highways and Transportation.” The Colossus Of Roads himself. I do think that nickname has to be one of the best puns in the history of mankind.

Thursday the 4th – ‘Hallelujah!’ @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Ruby Turner, The BBC Big Band and various others will be performing Duke Ellington’s arrangement of Handel’s Messiah and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker to mark the re-opening of Birmingham Town Hall. Reprised on Saturday the 20th.

Friday the 5th to Sunday the 14th of October – Birmingham Comedy Festival @ Various venues throughout the city - Featuring some comedy. If the name is to be believed.

Saturday the 6th – ‘Wallop Mrs Cox’ @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - “The Birmingham Musical”~!

Sunday the 7th – ‘Carnival Afternoon’ @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Featuring Andy Hamilton’s “potted history of the journey of reggae” and the MIGHTY MIGHTY MIGHTY The Destroyers.

Sunday the 7th – Heavy Trash / Copter / Swampmeat @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham - Lots and lots of rock and/or roll, all in the same place at once.

Monday the 8th to Wednesday the 10th – Lenny Henry @ The Town Hall, Dudley - A homecoming. Up the yam-yams.

Monday the 8th – Thomas Dolby @ The Academy 2, Birmingham - Prepare to be Blinded With Science. The best bits are the bits where someone you imagine would have Einsteinesque mad-professor hair shouts “Science!” in the background.

Monday the 8th – Boxing (Pat Cowdell) @ The Burlington Hotel, Birmingham - I saw John Ruddock when he fought Matty Hough. He couldn’t seem to remember if it was boxing or Judo. (Edit: I mean the first time, natch).

Tuesday the 9th – Underworld @ The Academy, Birmingham - Lager, lager, lager.

Wednesday the 10th – Seth Lakeman @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton - Precisely when did ‘Seth’ become a fashionable name for anyone under the age of 78, anyway? Craziness. At least this one is a folk artist, so I suppose it makes a distant bit of sense.

Wednesday the 10th – “Hysteria” (Inspector Sands And Stamping Ground Theatre) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton - Highly-regarded three-hander using a dinner date to look at how close humour and hysteria can be. Also at The MAC in Edgbaston on the 12th.

Thursday the 11th to Sunday the 21st – Birmingham Book Festival @ Various places across the city - Allsorts o’ literary gubbins a-happening.

Thursday the 11th – The Guillemots with the CBSO @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - I’m told that previous Guillemots gigs have included onstage light-sabre battles, which fills me with hope for the possibility of a light-sabre vs conducter’s baton skirmish. Sold out/returns only, though.

Thursday the 11th – Just Jack @ The Academy, Birmingham - All at once, the thing that had been nagging at the back of my mind struck me. All of his songs sound like French And Saunders parodies of his songs. I still think he isn’t bad, though.

Friday the 12th – ‘Best Of British Urban’ @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Including the very fabby likes of Terri Walker and Ty, amongst others.

Friday the 12th – Happy Mondays @ The Academy, Birmingham - I saw them a couple of years ago and no-one even fell off the stage or anything.

Saturday the 13th – Editors @ The Academy, Birmingham - Of course it’s bloody sold out, don’t ask stupid questions.

Saturday the 13th – Angrrr Management’s “Unlucky For Some” (MMA) @ The Glades Leisure Centre, Kidderminster - There’s plenty of time yet for 381 pull-outs, but at the time of writing this is a big card. Marc Goddard vs Ivan Serrati, Ross Mason vs Henrique Santana, and Andy Costello vs Tony Bentley, amongst other fights. Plenty of pummelling and twisting for all.

Sunday the 14th – The Coral @ The Academy, Birmingham - Alright la, we’re gunna do a gig an that. While we’re playin, likhe, our Terry’ll keep the eye an our Barry’ll nip round the backh and have their hubcaps away an that. Likhe.

Sunday the 14th – Lethal Bizzle @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - POW POW. Bring some beef you lose some teef. Part of the NME “Rock ‘n’ Roll Riot” tour, but I don’t know any of the other bands. Also at The Academy in Brum on the 21st.

Sunday the 14th – Ex Cathedra’s “Spirit Of The Age” @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Ex Cathedra performing works by living composers, including one by Fyfe Dangerfield of The Guillemots.

Monday the 15th – Pram / Modified Toy Orchestra @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Great stuff, a bill with two of the best electronic-y acts not just locally but from anywhere.

Monday the 15th – SWV @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - Insert customary “Blimey, they’re still alive, whodathunkit?” here.

Tuesday the 16th – The Proclaimers @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - I would walk five hundred miles to send a letter to America. I would. It’d get there quicker if I was closer, y’see.

Wednesday the 17th – Unsane @ The Medicine Bar in The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham - I’ve wanted to see Unsane for years. This one also features Bee Stung Lips, who (justifiably) seem to be everyone’s favourites of late.

Thursday the 18th – Billy Ocean @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - I question the sanity of anyone who doesn’t want to go to this.

Friday the 19th – Capdown @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham - I’ve just found out this is part of their last tour before splitting up. Not an emo band.

Friday the 19th till Saturday the 27th – The International Mask Festival @ The Glasshouse Arts Centre and The Town Hall, Stourbridge - I hope there aren’t any of those scary magic ones that start to control you when you put them on. Organisers, please don’t let there be any of those scary magic ones that start to control you when you put them on.

Sunday the 21st – Kling Klang / Calvados Beam Trio / Mike In Mono @ The hare And Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham - The fact that Calvados Beam Trio have gone and got themselves a MySpace page really is a shame. For so long they were the last line of defence.

Sunday the 21st – Los Campesinos! @ The Medicine Bar in The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham - Every blogger’s favourite band, plus their attendant exclamation mark.

Sunday the 21st – Mahler’s 2nd (‘Resurrection’) Symphony @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham - One of the most widely feted orchestras in the world playing one of my absolute favourite symphonies. You couldn’t possible lose.

Tuesday the 23rd – Warning @ The Bristol Pear, Selly Oak, Birmingham - Doooooooooooom. If you’re especially interested in your proper metal type of thing, those Reanimator sorts in charge of this also have a death metal night at the same venue on the 13th.

Wednesday the 24th – “The Convent” (Jo Strømgren Kompani) @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham - Described by The Guardian as a mix between Big Brother and The Sound Of Music, this uses dance and acapella song to represent the doubts and fears of three nuns in a remote convent. Oh, those Norwegians.

Thursday the 25th – The Twang @ The Academy, Birmingham - See comment for the Editors gig.

Thursday the 25th – Boxing (PJ Promotions) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - Including, amongst other fights, Darren McDermott vs TBA for the ‘International Masters’ title (no, me neither). Pray for Elcock to win this Friday, so we can have the big local derby when Macca eventually gets his British title shot.

Friday the 26th – Julie McNamara’s “Pig Tales” @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton - The story of a female child raised as male, told via the children’s rhyme “This Little Piggy Went To Market.” Sounds interesting.

Saturday the 27th – Boredoms @ The Barfly, Digbeth, Birmingham - The large pleasure where other than the music experiencing of usual Japan it is by. If you do not know, you cannot understand under any condition. All times proceed by improve my Engrish to greater amount.

Saturday the 27th – “Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames” Rollerderby @ Cocksmoor Woods Leisure centre, Kings Heath, Birmingham - I’m still not fully sure I understand what’s going on here.

Tuesday the 30th – “Minor Spectacular” (Plested And Brown) @ The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton - Man who fixes washing machines as superhero. I like that.

Tuesday the 30th – Taint @ Scruffy Murphy’s, Birmingham - Taint are a band I managed to completely fail to see for about six or seven years. Then, earlier this year, I saw them. A happy story.

GDFAF! This has really crept up on me. My second Goodfaff fortnight in as many years (archives for 2006 here) begins in less than two weeks.

Doing the entire fortnight again myself wasn’t always the plan. Someone had to, though, and I wanted to make sure that at least one West Midlands blogger went the distance alongside P’Ashton’s fabby idea of throwing it open to the world. A couple of people showed a touch of interest, but only in a vague and non-definite way. It all came together when I realised that a load of interesting-looking stuff was a’gwaaning for the re-opening of Birmingham Town Hall at aroundabout the same time as a few other gigs I was intending to go to. I realised I’d probably be doing close to a fortnight anyway; why not take the extra step?

It’s probably needed, really, since my gig-going of late has been somewhat sparser than it has been in times gone by. I put this down to me really, really, really being sick of People Into Music (they’re an annoying bunch on the whole, if you’ll excuse the generalisation), but the reasons aren’t all that important. If we wanted to be dramatic we could try to paint this as a kind of Kill Or Cure type of thing: maybe it’ll get me back into heavy gig-going, or maybe it’ll finish me off and I’ll never go to another one ever again. More likely neither, obviously.

So, what shall I go to? As with last year, the acquisition of tickets in advance has been employed as a stratagem for offsetting some of the on-the-spot costs, and hence I’ll be off to Thomas Dolby at the Academy on the 8th (Science!), The Destroyers at the Town Hall on the afternoon of the 7th (I’ll want something for the night too, though), Pram and MTO at the Town Hall on the 15th, and (best of all) Billy Ocean (~!) at The Civic on the 18th. My ‘night off’ will be on the 13th, where I’ll be going to the Angrrr Management MMA card in Kiddi. For everything else, I need help. I have a few ideas for more (a LOTTSADITWM post containing most of them will follow in the next few days), but I really would appreciate suggestions of gigs happening between the 6th and the 21st (inclusive) from any and all.

Meanwhile, is anyone else joining in?

Artsfest, it seems, has earned a reprieve. There were a lot of people beforehand chatting about how it may have been the last one, but it appears that it was successful enough to avoid the block for one more year at least. Don’t believe the “there were lots of people everywhere” claim, though, since it’s so clearly a lie I can’t believe there are even attempts to propagate it. The main stage in Centenary Square was rammed for Classical Fantasia but had only a few hundred people in front of it for most of the weekend, while this is not a misleading picture of the throng of observers at the Millennium Point stage.

I like it, though. I like being able to wander around and encounter such a wide variety of free stuff all over the place. I think a lot of the problems that people have relate more-or-less entirely to the name of the thing. Although it does feature art, this event is less ‘Artsfest’ and more ‘Nicedayoutforallagesfest.’ It isn’t a good Midlands equivalent of the Edinburgh festival, no; in the last few years (the only few I’ve been to), however, it hasn’t tried to be. It’s family fun, with only the occasional avante-garde or ‘adult’ bit, and in this sense I think it broadly (only broadly, I would add) succeeds.

This year’s was as badly organised as the proverbial piss-up failing to happen in the brewery, of course. The running times were broadly stuck to, but it really seemed that the infrastructure had been put together without the slightest thought for the actual punters that would be using it. I’ve already ranted about the programme, and I honestly don’t think I went particularly far over the top – making a booklet that people need to carry around all day A4-sized is outright cretinous. Some bright spark decided to have acts performing in the middle of Paradise Forum (i.e the main route between Centenary Square and Victoria/Chamberlain Squares), and the easily-predictable bottlenecks of people trying to get through did indeed occur. The sitting-down area for the Centenary Square stage was (get this) behind the standing area, and on a lower level with the giant sound booth directly between the two. No, really. You wouldn’t believe it, would you? I could go on. It was almost as though the organisers genuinely weren’t expecting anyone to turn up.

I went on the Saturday and Sunday, anyway, with my mother. Saturday was great, although we just couldn’t seem to find very much that was all that interesting on the Sunday. Following the innovative new idea I began in my ‘Darn Sarf’ post of not writing about every single little thing that happens to me, I won’t give you a blow-by-blow and instead will just write about the highlights. We did see and do other stuff too.

- Architects Of Air’s Levity II Luminarium was the first thing we visited, and was one of the main draws for us. It turned out to be one of the highlights, too – an ambient quasi-psychedelic bouncy castle-come-maze might be the best way to describe it, although even that (as ace as it sounds) doesn’t come close to capturing it. Every one of the panels in the walls, ceiling and floor were hand-made and all the light was natural (good job it was a nice day!). Pete’s face in this picture sums up how we (and, I suspect, most others too) felt. It would have been nice to spend longer there (some people we saw had brought a picnic and ensconced themselves in a bubble, which was genius) but there was more to be seen and done elsewhere.

- It wasn’t part of Artsfest as such (although it was no doubt cunningly timed to coincide with it), but Curzon Street Station was open for one of its occasional art exhibitions. This was my first time in there, and so the first and main priority for me was to see The Petrified Cat. Kitteh! Aaaaw. After that, there were various photography exhibits themed around railways, which reinforced to me the fact that has been semi-consciously in the back of my head for a long while: there really is a great romance about railways and stations. I loved it.

- Oh wow, another non-Artsfest thing. The thought is beginning to occur that many/most of the enjoyable things weren’t anything to do with the festival, but never mind. I’m telling you about our fun weekend. We had a look at the VTP stand in Millennium point, and my earlier vague approval was reinforced. I love “because we can” as a reason for doing something spectacular and mad. Watch the video embedded here.

- We saw the excerpt of The Playhouse/Language Alive’s “Hansel & Gretel” performed in The Rep Door and enjoyed it a lot. Possibly not as much as the pissed old fart shouting a bit more than was necessary during the audience participation bits did, but probably more than the absolutely petrified looking kiddies who were pulled out of the audience to be Hansel and Gretel (although that’s sort-of apt for the characters, one supposes). The story-teller lady (no idea of her name, sorry) really was fantastic.

- The Chinese magician who formed part of the Bai Ling Chinese Acrobatic Art Company wasn’t interesting in and of himself, but did amuse me by confirming my suspicion that the majority of magicians/conjurers practicing are smug gits irrespective of where in the world they might be from. Shiny jackets, as well. Always with the shiny jackets.

- The Capoeira (a Brazilian martial art-come dance form) demonstration we saw outside the Hall Of Memory at the back of centenary square was downright awesome. I’ve wanted to see a Capoeira demo (beyond Jean Silva fights) since I first heard of it, and it didn’t disappoint.

- It’s another non-Artsfest thing, but Café Soya was as great as ever. They didn’t seem to be doing their set menus on this particular night, but that’s a good thing in a way – it acted as an impetus to actually order something specific, which I personally hadn’t done since the first time I went there.

- Jasper Carrot was inducted to the Birmingham Walk Of Stars. Randal Brew had the set-up lines but couldn’t deliver them and thus proved the old showbiz adage of “Never work with children or local politicians” correct.

- I genuinely was and am sorry to have missed Blast (cf: here and here), but I cannot regret going to see the CBSO’s “Classical Fantasia.” The finale of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”, Elgar’s “Land Of Hope And Glory” and Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” in combination with the greatest firework display I have ever seen (some of them off the top of The Hyatt!) was amazing beyond belief. This, alone, justified Artsfest and whatever ills you may wish to ascribe to it.

- Another non-Artsfest thing, but my second visit to The Sunday Flea Market at The Custard Factory was as good as the first. It’s still very small, but I’m sure it will grow. I have decided that I am addicted to Jane Anderson’s paintings of sheep and may well have to collect all of the prints (I currently have two). I like sheeps. It also dawned on me that there’s a Saturday Flea Market too (yes, I am thick), so I may have to visit that at some point soon-ish.

- Non Descript Theatre’s “Black Pearl Earring” was a fun little kiddies tale of pirates ‘n’ Peter Pan ‘n’ such. Venturing into the City Centre Gardens really made me realise that I need to borrow a child next year to have an excuse to do some of the little ‘uns stuff (I wanted to go in The Whale!). Ah well.

Lets see what next Artsfest brings next year, then. My expectations are mixed, but I do genuinely mean that as ‘mixed’ rather than just as a euphemism for “I think it’s likely to be piss-poor”.

Oh, how I thank Madam Careless for alerting the unalert amongst us to the existence of LibraryThing.

It’s a book-based version of that Record Nerd website, which always appealed to me but I never bothered with (what do you do about taped albums and downloads and so on? I wasn’t going to have that keeping me awake at night). You’ve either got a book or you ain’t, though, so this is perfect. The only problem I’ve found so far is that it’s sometimes not possible to get the correct edition displayed. Who knew that I’d be bothered by that? The things you learn.

The actual cataloguing process is strangely relaxing, too. I’ve done one shelf and I’m about to get stuck into some more before I head outwards for Artsfest. The work-in-progress list is here. It’ll probably be a fair old while before it’s finished.

This is so much fun. And yes, I am a nerd.

EDIT/UPDATE: Ah, nuts. You can only put 200 books on unless you pay $10 per year, and I’ve hit that limit already with lots left to go. Hmmm. I will have to think about this. I know it’s not much but I’m loathe to pay anything for webcrap that’s similar to other webcrap that’s free.

Plus their alphabetical listings for authors are a bit wonky.

Plus none of the searches do very well at picking up old children’s books.

EDIT/UPDATE from much, much later: Sod Librarything, Shelfari is where it’s at.

Here’s the body of a letter of complaint I’ve sent to Travelodge, following the recent London debacle. Everything contained therein is true.

I write to register my complaint regarding the unsatisfactory way I was treated by Travelodge on a recent trip, and to explain why I will not be using Travelodge hotels again.

I originally booked a family room at Docklands Travelodge, for the night of the 8th of September. The booking number for this stay was (~), and I received a confirmation email on the 8th of June.

I received a call in the evening of the Tuesday prior to the Saturday of my stay (the 4th of September) and was told that my booking had been moved to London City Airport Travelodge and that I had no choice at all in the matter. I was told by the gentleman on the phone that it was only “half a mile down the road”, although in actuality it is over two miles away. I do appreciate the forward notice and the fact that it wasn’t just left until I turned up at the wrong place to tell me, but I don’t appreciate that the person on the end of the phone seemed to imply that the Tuesday before the Saturday was some huge length of time and forward notice. He also seemed to think that offering me a free breakfast was some sort of panacean cure for all ills.

I was told that the alteration was due to ‘issues’ with the room. When I asked if it was due to Travelodge’s well-known and widely resent policy of deliberately overselling, he replied that it wasn’t as far as information he had been given went. Said information did not extend as far as to explaining precisely what the problem was. Is it fair to treat your staff thusly? “Why exactly am I being moved?” is an obvious question that they are going to be asked. It seems absolutely ridiculous that they can’t be told how to answer it, given many customers would be significantly more irate than myself. It’s unfair to them and unfair to the customer who doesn’t get a straight answer.

I was promised that booking confirmation would be emailed to me that evening. I still hadn’t received it by Thursday morning. When I found that entering the reference number into the Travelodge website still resulted in details of the Docklands booking being displayed, I held on the phone and listened to irritating music for 25 minutes between 9:30AM and 10:AM, but didn’t get to speak to anyone. I eventually selected the option to leave a message (which I didn’t want to do, not being aware how often you check them), asking for the confirmation to be emailed or if necessary for someone to ring back. Neither of these things happened.

Returning home on Thursday night to find a noticeable absence of communication from Travelodge, I tried to ring again but found that the booking helpline was closed. I sent an email through the ‘contact us’ form on your website (fully aware that the ‘ten working days for a reply’ limit meant it wouldn’t do the slightest bit of good), and managed to found the phone number of the reception of the Travelodge I was supposed to have been diverted to. The gentleman I spoke to there did confirm that there was a booking in my name for the Saturday night, but sounded very confused and unsure. I wasn’t sure about this myself.

My email confirmation never did arrive, and so left I left for London on Saturday morning reasonably but still not entirely sure that I was meant to be going to City Airport, and with no solid proof beyond a couple of vague phonecalls. I arrived there (dismayed to find it in the middle of factories and warehouses, no pubs or nightlife etc. This was supposed to be a like-for-like exchange for me, was it?) to find the desk staff initially confused but able to figure it out eventually. I got upstairs to find that I’d been given a double room rather than a family. I realise I should have complained at the time, but by this point I simply could not be bothered to argue anymore.

I blessedly wasn’t late for the event that was the purpose of our trip, but I did only get there with (literally) a couple of minutes to spare. Returning to the Travelodge afterwards, we found ourselves forced to buy expensive bottles of beer (all draught was off) in hotel bar, due to the aforementioned lack of anything else in the area.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that this really took the shine off our trip. The first couple of times I used Travelodge I encountered helpful service and well-kept rooms. Since then most of the rooms seem to be shabbier, and that combined with this revolting set of circumstances has ensured I will not be using Travelodge again and will do all in my power to ensure that others know how they may well ended up being treated if they do.

Edit: There’s an update here, although not much of one.

I’ve spent more time than is necessary before now trying to decide what I define as a ‘holiday’ and never come up with a solid answer (I think it might be to do with the number of nights you spend away from home, but I can’t put a definite number on it), but whichever way up I’ve been to visit Genie and Dan and their animals in Fareham. It was lovely. We went to Brighton (cheers to Chris & Trudy for their hospitality), which is absolutely beautiful, and there we saw a gig without many people (it’s good to know that doesn’t just happen in Birmingham. Actually, no. It’s not good. It’s bad). It doesn’t feel right to be going on about bands in a Wot I Done On Me Holidays (or not-holidays, as above) post, so I’ll just say that Extravagatron were fun and none of the other bands really stood out to me.

They don’t half talk funny down south, though. Really, really funny.

… and this time it’s up to everyone.

There’s an official website (courtesy of that prince, nay king amongst men Pete Ashton). In brief, we want everyone to go to as many gigs as they can (or at least more than they ordinarily would), to write about them, and to let us know.

I’ll be doing the full two weeks, myself. I’ll be out of town for the next few days, but I’ll be posting a more personal intro when I get back.

Get planning for this, folks.

To London we (The Boy Trigger and myself) went on Saturday the 8th, for UFC75. There are two ways I could lead into this – I could begin by telling you how badly we were treated by Travelodge and how they moved us from one hotel to another against our will and so on, but that’s a story for a post of its own. I’ll be coming back to that. Oh lord how I will be coming back to that.

The other possible beginning is the ‘big weekend of sports’ intro. Now, I don’t give a toss about any sports that don’t involve fighting. Boooooooring, sez I. Many people at work, though, spoke of there being a lot of sport happening that weekend. There was Junior Witton vs Vivian Harris (this was the exception, ‘cos obviously I do give a toss about boxing. I offered a 10p bet that Witter would stop him inside eight. It wasn’t taken up. Witter, naturally, won by KO in round seven…), football (England vs Israel, of great importance to Trig if not me) and… I dunno. They said there was loads of stuff going on, but I wasn’t paying attention. Cricket and tennis, perhaps? I think it may have been but I really don’t know.

None of them mentioned the greatest sport in the world evaaah, good ol’ Mixed Martial Arts. UFC75 hit London, and I was hugely excited to see it. We got down to Marylebone and found The Feathers (yet again my life proves Royal Family-esque) where we were temporarily meeting a couple of Trig’s associates without (too much) trouble, and then headed off on the Jubilee Line before splitting for a bit. He was getting off at North Greenwich to find a pub near the arena in which he could watch England vs Israel. A joyous farewell (joyous on my part. He doesn’t half get on your nerves after a bit) was accompanied by another reminder that we weren’t too far (relatively speaking) from Tottenham, so For God’s Sake don’t get too anti-semitic in the heat of football-watching.

I hung on for another stop to Canning Town, and then transferred to the Docklands Light Railway (I’d never heard of it prior to the planning of this trip – from the name I was picturing either a colonial style freight train with passengers sitting on top and clinging to the sides, or a toy-town/Thomas The Tank sort of affair) to get to London City Airport. After some helpful directions from a cockney (he seemed to think it was Sunday, which it wasn’t, but still: “The Londonese – A Great Bunch Of Lads”) I got to the Travelodge, and after checking-in found that they’d given us the wrong room. Once again, I’ll be coming back to this in a subsequent post. It will temporarily suffice to say that it didn’t come as a huge surprise by this point.

Back on a rewind, then, to North Greenwich and into the 02 arena (erstwhile the Millennium Dome). Jesus Christ In A Sidecar Wearing Goggles, it’s big. The actual building is obscenely large but does contain a small town’s city-centre worth of restaurants and drinking establishments. Get through those, though, and you have what surely must be The Biggest Arena I Have Ever Been In at the centre of it. It’s ever-so slightly scary, especially when your seats are as high up as ours. Whooo, vertiginous. They were good seats, though – we had a good view of the octagon, even if it was 381 miles away, and a perfect view of a big screen to our left (if they were visible on the telly broadcast, you had two each on the long sides of the arena above sections of seating, one on the other side where there wasn’t any seating, and one suspended in the air in front of the short side with seating. We were to the left of that as you would have looked at it). We were looking at the back of it, of course, and thus the images were reversed. I had at least two “justwaitonegoddamnedminute – he’s not normally a southpaw!” moments.

Anyway, I got in and to my seat literally a couple of minutes before the first fight started, and Trig rejoined (flushed with vicarious victory) two-and-a-half fights in. I’m not going to go on about every fight (there’s better commentary that you can read in a thousand other places on the internet), so here are a few random points (and I really do apologise for the excessive amount of bullet points just lately):

- My picks were terrible. This was quite possibly my worst ever picking performance.

- Jess Liaudin looked great, knocking Torres from pillar to post. Given that the domestic personnel were surprisingly similar between this card and Manchester, I was hoping that Liadin/Taylor/Etim etc weren’t just being used as ‘that lot we have on the undercard when we run a card in the UK.’ Now I hope so even more, primarily for Liaudin’s sake.

- Harsh right hook from Siver, although Kotani looked finished before then.

- Drwal vs Silva was fun, but Drwal was gassed towards the end (dropping his hands a lot etc). I was expecting a hell of a lot more Polish support in the arena than there actually was.

- Terry Etim’s loss (despite him defending very well off his back with that ‘ankle up by your neck’ style guard) was yet another stroke of evidence why this country will always be at least slightly handicapped in MMA due to the fact that wrestling is not one of our mainstream sports.

- Houston Alexander looks exactly like Queeg 500. This had never occurred to me before. This was also enough to make Trig a huge fan of his on the spot.

- Oh, damnit. Walsall’s Paul Taylor was so close, with a knock-down headkick and a brutal burst of ground ‘n’ pound. The ref seemed to move sharply towards them at one point, and I thought that was it. Alas, no. Marcus “The American Who Reckons He’s Irish Like A Lot Of Americans Seem To For Some Reason” Davis should get full credit for surviving that and taking control, though, no question. Full marks to Paul for confusing Americans with his righteous accent in the pre-fight interview, though. That’s got to be worth something.

- Cro-Cop looks shot, and timid far beyond the point of caution. Retirement surely beckons. It’s amazing to think that Cro-Cop vs Arlovski would once have been one of the matches I’d have been most keen to see. Now it sounds like one of the least appealing fights that could possibly be made.

- I’m a Michael Bisping fan and have been for a good while, but I’m about to add my voice to the huge “Hamill was robbed” choir. On the night, I had it 30-28 (two rounds to Hamill, the last one drawn). Re-watching it (and I don’t think I’m allowed to link to where, sorry) I was inclined to give the last round to Mikey B, but that’s still 29-28. In the first two rounds Hamill beat Bisping to the punch and landed more frequently (the majority of Mike’s strikes bounced off Hamill’s arms), took him down a few times (I have ‘some’ degree of sympathy for those who say that takedowns are a means to an end, but since they were pretty much the only decisive thing that went on grappling-wise I think they count for scoring purposes) and was the only one moving forwards. I‘ll give the last round to Bisping and maybe the second round was closer than I initially thought, but that doesn’t make it close. I really do think this was a bad decision. Still, it looks like we might be getting a rematch. On a side note, “London Calling” trumped “Born In The USA” as entrance music in a most spectacular fashion. It’s just a shame the fight wasn’t as decisive.

- The main event was the only one I called perfectly, and I was happy with that. I’d scored the first and last rounds for Henderson and the middle three for Rampage, so the decision worked for me. I wouldn’t say it was the all-time-classic that some folk elsewhere on the internet would proclaim it, but it definitely was a great fight with a lot of interesting back-and-forth swings.

It being over, we left and headed back to the Travelodge, and (after a wander around) ended up drinking bottles of Becks (all draught was off) in the hotel bar due to the complete absence of anything else in the vicinity. Morning turned and we headed back over to Marylebone for a couple in one of the swankiest Wetherspoons I’ve ever seen (albeit also one of the most expensive Wetherspoons I’ve ever seen, although maybe not by London standards. Their Wild West Sharer was great. The overpowering smell of ginger in the toilets [and I’m not making that up] wasn’t) before getting the train home.

So, yeah. A mixed trip, blighted by Travelodge and some bad results, but still quite fun on the whole.

There have been a few local things of late that are the sort of happenstances I might generally have commented on, but haven’t as yet. Well, I’m damned if I ain’t gonna take the opportunity to be a gobby cow whenever possible. I’m going to use Created In Birmingham as my general source of links here, because it’s That Damn Good.

- The band Midas from Stourbridge have, apparently, been banned from the charts due to using what may or may not have been non-conventional sales methods. Aaaaw, seriously, who gives a toss? I quite liked Midas when I saw them, but it’s generally accepted wisdom that if you want to get your single in the charts and be a popstar and such then you have to chomp down on whatever crap da moozic bidnith hands to you. The only amazing thing about this is that a sensible man can point out that ‘getting into the charts’ ain’t quite such a worthwhile aim and that people will actually be surprised by his opinion.

- Marketing Birmingham have come up with a piss-poor ‘branding’ theme for everything they have anything to do with. Birmingham – Feel The Heat! And, you see (this is the clever bit), they’ve put the word ‘heat’ in their marketing campaign and they used an ugly-arsed thermal style for the visuals. What genius. I know it’s a subjective thing, but I don’t find it particularly nice to look at. At all. Whatsoever. I approve of lolcat-based satire that seems to be cropping up here and there, though. They’re also involved in the B1 CD that proclaims to represent “Birmingham’s best new bands” but basically involves a handful of indie/acoustic acts of a polite nature. I approve wholeheartedly of D. Louis Baker being on there ‘cos he’s great, but still. It wouldn’t be so bad if it hadn’t been stuck on the front of Music Week (yeah, I know you don’t read it and neither do I, but presumably someone does) as a supposed representation of Birmingham’s best efforts. Outright embarrassing.

- In connection with that, there’s been much talk this year about how much value Artsfest actually has (here, here, here, probably all sorts of other places…). Now, I like Artsfest and hope it continues. I only discovered it a few years ago and am continually amazed how an event that spans across most of the central area of Birmingham for a weekend commands so little publicity, but there we are. It’s been around for a decade and (as mentioned) I didn’t discover it until a few years ago; most people I know still aren’t aware of it unless I’ve been repeatedly banging on at them about a chance to see a load of free stuff (and despite what some will tell you I only have a finite amount of energy). Nevertheless, the full listings are here, and are a huge improvement on the printed programme by means of not using the aforementioned ugly thermal theme and by actually having some degree of explanation of what the various performances actually are. That’s the main problem, though; that’s on the computer, and the (less informative) programme that you might hope to carry around with you is A4 sized. How incredibly stupid is that? I really am massively frustrated, partly by the thing itself but also (and please excuse my French) at the ordure-chewingly-soul-bustingly stupid idea of making a leaflet that people will need to carry around all day A4 sized. I mean… Jesus. All linguistic possibilities fail me. I really am tempted to say “Ooblocks to ‘em” if it does end up getting cancelled after this year, just because of this. It may not seem like a major thing, but if you put on a free weekend-long city-centre-wide event for those ordinary people amongst us who don’t have the necessary technology to access The Matrix on any given spot, how unbelievably cretinous is it to make the only available guide/source of info bigger than can be fitted into a pocket or normal-sized handbag? It may seem silly but I really am angry about this.

Graaah. It better be good now.

My waffling about the previous day of this event can be read here.

Sunday came and Mizoke Fizolk proceeded apace. Biltone opened affairs and were amazing. A Walker Brothers/Scott Walker-esque fashioning of deep voices and lush arrangements, but with a psychedelic edge added to things to boot. Very mournful and sombre (something they seemed almost apologetic about), but beautiful. My band of the day, and second best new discovery of the weekend (after Martha Tilston).

I didn’t realise (until I looked at her entry in the programme immediately before her set) that Susan Dillane (next on the Lunar Stage) was/is the singer of Woodbine, whose “Best Before” album I quite liked when it was sent to me a few years ago to review for The Communion. Sadly, she wasn’t anywhere near as interesting here, playing mumbly dull songs without a hint of charisma. She couldn’t have made more of a contrast with Men-An-Tol back over on the main stage. Their energetic and stompy folk-rock bought a bit of oomph that was lacking from a lot of the weekend and proved to be great fun. They seemed to look the part, too.

Eddy Morton turned out to be one of those completely everyday and ordinary artists who somehow struck a chord with me on some level. Standard singer-songwriter ‘im ’n’ ‘is guitar, style, but likeable. I can’t tell you what in particular it was (songs about haunted pubs in Stourbridge probably didn’t hurt) and I can perfectly well imagine not liking him on another occasion, but here I liked him and judging by the applause so did a lot of others.

Overheard immediately afterwards – Susan Dillane (whose party was sitting near me): “He wasn’t better than me, was he?” Hanger-on: “No way!”

It was over to the back of the field after this, for more of Tyburn Jig and their swashbuckling tales. You’ll probably have gathered now that the stories told by men dressed as pirates were one of the main highlights of this festival for me. Fun for kids and grown-ups alike, and I’d definitely love to see them booked at more events.

Back main-stage-wards for Jim Moray. The blurb for him in the programme seemed to suggest that he was more electronic-influenced (‘folktronica’ they’re calling it now. I remember the period between back when this was all fields and the present time. They called it ‘laptop folk’ then) than he turned out to be. In actuality, he and his associates played a traditional-but-done-modern/poppy style, which really brought Seth Lakeman to my mind. Enjoyable, but I did leave a little bit before the end for another blast of Tyburn Jig.

By the time I returned, John Power was on the main stage and sounding surprisingly full of life and surprisingly less nasal than you’d expect from the man who once sang in the absolutely revolting Cast. Folksy rock’n’roll, of a sort; I’m not going to pretend it was anything amazing but I liked him a lot more than was expecting to.

I was originally looking forward to seeing The Old Dance School again (this time on the main stage), but at aroundabout this point I was informed that Chinook was imminently due to play in the Bohemian Jukebox tent and promptly decided that I was all about going to see Chinook play in the Bohemian Jukebox tent. Struggling against the volume of the main stage drifting around the place though he was, the magic of his pretty guiter pluckin’ shone through and his words… oh, his words. He really is one of the best lyricists going aroundabout now.

I returned back downwards for Adem (i.e. the one from Fridge who isn’t the one from Four Tet), who sounded pretty interesting – what seemed to initially be basic and straightforward songs actually weren’t, with a few more things going on. I was soon distracted, sadly, by the realisation that I no longer had The Annual Folk Festival Hat on my person. Blast! Where did I put it down? A scout around completely failed to restore it to my presence.

Being tired and exceedingly sad about hat-loss, I decided to bail out at this point. There were a few more bands to go and I’m sure they were lovely, but that was it for me. Great, great fun, though. I’m looking forward to next year.

Links to everything can be found here.