Shoot.

We had our first magazine photo session yesterday.

Train to Lundun @ 09:49 lol

I sprinted into Brighton station at 09:51:39, according to the wide, disciplinarian departures board. Not, however, according to my wristwatch, which still chipped away gleefully at a large brown stone taking on the appearance of a happy man on a train.
My technology now corrected, I called Ed again. I'd already phoned him from aboard the bus, which ran late, telling him 'I have five minutes...I reckon I'll be there in three', as he relayed his plan to leave the tickets in a hidden place. It was all very Bourne Identity. Not that I've seen that film. Or read that book. But I have seen a trailer and this was a bit like that only with a greater testosteronic desire to kill. Also: somewhat more immediate

So, I missed the train.

Luckily, I suppose, Jeb missed it too - though his story reads more like a children's picture book called The Snoozy Adventures of Captain Horizontal, than any Hollywood thriller.

Still, after stomping moodily around the station concourse doing the 'I have missed my train' act for the good of the general public and frantically calling everyone I knew for advice, I got Jeb's voice in my ear.
'Nnngh. Sorry mate /yawn/...I'll be there in ten.'

And so we got the next train up together, hoping to be no more than a half-an-hour late to our very important date.

Train, a morning wee, coffee and a baguette, navigating simultaneously sensible yet baffling menus on automated ticket purchasing systems that resemble impeccably dressed, handsome, fantastic smelling, intelligent and funny yet not overbearing tour guides who insist on holding the map upside down and screaming incorrect directions at you (you, who are to blame for all that has so far gone wrong) all led us by hook and crook to our destination of Lambeth North tube station. We were running very late, but those punctual persons who arrived ahead of us had successfully wangled an extension to our time, and a later start. All was not lost then - we would have our photos taken, be a part of this very exciting feature, and not be exiled by the popular press; labelled as layabouts.

Then, with one toenail poked from the station exit, it started hammering it down with rain.

So we tied jumpers to our heads and sprinted to the studio, where, on the moment of our arrival, in a turn of events I had anticipated, it stopped raining as quickly as it had started and the burning hot sun leapt out at us again.

Nothing much more typical.

Still, there we were.

Quick, then! Make up! Better clothes! Cover yourselves in some acceptable something! People want their musicians to be foolhardy with their money (Trewin was eased into a plain blue jacket. Apparent value: £600) and covered in slap, it seems. No instruments in sight. Here is a picture of musicians. OK. We'll do it for now. It didn't last long. It was a fun and new experience. We got free crisps.

And they didn't touch my hair.

It was all done. Crisis confronted and averted. Band photographed. Expensive borrowed cotton sullied by the bodily fluids of the unkempt now handed back, hanging on their rails like automatic weapons, waiting to pass on a dimishing feeling of poverty and one of somehow being the lesser, like some scared straight programme for the normal, perhaps aimed at people even more unwitting than we. I don't see what other emotion those things can spike but an unhealthy materialistic awareness: their intended purpose of course, both for wearer and observer. Cigarettes smoked. Chats hadded. Train caught. Five words to Ed as we left the train, back in Brighton.

'I need a f*cking drink.'

Spectacular day.

Tim

P.S. Giggly-goo tonight at the Blind Tiger in Brighton for Soundcrash. Trewin's still got no throat, so we're doing something a little different. Whether it will work we are yet to know, but know we will.