Up and down and round and round

There I was, thinking that I never did anything anymore except darn socks, explore cabbage recipes and stick pins in voodoo dolls of the Carolines next door, but it's shaping up to be quite an eventful spring.

Gigular, in particular. David Byrne played Oxford the Thursday before Easter. Wasn't planning to go, but then M read the reviews of previous shows and decided that we had to. And there were still tickets, so we did. It was awesome. There were tears, there was dancing (incredible on stage, impressively awful in the aisles), there was jumping up and down and shouting of THIS AIN'T NO FOOLING AROUND. And there were men in tutus. They can burn down my house anytime.

A far more select gathering was the spring outing of Nonstop Tango. They make it as difficult as possible for people to come to their gigs by having them in out of the way places and not telling anyone about them. Which is a shame in a way as I think they're getting pretty good. They can practise in my middle room anytime.

NST played in the Brookes Drama Studio... just around the corner a couple of weeks later the mighty Polly Jean Harvey played the main Brookes venue with John Parish. I *hate* this venue, it's an overcrowded misshapen muffled-yet-booming hellhole where they won't sell you a bottle of water with the lid still on and you can't generally see a damn thing unless you're six feet tall thanks to all the corn fed students with hats on jammed up the front. *But* Andy made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I'm glad I didn't. We wedged ourselves into a good spot in the middle, and she delivered a pretty amazing set - I didn't know much of it, but that made the screams even screamier. Pig Will Not is the song of the season.

And we've also been away to see the Finnfans in sunny Swansea, where we dragged a crippled child to the beach (above) in the boot of the car and later ate nettle tops. It was excellent, as ever, and also featured gin, before, during and after the Marriage of Figaro.

So it's not a bad life, all things considered, though I wish my gherkin seeds would germinate and my shower would stop blowing its fuse for reasons I Do Not Understand.

joella