Putting Out Fire With Gasoline

Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap

We were in Glasgow for New Year’s 2004/2005, looking for the post-Optimo after-party. Scott said, Come with us, we’ll go back to Stuart’s and play some guitar. I said, No thanks, we’ll go to this other place - all the while with an ulterior motive, to be where *he* was.

The party was a disaster - we got thrown out for gatecrashing, sneaked back in, got paid out in all too public fashion, and ended up retreating, defeated, to where we were staying to neck the last of our gear and watch Nick Cave videos as New Year’s Day seeped into New Year’s afternoon. 

The next day we worked out who Stuart was. A Belle & Sebastian party would have been a nice way to end our Hogmenay.

Steel An’ Skin - Reggae Is Here Once Again

The first time I went to Notting Hill Carnival was 10 years ago today, or thereabouts. Good times abounded, until nature called. Facing hideously long queues for each and every toilet en route, we sought relief in the long grass of an abandoned lot. I sat in nettles. It was a long and uncomfortable walk to Queens Park station and an even longer and more uncomfortable tube journey back to Brixton.

Here’s some steel drum loveliness that always makes me think of bank holiday weekends (sans nettles), especially poignant when you’re stuck at the arse end of the world in winter.