Another wasted Friday

That's enough for today. I've been in the office for several hours and got very little done other than deal with e-mail from yesterday's day off. I've wasted a large amount of time contributing to the Guardian's Readers Recommend list (unemployment today - I didn't have many tracks) and despatched notes to various people (if you were expecting e-mail from me today, it's because I try to put substantial time aside for substantial responses).

I'm just feeling a little weary after yesterday's highs and lows. I skipped swimming this morning due to exhaustion, and I'm not in the mood to read the two inches of papers I've printed out for this PGCE essay on curriculum design. I'll do some tomorrow. I also need to find some way to prepare for Sunday's fencing competition. I haven't fenced regularly for a few months due to work, and haven't competed for a year or so - coaching slows you down. Still it's always fun to humiliate yourself in front of your coaches and old foes. I'm considerably lighter and fitter than a year ago though, so maybe that will make up for some of the rustiness.

So tonight - a few drinks in the usual haunts, with the tragic exception of the Little Civic, cruelly snatched from Wolverhampton's social scene. No longer will I be accosted by drunk strangers with the words 'you failed my essay' while I'm trying to organise my feet for the tricky break in The Only One I Know. Happy days…

What are you all doing this weekend? Staying in Wolves?

Plus de liaisons

Hello again? Did you all cope with the searing heat this weekend? I found it quite difficult. Anything above 23% makes me feel like a polar bear in a microwave.

So. On Friday, after a few ales in the Great Western, a select band of us ended up at the Little Civic, Wolverhampton's premier indie dive to mark its last night.

Few people attended Mozart's funeral, so fallen was his reputation. This was the mood in the Little Civic. The five of us danced to the finest cuts of indie beef, as the DJ indulged our whims for the very last time. Scattered around the edges were a very few onlookers, and once in a while, drunk wandered in looking for Yates's, scorned us and left. I've been attending these Friday nights for almost ten years now, have seen the Nightingales and many other bands play the upstairs room in search of that elusive break: then, indie kids danced, rejecting the mockery of those with shaven heads and checked shirts. Now, it's a sad outpost of a lost culture. The boards are going up, the turntable is long defunct, the Field Mice will echo mournfully round an abandoned building long after the DJ departs. A moment of silence please, for another distinctive, shabby, wonderful place.

In the fucking loop

I spent yesterday afternoon swearing, with admittedly more perspiration than inspiration. so perhaps yesterday evening wasn't the best time to see In The Loop, the big-screen extension of The Thick of It, Armando Ianucci's cynical, brilliant examination of the way politics has been reduced from principles to venal positioning. It is without doubt the sweariest film since South Park. It is superior to the latter, however, thanks to its relentlessly innovative swearing. This is a family blog, so I won't quote any of the horrifyingly memorable phrases, but urge anyone who thinks that swearing is neither big nor clever to see this film. It will convert you. I certainly found it difficult to shake the habit after yesterday. Steve Coogan's cameo is also brilliant.

This clip is extremely unpleasant so don't play it if you're sensitive to finely-crafted Anglo-Saxon.

After the film we went to the Dilshad restaurant in Wolverhampton. We chose it because it has hundreds of photos of formerly popular entertainers who'd eaten their after performing at the nearby Grand Theatre. My favourite photograph is of Jonathan King (celebrity unrepentant paedophile), Gary Bushell (unrepentant, untalented, unpleasant far-right 'journalist') enjoying the company of a rather young boy. Perhaps they'd ordered the chicken…

I'd intended to take a picture of this historic summit for your delectation, so imagine my horror to find that the venue had undergone a tasteful, minimalist, stylish makeover. Yes, the food was stunningly good, but something special has been lost.

To console ourselves, we subsequently attended the Posada and then the near-deserted Little Civic. I love that place when it's empty. The DJ is open to requests and has a highly-developed love of pre-Britpop Real Indie which I share. Without the check-shirt-and-shaven-head brigade in evidence, I (and occasionally one or two of my friends) could dance like thirty-something losers without the usual mockery and contempt. For the first time ever, I heard Stereolab in a public place, and this DJ hero played Felt, Field Mice and the Go-Betweens without even being asked. Some good Breeders and Jane's Addiction were introduced to the mix as well. 'Props' to this unsung hero, as I believe some people say in these situations.

Take the skinheads bowling, take them bowling

I went bowling last night with my housemates and assorted nerds from the computational linguistics department. Very charming nerds they are too.

The bowling was surprisingly good fun. Turns out it's not simply what teenagers do before they can get served in pubs. My performance veered between atrocious and surprisingly good, though what made the difference, I don't know! I was later humiliated at air hockey by a computational linguist who shares a hairdresser with Fellaini (no skinhead he)!

Anyway, today's a big day. My fourth sister (youngest of the six of us) is 23 today, I went for a fast swim even though tendonitis is turning my hand into a hook, and I'm being observed by my PGCE mentor while I offer individual tutorials to 1st-year English students. Must practice caring voice (especially after a colleague described a recent piece I wrote as 'sarcastic… dripping with contempt'). Does that sound like harmless little me?

Tomorrow is full of cultural delights - primarily the cheese boat calls at Norbury Junction, a light walk, then the Little Civic for some fine lo-fi.

Ode to a Nightingale

OK, last night, seeing as my critical judgement is demanded by faithful readers.

The background to the 'Gales' homecoming gig was disaster - deportation and unseemly inebriation rendered their prestigious gig at London's 100 Club a disaster - although the venue manager thought it was fantastic and invited them to play any time, despite some punters demanding their money back! Then on Monday they played a live session for Marc Riley on 6 Music and a decent gig in Mankychester.

But Wolverhampton's what it's all about. On the bill were Violet Violet and Ted Chippington. The Violets of themselves disprove the existence of any kind of deity. It's simple really. They're hugely talented and aesthetically pleasing. A just deity would make talented people ugly, or ugly people talented out of a sense of fairness. A cruel deity would make talented people ugly, or ugly people talented, to punish them for hubris. Ergo, there's no god. They're all-round ace, and I'm neither. Next philosophical problem?

Actually, Violet Violet were brilliant. Echoes of Elastica and Kenickie but sharper, spikier. The guitar lines were particularly sinuous. I found myself buying both singles - I'm a sucker for coloured vinyl. (A tip: if they ask on the door which band you're there to see, give the name of the support band, or they may not get any of the takings). Their onstage needling of the Nightingales indicated that the end of the tour hadn't been brilliant: 'Looking forward to the Nightingales? After London we are, especially Robert [Lloyd, Gales singer known as the Telford Elvis]'.

Next up was Ted Chippington, who specialises in being deliberately unfunny as a kind of challenge to the crowd (yes, there really was one this time). Despite being slightly distracted by a good student who wanted to talk shop, Ted was ace. He did some of his routine in German and avoided anything approaching conventionally funny. It wasn't very edgy though, because most of the audience knew his schtick, so not enough people were infuriated.

The main event was a revelation. I've seen the Nightingales 20 times, roughly, but tonight was different. Apart from the presence of 80-100 members of the Wolverhampton Bald Patch and Band T-Shirt Appreciation Society, there were several of our overseas students (bit of a change from Oceana for them) and even a few punters who weren't on first-name terms with the band. I met the students early and was shocked to discover that they planned not to consume alcohol over the course of the evening. Now, I've taken the pledge on occasion, and even stuck to it, but the eve of a gig with the most erratic band I've ever seen is not the right time to forswear muscle relaxant. Thankfully, I persuaded them of the error of their ways.

However - alcohol wasn't needed on this occasion. Stripped down to a fourpiece, blessed with a decent soundman, a non-paralytic singer and a new album consisting of TUNES for the first time in their long career, the Nightingales were astonishingly tight. As usual, they played continuously, in line with the punk ethos that crowd applause distances a band from their people (or perhaps to drown abuse). The lyrics were acerbic (and certain lines don't bear repeating on a family website) and Alan Apperley's guitar lines skittered between krautrock, post-punk and twisted blues in ways that made me wonder why nobody had thought of it before. Darren's drums, no longer lost in drunkenness and muddy sound, were amazing - complex, funky, decisive and authoritative. I just stood there with a massive grin on my face for the whole event before raiding the merchandise stand.

As I say, I've seen the Nightingales many times, mostly, to be frank, because I share an office with one of them. Now I can say proudly that they're unique, fascinating and brilliant. Why they're not huge, I don't understand (except for the fact that they're fat blokes approaching their collective late middle ages).

PS. I met one of my readers who requested more jokes on Plashing Vole. I'll try, but I'm slightly deficient in funny bones, bar the occasional pun, and they're usually sparked by verbal exchanges.

However, here goes:

Shakespeare walked into the pub. As he approached, the barkeep looks up, scowls and shouts 'Oi. Shakespeare. I've told you before. You're Bard'.

See? Bard/barred? I'll get me coat.