Hello again. How was your Thursday, and Friday morning? I had a spiffing day in Oxenford, then a lie-in this morning for the first time in years. Thanks to Zoot for driving and Mark for his incisive commentary: he told Zoot that 'you two were by far the best - and I wish that were a compliment'.
I took some photographs - most of Deer Friend and Zoot Horn performing at Catweazle (yes, I know, what a cringe-makingly hippy name). I didn't bother with many of Oxford - you'll all have been there or will do one day, and wandering around with a camera in such a place is likely to see me filed under 'tourist'.
Not that I'm not a tourist. We wandered around the market, visited several bookshops which was highly profitable (for the booksellers), drank fine beer in quaint pubs, then adjourned to East Oxford Community Centre for their open mike night. And open it certainly was - from enthusiastic youngsters, grizzled old folkies and the world's worst storyteller (and a racist Indian comedian channelling the spirit of Bernard Manning). Outside, smokers admired each others' poetry. I'm not joking.
All this was forgiven, however, when Zoot and Deer finally got on stage - last, as they'd been forgotten. Wiping the floor with the competition, they sang Richard Thompson's 'Waltzing's For Dreamers' and the old spiritual 'I'll Fly Away' to rapturous, well-deserved applause.
And now Deer Friend is quitting these shores for ever. She's off firstly to Berlin for recuperation, then Egypt from where she'll no doubt keep leaving comments here and doing her PhD, leaving her friends and bandmates bereft. Deer: it's never going to rain there. Just think about that! No blossom, no snowball fights, no sledging, and sand in your ice-cream every single day!
So what books did I buy? The Collected Letters of Saunders Lewis to Margaret Gilcriest, The Dent Dictionary of Fictional Characters, Willa Cather's The Professor's House, The Rise and Fall of Communism, Hoffman's Struwwelpeter, and Lafferty's Fourth Mansions.
