SEPTEMBER 1ST 'THE NOBLE POTATO' | ARCHIVE

Nevermind what I said the other day! I feel the need to post. The more humdrum the day, the more pressing the desire. I’m just caught at this time and space in history where people can tell strangers their feelings on a daily basis through this mysterious force called the internet. There’s no resisting.

I don’t know how those author laddies do it anyway. Tying themselves in knots for months. I’ve got stuff I need to tell you, and it’s no use if I don’t tell you straight away. So for now I’ll just call off that fanciful notion that I had a few days ago for making this literary pigpen a long player.

But hey; thanks for stepping forward and introducing yourselves; little electronic angels! Thanks for letting me know you are there; there was no cheese, there was no wine, but you broke the ice.

I’ve been doing nothing so dramatic as continuing to wade through pile upon pile of stuff. God knows I hate packing for tour. This is just a massive tour pack. (Moving house) How good will I feel when I get up to the new place with just the stuff I really need to get me through the next year or so. I could live out of a suitcase, I really could. As long as I could send it to the office when it’s full of new t-shirts and jackets for Neil to keep for me.

Which brings me to another one-off Diary Special Offer. I was chucking stuff in a box, and I thought I could keep a box of vaguely band related stuff for one of you if you felt fanatical enough. It’s mostly old clothes of mine, I warn you. Stuff that I couldn’t even give to Oxfam. The odd trench coat, an occasional printed tshirt, the best pair of trousers I ever had (with just a little hole in the arse!) My Glastonbury wellies, worn once, still caked in Glastonbury mud. There’s also a cranky little squeezebox that Stuart David played…. Actually, that can be the question. First person to email with the B&S song that Stuart played the squeezebox on gets the dubious memorabilia. (I think he just played it on one track. Don’t check the sleeve notes, just feel it. Or go back and listen to a lot of B&S)

Did you hear about the lesbian dinosaur? Lickalotapuss. I just had to get that out. I’ve had that word in my brain all day, and if I didn’t write it down I might have said it at an inappropriate moment.

What about the Egyptian taxi driver? Tootankumdoon. A bit of a Scottish flavour to that joke; don’t worry if you don’t get it.

So anyway. Packing and that. It was so nice to get out for a while to see Ciara. Not only had I been stuck in on a beautiful day when everone else was out bowling and parading, but I’d been told off in a couple of emails. Someone was chasing me up about their demo they sent a while back, saying it was inpolite of not to have responded.

“I mean Ciara, I’m not a librarian, I’m a friggin’ rockstar! What do they expect?”

This turn of phrase amuses her. I feel as much like a rockstar as I feel like a women. Which is about 26%.

She brings in the roasted vegetables.

“There’s something missing from this by the way. I think it’s potatoes. It’s quite watery and insubstancial!”

“Probably the potatoes. The Noble Potato. Do you know, if there was to be a tug ‘o’ war among vegetables the potato would be the anchor. Right at the back, sturdy, like a rock.”

“You’re right. It’s dependable!”

“Indispensable! No wonder it’s our staple diet. I mean, you can’t imagine the Courgette as the anchor.”

“No way. It would be up at the front, leaning on the rope, posing for the cameras.”

“Precisely. And as for the Mange Tout. Or the Syboes!”

“Of course, the tomato would be sidelined.”

“Wouldn’t know what team he should be pulling for; fruit or veg.”

“It’s a shame really.”

And so the afternoon went on, as we compiled the Veg Team for the tug ‘o’ war with The Fruit. Mostly the root crops actually made the team, but we decided we’d let the Courgette handle the publicity for the event, and the Syboes could do hair and make up.

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