Brief Encounter - the remake

Wherever I may be in the world I seem to have an unwanted inbuilt magnetic pull towards the elderly, infirm and downright deluded when travelling on public transport.

Nam veterans, the frothy mouthed hillbilly who decided the Santa Cruz Greyhound queue was a perfect moment to declare he has AIDS to a total stranger. The Glaswegian soothsayer’s failed attempts to convince me that Armageddon is nigh, the aged Mexican who invited us to his bachelor pad, with hammocks full of bikini clad Page 3 models and the priest who tried to convert me to the wonderful world of Christianity.

Japan is no different.

Travelling back from Shikoku, little more than the remains of a lavish mosquito banquet, I slowly edge my swollen body into a seat.

Having paid more than double the price of the outbound journey, due to inadvertently hopping aboard an “express service,” shaving a mere 25 minutes off the total journey time, I take solace from the fact that at least I’m settled in a relatively clean, cartoon theme carriage with legroom and an empty seat alongside.

This rare moment of solitude is cut short as the train guard approaches and proceeds to talk gibberish, gesturing wildly, until I can act stupid no longer and am forced to move to economy class. Struggling with my backpack down the jostly, narrow aisled carriage, custom made for tiny framed hobbit-sized Japanese people, my sores scrape against all manner of wayward objects en route. Arriving further down the train in cattle grade, puss oozing freely from my now gaping wounds, the train-guard frantically nods encouragingly for me to sit down.

Scoping the crowded carriage, I breathe a sigh of relief upon clocking a free seat a little further along, a relief fast replaced by sheer horror as I clap eyes on my travelling companion. False teeth in hand, he invites me to sit, grinning a wide and gummy grin before taking a swig of whisky from a can.

The stench of alcohol and stale fish hits me as he leans over, nudging at my elbow and breathing in my face.

Quickly I discover his base English is “No English, happy, Thank you!” which he utters repeatedly while nodding with an enormous sense of pride. Using my best Japanese I discover he is 60 years old, hails from Osaka, is unemployed and, on first impressions, is unemployable.

A short and awkward silence ensues as he sighs and giggles, evidently trying to think of a way to continue the conversation, despite this most unfortunate language barrier, until a light bulb pings in his whiskey addled head. Leaning down, he rummages in a carrier bag and resurfaces with a beige, floppy looking substance, which he hands me, displaying gnarled hands and blackened fingernails.

Not wanting to offend, I accept the mystery substance with false gratitude and he encourages me to eat.

A look of revelation washes over his face, as he pulls a fifth word from the depths of his surviving grey matter.

“Feeshh, feeeesh, feeesh," he declares, nodding and smiling contentedly at his own achievement.

Of all the English words to spring to mind, he really doesn’t need to tell me it is fish.

The smell is unbearable as I stare dubiously at the warm, greasy substance poised precariously between my fingertips. This is the point of no return so, taking the plunge, I nibble the edge as he looks on in eager anticipation.

Since coming to Japan I have made a pact with myself to eat anything and everything which is set before me. So far this has included whole fish, dead eyes and gaping mouths included, chicken backbone, tentacles, raw chicken and even chicken ovary, all of which has been surprisingly palatable.

However, this mystery fodder invokes an involuntary gag reflux. Crunchy yet greasy, the food connoisseur in me detects lard, mixed with crunched up fish bones, gelatin, and finished with a dash more lard.

One - and only one - word can describe it – inedible. Technically then I am not breaking my self-imposed food pact when the diurectic effects of the whiskey see him making a dash for the toilet, squat toilet, I hasten to add.

In his absence, I am forced to sacrifice a CD cover from a friend’s band we’d seen earlier in the day, to surreptitiously wrap the remainder of the unidentifiable snack and stow it in my handbag. Gummy returns and nothing more of it is mentioned.

An awkward silence resumes, broken only by my 60-year-old toothless train buddy’s sporadic sighs and twitches as he thinks of a way to fill it.

So I get out my exercise book to show him all the Japanese words I can say as well as my writing practice. Blinkered from the wide and varied vocabulary I have picked up in the past three months, his eyes hone straight in on “dokushin”, the word for “single,” at which he points and laughs hysterically.

Seemingly, he takes my little display as a come-on and pulls out his own notepad, pointing and making writing motions with his hands as he shouts; “adderessu, denwa bango!” meaning can I have your address and phone number.

Older, wiser and less afraid to offend than I once was, I ignore his persistence, maintaining that I don’t understand until he eventually tires and puts his book away.

For the remainder of the journey he mutters, "happy happy thank you" every so often and pats my arm with his grubby, and now possibly urine drenched hands, right on my weeping bites.

As the train pulls into Okayama, I make my getaway faster than you can say “Ellie caught leprosy from a Japanese hobo.”

Oriental Bog Blog

My bog blog

Before coming to Japan, there was a slight apprehension as to how I could possibly cope amid such a technologically advanced culture. Bearing in mind I still own a walkman, box full of cassette tapes and am incapable of navigating my way around a washing machine dial.

In reality, being dumped in the middle of the mountains on a Japanese road to nowhere, there is an over-riding ignorance to all things cyber.

For example in school last week I explained the concept of speaking to my parents over Skype. All eyes were glued as teachers and students alike looked on with awe as Ellie the Messiah, prophesised of a future not yet known to Japan-kind.

Internet modems take preference over wireless and it takes three months and five home visits to establish a connection. And my modem has an irritating and inexplicable tendency to wish me good morning at 5.30 every day, weekends and bank holidays inclusive.

They were fucking good mornings before I was rudely awakened by an overly zealous Japanese woman with a suspect helium addiction. However the situation has now been rectified by pulling the plug on these rude awakenings before retiring onto my sweat-stained futon.

A cash culture, there's no pay by card option and most machines charge the equivalent of a pint of lager to draw out my not so hard earned cash. Except for the sporadically available free machines, which close for the majority of the weekend, when the beer piggy bank is at its driest.

Despite all this, the one thing which I find completely unfathomable is the toilets.

Holes in the ground, more commonly known as “squat toilets” are a popular choice for the Japanese. Attempting to balance precariously, while weeing and wiping is a task only accomplishable by those with the stamina of an Olympic gymnast and years of target practice. And wiping front to back is an issue us western girls battle with daily.

Toilet slippers are mandatory in most indoor venues including bars, restaurants and schools.

Having made a vow to never, under any circumstances whatsoever, set foot in a pair of Crocs, I was left greatly disparaged after being forced to break this oath with a urine soaked pair of the offensive items.

Sadly it seems this diabolical choice of footwear has monopolised squatters Japan-wide and a trip to the toilet has, for me, become little more than foot rape.

At a festival back in April, a squatting virgin, slightly beer addled and kitted out in tan pleather boots, I reemerged from a trip to relieve myself with visible flashback.

Worse came for my friend Lucy who peed all over her trousers at school first thing in the morning. Forced to spend the rest of the day smelling like a Wetherspoons regular, she now removes her trousers and socks before tackling the squatter.

After a close encounter with a mosquito, my knees and ankles swelled up to catastrophic proportions, forcing me to move around like a wind up robot for more than three days. This led to nil by mouth at school after a failed attempt to squat saw me making like a dog, weeing sideways on, and almost ripping the plumbing clean off the wall in an attempt to hoist myself upright.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is a range of Western toilets making an appearance in hotels, supermarkets and the occasional school. These are far from ordinary. Mostly located next door to their poo-stained predecessors, they are a sight to behold and predominantly cause, out of nowhere, a chorus of angels to flit into my head and sing hallelujah in harmony.

Sporting heated seats, bum washes, and a “how to use” diagram of a satisfied cherub, taking full advantage of a power jet clean straight up his microscopic bumhole, pasted alongside, they are work of sheer genius.

In training week, we all had our own unique experiences with these washes. Scott, who claims to be good at pretty much everything, perfected it first time. I got the pressure and heat very wrong, burnt my backside and splashed a copious amount of water up the hotel mirror and Lucy stood up before the jet had stopped, soaking the bathroom entirely.

In one school, excitedly, a teacher came running up to me with great news of a revelation she had made since my last visit. She proceeded to lead me by the hand to a western toilet that she had stumbled upon by chance, in a happening on a par with the moment Lucy discovers the magical powers of the wardbrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia. Even better there were no wee-stained crocs lined up outside. I never thought it would make my day to be introduced to a WC.

But sometimes the Japanese do get it very wrong. I was shown to one futuristic loo, which was crammed into a room so small that it was impossible to sit down, or hover. On the verge of having an accident, I tried my best but couldn’t avoid the inevitable as wee splashed all down my thighs. Thank goodness for the inbuilt power hose.

However, there is a flaw in the design mechanism of these gifts from the heavens.

With no visible off-switch, the seats stay heated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In summer, it can get very hot and going to the toilet is no longer a pleasant experience but more akin to walking straight into the fiery pits of hell. Especially if someone who has had a heavy night on the beer, has deposited their load before you.

Providing no insulation, the houses are made out of little more than paper, there is no central heating, people insulate their homes with bubble-wrap and winters in the mountains can see more than a metre of snow falling and settling for many weeks.

The only refuge is the heated toilet and entire families have duly been known to close the lid, pop on a table cloth and eat dinner around it.

In classrooms children and teachers sit shivering, aching and awaiting the first stages of pneumonia, followed by almost certain death.

Yet the toilets are as warm as a newborn cow.

The mind truly BOGgles. See what I did there?

Children of Japan

During my first three months teaching in Japan, a lot of lessons have been learnt.

First and foremost, elementary school children are primarily gender non-specific and have an ability to cry on demand.

I have made the mistake not once, not twice but three times of miscalculating what I thought was an equal boy-girl divide in the classroom. Splitting students into two teams, in a clever move I assumed would heighten the childish competitive streak and encourage the little dears to try harder to achieve the target language of the day.

Astonishingly in all three instances, my orders saw an overriding girl majority huddled together in comradeship in one corner of the classroom and, on one occasion, a solitary and tearful boy looking rather confused as to why he had been so brutally singled out.

I blame the bowl haircuts which, reminiscent of young lads in wartime Britain, seem to grace all heads of children aged between three and 12 living in the Japanese countryside.

One of my favourite boys, who bears an uncanny resemblance to The Simpson's Martin, if Martin was Japanese, turned up wearing a pinafore dress last week. This screwed with everything I have ever known and, after 12 weeks of talking to him about football and other such boy-based subjects, a great deal of effort was exerted on my part to mask my amazement after being confronted with this unexpected revelation.

In Japanese schools there are no losers, as I quickly found out. If a child should lose at a game there will be tears. The other students will swarm round the devastated tot and this entire sequence of events will have a detrimental effect on the remainder of my lesson. In my opinion it is a selfish act and something which, being Northern, I cannot even begin to condone.

Tears are also a daily occurrence in the playground. A game of football with the first graders was brought to an abrupt end when I accidentally missed the goal, instead kicking the ball smack bang wallop into the middle of a four-year-old boy’s (who incidentally also turned out to be a girl’s) face.

She screamed like a dying banshee.

And screamed

And screamed.

No amount of “summimasenning” could calm her inconsolable sobs until eventually I gave up trying, aborted mission and resumed the match.

A short while later I spied said child picking all manner of flowery weeds from the embankments bordering the school grounds, which she proudly presented to me at the end of lunch time. Presumably by way of apology for perforating my eardrums with her high-pitched wails.

Despite this need to harden the fuck up, the majority of elementary students are, and I hate to admit it, a lot better than me at pretty much everything. Arm wrestling an eight-year-old in the lunchroom, I was annihilated.

And I was trying.

Really trying.

The same applies to thumb wars.

Worse still, a four-year-old, and possibly the smallest four-year-old I have ever come into contact with, can outrun me on the football pitch, leaving me gasping for breath and defeated.

In one Kindergarten class I had planned for, as I had mistakenly heard, a class of 18. Imagine my horror when I walked in, not to a manageable 18 but an overwhelming 80 toddlers, who can barely speak Japanese let alone English.

A distinct aroma of pooh slowly emanating the room, I tried teaching animal flash cards while encouraging the children to mimic my impressions of ducks, horses, monkeys and whatnot. Initially a fun pursuit, it soon escalated into full-scale warfare as bowl cut-haired boys and girls alike started twatting the shit out of each, all bar one who had his hand up my skirt and firmly attached to my bottom.

So followed feeble attempts to regain control while perched on a windowsill at the far end of the room in my best efforts to deter his wandering hands.

In another school there is a special 45-minute session set aside whereby the children have an opportunity to question me about all things English.

Such as, “Did you see a big monster fish in England?” and “Do you cook fish and chips in your house?” I tried to explain that the Loch Ness Monster in fact hails from the Scottish Highlands, however I had once spotted him holidaying by Lake Windemere.

It was lost in translation.

Next the children asked me to stand and sing the English national anthem. Not one to refuse this golden opportunity, and hopefully amuse the students in the process, I obliged and sang with gusto.

Worryingly I was the only person stifling the laughs during my out of tune, out of time own special rendition of God Save the Queen. This painful five minutes was made worse by the fact that I don’t actually know the words.

Explaining that I am a “bad singer,” they disagreed in unison, insisting that I have a "beautiful voice."

If there's one word that cannot describe my vocal skills it is 'beautiful." Vomit inducing would be far nearer the mark.

The class then sang the Japanese national anthem, afterwards asking what I thought of the English translation. Forced to think on the spot I claimed it “a most beautiful song, which really reflects just how proud Japanese people are of their country.”

I am sure one boy wretched.

On the subject of royalty, like the queen, I am bowed at by students wherever I pass. This still takes me aback and my impulse reaction is to curtsey back.

I have no idea why.

Next week the students are going to sing God Save the Queen with me. I must go now and learn the words.

Sunset falls on a fearless youth

With less than three months before the impending doom of the big 3-0 is upon me, the invincibility of youth is dissipating, and fast.

An up close and personal encounter with a fox earlier this week, which less than a year ago I would have openly encouraged, now saw the 29 years on this mortal rock flash before my eyes.

Shadowing my every move, the creature stalked my footsteps along the street, interweaving in and out of gardens and gateways, making eye contact at every possible opportunity, seemingly aware of sheer fear I emanated from my core. This continued until terror took control seeing me bellow “fuck off” in his furry face and sprinting across the street, as the unmoving beast observed before nonchalantly trotting off in the opposite direction.

With my i-pod blaring this curse was far more audible than intended, leaving me laughing hysterically at my own idiocy, like one of the many lunatics frequenting the streets of South East London.

This near miss with death is the latest in a stream of inexplicable cowardice that is taking hold on a former hedonistic wild child.

Crossing the road to avoid the wrath of White Lightning-swigging youths has, I’m ashamed to admit, become commonplace. And not so long ago the joy of being an habitually rubbish, yet fearless ice-skater was knocked on the head when I spent the best part of an hour clinging on to the side of the rink for dear life, despite pleading words of encouragement from a group of Spaniards half my age.

Gone are the days of waking up in stranger’s living rooms, burnt out cigarette in mouth and no idea, nor caring, which direction home is, replaced by the incessant panic that an all-nighter on Saturday will leave me in a zombie-like state for the entirety of the following week, taking the edge off what was once a bloody good time.

Granted it happens to us all in the end, yet still I attempt to battle against the inevitable. Maybe it’s time to give up the ghost and begin to at least attempt to embrace what is the dawn of the age of growing old gracefully.

After all, the alternative is still attempting to live it large at the grand old age of 40 while teens, with complexions as fresh as spring morning dew, look on with a mix of pity and fear that, one day, it could be them.

Model chic is inspired by the undead

One dark and bitter winter’s night on All Hallows Eve many moons ago, in a desolate graveyard where only the mutilated corpses of thieves and beggars were laid to rest, came a faint murmuring from a tombstone dating back to the 443 AD.

A tiny crack appeared in the frozen soil, which quickly branched into several cracks until, like a mole, a withered hand emerged from beneath.

Clawing at the snowy ground the hand was followed by an arm, a shoulder, another hand and finally, a face so startling it would turn Medusa to stone.

With a manic glint in its eye the figure stared up at the full moon and yowled a piercing yowl before sprinting off into the darkness.

The very next day Dave, the graveyard caretaker, popped in to check everything was in good nick. Engrossed by the plight of a robin redbreast wrestling a squirrel for an acorn, Dave failed to see the gaping chasm where the corpse once lay and, tripping over the piles of soil that remained, fell in with a gargantuan thud, creating a mudslide so dense it buried him alive.

Poor Dave. No one ever discovered the evil that occurred that fateful day because the rotting corpse, whose grave it was, had witnessed the entire event.

Spying this too-good-to miss opportunity, the corpse hopped aboard the 121 bus and nipped down to the high street. There she begged together enough pennies to purchase a khaki boiler suit and a pair of steel-toe-cap Doctor Martens, which has always been the bog-standard dress code of graveyard caretakers, even in 443 AD.

Wearing the outfit later that day, the corpse ran from the graveyard and hurtled herself off a nearby cliff. Several eyewitness accounts reported the body of Dave smashing against the rocks below, before being engulfed by a Tsunami sized wave and carried out to sea.

Journalists had a field day, interviewing colleagues, acquaintances and his wife, Gillian, all of who said: “He was a simple sort who kept himself to himself. “

This made for a pretty boring story and the newspapers instead wrote about a turnip farm, which had just opened up down the road. And so Dave became a distant memory before he was even cold in the corpse’s grave.

For years and years the corpse lived a feral life, eating the brains of various wild animals as well as the odd poodle, which had escaped from its owner. It was about 1,576 years later, which seems nothing to the average dead person, that the boredom of such a low standard of living drove her near stir crazy. Craving human company, a plot formed in her decayed mind.

We’ve all seen, reader, the magazine articles encouraging people to starve themselves to gravely malnourished yet “In Vogue” proportions. And the zombie was no different. Flicking through these magazines had helped her realise that she had “the look to die for”, quite literally, and that this would most certainly allow her to create an army of followers so large she would be able blend into the crowd – no questions asked. At last she would be able to move into a house, maybe get a cat, and go to such social events as Tupperware parties, Pilates and knit and natter sessions down her local W.I.

The possibilities were endless!

And so, naming herself after Dave’s wife, Gillian McKeith soon became a teatime sensation. People settled down with their microwave ready meals to observe the faeces of the morbidly obese being scrutinised and all but nuts and cabbage seized from their homes.

That friends, is the long sought after proof that Gillian, as we know her today, is in fact a zombie. With the death-span of Adolf Hitler, Elvis Presley, Henry VIII, James Corden (we can but dream), and countless others put together, she is something of a medical phenomenon.

Now that we know the truth Miss Mckeith must be captured immediately before she devours the brains of her little-heard-of jungle dwelling comrades, leaving incoherent Stacey Solomon to be crowned Queen.

A man wearing Crocs created irreversible evil

Once upon a time, a heavily expectant mother was crammed into a rickety old bus in the Australian outback.

Unfortunately for the lowly damsel, there is no such thing as a “baby on board badge” in the outback so no one felt bullied into sacrificing their seat and the bumpy bus bumped and jostled so much so that it induced an untimely labour.

And with a splosh splish splash, her waters broke, soaking the feet and slapping up the legs of other passengers. Including one young man called Bruce who was wearing his spanking new shiny pink Crocs for the first time.

Bruce was so disgruntled at the soiling of what he considered to be an impeccable choice of footwear that he lifted the fat mum-to-be with one arm and ejected her from the moving bus with the force and prowess of a professional shot-putter.

Plummeting through the air, the poor mother landed some 263 yards away, dying on impact. Two hours later a pack of vultures, out for an evening stroll, came upon her corpse. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, and being quite peckish, the birds decided the free feast was too good to pass up, and so in they tucked.

But they were halted in their tracks when, upon eating through the stomach lining, they were confronted by a tiny baby boy.

Now for all their bad press, what with mutilating rodents and rummaging through rubbish, it may surprise you to discover that vultures do in fact have a bit of a soft spot for small children. And this babe had them up in arms, cooing and pulling silly faces to calm his sobs.

There is an unwritten law that, if you find a Boy of no ownership (or BONO for short) in the desert, and no-one claims him after 28 days, he is yours to keep.

And so after a month had passed, the young BONO was raised and nurtured by the birds of prey, who treated him much like a domesticated pet.

As he grew, the boy seemed to develop a number of vulture like characteristics. The hooked nose, evil eyes, balding forehead and wan demeanour. This excited his adopted family greatly as they truly believed BONO may be morphing into a vulture before their beady little eyes.

Unfortunately as time went on, despite these traits, try as they may, they could not teach their unfortunate tot to fly.

And it was when BONO reached not much more than 19 years old that they grew tired of him and one night, while he slept on his perch, the vultures swept him up, flew out to sea and traded him to a bearded fisherman for a bucket of whelks.

Next morning the splash of seawater awoke BONO with a start. He was disturbed and disorientated by the sound of birds cawing. It wasn’t the familiar sound of Mummy vulture singing as she fried worms and ostrich eggs for breakfast. It was more high-pitched.

“All right you young rapscallion” boomed the fisherman, lunging toward BONO with his bristly white beard, “no time for rest now, we got fish to catch.”

And so for the next six months BONO sailed the seas, collecting scallops, tuna and the occasional clown fish until at last – they reached land and dropped anchor on the shores of Ireland. You may be thinking, reader, that Ireland is a mighty long way from Australia and you’re right. But the seas were choppy and the fisherman’s compass was claimed by a giant wave. So they sailed aimlessly, surviving off raw fish and their own urine, until they stumbled upon land ahoy.

BONO was off faster than a punter up a hooker, leaving the fisherman to tend to his weather-beaten vessel. Exercising the skills he had learnt from the vultures, he survived for weeks, foraging in bins and rubbish dumps for sustenance until he came across a guitar which, all be it a bit rusty and out of tune, gave BONO a light-bulb pingingly brilliant idea.

Having seen people busking in the street he realised that by showcasing his newly discovered relic in Dublin city centre, he could make himself a pound or two.

So he sat outside Pound Stretcher strumming the songs he had learned from Mummy Vulture, about beautiful days and other such nonsense, while the crowds gathered round.

People were so in awe of BONO’s weird and wonderful life that he gained global notoriety. Panel show producers were desperate for him to make a guest appearance and grandmothers everywhere posted him hand-knitted cardigans and tea-cosies.

All too soon the fame shot to BONO’s head and he began preaching about the hardships of the world, even managing to squeeze in interviews amid a hectic life of private jets and overindulging to the point of sickness on caviar, Ferrero Rocher and other such divine delicacies.

And for that, dear reader, we have Bruce to blame.

Saffron, jump from the rooftop baby and just let the past go

Last night we took a step back into the land of Hooch, 20/20 and shell suits to make up the only three relatively normal people amid a freak show of revellers who had turned out to cheer on 90’s legendary two-hit wonder three-piece Republica.

Staged at the Islington Academy the fan-base rocketed Newton Faulkner’s appeal to dizzying heights.

One bald midget, with the face of a serial killer, had kitted himself out in a special vampire cape identical to lead-singer Saffron’s trademark accessory. I considered asking if he’d pose for a photograph but, fearing this could well have resulted in a knife to the face, instead gave him a berth wide enough to accommodate James Corden.

Supporting was a low-budget, geriatric double act, who undoubtedly spend their leisure time masturbating furiously while listening to the Pet Shop Boys greatest hits on repeat. Worryingly most people seemed to know their songs verbatim and subsequently sang along with as much gusto as a teenaged girl armed with a hairbrush.

Nearby a longhaired 30-something man, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Nigel Planer circa The Young Ones’ Den Dennis, accompanied by his EBay special-delivery Thai bride, hopped from foot to foot in eager anticipation. Meanwhile a coffin dodger, dressed to kill in a baby pink shirt, tucked into chinos and finished off with a rather pleasant tan leather belt, danced along to some other song audible only to the elderly and infirm.

And two very enthusiastic gig-goers clung to the front barrier for dear life throughout the support and set changeover for fear of getting sucked into the crazed mob when the red-headed one and co finally took to the stage. Despite their determination, and armed with plastic pint cups brimming with flat, lukewarm lager, we still managed to snake our way through the 50-strong crowd to within a stone’s throw of the stage.

As Republica appeared Den and wife were unstoppable, ditching the hopping in favour of full on jumping from foot–to-foot and occasionally even throwing an arm in the air.

A fully warmed up crowd were ready to rock, thanks to the sexual deviant Pet Shop Boys-loving support act, and Saffron could not contain her excitement, making eye contact with the sole shoulder surfer during her rendition of Dance 94 track “Drop Dead Gorgeous.” Rising to the occasion, she had wrenched her 42-year-old body into a costume more suited to her long-gone 26-year-old self.

With a glint of manic desperation in her eye, it did actually bring about some degree of sympathy from deep within. The need to cling on to the short-lived hint of stardom 16 years later, resulting in a smaller crowd than that present at a college Battle of the Bands contest in Grimsby, was truly heartbreaking and on a par with the disparity etched on the faces of most X-Factor rejects.

After Ready to Go and with talk of a new single, we were indeed ready to go, and so we went. It was at this point only that my semi-retarded friend Tom finally confessed that he mass purchased tickets for the gig after confusing the band with Elastica. Thanks Tom, seriously.

I dearly wanted to wrap Saffron in a blanket to protect her modesty, give her a mug of Horlicks and pop her in front of the telly with the Midsomer Murders box-set. She could then begin to embrace the delights of growing old gracefully in the company of John Nettles and his whinging, out-of-work actress, brat of a daughter.