I had just enough time to complete my snooker table before Pete arrived to pick me up.
You can see it here in all its wonder (though someone pointed out that a previous expensive fad, my Beatles Rock Band stuff sits sad and largely unused in the corner of the room. I rarely build anything and felt quite manly to have made this, with only the one error. I felt like a dad building the table for his son, but then sadly realised that I am (fittingly perhaps given the reason I bought this table) playing the part of both the father and the son. Is Me 1 vs Me 2 actually just the substitute for a childless man subconsciously wishing he had a child to play with? Still on the plus side, this just makes the drama of my new idea more deep and poignant, even if it also means that my life is meaningless and tied up in my job and I am going to die sad and alone (Bury me with my snooker table and Beatles Rock Band). I need to rearrange the room somewhat before I can play, but managed to shoot of the first break and it seems like a pretty good table.
Then we were off to Barnsley, trying to find a way around the closure of the M1 (which we did pretty comfortably). Incredibly Pete managed to get us to the correct Holiday Inn for once (but I suspect that was only because there was one in this town). York City were losing which pretty much put paid to their chances of making it into the play-offs, so I was a little sad and distracted by that. But there wasn't too long to ponder on it. We had a gig to do.
I don't think I have played Barnsley before and it was going to be a small crowd of about 120 in this medium-sized theatre. We had driven a long way to be with them and would be driving a long way back tomorrow and it felt bad to be travelling maybe 30 miles for each person. I wondered if I should be off-setting my carbon emissions, but really I should probably be concentrating on my sulphur emissions.
In the dressing room I was feeling annoyed about the upcoming protest in Lowestoft and with the help of Twitter hatched a plan to try and turn the event into a promotion of free speech and of the majority of regular Christians who are strong enough in their convictions to turn the other cheek or even welcome the discussion. Again someone on Twitter (the ubiquitous Andy McH who had also spotted the Beatles paraphanalia) suggested it might be fun to have some protestors amongst the crowd with their own signs, subverting the message of the protest. Or have another protest opposite the protest. But in the cold light of day I think it's best just to keep our heads down, mainly because Lowestoft is so hard to get to that I think anyone coming from outside to support the venture would be stuck in East Anglia, possibly forever. I will just go on, perform to the 70 people who have come and then leave. I don't want to be too childish. I will leave that to the people who think I am childish.
The gig went a lot better than I had thought it might. I had been worried that I might not summon up the energy to do it properly - I was still a bit under the weather and these shows can get a bit hard to do after the 60th or 70th time. But the small audience lifted me and seemed to enjoy themselves, even when I told them that I wouldn't have bothered them with one section of the show if there wasn't more to it because I knew they were too busy hating people of other races.
I am holding on to my Easter break as something to look forward to and hope that the promise of some relaxation and fun will get me through the next five gigs in good shape. Then I will steel myself for Lowestoft.
