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I was in the dressing room in Bridport when I felt a lump in my trousers. As sexy as Bridport is, this was a small item in my jogging bottom pocket. It was two small square packets folded on top of each other, feeling all the world like a couple of condoms. But why would there be condoms in my pocket? Not only am I nearly 57 with a cold and stone-dead penis, I am married and more pertinently haven't bought any condoms for many years and hadn't put any in my pocket.
I took out the mystery package to discover it was two lens cleaners for my specs. Which I think says all that needs to be said about the place I am at in my life. Not only have my needs moved on, but pertinently I'd also forgotten that I'd pocketed them just before I left home. It's a sad (but also happy) indictment of my life how my priorities have changed in the last twenty years.
I mourn the death of the young man who might occasionally manage to convince someone to have sex with him, but who could also read things without wearing glasses. But thank God I am not the kind of desperate middle-aged man who carries prophylactics on the extreme off-chance of requiring them. Touring might once have come with the hope that I might be sleeping with someone, but now it comes with the hope that I will be sleeping. Nothing is going to get in the way of a potential full night's sleep.
Like I say, both tragic and brilliant at the same time. It makes me both happy and sad for myself.
The wipes are single use only, unlike condoms.
It's a brutal weekend of gigs for an elderly man too. Just two gigs, but a very difficult drive (for Bollings, but I am now old enough that even being a passenger is exhausting). It was a five hour drive to Bridport, with predictable delays on the M25 and beyond and then it's at least five hours to Ipswich tomorrow. I think bookers think that if two gigs are in the south of the country then they are close to each other, but we could have more easily got to Scotland than Bridport today. Last time I came here i
n 2015 we did the drive there and back in the same day - which feels like insanity. Tonight we decided to get a hotel in Poole so that we'd got some of the drive out of the way for tomorrow.
Numbers were definitely up on 9 years ago and the bottom part of the Electric Palace felt pretty full and there were probably about 200 or so people in. And though the room was very hot and I felt a bit giddy from the drive, it was a strong show
