A man called Andrew Peters kindly gifted me an iTunes copy of the 1960 version of "The Time Machine" which has been much discussed on our podcast. Thanks Andrew. I watched it on the way to Amsterdam on my iPad, which seemed like an apt thing to be doing in the circumstances. Could the people working on that film ever imagine that in just half a century people would be able to watch them on hand-held cinemas whilst flying high above the earth? Yes, they probably could have imagined it.
But the iPad felt like my own personal time machine and I enjoyed the movie, with the usual caveats - why does the traveller come back a week after he left? He has a time machine he can come back any time he likes and it seems a shame that when the clothes on the mannequin are changing every couple of seconds that they have animated the clothes going on. Which takes up half the time. Implying that clothes that were on the model for let's say, a couple of months took a month to put on. Ah, time travel based pedantry, I love it. And why doesn't Rod Taylor see himself returning to the house a week after he left? None of this matters really. Especially when compared to the shitty Guy Pearce version. Though things could be improved if Samantha Mumba was in it in a see-through vest. If I ever invent a time machine I am going to travel in time and put Mumba in the original film.
It is on days like this that the iPad really comes into its own though and even though I am in the future (compared to the people I was watching) I was very excited by the technology that made this possible. As I was to have checked in at home and printed up my own boarding pass (and if I had been so inclined I could even have put it on my phone). The future is miles better than HG Wells predicted. No Morlocks yet and the shape of things to come is iPad and iPhone shaped.
I was staying at the Amsterdam Hilton, where John and Yoko stayed in bed for a week. But then they must have been tired with all the stuff that was going on in their lives. I doubt my stay here will be mentioned in a song, but you never know.
I had the afternoon to kill before the show at the Toomler, which was situated right underneath the hotel. I wandered around fairly aimlessly, trying to find somewhere to have a late lunch, but suddenly feeling shy and self-conscious like I did often as a younger man and not knowing where to go. I passed the Van Gogh Museum, but it was late in the afternoon and I decided I would go tomorrow when I would have more time to go slowly. I finally managed to be brave enough to go into a cafe for a sandwich and a coffee. I am too old and worn out to sample the delights of more racy cafes and was more interested in art than arse, so wasn't bothered with seeing the red light district.
I don't speak a word of Dutch, but listening to the locals felt that it was similar enough to English that if pressed I could just launch into it and give it a go. Luckily I didn't try. I might have been deported before I'd even done the gig.
It was a packed house at the Toomler and Zoe Lyons was also on the bill and went down well - though she had the advantage of being able to speak some actual basic Dutch (rather than my racist made up Dutch) and some stories about Amsterdam. Fortunately the crowd didn't mind that I didn't have the same skills and my 50 minute set passed quickly and without incident, at least until a woman near the front took exception to my claims that having tiny 7 year old girl hands had some masturbatory advantages. The rest of the audience seemed to understand what I was doing a little bit better and the tension led to a satisfactory and offensive dénouement.
It is a long way to come to do a gig, although weirdly it was easier and less stressful to get to Amsterdam than it had been to get to Norwich the other week.
I was too tired to go out into the night and by the time I was in bed I felt I could probably stay in there for a week as well.
