No mysterious materialisations today, which is a relief.
This week I am on the road as I wend my way around the country, ending up in Edinburgh on Monday. I have one more night at home, after the Colchester gig on Wednesday, but then I will bid London adieu. It's an international tour, taking in three countries in the next few days (admittedly those countries are England, Wales and Scotland, but it still counts) and tonight was Cambridge.
As Colchester is so near it seemed foolish to go home tonight, so I had booked into a hotel in town. I had avoided the Travelodge opposite the venue
after the now infamous bogey on the shower curtain incident (in fact I vowed never to stay at this chain again unless there was no other option - such as
during this long drive during the tour).
I unloaded my stuff at the venue and then drove to the hotel and then walked the two or so miles back to the theatre. Cambridge is a very beautiful town, more picturesque than Oxford, the University is much more dominant, but in July the streets are thronging with big groups of teenagers from all over the world, taking part in no doubt rip-off summer courses. Their parents must be glad to have these walking bags of hormones out of the house and the country, but it makes navigating the streets of Cambridge an assault on all senses. Further evidence of this being the year that I grew old is the fact that I can now barely abide the noise and exuberance of teenagers. If I have kids of my own I will be in my sixties and having to put up with this infuriating nonsense. But they are loud and in some cases smelly and worst of all have no sense of the fact that there is anyone else in the world but them. They are like the motorist who beeped the cyclist yesterday - though unlike him most of them will grow out of it. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to the gig and a couple of times had to try and navigate around groups of teenagers and even when their supervising adult shouted at them to move aside and make some room, they filled the whole pavement like they were taking part in some kind of new kettling manoeuvre. Perhaps after hearing of my exploits at Latitude the whole teenage world has made a pact against me to make me as miserable as possible. Or maybe the world itself is just letting me know what goes around comes around.
After the gig (which went well but which was still 15 minutes too long for Edinburgh) I went for a drink with some friends. My only stipulation was that we could not go to the Travelodge bar, which meant there was only one option, a bar/night club next door to Nandos (where I would have much preferred to have been). Outside there were lights in the pavement facing upwards, which made the bald doorman look very intimidating and frightening. He was insisting on checking everyone's ID and so somewhat superfluously I got out my driving licence - I don't think I have been asked for ID to get into a bar since the 20th Century and probably not since the early 1980s. When he saw me though he did say that he didn't need to see my ID and laughed. Well the jokes on him because I am one of those teenagers with that disease that makes them all grey and wrinkled and old looking, so he should do his job more carefully in future.
I am not sure how fastidious he was in any case as it seemed that the bar had a lot of 14 year olds in it, though that's how anyone under 20 looks to me now. Loud music was playing - weirdly rather retro stuff that was around when I actually needed to be IDed. More foreign exchange students danced and snogged on the dancefloor as we tried to chat. There was also a gaggle of rather sleazy middle aged men, whose motives for being in this club did not seem to be to just have a drink. Good luck to them. They would need it. Especially if they pulled one of the teenagers. Haven't they realised how annoying teenagers are yet? The men would be trying to sleep and the teenager would be shouting and being an idiot. They haven't thought it through at all, the idiots.
I would have felt like a miserable fogey again, except that I hated this kind of place when I was a teenager as well. All I have is conversation - I am not all that to look at and don't like to dance, so being in a place where I can't chat or listen to anyone else has never had any appeal to me. How I relished the silence outside when we finally escaped this tenth circle of Hell. I am very happy to not be a teenager any more. I wouldn't mind being able to go back to being about 34, but any younger than that was just too awful. That's part of the reason it's so sad about the whole Amy Winehouse thing. It's easy to feel tortured and miserable in your 20s and even to push things to see how people react, but you generally become more settled in the next decade of your life.
Much as I don't like the idea of getting old, I wouldn't go back even if I could, even if I knew all that I know. Which isn't much. Thank God I've never been one of those desperate middle-aged men trying to act like a teenager..... hmmmm.
