h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It’s only been a week since I last wrote, but I seem to have crammed quite a bit into such a short space of time. Last week was pancake day (or Shrove Tuesday if you prefer) so a few of us got together at my girlfriend’s house for a pancake party. I have to admit, I’m rubbish at pancakes in fact I’m a bit of a useless tosser (sorry about the pun), but for some reason, if you mess a pancake up then you get to eat it so I had a pretty good night.

Then on Thursday last week one of the girls in my research group passed her viva exam and became a doctor so we went out for drinks and Chinese food with her and her family. It was a fairly quiet night (compared to some viva celebrations I’ve been on); we finished up in a pub playing table football instead of in a club being sick and hitting on girls, but scarily, I think I’m coming to appreciate the more sedate nights when I can actually remember what happened the next morning without prompting from other people.

On Friday night I caught a train to Bromley to see my goddaughter and her family. I was pretty late arriving, but I spent Saturday morning and afternoon with them as well. My goddaughter has grown again and the two other children are becoming more and more teenaged every time I visit: sullen and gloomy and prone to outbursts of random emotion (was I ever like that Mum?). But nevertheless, it was really nice to catch up with them, albeit for just a fleeting visit because I had to disappear to London in the evening for a gig.

So on Saturday night I found myself wandering around Piccadilly Circus as the sun went down feeling a little melancholy, and looking for St James’s Church (the venue for the concert). When I booked the tickets a couple of months ago I assumed that “St James’s Church” was an old church that had been converted into a venue for live music, but after talking to one of my housemates I looked them up on the internet and found that it’s an actual church… they do marriages there and everything!

I managed to find the place and queued up with the other patrons. No one really seemed to know quite what to expect, I don’t think any of us had been to a gig in a church before. Ed Harcourt (the guy we were going to see) is a fairly low-key British singer-songwriter and he could never be accused of playing big scale venues, but this place was something else. There can’t have been more than five hundred people there and as we were herded inside to find our seats (on the church pews) the atmosphere was electric.

I remember taking a bit of a look around the other people at the gig, I always find it interesting what sort of people share my musical taste. This time I found the usual array of Goths and grungers, but was a little amused to see a woman in her sixties or seventies wearing a frumpy “church dress” and a string of pearls accompanied by a smartly turned out balding gentleman of the same age.

The performance was really great, one of those little discoveries that you’re glad you made the effort for. The acoustics were awesome (of course, it’s a church isn’t it?) and the style of music and the band really suited the atmosphere. Most of the music was piano (or sometimes organ) based with a lot of strings. There was a string quartet and a cello who go by the name or Dirty Pretty Strings and for one number was accompanied by Josh Rouse, an American artist with whom Ed is apparently quite good friends.

Musically, some of the highlights for me were Let Love Not Weigh Me Down (which wasn’t one of my favourites before Saturday, but I think I’m going to change my mind now), This One’s For You, Kids (Rise From The Ashes) and best of all Those Crimson Tears (which was simply stunning). But perhaps what made the night so special was the closeness and intimacy of the performance. Partly this was because of the venue, but when Ed thanked his parents for everything they’d done for him and then pointed them out, sitting in the third row and I realised that the old woman in the frumpy dress was Ed’s Mum, it made me feel like an invited guest.

After the gig I made my customary late night mad dash across London and got back to Paddington (as usual) with seconds to spare before my train left. I got home to Bath early Sunday morning and collapsed into bed tired, but happy.

Sunday was a fairly quiet day, spent mostly wandering round town with my girlfriend. She’d been at a dance contest in Sheffield and didn’t get back to Bath herself until about four Sunday morning so we were both pretty tired. But we did have a nice lunch in town and we ended up cooking dinner together and then curled up in front of a movie.

Then of course yesterday was St Valentine’s Day. We exchanged gifts and cards in the morning, but both my girlfriend and I had to work and we had been out for lunch only the previous day so we didn’t do anything extravagant. We cooked together again and watched a movie, which was really lovely.

Anyway, I’d better be going. It seems like every other journal entry I write these days is an epic; I wonder how big the h2g2 server is…