Friday 1 May 2009

on the second of today’s five trains
Back at the eye hospital again yesterday, boring boring boring. Anyway, thanks to the bizarre pricing policy on the railways, my cheapest option today is to travel first class. I don’t think the people selling advertising space at CBS have really thought their practice through: here in the 8-seat first class compartment on the way to Edinburgh is an ad asking ‘Did you use loan sharks at Christmas?’ If the answer is yes, why the hell are you in first class? Because it’s cheaper I suppose …

nearlymidnight, Shipley
In my hotel room at last after a full and entertaining day. I had lunch on the city wall in York, after a bit of walking around, visiting places that I used to cycle and walk round every day, and seeing how much they had changed, or not.

When I lived here this really was a huge ironmongers shop, rather than a Loch Fyne Oyster Bar.

Being a bit more historically conscious now than I was then, it’s fascinating to be surrounded by such a mixture of modern and medieval buildings. In Glasgow a 14^th century building would be a museum; here it’s just as likely to be an estate agents.

I managed not to spend too much money in Sarah Coggles and also bought a fantastic old school leather satchel from a pile of stock outside an antique shop, before walking out to Pamela’s to wait for Rachel Podger  and Olivia Chaney.  Leaving Simon to put two lots of kids to bed, we went off to rehearse in the music department at the university, with me playing the very harpsichord I used to practise on when it was new twenty-something years ago ... 

... and some melodica as well: I imagine the sight of Rachel and me trying to master one of Olivia’s tunes together while reading my illegible notebook scrawl, and then trying to miss out beats in the right verses, all the while playing in two different keys, must have been pretty funny.