An everyday tale of a revengeful phone, a view from the gods and a wired acoustic Athlete

If you read the saga of Stinky Phone (SP) a couple of weeks ago, I maintain that SP took a swan dive into a gutter while on the way to see the Barenaked ladies.

It would appear that SP has taken a different view on the whole incident and blames me for throwing him into the gutter and then further upsetting him when I put him in the freezer overnight to resurrect him – I don’t know what he has to complain about, he had the lawn mower battery to keep him company…


Since Mrs B was meeting me in the Union chapel, Islington to see Athlete, and there was no reserved seating, it was imperative that I had a phone with me. I can imagine some of you thinking why didn’t I arrange to meet Mrs B at a set time and a set place. You are clearly not familiar with Mrs B’s lack of work life balance (You probably need to read …. Mrs B’s pitiful attempts to see Kylie to get an idea).


There was no point taking two cars to Islington, so I was dropping Mrs B off at the station, which introduced train time table pressure to the usual  rush to get out of the house.   I was having difficulty tracking down SP, I had seen him just as we were leaving but a quick check of my bag told me I didn’t have him…. I even got Mrs B to use her phone to ring SP to see if we could track him down. The phone rang through the Stereo, confirming that he was somewhere on board so I relaxed a bit. It was only after I had dropped Mrs B off I noticed that the phone connection was no longer showing. SP had somehow managed to end up in Mrs B bag, she now had 3 mobile phones with her to my none….Eeek, meeting up in the venue was going to be a nightmare.

After an initial bit of panic and some swearing I calmed down and then had a genius idea – I just need to find someone at work who has an old phone that they don’t use and I could then pick up a Pay as You go SIM  and voilà communications would be restored.

As luck would have it the second person I asked - Mike (while he probably does not read the  BlackLOG I’m sending him lots of good vibes for getting me out of a hole) - had an old phone actually sitting in his desk draw and despite not being used for a few months it was still almost fully charged.*  Being a basic model worked in its favour, no apps running in the background whose main function seems to be to run your battery flat..

* . Ha!  To those of you thinking what an idiot, who on earth keeps old phones at work….?  Well, Mike clearly does actually.

So it was off to the local Phone shop at lunchtime

Vodaphone Shop

Me -  “I would like to purchase your cheapest Pay As You Go option please”

Sales staff  - “That would be £5 for a Pay As You Go SIM” 

Me – “Excellent, I’ll take it”

Sales staff – “Would you like to purchase a £5 top up?”

Me – “Do I need it?”

Sales staff – “No….unless you want to make any calls.”

Me – “OK……….then I’d better have the top up.”

I handed over 2 crisp £5 pound notes

Sales staff – “It’s only £5, Sir.”

Me – Quickly doing some basic maths in my head (where is my phone when I need it?) “Doesn’t £5 for the SIM and £5 for the Top up card make £10?”

Sales staff looking at me like I was an idiot – “If you purchase the top up when you buy the SIM you get the SIM for free.”

Me – “Why don’t you just offer the SIM with £5 worth of calls?”

Sales staff – “You might not want to make any calls.”

I sure  could have had some fun with that statement in a phone shop but having retrieved my diplomatic hat on my way out from Kew…

Me – “I feel like I’m entering into a Monty Python sketch!”

Sales staff  - just looked blankly at me

I decided to pay the £5 and get out before I ended up paying £20 for no calls and no SIM card 

Is it just me that gets into these stupid situations?

The action moves to the Union Chapel Islington later that day

I sit motionless in the car (so to be honest not a lot of action), while torrential rain bounced off the car, the various drenched people drifting passed, doing remarkably good impressions of drowned rats.  After 20 minutes and with no sign of the rain abating any time soon, it was my turn to do a drowned rat impression.  I had spent the time contemplating whether to attempt to try and get The Beast into the venue…I finally decided as it was so wet that the chances were that security would not be too draconian as dripping wet people queued to get in.  My assumption proved correct and what security there was were keeping well away from the entrance - I barely needed to show my ticket. 

Once inside the church I went straight upstairs (as was pointed out by Athlete frontman Joel Pott, when he came on stage.  The seats truly were in the gods…) and found a position in the front row dead centre and secured three spaces, Mrs B myself and the Beast.  I sent a text to Mrs B, explaining where to meet and sat back to wait for her arrival.  The two support acts were OK but did not appear to be anything special “Robot Heart” & “My First Tooth”.  The latter being a sort of  “Noah and the Whale” clone with a female lead singer. Mrs B was not going to have a problem missing them, she’s not a big “Noah and the Whale” fan…

All that waiting around on your own can get quite lonely, so I’m grateful for the couple who sat down beside me.  While I had an interesting chat with a couple called Lee and Nicky, making me feel a little less like “Billy no mates” , Lee and Nicky sat traumatised by the strange bloke who accosted them as soon as they sat down…. We talked about groups we had seen, the Olympics and how hardly anyone got any tickets,  I even discovered that Nicky’s brother had just purchased a flat in Bishops Stortford, just around the corner from us, what a truly small world we live in….

I got a text from Mrs B about 9pm, just as Athlete hit the stage, saying that her latest work crisis was over and she was on her way….about halfway through Athlete’s set Mrs B made her appearance.  I was relieved that Mrs B saw at least a bit of the concert but also that Lee and Nicky weren’t left with the impression that I was a total nut job with a made up wife…..

I really enjoyed the Athlete performance which had been billed as a stripped down tour, i.e. acoustic (well sort of acoustic as the guitars were all amplified, I always thought acoustic meant not amplified), which was ideal for the wonderful sound that echoed around the old church building. My only issue was that it was quieter than the average gig and the sound of The Beast:

Click Click Click  Click  Click

Click Click Click  Click  Click

Click Click Click  Click  Click 

Click Click Click  Click  Click 

echoed around the building and proved hardly conducive to my clandestine attempts to sneak a few concert piccies….About as subtle as a British MP with a blank expense form .…

Mrs B asked me to turn the sound down...

Me - "What?"

Mrs B - "Turn the shutter sound down"

Me - "That's the mechanism working, it doesn't come with a volume setting"

What can I say, The Beast likes to roar like a lion not whisper like a chocolate bar….

Joel Potts - Looking up to the Gods

 Miss Winehouse

What a sad and tawdry tale of wasted talent. While she represented many of the things that I dislike, Tattoo’s, Smoking, excessive drinking and drugs, she had such a wonderful voice.  We were lucky enough to see her at the Cambridge Junction about 4 years ago, when she could still perform. We saw her briefly at V a couple of years ago when she came on stage with The Specials to do one song.  She barely managed that, a shadow of what she had been… Yet another one of life’s flawed talents….

Show me the sunny

Monitoring our way to a fortune (or not) with our Solar Panels

KW Produced so far –  2131

KW generated in the last week – 90

This has earned us approximately – £1065

Record of the week

Wires by Athlete - I knew it wasn't proper acoustic gig....

The Outsider by Athlete -

 Rehab by Amy Winehouse - Amy really should have gone to Rehab

What a waste by  Ian Dury and the Blockheads- Ian sums it all up

Watch of the week

The regular section in support of Joe (Stunt Cock) and his growing watch business

Xupes has been trading for over 2 years and  Joe has recently developed some great contacts in the trade which enables him to pick up surplus stock and sell them at great prices. Mrs B is a regular purchaser from his jewellery section, going self service once she finally realised that her husband is not the jewellery buying type….

Tag Heuer Professional Chronograph

Xupes price  £650.00 

RRP         £1,350.00

Saving        £700.00 

Photo Finish
All shots taken with The Beast of Athlete at the Union Chapel Islington
 

You've got wires going in
you've got wires coming out...
 
So probably not proper acoustic..



Carey Willetts Bass Guitarist and chief water drinker....

Athlete - not a bad little backdrop....



Tim Wanstall - keyboards



Well Joel Looks like he had a good time and
so did the audience....

Till next week...