T minus 6 hours:

just as I'm getting ready to leave work and help Doug move all the gear into the Subway, I get a phone call from him.

"Hey man. There's a bit of a problem. I've locked my keys inside my car."
"What's in your car?"
"Uh, my drums."
"Fuck."
"'Fuck' is right."

So two hours before we're due to soundcheck, our drums are locked in an immobile car a mile and a half away from the venue.

I had a flashback to Josh's phone call - "The washing machine has flooded the kitchen and I won't be there until 9" - 15 minutes before the the doors opened for the Outhouse gig. I fully expect something catastrophic to happen immediately before the next gig, whenever it happens. Dave'll be stranded in Bratislava or something. "Yeah, I got a cheap flight out and now there's been a revolution."

Fortunately the RAC is really good at breaking into cars, and the drums were freed in short order.

[More later, once I manage to get my shit together. I smell like a brewery and suspect I was still drunk when I woke up this morning. Eating only half an arid pie before the gig and then throwing back pints like they're going out of fashion will do that to me. Good times!]

On Wednesday night,

I went up to the Outhouse with Jez for a pint. A pint became four pints and before I knew it, it was 1 am and Jez was trying to spray the barmaid with androgynous Ted Baker 'scent'. A relatively quiet night - at least he didn't break into the monkey impersonation.

This has, in fact, been a week of 'before you know it' drunkenness. On Friday, I dragged the usual suspects up to the Blind Poet to meet Dave, Dom, Michelle et al and before we knew it, it was 1 am and were were stumbling into a taxi home.

On Saturday, awaking to find myself smelling and tasting (unreasonably, I might add) like an alcoholic, I assembled my shit and took the train to Glasgow for a band practice. The gig is looming uncomfortably close, so we we set up in near-record time and got stuck into practicing at 3 pm. Without Dave, I must point out. At 4.30 pm, having beaten some of the most troubling songs into submission - sans vocals - we looked at each other and said "Where the fuck is Dave?"

Dave finally called us around 5, and it transpired that he had fallen asleep.

<sigh>

We finished the rehearsal at 6, and aside from one song, were mostly happy with the day's work. We trooped along to Mono to blend in with the rest of Glasgow's achingly hip arty types, and before we knew it, it was 11.15 and I staggered off to catch the last train home.

Sunday was much the same, except A) through in Edinburgh and B) with Dave in attendance. We finally nailed (or at least managed to sound reasonable while playing) the last truly dodgy song in the set, so the gig is looking like a more attractive prospect. T minus 3 days...

I found what looked like an excellent flat

in the ESPC on Sunday afternoon, so I wandered round to have a look. It was in the same building as another I'd seen on Thursday, only a little bigger and almost certainly a lot cheaper.

As I was waiting for the owner to answer the buzzer, a guy came up to the door with his key ready and asked me if I wanted to be let in. I said yes, I'm waiting to view a flat.

"Ah," he said. "That was mine. I sold it last week."

Turns out it had been on the market for a month, and I hadn't noticed it until two days after it was sold. Pretty well sums up the weekend.

"Two words:

road trip."

The Roquefort Files go global - again - this June. Josh, DaveM and I are embarking on a 3000 mile, trans-America drive from Charlotte, North Carolina to Los Angeles. Along the way, we'll hit New Orleans, Houston (all right), San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix and finally Las Vegas.

Either that, or one of us will go batshit insane and bury the other two in the desert.

California here we come!

I really have nothing to write

about the weekend. Friday was modestly entertaining: I had a couple of pints with Dave after work and we blethered about a possible road trip across the US in June (of which much more later if it actually comes off!), then went with the usual suspects to meet Jez and Poppy, an old archaeology mate of Jeff's, for a couple more.

Saturday was a sort of meh day of faffing in the flat, followed by a pleasant (but slightly suburban) evening out in Bathgate with some friends of Kate's. I don't mean suburban in a denigratory sense; if nothing else, their garage has left me with residual jealousy at not being able to afford a flat with any sort of storage space for crates of beer, extra fridges, unnecessary bass equipment and snowboards. On the other hand, my putative hovel will hopefully be central enough so that I can avoid hour-long commutes.

Sunday was a 10-hour purgatory at work. Again.

I hope fervently that something interesting happens soon.

I just got a text message from Doug:

Ahoy. Please look up good stuff in Florence on the www and get back to us - as far as we can tell, it's shit. & we've got no rough guide.

Five minutes of we searching later, I turn up the cathedral, or Duomo, the Bargello museum (home to one of the best collections of Renaissance sculpture in the world), the Palazzo Pitti, a massive edifice that was the seat of Florence's ruling families for centuries, and the Church of Santa Croce, so incredible that the French writer Stendahl, on visiting it and experiencing such profound awe and culture shock, gave his name to the same debilitating syndrome still experienced by 12 visitors a year.

The reply:

Cheers man. What about good boozers?

Right then.

I did a bit more searching and fired back a message with the names of what looked to be decent pubs, bars and clubs, and got back a message soon after:

How the fuck are we supposed to find these bars. Stick a finger in our arses and see if our sphincter muscles tell us the direction.

rapidly followed by:

That was from the Captain. D. (sorry)

So, I sent back the addresses of the best four.

It was all uncannily reminiscent of being the surveillance van/CIA headquarters end of a very slow, pub-focused spy "thriller".

It's official:

Tiny Monkey and Proxy play the Subway Cowgate on the 28^th of April. New material! New covers! New ROCK! \m/

Dear God.

Still at work, and it is 12:55 am. Last night around this time, I was deciding which beer to take next from the fridge. Grolsch? San Miguel? Choices, choices. Tonight I just did a web search for "template functor method pointer Microsoft C++". Being a newsreader seems like an exciting career option at the moment.

I think this is a low point of my existence.

Two crushing hangovers in as many days, and today at three o' clock, when I felt human again, I dragged myself to work. Looks like I'll be here for a fucking age as well.

Fortunately, the causes of my pain were two good nights out, so it's (mostly) okay. On Friday, Dave and I went out for a few drinks. A few drinks became many drinks plus an explosively ill-advised smoked sausage supper, and resulted in an amusing inability to sign my own name with any degree of consistency. At one point, the barman (and not your common or garden variety friendly, helpful barman but instead a shaven-headed giant with a smile that said "I am going to throw you out unless you get your shit together and sign this properly, you drunken moron.") actually had me sign a Switch receipt twice. And all this when my photo - which does actually look like me - is laser-etched onto the back of my card next to my sober signature.

On Saturday I went for a meal with Michelle and her cronies (the Organizatsiya to our Mafia, perhaps?) for her sister's birthday, and it was good. Highlights included sitting opposite a guy called Zee who insisted I should be a newsreader and said: "You know what? I believe you," after I said anything. Top food, drink and chat.

It was Sam's birthday as well, so I headed over there after the meal and mingled with the usual suspects. By the time we caught a taxi home at 4 am, I was absolutely shattered. I'm steadily losing my BEAN-O! BEAN-O! stamina.

P.S: Well, turns out I was right. As of 9:20 pm, I've been here for 6 hours and counting. Oh dear.