Gigtastic:

out of the blue, the 'Fynn find themselves practically touring. We're back in the Liquid Ship on the 5^th of April, then the Universal on the 15^th. And then, with a cosmic inevitability, a prophecy is fulfilled: Coba Fynn play Fury Murry's on the 20^th of July. In diligent preparation for these feats of musicianship, I've spent hours updating the website. Funny, it doesn't look look any different, nor am I any better at the bass as a result.

We also had a practice session at the weekend over in Berkeley 2, with the express intention of recording Doug's drumming for a few tracks. The 6 5 hour session (stupid British Summer Time) was a bit of a marathon, but we're looking good for putting together a few demo tracks during Doug's inter-gig sabbatical in Japan, which we'll then use to get some gigs.

Hang on a second...

And really, that's about all I've done this week! We, on the other hand, have spent an inordinate amount of time couch surfing, pottering round Tesco and other mundane but fuzzily pleasant chores. We met up with a load of the usual suspects on Thursday for some tasty pints n' excellent chat in the Rose & Crown, and I think on reflection I shall declare it a good week.

Plastic fantastic:

Ash and I went out for a night of pints and food, winding up at the Buffalo Grill round the corner on Raeburn Place and feeling marginally drunk after a rather paltry amount of booze in Hector's. They gave us a table at the window (so that every potential customer looking at the menu hung in it felt compelled to inspect us for signs of enjoyment or annoyance) and we ordered a couple of beers. The menu is pretty good, and the words "Roquefort Rib Eye" predictably imprinted themselves instantaneously on my consciousness.

With a remark of Jeff's in the back of my mind ("You and Dev should write restaurant reviews," he'd said offhandedly as we were walking up to the cinema the other night, and the idea stuck), I must admit that I was already grasping for Brysonesque anecdotes to throw nonchalantly into an entry about the weekend. Maybe I'd poke fun at the tiny starter or the fact that the radiator next to the table and the wonderful meaty kitchen aroma were sending me into a blissful old-before-my-time daze, or perhaps—hang on, is that a bone Ash just pulled out of her mouth?

Ah no. It was a piece of clear white plastic.

That pretty much holed the dining experience below the waterline (along with, alas, my positively droll 5-star review) although the head waiter/maître d' did an excellent job in dealing with it, somehow communicating directly into my mind not to worry about paying for that particular dish without letting on to the diners around us that anything at all was amiss. I guiltily shovelled the rest of my (tasty, entirely organic) steak into my mouth and despite a residual sense of vague surprise at the poulet au plastique, we polished off a slice of apple pie and the rest of our beers.

Bizarrely, I'd rather recommend the place: keep the containers out of the food and it'd be on the money for a night of indulging oneself in pleasures of the (bovine) flesh.

In other news, Coba Fynn are gearing up for a two-pronged attack on the Scottish music scene: a gig is booked at the Liquid Ship on the 5^th of April, and a recording is in the offing, driven by Doug and Davis' obsessive, shared love of intricate wiring diagrams and four-track recording. Of course I imply nothing by the term "shared love", and I posit that without their obsession we would still be flailing around wondering why every recording sounds like arse. Keep it Coba (is what all the cool kids are saying)!

Air rage:

Ash and I are in the process of booking ourselves a summer holiday in Pula (in the Istria region of Croatia) for a bit of scuba diving, followed by a ferry across the Adriatic to Venice for a few nights of renaissance culture. We had the distinct misfortune to find that the cheapest flight from London to Pula was provided by Ryanair. "Fly for £19.99!" gibbered the website.

Lying bastards.

A few clicks later the total had risen to £55 each - sort of a carrot and very big stick approach. For the love of God, if "taxes, fees and charges" are compulsory, just put them in the quoted price! The justification behind each additional amount makes no difference to the way it waltzes out of my wallet. Your common or garden airline provides an end-to-end service: take me, and my stuff (for an extra £5 if you're the money-grubbing spawn of Gordon Gecko. Oh, hello again, Ryanair) from here to there. I don't care if airports charge you to land there. I don't care what taxes the government makes you pay. And I care most especially little about how much jet fuel costs. Supply and demand, people - you sell more tickets, the price of fuel goes up. Welcome to capitalism!

Aaggaaarrgh. Where was I? Ah - summer holiday.

The name 'Istria' felt vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place why. I racked my brains and eventually remembered: "Hot damn!", I thought, "there's a Rally of Istria in Gran Turismo 4." Said road rally happens in a fortified town built on top of a hill, with narrow roads, vertiginous drops and louche Italians spectating from doorways opening directly onto the track. (Italians? A seed of doubt took hold in my mind.) Maybe we could take in a rally there, or perhaps hire a car to speed irresponsibly round the hills. Hell, perhaps they'd hand me the keys to a '67 Alfa GTA with a pat on the back and send me haring off down the cobbled start/finish straight.

"Oh," I realised. "Rally d'Umbria, not Istria."

Still: Venice, eh?

I've been afflicted with a pleasant form of inertia since we got settled ("embedded" might be more apt) in to the new place, but we finally seem to be making an effort to socialize again. A friend of Ash's was up from Oxford last weekend, the visit occasioning a trip to the Bailey for a few pints, and the other night Jeff and I took in Hot Fuzz. I didn't know quite what to expect - that's bollocks, actually; I expected to laugh until I shat - but something didn't quite click. Spaced's quirky little flights of fancy were bang on the money and to take them to their logical conclusions, as in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, makes them seem a bit sterile in comparison. It's easy to laugh along with Tim's Resident Evil paranoia but not quite so funny when there actually are zombies involved.

Fortunately on an absolute scale Hot Fuzz is still almost infinitely funnier than My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which in turn is about as funny as colonic irrigation.

A funny thing happened

as 24 came on last Sunday night. The title came up - the flashy/bleepy "24" legend - and a plummy English voice narrated soberly over the top, "Yellow LEDs flash, resolving into the number 24".

What is this? I thought as I cracked open a beer, is Sky attempting some kind of forcible injection of poetry into the mundanity of Sunday night cable telly? Or have the voices come for me at last? The narration cut in whenever the dialogue stopped, and we realised that for some reason we were listening to the audio subtitles. We fiddled with the cable box, switching both it and the subtitles on and off a couple of times and yet still this chap continued to describe the action to us with great gravity and seriousness.

"Thomas Lennox skulks circumspectly through the corridors of the White House, eyes darting furtively as if a plotter in a Jacobean tragedy," he intoned gravely. I'd love to be able to say I'm paraphrasing. At the words "Jacobean tragedy", beer jetted from my nostrils.

Jacobean tragedy. 24. Jacobean tragedy.

I was simultaneously amused and bemused by the voice-over, which seemed to pounce on minutae at the least provocation. ("Jack waits tensely for the kettle to boil. Steam is emitted silently from its spout, clouding the glossy metal surface with an ever-changing patina of condensing moisture. With an air of pregnant finality, the kettle clicks off.") After about half an hour of this ("Jack makes a phone call, eyes flitting idly over his CTU colleagues as he silently evaluates their chances of having a freakish, terminal 'accident' before the day is out"), the box just gave up and freeze-framed during an advert. I gave up too.

Now, of course, I find out that Virgin Media is having a hissy fit that Sky is totally charging too much for its channels, and so I won't ever get to find out just who does meet a surprising, ratings-boosting death. Sigh.

* * *
It was Ruth's birthday on Thursday, and Ash and I met up with Ruth and Andy for some food at the Tapas Tree. They seated us at a bijou table in the back and left us alone to look over the menus. Having not spoken to Ruth for ages, of course, we blethered at length and entirely failed to pick anything. The waitress came back.

"Hi - I'm really sorry, but we haven't chosen yet. Can we have a few more minutes?" I asked.
She placed a hand on dropped hip and said: "What?"
"Can we have a few more minutes?"

She flounced off.

We hurriedly chose some food, and this time a waiter came through to furnish us with a (rather nice) bottle of house white and to take our order. The tapas began to arrive in batches, as is its wont, and we tucked in. A bowl of potatoes drowning in some sort of off-white substance arrived. "Does anyone remember ordering potatoes and sludge?" I asked jocularly.

"Uh, excuse me?" I said as the waitress stalked by, carrying another returned order from a different table. Oh God, I thought. We're going to get it in the neck. "Um, I don't think we ordered these. I think we asked for patatas bravas," I said, trying desperately to append a question mark to the end of the statement to make it less direct.

Hellfire burned in her eyes, which rolled towards the ceiling, and she uttered a magnificently fiery Latin tut, laden with exasperation. "So if you could...uh..." I flailed. "Si," she sighed, and ripped the dish off the table.

"Wow," said Ash, once the waitress had stormed off, "what a cow."

We finished our food (which I really can't complain about - top stuff all in all) and Andy turned into the full blast of the waitress's gaze one last time.

"Could we have the bill, please?" he asked.
"The bill?" she snorted, as if this was absolutely the last thing he might have wanted. "You don't want the desserts or the coffee?" she asked incredulously.
"No, just the bill," he continued hopelessly, writing on an imaginary cheque.

We got the bill. We got out. I'd highly recommend the Tapas Tree - the food's great, and the service is nothing if not bracing.