It's 6.52pm and I am currently sat at my bureau, darling, in the rather plush and old-fashioned Grosevnor Hotel in Plymouth, mere hours away from the beginning of my Somewhat Insane Pursuit Of Idlewild 2010. This is the first of seven shows that I'll be attending in the next two months, which culminate on April 26th with a gig in my home taaawn (Newcastle, in case you weren't aware), so that'll be less of a nightmare to get to. Still, given the band's proclivity for mixing up their setlists on a daily basis, their general awesomeness and my love of visiting new cities, this all adds up to make one delightfully exciting, albeit rather tiring, experience. Of course, this is only a small part of what should probably be referred to as the 2010 leg of my Somewhat Insane, and Never-Ending, Tour of the UK, but that's another story altogether.
Anyhow, I thought I'd catalogue the Idlewild experiences for you all, just in case you were at all curious, or rather, so that I can patter on about the fairly asinine things that have a tendency to excite me when I'm on my travels. The Plymouth train journey (direct from Newcastle, thankfully) has to be the longest I've ever undertaken, clocking in at a whopping seven hours of ass-crease. For the train geeks among you (I know of at least one, don't deny it!) that encompassed (deep breath): Chester-le-Street, Durham, Darlington, York, Leeds, Wakefield Westgate, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Derby, Burton-on-Trent, Birmingham New Street, Cheltenham Spa, Bristol Parkway, Bristol Temple Meads, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Newton Abbot, Totnes and Plymouth. Phew. The journey did involve whizzing through Teignmouth, which obviously got this Muse fan a little excited, and despite the fact that there appears to be no mobile internet coverage between Taunton and Newton Abbot, the latter part of the trip was pretty damn beautiful, particularly around Exeter, where the line starts snaking under cliffs and is pretty much on the actual coastline. Very nice, very nice.
To be brutally frank, the journey itself was probably one of the most unforgettable I've ever had, largely thanks to the presence of Diamond (real name Charlotte), the 25 year old lesbian ex-con who sat next to me from Sheffield to Cheltenham and proceeded to talk at me for about ninety minutes on a variety of interesting topics, including bestiality, which she blames 'on the Americans'. She managed to make the Daily Mail readers in the carriage choke on their ham sandwiches by first professing that all women are bi-curious, then animatedly discussing the finer points of lesbian oral and finally, rounding off the whole show with a lovely piece about a guy she knows who apparently 'fucked a turkey before setting it out as Christmas dinner.' Uh-huh. There's also the childhood fantasy about being in the Russian mafia and the tale of the time when she and her 'brethrens' formed an anti-Welsh 'cult' in jail. As you do. Frankly, the girl was batshit crazy, but it certainly made the Midlands part of the journey somewhat entertaining. Hell, you can't help but love people who come out with such corkers as "I'm dodgy but I'm a nice dodge. I don't sell much weed these days. I just want a nice woman. It's harder to find one outside than in jail" and "A lot of riots are gonna happen everyday because we're getting closer to the world of robots." Yeeeeeeeeeeeees.
There were plenty other exciting characters on board too. The child who asked everyone with a laptop if he could 'study the high speed trains' was a little... unusual; the girl who boarded at Bristol wearing a cassette tape as a necklace seemed to think she was in an episode of Skins; Michael, the doddering Train Crew Manager, kept looking down the carriage between Newcastle and Leeds and clearly deciding not to bother checking anyone's tickets, presumably because he couldn't be arsed; the driver kept making the required announcements in the style of Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget; and let's not forget the lovely deaf interpreter for ITV who was on his way to film segments for The Jeremy Kyle Show. Really nice man, very engaging. Shame he couldn't have stayed on longer to experience the joys of Diamond, really.
Still, things have continued to prove eventful, shall we say, upon arrival in this fair city. It's a truth universally acknowledged that where there is a Walkabout, there are wankers and sadly, despite Plymouth being a pretty damn beautiful place, bereft of any trouble at all as far as I can tell, as soon as I walked past it, I got a "eeee look, it's Harry Potter!" You do have to question the mentality of these people when they consider that because a young looking (if I do say so myself) guy has long(ish) hair and glasses, he's the spitting double of a magic-loving character from a children's book. Sigh. Anyhow, that's just about the only negative thing I've encountered here so far (with the possible exception of finding out that I have to get a bus to Tiverton Parkway - which is, actually, just a car park and station in the middle of a field - tomorrow morning due to engineering works); on the whole, Plymouth's a very pretty place. Had myself a walk down the Hoe, admiring the view and that. Gotta say, I'm a sucker for anywhere with a coastline and down here, it's rather amazing. For all it may be a cliche to say it, it's just relaxing... and it has the added bonus of feeling completely safe, unlike some of the places up North. This does seem like a very quiet city, for all it has quite a substantial population; perhaps a potential home when I'm old and worn out (and that's your cue to tell me to stay down here now...)
I shall be heading to The Hippo very shortly, which is the venue for tonight's performance. It's basically the tool shed behind Plymouth Pavillions, which is a mini-arena smack bang in the middle of the city that also happens to double as both an ice rink and a swimming pool. A combination of the three leisure activities would make for a very interesting evening, no doubt. Sadly, the Hippo is not shaped like an actual hippopotamus but given its size, it should make for a pretty damn intimate, and therefore, ace evening. More of that upon my return. Before I skedaddle, however, one final, honourable mention must go to John Sparrow's Newsagents (Jack's dad, you reckon?), a highly classy establishment near the Pavillions, that has the world's largest collection of pornographic magazines for sale and uses an apostrophe for quite literally every plural. Legendary.
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