I'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE, MAN!

It was a mighty rush of a weekend. When the show finished it was back to bed for a couple of hours then off to the station to meet the Dark Lady as we headed off to Birmingham to meet with my sister, brother-in-law, June (my Dad's hot squeeze) and my Father for his 86th birthday.

We arranged to meet in a pub in Brindley Place. When I was a student this area was very run down and me and my mate Clive would buy a few cans, sit on the canal towpath and watch the boats go by. It's now unrecognizable as its been totally rebuilt.

I used to go to the new library to look up stuff for my course. The new library is now the old library and a newer new library is under construction. It does make you feel a little old.

After lunch it was back on the train to London for Friday dinner with some fab friends. Scotch. Wine. Kosher Port (Nope, no idea of the difference). Wonderful food and conversation. Then to bed and after two large meals in one day. Spectacular indigestion.

Saturday up early. Kiss and fly. Sadly had to leave the Dark Lady as I moved the last bits from old flat to new.

As I toiled I noticed the old flat getting larger and the new one getting smaller. By the time I left for the final time I closed the door on Wembley stadium and opened the door to a phone box.

Then it was off to Hastings to meet my old polytechnic mate Clive before a charity lunch on Sunday.

He'd had an accident and bust his specs. He had to stay in as a result as he didn't trust his vision to cross busy roads.

So I grabbed the paper and headed to the pub alone. As I sat down I realised I'd forgotten mine too!

The following lunchtime I was a guest at a memorial lunch for a guy called Roy Tucker. He was a top man who did a massive amount for charity. For all the right reasons. The downside of this event was sadly that the audience had to endure my spiel as I drew the raffle. I was also required to run the baffling heads and tails game. This is the second time I've attempted this and frankly I'm still none the wiser.

Then back to the car and to London and the new flat.

It felt untidy and small. Wonder if it'll ever feel like home?

HIGHWAY TO HELL

It's been a tiring old day. Moving bits from old to new. Flat that is.


I had to go to the rental people to collect the key to the new place. First though I had to sign the lease.

There were pages of it. Apparently I'm not allowed to hold political meetings in the flat. Nor am I allowed to keep a bawdy house. Shame as they were the first things I intended to do once I was settled in.

I once got planning permission to build a garage on the back of a house years ago and the lease for that informed me I wasn't allowed to house people with mental illness in the garage!

So key to the new place in my pocket I went to check it out. It's always been my experience that the mind plays tricks when looking at property. The rule of thumb has to be: However big it looks when you view, it's shrunk by half by the time you move in.

I wasn't wrong. Still it's like being back on the Blue Pig, the canal boat I lived on for ten years when the show came from Birmingham. Wherever you are and wherever you want to get to, the bed is in the way!

Then it was a day of dragging heavy bags out to the street and hailing a cab to take me to the new place and walking back. I did this three times so have probably walked about 4 miles on top of the lugging. More to do on Saturday but will have the car so that may make it easier.

Hopefully it won't be too claustrophobic. One thing I need to sort is the heating. There are two radiators. Only one can be turned off. It’s hot in there.

ME AND MY PIANO

Taking time out from flat tidying. I am now knee deep in bags. Tuesday evening Dark Lady and I headed out on a date.

I'm rather amazed how much stuff I've accrued over the last four and a half years. When I think of the tons of stuff I've lugged up and down stairs I get perhaps a slight idea of what an ant must feel like. Drudgery day after day lugging dead stuff around.

For some reason I often think of what life must be like for undertaker beetles. They get their name apparently as they bury corpses in which to lay their eggs or whatever it is they do. They also help to keep the wilderness clean.

However, if you are a terminally lazy beetle and you round a corner to find an elephant or wildebeeste has just carked it, what goes through the mind?

"Oh s$#@**"!

…is probably an educated guess. Followed by

"Why couldn't it have been a mouse?”

So leaving packing and cleaning aside, I met the DL at her office and we headed to the Royal Albert Hall to see Diana Krall.

I've played a track from her new album, Glad Rag Doll, on the show in which she covers songs from the early part of the last century.

For those expecting her to be the breathy jazz chanteuse that has won her Grammy awards and million-selling artist…they were in for a surprise.

She and her band were dark. Tom Waits dark. In fact she covered a couple of his songs (as well as tunes by husband, Elvis Costello, and even Bing Crosby) to a backdrop of period film clips and also - incongruously - The Clangers and Stingray!

The only part of the show that didn't work for me was when the band left the stage and she switched from grand to upright piano and attempted some Fats Waller and boogie woogie.

She played for over two hours without a break and the hushed and reverential audience including us lapped it up.

It was also nice to go to a show where nobody on stage felt it necessary to yell

"LET ME HEAR YA SAY YEAH"!

TWO HOURS OF PUSHIN' BROOM

So the clean-up is now starting in earnest. The countdown to the flat move has started in earnest.

I've bought sturdy bags of the type people use to transport duvets or their worldly goods if they are unfortunate enough to be homeless.

The plan is as follows. I get the keys to the new considerably smaller flat on Thursday. By then I want everything to be packed up and the current place to be clean and ready to be handed back with no quibble from the letting agent who can then inspect it and give me my deposit back.

So I've been packing stuff into bags, packing stuff away and packing things into the bins outside.

This was going pretty well until I was hit by a wave of ennui dahlings. So strong was it I had to go for a walk.

It looked like it was coming on to rain. Frankly I didn't care. I needed to get away from the cleaning.

Whilst walking along the canal towpath, the head cleared and I realised I needed a bucket.

So I strode in the direction of the supermarket and bought an "Acme Supersplosher Pro". Or something similar. In a world where everything is getting more and more expensive it is gratifying to note that buckets are still comparatively cheap.

It's also useful for taking your shopping home in. So I trudged back to the flat with a bucket filled with vegetables, individual Shepherds Pies, toilet tissue and a birthday card.

The bucket was £3. Less than the price of a pint. So next time you are out pouring beer or exotic cocktails down your neck on a Saturday night. Think how many pails that purchases!

IT'S A MAN' WORLD

Up in the Midlands to see my Dad and run an important errand.

Chez Lester. We are homemaking. This involves standing around as the Dark Lady reels off a bewildering array of colours that look red to me. Some of the others may be brown, I think?

I've mentioned this often before but there is no way men can be accused of being the rulers of the world if we don't know what colour it is!

Having followed some of the U.S. election and its debates recently, maybe a crucial question should have been posed by the moderator:

"What, or where, is taupe"?

President Obama would probably have given a long and carefully argued case for more investment in it. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, would suggest that it was a threat to National security and should be bombed immediately, neither of them having a clue as to what it was they were describing.

Perhaps they should let Michelle and Ann - their respective wives - deal with policy. The world would probably be a better place with less macho posturing.

It would certainly look and smell better.

So after a quick Cup of coffee I went to a haberdashers to look for curtain material. I had been furnished with a swatch of sofa material to compare with the stuff in the shop.

(Guys, a swatch – apparently - is a scrap of cloth you wave around near other material until, as if by magic, it tells you what to buy. It's a bit like water divining).

The 21st century plan was for me to take pictures of the stock with my newish phone and email them to the Dark Lady hard at work in her office. She could then instruct me as to what matched. I had all the measurements. So once a decision was reached all would be fine.

I emailed the first no problem. The second picture froze in the phone and despite a good signal took 25 minutes to send.

At this point I gave up. However, I do have 20 photos of possible curtain material. Most of which look the same to me

Furious at being thwarted I stomped off to the nearest branch of Acme Fones.

One new SIM later. A deluge!

TV IS THE THING THIS YEAR


Sunday and I headed to the Dark Lady's abode for a family lunch and to avail myself of her superb cooking.

We love our quiet Sundays together. There is the prospect of a walk that all often ends up as just that. A prospect.

She works very long hours as well as being a Mother, having an elderly Mother of her own to look after and now me. No wonder the poor girl is worn out by the weekend.

So I often join her on the settee after lunch and we'll watch a film or two.

We like pretty similar things although she's not wild about slapstick as I have mentioned before in the blog.

This time we watched The A Team which was confusing but fun. Then on a Liam Neeson roll went for Taken.

The harrowing and bloodthirsty tale of an ex-special forces guy who's 17 year old daughter is kidnapped by sex traffickers.

We were gripped. However we both independently were irked by the actress playing his daughter, clumsily reinforcing her youth and lack of sophistication by running everywhere.

It was an annoying skitter fest.

As the proud Stepfather of a cool and assured 16 year old, I've not noticed an abundance of skittering. Enthusiasm, yes. Skittering, no.

When that was over, sadly it was time to head for bed as the Dark Lady stayed up to watch my first appearance on Janice Long's Review Show on Vintage TV.

It was lots of fun recording it with Janice, Paul Hardcastle and Gary Christian.

There's another edition this Sunday at 8.30pm. Don't miss it.

Some of you saw the first one and enjoyed it including a very nice lady Dietician who very politely pointed out that I was too fat!

In my defence, the cameras pile on the pounds and I was slumped on a tiny stool. However, point taken, I shall redouble my dietary efforts. Although the last time I saw the Doctor everything appeared to be functioning normally. Long may this continue and, all joking aside, I genuinely appreciate your concern.

I'M SO TIRED

After another week of cramming in massive amounts of not doing a lot, couple of visits to the gym, flat-tidying and not going flying because it was too windy…

I went home on Friday and slumped on the settee and flicked on the TV.

As I drove round the M25 my heart was warmed by the sight of a couple of lorries bearing this year’s Truckwriting Season slogan: SLOGAN standing for "Sexy Lester, our god at night". (You can hear the irony oozing out of that phrase. However, you invented it and I have no shame so we are all winners here.)

When I got home and had finished opening the post I was exhausted, so I flicked on the TV and watched stuff.

I'd recorded some music documentaries from BBC 4 including a very touching one about Squeeze which I love. Also one on Dave Davies of Kinks fame. He lives on the Moors these days and is into UFOs.

Think there may have been some lifestyle-induced collateral damage judging by some of his pronouncements.

There was sort of a parallel between his relationship with his brother Ray Davies and that of Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook of Squeeze.

They love and respect one another but find it very hard to be round each other for any length of time without wanting to murder each other.

After all that hard effort it was pub time. I'd set the oven to cook the pie. So when I lurched back in I was rather put out not to smell the delicious aroma of chicken and mushroom.

So I fired up the stove and went and got a Chinese takeaway instead.

It was a hearty breakfast of pie and beans the following morning I can tell you!

Saturday I just vegged.

I spent the whole day watching the telly.

There are a lot of episodes of Air Crash Investigation and Planes That Never Flew. I also managed to catch a bit of some people dissecting a Leatherback turtle.

It looked like a giant pie case!