44,697

My week of shame continues.

It must be my biorhythms. Maybe it's bird-flu. Whatever it is, I'm going to spend the next week holed up in a dark room. I won't speak to anyone or touch anything. That'll be safer than me being out on the street.

I had better explain.

Last night in Telfords is peripheral to the main story; but I will still mention it. The band, Four Day Hombre from Leeds, were good. They're Elbow-y; or Coldplay with bigger bollocks and fewer hooks. As Si Hunter said - and more of him later - there's too much going on in their sound for you to be able to focus in on the essence of what they're doing. Everyone in the band is either 'on' or 'off'; there's no nuance. But they sang nicely. Nicely! ha! ha! ha! They'll love that quote if they ever see it.

The new clientelle in Telfords are pissing me off still. They must be students, new to the area. Snotty, smug, little bastards. I mean that affectionately.

"I have a suggestion to how you can get more people on the dancefloor," said gel-head no. 1,

"Enlighten me," I said,

"How about," he said - and there was a dramatic pause as if he was just about to impart a newly-fashioned leap of thought that would take humanity up to the next level of consciousness, "The Killers, or - I know! - the Libertines..."

Oh, for fuck's sake.

He then asked for a pen so that he could write down more of his highly original "suggestions". If I had given him one, and by this stage I was quite keen to, no doubt I would have got a list like this:

The Stone Roses - Fools Gold
The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl
Gorillaz - Dare
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

Thanks for bringing me up to speed.

I think it's fucking rude to hassle a DJ for requests. You don't go to the theatre and get the actors to do your favourite line of Arthur Miller, or Joe Orton... and, yes, I am comparing my Friday night DJ sets to 'high art'. ha! ha! ha!

Anyway, the dancefloor was very full at the end of the night. That's the only way to gauge whether what you've done is good or not; although I'm sure I would have come up with some persuasive reasons and excuses if the dancefloor had been empty too ;0)

I was quite drunk by the end of the night. Then I stayed behind until 4am talking nonsense with Ian and Stew. The same, circular drunken nonsense we talk about every time we get pissed. We get very passionate about it at the time, but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is now in the cold, hard light of half past twelve the following morning.

So, I wake up with a sore head. Si is coming round at midday. We're going to the match. Blackburn. At home. Not that tempting.

I nearly leave home without the tickets. What a dick. Only a complete imbecile would do something like that. I remember just in time and put the relevant tickets out of the four I've got in my bag into my pocket and we march off - at speed, cos Hunter is late - to the station.

It's an uneventful train journey. I'm just about breaking the surface of my hangover when we get to Sandhills for the match bus. Si and I while away the time talking about the Beatles Anthology DVD's and Crouch's offensive treatment at the hands of the England fans during the week. Then we're at Anfield. 20 minutes to go before kick-off. Time to relax. We get to the turnstile. I pull the ticket stubs out of my pocket, and realise... jesus wept... that I've brought one ticket for this game and one for the West Ham game in a fortnight.

What a prat.

To make matters worse, Si has the fine idea of calling Tom Parry, Rick's son, who he used to work with, to ask him if he has a spare to at least get me into
the game... I've already decided not to get a tout's ticket because the idea of spending another £30 or £40 isn't appealing. Anyway, Simon's having trouble making himself heard because of bad reception and the sea of people breaking around us. So he has to shout. Loudly. It was like a particularly sadistic sketch out of Trigger Happy TV,

"TOM! TOM! IS THAT YOU! YEAH, IT'S ME, SIMON. WE'RE OUTSIDE. MY MATE HAS LEFT HIS TICKET AT HOME,"

the people within earshot of Simon's booming voice turn to look at me. I am mortified. At least as ashamed as I was last Sunday night with the AtD incident.

Suffice to say that Tom Parry has just given his last ticket to someone else.

I give Si the valid ticket and have to walk back down to Scotty Rd to get myself a taxi.

I have to fight against the stream of thousands of people rushing into the ground. They give me some funny looks. I look downwards. Towards Everton.

44,697 people managed to get into Anfield today without forgetting their ticket. That makes me almost unique. I should be proud of myself.


Right, it's late, but before I go... Jo, Ava and I went to Cineworld [how many times is that cinema going to change its name] to see Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit yesterday afternoon. It surpassed all of our expectations. The, "What's up dog?" line had me laughing my eyebrows off. Ava loved it almost as much as she loved the jelly sweety starburst things that she ate in double-quick time, and the popcorn and the chocolate minstrels. She is very good at following the stories, now. She got quite upset during one particular chase scene, and was screaming at the cinema screen and trying to bury her head in my shoulder at the same time. Funny and sweet.

I'm off to bed. I have a busy day and night of embarrassing myself a head. Back to the top of the page...