I had a great week in the UK. Three fun gigs with Lasse, Jonny and Ced in Mary Maple, two of them supporting The Smiths tribute band The Joneses in Camden and Ramsgate. Then I had a few days wandering around London and Brighton with Niclas Carron, seeing old friends and family. We spent quite a lot of time looking at guitars on Denmark Street and tried out a few, mostly Fenders. Though when you’ve seen a hundred or so that look more or less the same, that can become slightly boring. I tried a beautiful white Parker “The Fly” from 2003, which was different enough from all the others to attract my attention. If I had the space at home and loads of money, I might have bought it. But Frankly, Mr Shankley, I have enough guitars.
Musical instrument shop GAK (Guitar, Amp and Keyboard Centre) in Brighton has an incredible stock of guitars. There must have been 1000 new instruments hanging on the walls there. I didn’t count them but that doesn’t feel like an exaggeration. I can’t see how there’s a market for that many expensive guitars in Brighton, but I suppose they’re a distributor for shops in other parts of the country. We didn’t feel comfortable enough to try out any guitars and didn’t bother visiting the keyboards section. For me looking at keyboards is about as interesting as window shopping for screwdrivers.
The pubs in London very often do themselves a disservice when they don’t keep their toilets clean. We visited several pubs – no surprises there – usually because we were both thirsty and needed to take a pee. Some were OK, but far too many toilets in “nice” pubs stank of piss and looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned for a month. Or they were broken. And these are places which are visited by hordes of tourists, which doesn’t leave a great impression. It really is time to do something about that. I know that many men, especially after a few pints, don’t aim well and piss on the floor. But that just makes it even more important to clean it up and that is obviously not a priority for all pubs.
Mostly, cash is not king in London, but it can be when you least expect it. Like our last breakfast in a local Paddington café. This we discovered after we’d eaten and Niclas tried to pay. He had to go to an ATM to get some cash and it was very expensive, with bank charges and a bad exchange rate. Then there’s the question of why the café doesn’t take a card. Well, maybe some percentage of the takings isn’t registered. Or am I just being cynical?
Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps please is a song by UK punk band Splodgenessabounds. It was fun for a while when it came out, but is not really my cup of tea. Suitable title for this blog though.