I’ve done nothing particularly interesting today. Uni classes were cancelled cos our lecturer was ill so in place of that I’ve been geeky and updated Angry (Feet) into a php website and it all seems to be working.

This, of course, was all done so I could show off pictures from the weekend’s trip to Scotland. This itself is something I’m still to get round to writing about so since this entry is so short and insignificant let’s do it now. I’m not gonna promise it’ll be anything majorly epic though.

So I woke up at 5:30am on the Friday morning - brilliant idea - and made my way to Leeds train station to catch the train to Edinburgh. The journey there wasn’t so bad as I had Hannah to natter to the whole way there. When we got there we had to change for Glasgow so we could get to our hotel.

The taxi from Glasgow Queen Street to our hotel was quite amusing as we had an overly-friendly taxi driver who didn’t seem to like the silence. Upon learning why we were in Glasgow he went on to show us the way to Tron Theatre, where we would be going tomorrow night. He also regaled us with cabbie tales, like the one about the German who got into his taxi, said, “Take me to cheap hotel now,” and ended up staying in the most expensive hotel in the city. He also seemed over-enthusiastic about the Harry Ramsden’s fish restaurant near out hotel.

Turns out our hotel was tucked away in the corner of a leisure park, complete with bowling alley, cinema and casino as well as a few eateries too. The room was nothing special to be honest, but you get what you pay for I guess. The toilet was essentially a cupboard and the shower was a room with a frosted glass door, not to mention the light in the shower that would let everyone else in the room see what you were up to if you were in there. Luckily neither me nor Hannah needed to shower.

At the hotel we met Emma, not to be confused with the other two Emmas I already know and the other one I kind of know. She’d flown all the way to England on the premise of seeing her family in England but coincidentally timing it just right to see Tim too. She was lovely. Well, she probably still is actually, I’ll have to check.

Anyway, we went to get a taxi back to Queen’s Street and the first taxi driver (you know, the over-friendly one) had told us that our best bet was to go stand on the main road and flag one down, so we did. After this failed we walked to a nearby minicab office, which was situated in a place that can only be described as Mafia-esque. It was under a bridge and loads of expensive cars kept driving in with dark tinted glasses and everything.

So we had another hour’s journey on the train to Edinburgh and I think at this point we were starting to get slightly hyper. For example, I noticed that Hannah and I both eat sandwiches “the Jon Richardson way”, which is to say we eat the crusts first. I mean you can’t exactly be in your normal state of mind to notice that. Upon arrival we headed to the shops where I bought a couple of lovely scarves and a couple of bits for Tim including, in time honoured tradition, a couple of chocolate plaques from Thornton’s with messages written on them. I feel I should probably recall what they were but I doubt most people will get them as they generally relate to in-jokes.

Shopping over with, we headed to the venue to pick up our tickets. Now, I was the only one who knew where this venue was and the things was, I forgot how far from Princes Street, down Nicholson/Clerk Street it was so by the time we got there, most of us had aching feet. I have to say though, I was majorly impressed with Tim because when we picked the tickets up, which were under my name, he’d actually spelt it the right way. Yay! The downside was though that we were a couple of rows from the back of the balcony and the venue was a kinda horseshoe shape, so obviously we were quite a way from Tim, which isn’t too good for taking photos.

We then decided that were were hungry and headed to the nearest greasy spoon, where we each got a pepperoni pizza, which, to be frank, weren’t all that but they did the job nevertheless. It was during this that we noticed that Hannah and I also eat pizzas the same way; crust first.

By this time it was about 6pm so we went and found the nearest bar so we could sit and have a drink while we waited for doors to open. It turns out that the nearest bar we could find was, what can only be described as an old men’s pub. Not that this particularly mattered but we did find it particularly amusing to see betting slips in the rack where they flyers for things. There was also the advantage that we didn’t have to shout at each other over the top of stupidly loud music. Strangely enough, an old woman came up to me while I was at the bar and complimented my boots. Well, maybe it’s not that strange, they are nice boots after all, but she must have been at least 60.

7pm rolled around and we headed over the road to The Queen’s Hall, or The Queens Hall as it’s spelt in its logo, which irks me. I guess, while our seats were bad for taking photos from (as testament of this, I only managed two good photos from there) it was nice to see Tim from a different angle. It made things interesting for me, which I guess has to be done after having seen him nine times previously to then.

Overall, this gig had its moments but the audience irritated the hell out of me. It seemed like most of them had tiny bladders, especially up in the balcony as so many were coming and going places. It just seems rude to me. I mean if someone was talking to you, especially after you’ve paid for them to do it, you wouldn’t normally disappear for a few minutes to take a piss or get something from the bar would you? I guess it’s their money that they’re not getting the most out of though. Still, one lady who did this provided a laugh after she ran out during Take My Wife and Tim deemed her to be either a homoeopath or a Muslim with slow reaction times.

Another thing about this gig that I was concious of was Tim’s manflu illness. Tim clearly thought it was obvious to everyone and played the piano with a bit more flair and passion than usual, you know, with more twiddly bits and that, to make up for it, though it did mean he ended up bleeding from playing so hard. Silly boy. To be honest, I only thought his bad throat only showed itself during Not Perfect, which I guess is kind of fitting.

Other things worth noting: Hello has been dropped, which I also picked up on the DVD release actually; there’s a new talky intro to Rock n Roll Nerd about Americans and stuff, which I found rather amusing - I like new jokes - and Hannah and I were referenced in the lead up to Angry (Feet) because that night Tim decided his illness was caused by not letting his anger out and went on to say something along the lines of, “I always seem to get sick when I come to do shows, as those who’ve seen me before will know, especially those who’ve seen me many times”. I wish I could remember the exact line.

After the show we waited round to meet Tim as per the norm and a rather large queue of people formed wanting to get stuff signed by him. Now, under normal circumstances we’d have waited around til all these people had gone but we needed to catch the train back to Glasgow and the last one was at half eleven and it was about quarter to by he came out so we kinda forced our way to the front of the queue, said we had to leave, brandished him with a few gifts, including Timmy Tractor and then left for the station and then for Glasgow, back to the hotel.

Day two to come tomorrow as I’ve had enough of writing tonight and probably written well over 1500 words. Maybe I lied when I said it wouldn’t be epic.