I last blogged about seeing them quite some time ago, although we have seen them since. As ever, I don't keep up with things, so wasn't aware that this gig at the Royal Albert Hall on 15 November was the last UK date of a tour called "Reflections". It was advertised as them playing their first three albums - a brave move - and then a bit of the more recent stuff at the end. It was pretty much so but seemed so much more. I don't think the chap who did this write-up at the Graun is a fan, but hey he's wrong! However, this review is pretty much bang on. The evening was brilliant. There's no point in me trying to describe it when others do it so much better. Miniwomble was treated to a live phone call of two songs (it's usually one per gig) - A Forest and Love Cats.
Set list (forgive the lower case - obviously I've pasted it in):
Part 1: 10:15 saturday night, accuracy, grinding halt, another day, object, subway song, foxy lady, meathook, so what, fire in cairo, it's not you, three imaginary boys, the weedy burton
Part 2: a reflection, play for today, secrets, in your house, three, the final sound, a forest, m, at night, seventeen seconds
Part 3: the holy hour, primary, other voices, all cats are grey, the funeral party, doubt, the drowning man, faith
E1: world war, i'm cold, plastic passion, boys don't cry, killing an arab, jumping someone else's train, another journey by train
E2: descent, splintered in her head, charlotte sometimes, the hanging garden
E3: let's go to bed, the walk, the lovecats
I had one pint of beer too, at £4.50 I wasn't going to have more than that, so it was my first non-AFD of the week.
My little team had its not-Christmas-lunch recently. My senior volunteer looked very pained when he realised that he'd not been offered either of the two paid temp roles. I wondered if I'd been too mean to him. I reflected on this with my right hand person and she felt exactly the same. Then we get to this week and he's in the office and does his classic "I've done what you asked and now I'm doing something else without checking" thing and I'm heard to utter the immortal words "Over my dead body". There's such a difference between showing initiative and going off and doing something that no-one has suggested needs to be done and, in this case, I've actually said we're not doing that. Grrrrr. I do still feel sorry for him though. He's older than me and started volunteering for us when his 3-4 year long contract with TFL came to an end. In the current climate he's getting nowhere slowly in terms of finding a new job. Not that anyone is allowed to discriminate on the grounds of age. Are they.
Thursday found us having dinner in the local again. It was very quiet in there this week. No hashers and no huge group of Germans wanting to order food two minutes before the kitchen closes. Zer arrr a lot of zee Germans in Ham. Probably something to do with the German School. Makes a change to Koreans.
Friday was almost a repeat of the previous week with another leaving do at work. This time one of my close chums who started volunteering in the office at pretty much the same time as I did in 2007. We've shared a lot over the last almost 5 years and it's a shame to see him go. But onwards and upwards for him. The pub bit of the 'goodbye' was erm interesting. I got there and thought "Ooh this is atmospheric". There were candles on all the tables and no lights. One of the wonderful utility companies (called BG) had been along to replace the pub's electricity meter, disconnected the old one and then discovered they couldn't connect the new without digging up the road which would be in 10 days time!!! So they left the pub with a generator to keep the cellar under control, the tills running and the pumps working. As the manager lives upstairs he wasn't that impressed. Not only was his business potentially affected but he has no electricity where he lives. I had my bike lights with me though :-) which were handy later as I wended my way home.
On Saturday, AFCW didn't lose, which was good in a hard-fought game against Swindon. Today, I went over to see the lovely Eric, Little Bruv's girlfriend's cat. Eric is a most gorgeous ginger tom, slender and sleek and really quite quiet compared to our talkative elephant feline. It was foggy/misty all day but I added some extra miles to my cycle and did 14 for the round trip.
4 AFDs EDIT: make that 3. I wrote this before dinner and was forced to drink red wine :-(
Oh, almost forgot these. A school in Carlisle sent us about 50 handmade robins and some Christmas cards:
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