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Dec. 17th, 2009 05:01 pmDozed through the first couple of hours of the bus journey. We arrived in Birmingham just before 11 am so went for a mosey round the city centre to kill the time before hotel check-in opened. There was a farmer's market on with half a dozen stalls all selling their home-produced food ready to eat. I went for an early lunch in the shape of an ostrich burger (recommended for a low fat diet; quite tasty), a home-cured bacon roll and some felafel balls.
Premier Inns offer good facilities at a very reasonable rate, but their locations are designed for car drivers. It took a walk to the Birmingham Tourist Centre, and one from there to the Pavilions Shopping Centre in whose basement the West Midlands Travel office is housed, to find someone who could advise me which bus to take to the Birmingham Central East Premier Inn, or at least to a bus stop within a short walk of it.
Emerging into the Pavilions, I called at the central coffee bar for a drink and a sit down and to get my bearings regarding bus stops. There was a branch of HMV next to the coffee bar, so before going to find my bus I popped in there in the hope of buying a physical CD of the Rage Against The Machine track. They didn't have one, but they had plenty of Joe McDingleberry's single :(
Sony missed a trick there. As they release both tracks they could have supplied record shops with big quantities of both and had them put them in display packs marked "Christmas Number 1 - You Decide!"
When I arrived outside the O2 Academy about 6.40 the queue ran all the way down the side wall. The guy in front of me, seeing my Havant & Waterlooville rain jacket, said "You knocked my team out of the FA Cup two years ago." As his woolly hat had the name of a Welsh town on it, I rightly guessed he was a Swansea City fan. We talked about football, and I told him about past Pogues shows in London (it was the first time he was seeing them live) as we stood waiting.
In the main body of the venue there were plenty of bars, though the only food on offer was Pringles. I quaffed several Tuborgs, served by a very friendly young barmaid, during the hour and a quarter wait before the support came on. The wait was eased further by the top-notch tunes playing over the PA - Blondie, Pulp and the Manics featured prominently. Above the bars sat three clocks, purporting to show the times in Birmingham, England, Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, Australia. All were hopelessly wrong.
The support band, jazz-rockers Marseille Figs, weren't bad. The place had really filled up by the time the Pogues came on at 9.20. The lights went dim, there was a pause marked by huge cheers, then the band appeared and launched straight into Streams Of Whiskey. I was stood near the back, but even we in my section were pogoing and jigging around for most of the set. At one point a boisterous mixed group of youths managed to soak me with liquor as they rushed by me. Phil Chevron, now fully recovered from throat cancer, got a huge round of applause when Shane called him to step forward halfway through the set, and Phil took frontman vocal duties on Thousands Are Sailing. The main set lasted just under an hour, but we got them back for nearly as long again through three long encores. The first encore opened with Sally MacLennane. The last encore began with The Irish Rover then after teasing us further with a long pause while we all shouted 'Fairytale', Spider brought Ella Finer on stage and we got our rendition of the Christmas classic, complete with Shane and Ella dancing as fake snow fell during the instrumental run-out. Shame that, unlike previous years, Kirsty didn't get mentioned at all, especially since the Justice For Kirsty campaign has recently thrown in the towel as their efforts to bring the Gonzalez Novas to book have finally, irrevocably, hit a brick wall :( The show closed with Fiesta, Spider harking back to the old days by vigorously hitting his forehead with a tea tray throughout.
Top gig, even if they left out Rain Street again.
Woke up this morning with definite warning signs of sniffles and a sore throat :(
This morning a young Asian chap at the bus stop managed to miss his Megabus to London by just standing around, apparently oblivious to the bus sitting there, and only asking where the bus was after it had left. There was a Megabus driver stood there waiting for my Portsmouth bus; he told the bemused guy that he'd missed his bus, and when he asked if he could use his ticket on the next bus, told him no, they're not transferable. The desperate traveller asked the driver if he could buy a ticket from him; the driver replied woodenly "No, you have to get it from the website." I sensed that the guy could really do with some practical advice, so I told him "Go into town, find an internet cafe and make a booking online." He toddled off towards the city centre.
The Portsmouth bus arrived twenty minutes late. The waiting driver said this wasn't unusual - he added that the incoming driver, from Sheffield, was "a Barnsley lad", as though that explained his tardiness. The lateness meant we didn't get pauses to stretch our legs en route, we had a 5 hour bus journey from Birmingham to Portsmouth punctuated only by stops to set down and pick up at Coventry, Oxford, Winchester and Southampton. At least we got into Pompey ten minutes early.
Premier Inns offer good facilities at a very reasonable rate, but their locations are designed for car drivers. It took a walk to the Birmingham Tourist Centre, and one from there to the Pavilions Shopping Centre in whose basement the West Midlands Travel office is housed, to find someone who could advise me which bus to take to the Birmingham Central East Premier Inn, or at least to a bus stop within a short walk of it.
Emerging into the Pavilions, I called at the central coffee bar for a drink and a sit down and to get my bearings regarding bus stops. There was a branch of HMV next to the coffee bar, so before going to find my bus I popped in there in the hope of buying a physical CD of the Rage Against The Machine track. They didn't have one, but they had plenty of Joe McDingleberry's single :(
Sony missed a trick there. As they release both tracks they could have supplied record shops with big quantities of both and had them put them in display packs marked "Christmas Number 1 - You Decide!"
When I arrived outside the O2 Academy about 6.40 the queue ran all the way down the side wall. The guy in front of me, seeing my Havant & Waterlooville rain jacket, said "You knocked my team out of the FA Cup two years ago." As his woolly hat had the name of a Welsh town on it, I rightly guessed he was a Swansea City fan. We talked about football, and I told him about past Pogues shows in London (it was the first time he was seeing them live) as we stood waiting.
In the main body of the venue there were plenty of bars, though the only food on offer was Pringles. I quaffed several Tuborgs, served by a very friendly young barmaid, during the hour and a quarter wait before the support came on. The wait was eased further by the top-notch tunes playing over the PA - Blondie, Pulp and the Manics featured prominently. Above the bars sat three clocks, purporting to show the times in Birmingham, England, Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, Australia. All were hopelessly wrong.
The support band, jazz-rockers Marseille Figs, weren't bad. The place had really filled up by the time the Pogues came on at 9.20. The lights went dim, there was a pause marked by huge cheers, then the band appeared and launched straight into Streams Of Whiskey. I was stood near the back, but even we in my section were pogoing and jigging around for most of the set. At one point a boisterous mixed group of youths managed to soak me with liquor as they rushed by me. Phil Chevron, now fully recovered from throat cancer, got a huge round of applause when Shane called him to step forward halfway through the set, and Phil took frontman vocal duties on Thousands Are Sailing. The main set lasted just under an hour, but we got them back for nearly as long again through three long encores. The first encore opened with Sally MacLennane. The last encore began with The Irish Rover then after teasing us further with a long pause while we all shouted 'Fairytale', Spider brought Ella Finer on stage and we got our rendition of the Christmas classic, complete with Shane and Ella dancing as fake snow fell during the instrumental run-out. Shame that, unlike previous years, Kirsty didn't get mentioned at all, especially since the Justice For Kirsty campaign has recently thrown in the towel as their efforts to bring the Gonzalez Novas to book have finally, irrevocably, hit a brick wall :( The show closed with Fiesta, Spider harking back to the old days by vigorously hitting his forehead with a tea tray throughout.
Top gig, even if they left out Rain Street again.
Woke up this morning with definite warning signs of sniffles and a sore throat :(
This morning a young Asian chap at the bus stop managed to miss his Megabus to London by just standing around, apparently oblivious to the bus sitting there, and only asking where the bus was after it had left. There was a Megabus driver stood there waiting for my Portsmouth bus; he told the bemused guy that he'd missed his bus, and when he asked if he could use his ticket on the next bus, told him no, they're not transferable. The desperate traveller asked the driver if he could buy a ticket from him; the driver replied woodenly "No, you have to get it from the website." I sensed that the guy could really do with some practical advice, so I told him "Go into town, find an internet cafe and make a booking online." He toddled off towards the city centre.
The Portsmouth bus arrived twenty minutes late. The waiting driver said this wasn't unusual - he added that the incoming driver, from Sheffield, was "a Barnsley lad", as though that explained his tardiness. The lateness meant we didn't get pauses to stretch our legs en route, we had a 5 hour bus journey from Birmingham to Portsmouth punctuated only by stops to set down and pick up at Coventry, Oxford, Winchester and Southampton. At least we got into Pompey ten minutes early.
