The first thing we had to do was find a power cable with an American plug on the end of it for my laptop. You'd think it would be easy. The first place we went wanted to sell the power supply with it, and if I'd fallen for that I think they would have pushed me into buying the computer that goes on the end of that too. They gave up on that soon enough and, by way of retribution, started giving us complicated directions to get to a store which was sure to have it. Two young sales assistant had two different routes in mind. We were getting confused. One of them looked at us despairingly and asked if we had GPS which may have stood for Git Person Syndrome but we took them at face value and trumped them by explaining that, yes we had, but not for the US because we couldn't download it until we had a power cable for the computer. We never did find the shop in question. Notice there I said shop - I inadvertently slipped into Mercan back there with store but I'm not ready to go completely native just yet.
We had to pick up a couple of amplifiers. They came fully flight cased and we nearly destroyed the back of the hire car trying to get them in. We were in a beautifully jet-lagged haze. I should mention that we'd been up and dressed at six in the morning. After two days of that I was beginning to feel alarmingly like a normal upstanding member of society. Yesterday morning we were strolling round the university district of Seattle looking for a place to eat. Half past nine on a Sunday morning and I found myself saying there won't be anything open - you don't expect students to be up at this time. I was quite sanctimonious about it too.
The show at the East End in Portland was difficult just as you'd expect on the first night. We arrived early, long before the sound engineer. The girl working behind the bar upstairs let us in but she didn't know how to turn on the lights so we set the gear up with the aid of a flashlight lent to us by one of the kitchen staff.
My hire amplifier was horrible. Mine was a 65 Twin Re-issue. It was a piece of crap. When I played my bass through it I could hear the sound of chipboard in distress. But it was better than Amy's amplifier - that didn't work at all.
We had a new keyboard to contend with too. It sounded like a doorbell demonstration board in a DIY superstore. The PA system was a fairly desperate affair, the engineer was mixing the sound from behind the PA and seemed incapable of going and listening to it from in front. Instead he relied on the owner, Gabe, to give him instructions. Gabe thinks I don't like him because we had a slight altercation over the soundcheck time. It really doesn't matter. He's a fine person. He should answer emails though. And tell the staff to answer the fucking phone occasionally.
Seattle was much better. To start with we had a day off to get there. So we went thrift shopping in Portland and had lunch before we left. I bought a pair of zip up boots for $20 and Amy got a very fetching black and white corduroy skirt which she wore the following night for the Bumbershoot show.
I'm amazed - shopping and lunch. This jet lag is great for getting things done. Of course it means you're knackered in the evening. We had dinner in a Mexican takeaway. An old guy working there - well, when I say old he was probably younger than me - told us he'd gone to England on an exchange when he was at school. He said he stayed with a family who were very nice except that they made him eat bear meat. He must have been a gullible young man because I don't think he was joking. He reckoned bear meat was tough. I told him there aren't any bears in Middlesex - it must have been English steak.
Afterwards we went to a cinema called the Neptune to see the new Steve Coogan film, Hamlet 2. Great title but I couldn't quite tell if it was any good because I kept falling asleep. Back at the hotel some fool pressed the wrong button on the remote while we were checking out some blokes hat in the picture of one of the Adult Choices. We were treated to some very turgid and entirely unconvincing pornography about a cable TV installation man who does more than simply insert a cable. Very tedious. It cost $15.99 and we only watched about five minutes. We gave up just as the second cable TV man was inserting his tool.
The next day, Saturday, we had a lovely early morning stroll round Seattle (out of the hotel by 8am). We had breakfast in the market and went to Emerald City Guitars. They have great guitars and amps there. We bought a total of sixteen guitar picks and got the owner to put up a card from the Lawrence d'Arabie.
I'll put some photos up tomorrow. I've taken loads and so has Amy. And I'll tell you about the Bumbershoot. But for now we're in Los Angeles, sitting in a cafe on the Santa Monica Boulevard,one block from the Pacific Ocean. We've got a night off. We've been up since seven o'clock this morning and I can't understand why it's going dark in the middle of tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t want to hear that stuff - a band should always strive to give the impression that they arrived in a space craft. Unless they’re a blues band, and then I want to know that they arrived in a Bedford van having spent the night in a lay-by, sleeping in ex-army sleeping bags on top of the amplifiers. The only band I've ever witnessed transgressing rule number three was a Brighton band called The Electric Soft Parade. Their frontman said yeah cheers so often I lost count. The Electric Soft Parade weren't very good. The Dykeenies were but the singer said cheers after the first three numbers so I gave up. Actually that’s not quite true - I was getting cold and I had to go and get organised for my cameo appearance.

I don't know what to say about The Proclaimers shows without sounding corny, trite or bland. Someone who isn't reading this carefully might leave under the impression that I'm using those adjectives to describe The Proclaimers but I'm not - they could never be any of those. So I have to resort to fabulous, fantastic, they went out with a bang etc...
I've probably said it all already anyway. Erika Nockalls played the violin on Sunshine On Leith wearing a green satin frock. I played my green Microfret guitar on Whole Wide World. So there was a bit of colour co-ordination - a matching his 'n' hers Eric section.
Anyway, they were talking about getting together to record a new album beginning next March. I can hardly wait.

There's loads more to talk about but if I start on that I'll get bogged down in it so I think I'll stop now and put this on the site without finishing it off...