Predicatably, I’m jetlagged, hence the 3am datestamp. Less predictably, I’m suffering from a cold which puts all colds suffered by the band during the US tour firmly in its shadow. It might even be verging on flu territory, and I’m not someone to bandy around the word “flu” lightly. Fever, diarrhoea, aches, cascading torrents of snot – in fact, the only thing I don’t have is a sore throat, and for that I am extremely thankful. I’d choose diarrhoea over a sore throat any day, and I’m sure you would too, or maybe you don’t want to think about it, which is fair enough.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I left you last time sitting in a New York hotel watching a DVD; about an hour later I was scouring local bars for our engineer Andy, who had failed to turn up at the appointed meeting time. He wandered into view 45 minutes later, wreathed in smiles, telling everyone that he’d spent $70 on Jack Daniels and that he’d been talking to “the six most beautiful women I’ve ever met in my life.” On the downside, in his drunken stupor he’d lost his mobile phone. But that’s touring, swings and roundabouts. On the bus, our sound engineer, Jerry, proudly removed a bottle of red wine from his bag that he’d bought earlier, to assist with smoothing the overnight journey to Boston. It was popped open and sipped gently, and brows were furrowed. Closer inspection of the front label revealed this to be not wine, but “wine product” and the presence of an ingredients list caused further mirth: wine, water, fruit juice, carbon dioxide. Yum.

I woke up sweating in a car park in Boston, and left the sleeper bus to be met by a torrent of heavy drizzle in the face. The rain never stopped that day; down at the venue, though, our name was up in lights:

Sadly for Matthew Ryan, whose name also adorned the outside of the building, the unusually large number of Ts in Scritti Politti meant that the Ts in his name were made out of folded-up white A4 paper, and were getting extremely soggy.

A man approached me just after the picture was taken. “Is this Bob’s bus?” he asked, gesturing at the gargantuan vehicle we’d been travelling in. “Er, Bob’s?” “Yeah, Bob’s. Bob Dylan’s.” I replied that I didn’t think so. It turned out that Mr Dylan was playing about 2 blocks away the same night, which went some way to explaining the inability to get a seat in a restaurant within 1/2 mile of the venue. I had some unpleasant Chinese take-away. It’s good to know that you can always get unpleasant Chinese take-away, wherever you are in the world. It’s reassuring. A comfort blanket.

The show was good; Ralph celebrated the last chord by stabbing his drumkit with his sticks, a drumkit that he’d spent much of the soundcheck decorating with Sharpies:

We bid an almost-tearful farewell to the Jeffrey Lewis band, our staunch support over the previous two weeks:

And then proceeded to drink some tequila, which was a big mistake. The next morning my cold began to kick in, and although I doubt that tequila can actually give you a cold, I will henceforth avoid it, just in case. I walked up a bleak New England coastline, waiting for the call to summon me back to the hotel and thence to the airport. Despite the illnesses, the occasional arguments and the endless waiting around, it’s been a lovely fortnight. Generalization: Americans are incredibly polite. I like being called “sir” so much, I think I’ll have to pay a return visit.

Later today we play Sheffield. I suppose I should go back to bed.