I've felt slightly queasy for the last 2.5 days. This evening I went to yet another Battle Of The Bands competition (won, as ever, by the first band whose singer was brave enough to climb up the speaker stack) and only drank lime and soda, and dined on apples and bananas. The resultant Um Bongo-like mixture in my stomach appears to be keeping things under control.

HOST played at the Buffalo Bar on Saturday, and they were uncompromising but wonderful. I like bands that don't get easier on the ear, and continue ploughing an increasingly bizarre furrow. The opposite of selling out. Buying in, perhaps. Cash Machine debuted before them, a collection of beautiful youngsters and feeling their way in pop music by ripping off Badfinger as much as possible. Then came Vinny Peculiar, backed by ex-Smiths Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke. As you watched, all you could think was “god, they used to be in The Smiths and now they're playing underneath the Famous Cock in Highbury and Islington to approximately 78 people.”

We decamped to a birthday celebration in Balham which was notable for the very amusing Peter Baynham blowing an enormous bubble from some bizarre gum-like substance that you squeeze from a tube.

He christened it “Gavin” and referred to it as his son for the rest of the evening.