It’s a joke, really, to nominate a coach on a train as a Quiet Zone, banning use of mobile phones, iPods etc, and then to cram the aforementioned coach with under 5s who are all screaming and/or crying at the tops of their voices. I’m having to put the iPod on in order to drown them out. I fully expect to be told to turn it down at some point by a customer service liason officer. Christ, I’m sounding like the Daily Mail. Hurrah.

I’ve got the prime seat on a Virgin train, which is the one with its own little table facing away from the riff raff at the front of the coach. I’ve occupied both seats with a sprawling office-type arrangment which looks pretty intimidating. It almost looks as if I might be controlling all aspects of life upon the train from my Powerbook, which might explain why no-one is telling me to shift my stuff and let pregnant women and the elderly sit down. But hey, they can stand up, I’ve got a LiveJournal entry to write.

We played Shepherds Bush Empire last night. We were so far away from each other on the stage that it felt as if we were each giving our own individual concert, but we somehow managed to musically bond together in a fairly loose fashion. Paul Morley was in the audience, which had oneofthose and Jenny (and me, let’s not be timid about it) feeling somewhat excited, until we remembered that we weren’t going to be listening to him extemporising about the state of modern music, and the best we could hope for would be a glimpse of him extemporising about the state of modern music at the bar.

With a bit more time available during the soundcheck, and more space on the stage for another set of gear, The Mescalitas achieved their long hankered-for aim of being able to leap off their kick drum mid-set, and it was worth the wait. Boinnnggg. I failed to leap off anything, but I might try stepping gingerly off a pair of bongos this evening, which won’t be that spectacular, but I am 35 years old, what did you expect?

Ah, sod it, I can’t hear myself think. Quiet Zone, honestly, it’s a joke. Roll on Manchester.