Feelings of stress and nervousness caused by a bad night's sleep were
compounded earlier on when I got stuck in a lift. On my own. My exit on the
5th floor was thwarted by a lift door that failed to open. Cue 5 seconds of
mild terror and jabbing at a multitude of buttons. In retrospect I'm glad I
was on my own; no-one observed my muted wailing, and I wasn't led in an
upward spiral of hysteria by a neurotic bloke from Human Resources. In the
end the lift moved back down with a jolt, and I got out at the ground floor
and had a little sit down.

The lifts in this building would strike fear into the heart of the most
hardened SAS man. Perhaps. If he were suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder. Followers of this daily torrent of nonsense will remember my last
lift incident, the URL of which I just found on Google by typing “rhodri
fingers lift”. Number 1 result. Brilliant. Anyway, I've resolved to reach
the upper floors of the building by jetpac in future. All I need now is a
jetpac.

The Free French rehearsal last night went well, although my Laney TF300
guitar amp exploded after about 15 minutes. It didn't actually explode, you
understand, it just stopped working. But for some reason the music business
demands that bands refer to equipment “exploding”, even if that only means a
backlit LCD screen fizzles out. And who am I to buck the trend? It feels
good to have a band assembled again, and [shock] featuring members that are
in no other bands except this one. I'll probably discover they're all
moonlighting as session musicians for a reformed version of Kajagoogoo in a
few weeks. But that, in its own way, would be a bonus.

On the way home we were treated to a display of virtuoso guitar playing from
a busker at Old Street tube, who prodded the fretboard with exceptional
dexterity, creating a tumbling sequence of arpeggios. “Load of nonsense,”

said Ken. I noted a similarity between his playing and that of the guy who
stands on Denmark St on Saturdays playing a Chapman Stick. For the
uninitiated, this looks like the underside of a beautifully planed pine
rowing boat (if you can imagine such a thing) with about 30 strings. He
plinks away, creating the kind of music that used to accompany the clock in
the countdown to schools programmes. Apparently, Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo
plays one, too. Git.

Anyway, this busker was better than the guy who usually stands there,
singing U2 songs without really knowing what the words are. We were once
treated to a version of “I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For” which
contains a verse

Ah ha clah
smay the splountains

And ever since, whenever I've seen a splountain, I've smayed it. Without
hesitation.