Weary. At 2am I was trying to make head and tail of a baseball match on Channel 5, but the frequent hiatuses in the action made for a slightly unrewarding experience. I'm assuming they're used to show advertisements on the US broadcast. Thank god I don't watch cricket on US television, as I'd probably walk away with more awareness of the efficacy of Plenitude Bio Contour Eye Gel than anything to do with batting or bowling.

At 8am I awoke and trotted down to the newsagent to pick up the Independent, made sure my piece on inventions was in there (it was) and then up to Muswell Hill, to try and get Jenny's wireless broadband internet connection working. After 2 hours of pointing and clicking, and racking up a substantial telephone bill in technical support calls, I have admitted defeat and am writing this on a pathetically slow dial-up connection. The ISP blame the modem, which they didn't supply me with; the modem manufacturer blame the ISP. The ISP got the worst stick from me, mainly because of my irritation in being put through to an Indian call centre who made me spell the word “Jenny” 3 times. I've become more tolerant since reading Mick's book (and again I urge everyone to check it out) but I ended the call with a sarcastic “bye then” when it became clear that he wasn't going to solve my problem. I'm not proud of myself.

Last night I went to a gig in Kilburn, not something I've done since 1990, when I saw Thrilled Skinny supporting the Wedding Present, and Wire supporting Blur a few months later. Wire elicited a hail of abuse and V-flicking from a huge crowd of teenage Blur fans, while 3 of us applauded and cheered, rather like a semi-amusing television ad when a couple of football fans are wearing red scarves, surrounded by a mass of blue. Last night was different: there was no huge crowd, for one. First band up were Gymkhana, who started off with some sub-Franz Ferdinand ideas but then got better and better. Their female drummer was astounding, and the bass player looked like a cross between Martin Fry and David Sylvian, and you can't pay a much bigger compliment than that, I don't think.

Next up were the band I'd come to see, The Playwrights.

Probably the best I've seen them, riveting and unpredictable tunes that have you bobbing up and down in 7/8 time. They have a new bass player, who I congratulated after the gig for his excellent imitation of a jumping bean. He asked my name. I told him. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “My name's Hector.” You don't hear that very often. Nor do you often hear , my “date” for the evening, saying “See you later, Hector.”

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The radio show that I'm preparing for Resonance is coming along nicely. At the moment I'm downloading a “demo” by Mr Neil Scott, who I asked to put together a 3 minute “Thought For The Day” to be included towards the end of each show. I'd tell you what it's like, but it's taking an age to get hold of on this dial-up connection. Probably pretentious drivel, knowing Scott. I've also secured the services of sports expert to give his opinion on the weekend's sporting action, while is providing hard-hitting political comment mixed with trivia about dictators, and stuff like that. Marvellously, I'm using this classic TV tune as his intro music, which I snaffled from a rather poor album by US rock band, Mountain, who I can never mention without recalling the fact that lead singer Felix Papparlardi was rendered deaf by the excruciating volume of their live performances, and was then shot dead by his wife. I hope all today's readers avoid a similar fate.