To HMV, then, to see The Pipettes. (Thing forgotten for the day; my phone, which I’d left in my desk drawer.) I’d cleverly managed to avoid seeing The Pipettes on four previous occasions (once, back when I was working from home, because I’d taken too much work on and had a deadline to meet; once, still back when I was working from home, because I couldn’t be bothered to drag myself into London on a chilly evening; once because I decided to go and see someone else instead (My Latest Novel, who were ace, so it wasn’t such a bad move); and once because I had to get up at 6am the following morning to go to a funeral) and going to see them play in a shop wasn’t exactly the way I’d want to see anyone for the first time, but fortunately it was really good; the full backing band was in attendance, and everyone was dressed for the occasion and putting the effort in, as best displayed by the close up on the video screen of Rose’s heavily perspiring face. Bless. Must go and see them properly eventually.

The main thing that struck me, though, apart from Gwenno not really appreciating that it’s all well and good asking the crowd to dance but it’s not easy to do when encumbered by racks of 12 inch singles, was the group stood just the other side of a rack of 12 inch singles. There were about half a dozen or so of them, maybe more, and while they appeared normal enough there was something slightly disparate about the group, as if you could imagine them all in the same place but not together. I didn’t ask, but I suspect that they were what we used to call scary Internet fans; these days it’d probably be something to do with Myspace, I suppose. I felt oddly nostalgic for the days of Kenickie mailing list meet-ups, back when I was young and… well, younger, anyway. I suspect that I’d feel out of place liking a band on the internet these days. It’s probably a good thing.

On the train home a woman kept leaning against me as she nodded off to sleep. She apologised at one point, and I tried not to let on that actually I was rather enjoying it. When I went to get off, I contrived to stand on her toe, which due to the hot weather was unguarded. All charm, me.