You have abused the spirit of the basket-only queue

I'm horribly behind with my entries. Which is annoying, because there never seem to be enough hours in the day to do the other things I want to do as it is without wanting to write entries for an unpopular internet page for nothing more than my own smug self-satisfaction as well. I'm horribly behind because of circumstances too dull to go into, and I suppose I'm going to have to apply that desirable CV quality: prioritising things that need, well, prioritising.

So, first things first: The Astoria. I wanted to get something down about The Astoria and Astoria 2 closing, because, well, I (used to, anyway) go to lots of gigs in London and it seemed important.

I'm slightly torn on the subject of The Astoria. On the one hand, I hate the idea of places where you can go to see bands play (or, perhaps, places where I've been to see bands play) not being there any more. (This is possibly because these things need to be preserved for future generations of gig-goers, and mostly because it makes me feel old.) On the other hand, the part of me that reads London Reconnections and gets annoyed at the crampedness of the entrance to Tottenham Court Road station can see the appeal of knocking down everything in the near area so that they can start again.

(There's also the fact that the Astoria and Astoria 2 aren't particularly good places to see bands. I've always liked the width of the Astoria stage, which means that even at the back you're not that far from the stage unlike similarly-sized venues, but apart from that it never really had a lot going for it. The bar prices (and by bar obviously I mean "can of lukewarm lager fetched from a dustbin of theoretically cold water") were always horribly expensive even by London standards, the steps down to the Astoria toilets were always particularly treacherous due to discarded plastic glasses, the sound was fairly crap and the choice of cloakroom staff almost uncannily terrible. In terms of being somewhere nice to watch bands go I'm far more upset about the loss of the Metro Club around the corner, as, qualms about toilet attendants notwithstanding, the number of places to watch smaller bands that you don't resent visiting is fairly tiny as it is. Probably best save that for another entry, though.)

As I'm obviously not going to draw any useful conclusions about this, time for a list of tedious reminiscences:

* First gig I attended at the Astoria: one of those NME Awards 4-band jobs featuring Dweeb, Kenickie, Bis and SFA (albeit SFA circa Fuzzy Logic, when, save a couple of decent singles and The Man Don't Give A Fuck, they weren't all that good). Favourite memory: standing on the stairs trying to pick my way through an admiring throng who'd gathered around messrs Du Santiago and Montrose, only to have Laverne shouting "Marie! Emmy! We love you!" in my earhole.

* Seeing The Strokes' first (I think) appearance in the UK, on another of those NME shows (with Rocket From The Crypt and ...Trail Of Dead, as I recall). First song: wow, this is as good as they said! Second song: hmmm, bit similar to the first song. Third song: oh, I see. Fifth song: I'm off to the bar, does anyone want any overpriced lukewarm lager?

* Six By Seven around the time of The Closer You Get. The best gig I ever saw at The Astoria, one that might be in some sort of top 10 if I ever compiled one. At this time they were extraordinary and afterwards they went downhill fairly rapidly; shame, that.

* Worst Astoria gig (and indeed, worst gig I ever went to): The Beta Band. Another of these NME things (I went to a lot, but then if you liked more than one band on the bill they were good value) where initially Gorky's had been on the bill as well, except that somewhere along the line they were replaced The Mud Family, who were there to "represent British hip-hop". They came on screaming about it being the millennium (in late January 2000, when everyone was throughly sick of the millenium) and preceded to remind me of nothing so radical as seeing Chumbawamba supporting The Levellers in a previous life I didn't want to be reminded of. The Beta Band then played a few songs that people might like in an extraordinarily perfunctory way before indulging in a lot of tedious nonsense. On the plus side, at least I beat the queue for the cloakroom.

* First time seeing HMHB at the Astoria 2. I wasn't all that familiar with their back catalogue at the time, and the first time you find yourself in a room with a lot of men shouting "fuckin' hell, it's Fred Titmus" is quite the thing.

* Second time seeing HMHB at the Astoria 2. They do a version of Holiday In Cambodia that's so note perfect that in a better world they could have done it on Stars In Their Eyes ("tonight, Matthew, we're going to be a band calling themselves The Dead Kennedys").

* Going to a gig launching a Rough Trade shops compilation a few days after I'd been in a slight accident on the tube. First band up were Pink Grease, whose keyboard sound made me jump out of my skin at least twice. Eventually it became too much and I went off to check that I knew where all of the fire exits were. (Also playing that night: Mountain Goats, Bis, James Yorkston. Good line-up, that.)

* Managing to walk past the entrance to the LA2 on the 10th anniversary of the last ever Kenickie gig without realising that it was the 10th anniversary of the last ever Kenickie gig. If only the people who'd promised to go and lay flowers had done so, eh?

* Last visit to the Astoria (although I didn't realise it at the time): Los Campesinos! and Future Of The Left last year, at another NME-sponsored show as it goes, some years after the last one I'd been to (and some years after I last bought NME, come to think about it). The fact that silent adverts for Skins and hair product played silently above the crowds between the songs was enough to prove that I was probably too old for this, as if nearly blubbing at LC! wasn't proof enough. I think the last time I went to the LA2 was a couple of years back to see The Long Blondes. They weren't very good. Shame, that.

* And others too: Belle and Sebastian, Hot Hot Heat supported by Franz Ferdinand and The Fiery Furnaces (in, cripes, 2003 apparently), Le Tigre (where I was glared at for not taking the issue of lesbians who look like boys seriously enough), Mogwai (who were brilliant despite the rotten sound; I recall standing waiting for a bus an hour later still dumbstruck), Idlewild (where I hurt my leg, which I should claim was down to frantic dancing but was more likely caused by a discarded plastic glass), Sleater-Kinney (extended ending to Heart Factory going into start of Dig Me Out - ooh, it was good), Atari Teenage Riot (who weren't any good, but I'm still quite glad to have seen them), Melt-Banana (a far better use of extreme noise), Ultrasound (just before they split up, as I recall), Arab Strap (Aiden Moffatt was impressed by the sex shop next door, or maybe he was just playing to type), and, goodness, probably heaps of others that I don't immediately recall or have decided to leave out because this list is long enough as it is.

So what am I trying to say? That I remember gigs I went to several years ago in worrying amounts of detail. And that, I suppose, on balance, I'm quite sad to see the place go. Particularly if they don't put enough ticket barriers in the new station.

Curious but tasty Argentinean biscuits

I'm not a man of principle. I'd like to be but I buckle under far too easily. I'm swayed by the arguments of others, too keen for a quiet life to object when I disagree with someone. I impose rules on myself and then break them as soon as I get bored/lonely/drunk.

However, one thing I will not do is fucking well watch Hustle. And so it was that I was flicking around looking for something to have on screen while I talked to my mum on the phone (I'm not sure why I like to have some sort of visual stimulus while I talk to my mum on the phone; I think it's because the TV is on at their house all the time, as it was when we were growing up, and it puts me in the right frame of mind. It isn't, I hasten to point out, because I'm not listening; if anything it helps me focus on what I'm being told, useful if conversation lapses into dull stuff that I don't want to know about distant relatives), and decided that the most visually appealing thing would be, er, darts. Well, you can follow it without sound and it's not going to distract too much, which are pretty key when deciding what to have on while talking to your parents on the phone.

Now, I have on occasion got right into the darts but I don't recall watching any for a couple of years now. However, the match being shown was quite good, with Fitton coming back from 4-2 down to level the match at 4-4 against Waites, including a tremendous game where both seemed utterly incapable of hitting a double in a manner reminiscent of my attempts to play the game many years ago. My phone call came to an end and I decided that I may as well see the match through to its conclusion, and on turning the sound up two things struck me.

1. Tony Green clearly wanted Fitton to win, to the point of barely mentioning Waites at all, in the manner of Clive Tyldesley commentating on Manchester United or something. I assumed from this that Waites was some sort of dastardly foreigner, but looking at the results it transpires that Waites is English, making this particularly odd. Presumably he must have met Waites and had reason to socialise with him at the various darts-related functions; if Waites ever sees the highlights I reckon their next encounter will be a frosty one.

2. The noise of the darts hitting the board is absolutely tremendous. It sounds more like missile fire or something. I've just watched some highlights and even through my fairly weedy laptop speakers they hit the board with a pretty resounding thud. Darts hitting a dartboard don't sound like that in real life; I don't know where the microphone might be located in relation to the board, but wherever it is I presume it's one usually used for wildlife documentaries where they're trying to pick up the mating call of some tiny animal or other.

Mobile cage-fighting unit

Old-skool readers may recall me proudly boasting about how I'd never fallen asleep on a train and missed my stop. In the (ulp) many years that have passed since then there have been incidents of drunkenness that I've come to regret the next day, but I've always managed to stay awake on the way home.

Until last night.

I don't know why. I'd eaten before I went out, nothing heavy but enough to put a decent lining on my stomach. I drank quite a bit, having stayed much later than I'd been planning such was the conviviality of the company, but no more than I drank after work the other week when I'd got home without any significant difficulties. The only logical conclusion is that I'm becoming a terrible, terrible lightweight, but a wildly variable one.

I knew things were bad when I left. I was babbling uselessly at the other final remaining member of the group, then a couple of (I'm guessing) foreign students made the mistake of asking me directions to Picadilly Circus and had to put up with further babbling all the way to Oxford Circus. (I *hope* that they were going to Picadillly Circus; they're going to think I'm a right shit if they were going somewhere else but I misheard due to my inebriated state.) I had enough gumption to remember to get off the train at Leytonstone, boarded a train that was heading for my side of the Hainault loop, and then...

I'm not sure why I woke up at Hainault, but I was just as well that I did as otherwise I would have ended up at Roding Valley and nobody knows where that is. In my sleepy state I didn't realise that I was at Hainault because I walked the wrong way down the platform before twigging as to what had happened, and then had to sprint up some stairs to catch what I think was probably the penultimate train back home. There was someone else in the carriage: I tried to look as if this was all intended and that I hadn't woken up in a state and was now panicking that I was going to nod off again. Thankfully I managed to pull it off. Well, I managed to get off at the right station, anyway.

I then disgraced myself for staring for slightly longer than I ought to have done at one of the other people who was standing at the bus stop. She was wearing a very smart skirt: anybody in my situation would have done the same. Fortunately I was also now very aware of what a horrible mess I'd got myself in and the circumstances likely to greet me in the morning and thus was in no mood for any further embarrassment, and besides she didn't get the same bus that I was getting anyway.

I'd like to fit the world a sink

The second rule of New Year's Eve is that, even if there haven't been any fireworks for over an hour, the moment that you go to bed something will explode nearby. Which is why I decided that 1.16am on New Year's Day was just the time to make a start on the Luke Haines... well, biography would possibly be stretching it a bit, but Luke Haines' book anyway. I'd bought it earlier in the day; I'd been surprised enough that you could buy such a thing in Ilford, and then reading the Contents list (title of Prologue: "Is it ever right to strike a dwarf?". The chapter titles get better from there) and the back cover blurb (a triumph of the art as well) was enough to make me decide to buy it.

(Although I have my doubts about the front cover quote from David Peace comparing it to Spike Milligan. Not that it hasn't been funny so far but I don't really see the comparison, in the same way that I didn't see why anyone thought The Damned Utd was worth reading.)

(The first rule of New Year's Eve, before I forget, is that going out in the centre of London is to be avoided at all costs, because no matter how good the fireworks might be, they're just fireworks.)

(As well as having one of those little staff recommendation cards next to it, the woman who served me said that one of her colleagues had been reading it and had been enthusing about it. Ordinarily I would have taken the opportunity to say that I'd always been amused by Luke Haines even if I wasn't completely sold on his music, but unfortunately I was rendered unable to speak because she was a young woman who worked in a bookshop and as such ridiculously attractive (because they all are) and thus had rendered me incapable of coherent speech.)

(Before I started opening parentheses like some useless, grammatically-slack fanzine kid, you'll recall that I was mentioning my reasons for buying this book, which were because the contents and back cover blurb were excellent and, as hinted at, because I find Luke Haines amusing even if I'm still not quite sure about the music. It's now, ooh, about 1.23am on New Year's Day, and I'm about to have a moment of doubt.)

Or was it? Because it occurred to me that my fondest memories of New Year's Eve concern the person who made me listen to lots of the work of Luke Haines and who once bought me an Auteurs album, and as I read through the opening couple of chapters the annoying thought struck me that actually I'd bought the book because I was subconsciously thinking of her rather than my own amusement. And there's nothing that spoils your enjoyment of anything more than thinking about an ex at such a moment.

On the plus side, I do at least know that she'll be stumped when it comes to the bits about Lawrence from Felt and The Go-Betweens. If only she'd given me a few more months...