It's a full life, if a trifle banal

Here's a meme from Piers:

"Find a song that sums up what you think it means to be a writer and post the lyrics on your blog and why you’ve chosen it. NB: It doesn’t have to be your favourite song, it just has to express how you feel about writing and/or being a writer. It can be literal, metaphorical, about a particular form or aspect of writing - whatever you want."

( What did I pick? )

Crusty night in the Unreal City this evening, with the seemingly imperishable Fairport Convention at the Corn Exchange. They were on tip-top form - Simon Nicol appeared to be actually enjoying being in a band. In fact, they all looked like they were having a great time: Rik Sanders and Chris Leslie kept on grinning at each other like this was the first time they'd played together, it was very sweet.

Fairport support acts are always great - long-time readers of this journal may remember the legendary mandobass - anyway, the support tonight were Tiny Tin Lady, an all-female four-piece who are so young that their combined ages probably tot up to roughly the age of a single member of Fairport. (No, it's not quite that bad, but the youngest member - vocalist and guitarist, and one of the song-writers - is 15 years old.) You can hear what they sound like here. Their vocal harmonies were brilliant and they had a really good live sound. Go them!

Last night was the night that all good Cambridge crusties assembled in the Corn Exchange to laugh at jokes nearly as old as the band telling them. Oh, and listen to some folk-music-with-drum-and-bass. Amongst the classics, there was a new song by Chris Leslie about a man who travelled with Lord John Franklin, but the highlight of my evening was seeing this.

A bloody bass mandolin! Look at the size of it! (You can see it with the whole person attached here.) I mean, who knew such a thing existed?!?