Refuge is a nameless record shop

We had an Art trip to London which is in the throes of a bus and underground strike. We got there at about midday, dropped our bags at the Ambassadors Hotel, and then the minivan took us to the Courtaulds Institute.

The usual horribly stuffy galleries that clog and dry the senses: we flaked out on some benches, surrounded by stillness and dull Rubens paintings and walked to the British Museum. Wandered around the Egyptian rooms. Then, me, Deborah, Jeremy, Lee and Duncan went to Oxford Street to look at the bookshops.

Lee and I stopped in a Tibet shop and got separated from the others. We raced after them, running and weaving through the bobbing heads, surging toward the sun up ahead which streamed into our eyes, nothing but blinding light, each head with a back lit golden halo. Somewhere a siren blared. Glass buildings. Steel yellow reflections. “It’s just like a TV series” said Lee and we were suddenly tired, cold and lonely and didn't know how to get back to the hotel.

We stopped at a McDonald’s, ate two Big Macs, had a drink and emerged back into the wind and rain-spattered darkness of London. Refuge is a nameless record shop. At a loss, not really knowing what to do or where to go, we turned around, heading back the way we’d come and ended up in a queue waiting for a taxi along with other cold damp humans. Why do cities make us feel so remote, fraught and desperate?

A big black empty taxi ride and £2.20 later we were back at the Ambassadors Hotel. Our room was like a claustrophobic, airless greenhouse, so we left again, walking toward the enticing but distant glitter of 'redbrick and neon' only to bump into Jeremy and Deborah who were looking for the hotel. We went back with them. Loud infantile behaviour in our room and Lee and I decided to leave a second time. As we waited in the foyer with the rest of the Farnshaw group, an irritating deer-stalker clad American advised we “cats” to “try the pubs along Fulham Road.” So we did.

The first one we all went in was like an unfriendly swimming pool with Victorian tile and glass and red-faced, bleary eyed, laughing patrons. We stopped at a cozier pub for loud crude conversation, bad jokes, halves of cider, peanuts, giant sausages with ketchup and a really-not-such-a-bad-evening-after-all-but-God!-I-must-stop-spending-so-much-money! Shrill laughter. Jeremy seemed fairly happy.

We got back to the hotel at eleven and Duncan told me Athletic had beaten Walshey 6-0. I didn’t believe him but it turns out he was telling the truth.

For the next hour-and-a-half we were utterly raucous and inconsiderate, shouting childish crudities at one another, laughing, being exhibitionists. . . . Jeremy turned Duncan’s bed over, shouting at him in an American accent . . . Lee got locked out on the dark wet balcony in his pajamas.

European history

At 11.30 I wandered into school for my three-hour European History Paper 1 mock feeling resigned and none too confident.

The paper was difficult: I answered a good question on air power in WWII in three sides, but I struggled to get two about Bismarck and the Balkans, finally finishing at 3.30 having done only three of the four required questions in six-and-a-bit sides total. Everyone did really badly.

The Budget dominated everything.

Mock

I had two three-hour exams: the first, General Studies, was difficult; the Maths questions – Christ! – and most of the French multiple choice I just did off the top of my head.

I was much happier with English Paper I, even feeling pleased with my answer on the Antony and Cleopatra section. Three hours and eight sides of A4 later, I was done and everything was OK: the exam’ gone, the weather sunny and optimistic, everyone smiles, laughter and jokes.

It's about that time

Disturbing dream: white paint and salt pumped into the Nile, spreading out thickly through the Delta, polluting the ocean, a 250-square mile layer of choked off death. Writing about it now and in the cold brightness of day it seems like nothing, but when I woke up I felt depressed and pessimistic.

I did sporadic revision for tomorrow's English I mock all day. Grant rang at 5.45. Athletic hung on to beat Brunswick Town 1-0 to go second!

Later I listened to “It’s About That Time” by Miles Davis from In A Silent Way on Sounds of Jazz: superb! It's obvious where Nucleus got the influence for Electric Rock; it's just the same. I finished The Secret of Meditation.

Ooh, ah, yeah!

Mum left for a teaching course in Debdenshaw early in the morning. I got up at ten-thirty and was on my own so I just slobbed about, not doing any work and hating myself for it.

At half-six I set off for Pigbag.

Grant was already waiting on the damp black pavements of Queensgate and Lee rolled up shortly after. The concert was at the Community Building at Easterby Poly, and it was soon full of Pigbaggers dressed in their predictable trendy regalia of old coats, baggy trousers, pointed shoes, and short hair. I made a show of denouncing them for their shallow posturings, but even I was forced to admit the sheer hypocrisy of this, for there I was, similarly attired in an old long overcoat. “You look just the same,” Lee said.

The Community Building is a low affair, sunken below ground-level, the upper floor a food and drinks place with an incredibly cheap bar (cider 55p a pint!); the concert was down two flights of stairs in the basement in a large room piled high with equipment and coloured lights. The sound system played loud reggae and we bought drinks and waited.

It was good just seeing what lengths people go to to look different and there were many ace variations on the narrow striped trouser pattern, old coats and baggy suits galore. Lee was in his electric blue pullover and dinner jacket.

We met Peter and Laura and Halyna too, and while we were talking with them there was a general closing in on the stage as the first band came on. Mouth are from Bristol and their heavy tribal rhythms were as good, if not better than Pigbag's.

Grant began his tortured bopping, Lee shook convulsively as well, his shoulders and head swaying, and me too eventually, but then they were finished. They only did one encore, and the lights came back up and the hum of conversation resumed. Grant twisted and paced in time to the reggae.

Pigbag next. They were all brass, saxophones, and heavy rhythms and really good. It was very crowded at the front; we danced, and I could see Lee some way off in the crowd, rolling his head up and down. The heat was stifling and I was sweating cobs, my neck slimy, my T-shirt sodden; eventually, temples throbbing and desperate for fresh air, I headed for the side. Some people were standing on tables or up on other peoples' shoulders.

Again it finished all too quickly (only one encore) and the lights came up and Grant was enthusing about the crowd's lack of inhibition: “They were all chanting to the music! Best thing I’ve been to in ages!” The floor was strewn with broken glass and empty bottles, the crowd hanging back, their voices a hubbub, reluctant to leave. . . .

Me and Grant left just before midnight and rushed to try catch the last bus back but the streets were empty. I angrily got a taxi back on my own (£2.75) and hit the sack hating how yet again I’m broke.

But it was a great night. Grant obviously loved it and Lee seemed to enjoy himself too. Laura thought Grant was “strange.”