Queen Victoria Priddy

22-08-2016 – It’s A Bit Like The Archers – BUT ON ACID

Greetings, my little peccadillos!

Now, that was enough rawk’n’roll fun to last anybody a fortnight… which is just as well, since we’re not playing for a couple of weeks, since I’m running away to Exotic Foreign Parts.

Still, we’ll have plenty of fun to look back on – particularly last Wednesday’s outing to Priddy, hidden way down deep in the Mendips.

So – a midweek gig, in the middle of nowhere – we weren’t expecting a particularly exciting night, to be honest.

However, once we finally found the place (having driven through one village, which I swear bore the sign “Twinned with the 18th Century”) and we strolled in, our suspicions were aroused when we saw the pub was selling t-shirts, bearing the legend, “Priddy – It’s a bit like the Archers – BUT ON ACID”.

As requested, we set up outdoors under a marquee, just in time for the heavens to open – leading to a frantic race with the bar staff to get various bits of tarpaulin rigged up to avoid all our nice electrical kit getting wet. Ben was particularly proud of the electric macramé he created to keep all his mains-powered gubbins dangling from various parts of the marquee to keep them out of the nasty wet puddles. (Yes ladies, Ben has mains-powered gubbins. Be afraid, be very afraid…)

It seems the rain chased away the more sensible punters, but that didn’t matter because there was an ample supply of non-sensible ones, who gleefully danced, sang, and sillied the night away with us. An outstanding evening, I think the crowd had nearly as much fun as we did. Finally we ran out of encores, packed up all the damp kit, and then carefully hurtled homewards back through the Twilight Zone to dear ol’ Brizzle.

Friday, and the Black Castle; I manage to arrive late, but still in plenty of time – just was well, because setting up has to be done rather carefully. For some reason I seem to have lost my balance quite badly today – rather like being extremely drunk, but without having suddenly become witty, urbane, and irresistible to the opposite sex.

When this symptom first kicked in, since I had a computer in front of me, out of curiosity I Googled it, and found myself at a do-it-yourself NHS diagnosis website…

Apparently the first thing to do is to see if this is related to some kind of ear infection; you do this by lying down to see if it goes away.

Does the dizziness go away when you lie down?
No, it doesn’t, but other people in the office are looking at me funny.

Is it accompanied by loss of hearing or tinnitus?
Yes, but most of the past five years has been accompanied by loss of hearing and tinnitus…

Do you have low blood sugar level?
Not likely, considering the number of chocolate biscuits recently ingested…

Are you massively pissed?
No, I bloody well am not.
At this point, the website concluded that I am either whingeing about nothing and should man up, or have a very serious heart condition and should go and find a doctor. I figure that if it’s the former I’m all right, and if it’s the latter, I have better things to do with my few remaining hours of precious life than look at impertinent NHS websites, so I decide to carry on with my day, just being a little more careful than usual about not falling over.

Nonetheless, arriving at the gig I decide it’s best if I don’t have a beer tonight; and it is a full five minutes after we finish setting up before I reverse this decision.

Happily the beer seems to have a positive medical effect, and although I am still having a little trouble with vertical hold, I am soon once again witty, urbane, and irresistible to the opposite sex.

In case you were worried.

We round the weekend off with a trip to the Woodland’s Edge in sunny Swindon, where it seems the rain has chased away most of the punters – which simply means that Rosa picks on the ones that were there rather more than usual. Still, they do seem to rather enjoy it.

And so, a weekend off looms – but we’ll be back…

Friday 2nd September – The Swan, Thornbury
Nice comfy place with plenty of room to ponce about in, and usually a damned fine Friday crowd. And it’s just up the road from my gaffe. I wonder if I can get Dem to come along with me, and drive the van on the way back…?

Saturday 3rd September – The Lamb, Marlborough
Ahh, Marlborough country – where, as Neil Young pointed out, the Cancer Cowboy rides… Not played this one before, so they really don’t know what to expect.

To be fair, nor do we, most the time.

See y’all…

Square on
A

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