Gossip Column

..Oh had such a good time last night. I met Gina Birch at Selfridges to see the Slits- she had to pretend to be someone-else on the guest list, and I was the someone-else's plus one- the problem was the door person knew the someone-else, and knew that Gina wasn't she, and anyway someone-else wasn't on the guest list anyway, and therefore neither was I... but a journalist from the World Service allowed Gina to be her plus one and I just begged and so we got in.
They were brilliant! Ari is just a fantastic front person, funny and revolutionary at the same time. They did 'Shoplifting' twice, because they were in Selfridges, they sounded great. One of my friends, Nadya, plays guitar for them (they have another guitarist too, Adele) and they all looked incredible. I AM SO MADE UP THAT I SAW THEM.
Afterwards I met some people- the Clash's roadie, Roadent, who listens to Beethoven on his i-pod... a Susan, who had a Band of Susans and who had a band with 5 bass-players that went on tour with Michael Clarke... Alan McGee (he wanted me to sign up to his label many moons ago, pre-Oasis, but I didn't because I didn't have a band and I didn't want to be a cliched singer/songwriter lady, which of course is what I am now). The DJ was Don Letts and it has been a long time since I have just wanted to listen to the music until the end of time. Everything was fun- queuing in the shared loos, there was a great atmosphere, even the beer in plastic glasses didn't matter.
Afterwards I went over to Songbird in Dalston, and it was all buzzing there too- saw Nick Marsh (good songs) with Katharine Blake from the Mediaeval Babes on violin, made song plans, someone told me she sings 'Songbird' in the bath, which is a perfect compliment. Shared loos again- is this the new black? There was a man in there who said 'I am picking my nose' in rather a challenging way. I could see he was- did he want me to join in?
What else.. oh yes, this week I have been listening to Roots FM- hold tight- in the car (Maxi Priest sings 'You're Beautiful' and although he has a Voice, you can really tell how rubbish the lyrics are in a cover version), and Gaydar at home, which helps with the housework, I find, although I have had a minor sulk on discovering they record and repeat their shows- it was the anecdote about the sparrow that did it!
And Chris has played 'The Word is, Goodbye' on his Resonance show. Thank you Chris, hold tight.