Blois.

We're having a much more relaxed time of things in Blois. The weather's been great again and we're about to have drinks before dinner. Chris is going to have a fun night as his current (KatieJane) and ex girlfriend are both here tonight, but then again he has been married three times so it's all his own fault.

When looking at the poster shown above I get the feeling someone had a bit of a laugh when asked by a French blues rock band, "What would be a good name for our group? We want to be popular in England."

It's a fine morning in Rennes and my door worked beautifully. Blois, our next stop, is only 150 miles away so we can afford to drive at whatever the car equivalent of a mosey is. Ruby Throat were first on of three last night and played a blinder, KatieJane edging ever closer to falling off her chair as she does her thing. The headliners were rubbish, prompting Chris and I to heartily agree that most French music is shite, until we found out the lead singer was from Swindon. Saying that, French headliners John & Jehn at the Grenoble gig were pretty special.

I honestly don't know how travel by road was possible before sat-nav. Chris has a Binatone model (unsurprisingly the cheapest available, the tight bastard) which has a start-up screen which proclaims "drive like a local." That would explain some of the advice the unit gave in Paris such as, "before the next exit, veer randomly across all lanes" and "drive aggressively for the next two miles."

Finally in Rennes after the longest half-asleep car journey I've ever experienced (and I drove for over half of it) - nine hours in blinding spring sunshine. France did look nice along the way though. The Grenoble gig was great, mainly due to being taken out for dinner before the show (must make leek tart when I get back) and the inclusion of a private beer pump in the dressing room. We're just about ready for tonight's show, my only worry being that the hotel here is of the same chain as the one in Paris. Thinking about it, I could do with a lie in.

I finally got out of the room via the window about an hour later than planned after the maintenance staff failed in there utilisation of the "hit repeatedly with a hammer" method of mending broken locks. Six hours later and we're in beautiful Grenoble at the foot of the alps and everything is hunky dory.

My means of exit from a Parisian hotel room.

Currently locked inside a room in a shitty hotel in Paris while two French idiots try to fix the broken lock. This may seriously affect our chances of getting to Grenoble in anywhere near good time. More to the point, I could do with some breakfast.

Thought we'd have a look at the sea before setting off for Paris.

Le Havre

A nice enough town. Ruby Throat are playing underneath a giant volcano so that's a good start. Chris' old Volvo is driving surprisingly well apart from the windscreen washer not working, so if you want to see where you're going you have to hope it either rains or doesn't, but not both on the same journey (rain good, spray bad). The gig took place in a very pleasant arts cafe style venue staffed by helpful young creatives and a top sound crew. Sadly it seems the whole complex is going to be turned into a public library on the whim of the local mayor, even though Le Havre already has several such places. Apparently the town will lose its only decent music venue in the process. Paris next...

Ruby Throat

After a long and tedious couple of months in London I'm finally heading off again, this time with the wonderful Ruby Throat (www.myspace.com/katiejanegarsiderubythroat) for a few shows in France. It's a bit more low-key this time - just three of us in an old banger, but I get a hotel room every night and hopefully some nice dinner. Here is the itinerary:

Feb 24 2009 8:00P	LE HAVRE - Cabaret electric	Le Havre
Feb 25 2009 8:00P	Glaz’art	Paris
Feb 26 2009 8:00P	Le ciel	Grenoble
Feb 27 2009 8:00P	l’antipode	Rennes
Feb 28 2009 8:00P	Chatodo	BLOIS
Mar 6 2009 8:00P	limoges	limoges
Mar 7 2009 8:00P	L’usine à Chapeaux	RAMBOUILLET
Mar 8 2009 8:00P	Le VIP	SAINT NAZAIRE
Mar 9 2009 8:00P	La luciole	ALENCON

Greece

The team are back together for a brief Hellenic jaunt - everyone apart from Lloyd and Demians that is. It was a big gig in Athens last night - about 1200 people plus more outside without tickets. After not much sleep we got up horribly early for a spectacular train journey to Thessaloniki, and I now have the luxury of 45 minutes free time before the crew head off to the venue to set up - the rest of the hung over or still hammered enjoying a few hours sleep before sound check. I do hope the band member who puked into the litter bin at Athens central station in front of many curious locals this morning is fit enough to play this evening. In other news, Matt seems to be obsessed with helicopters.

That's it. Mission accomplished. Greece in two weeks. Just enough time for a quick nap.

The reason John has spent most of the tour in his bunk.

...last day, Portsmouth, pouring with rain, a few frayed tempers. Good venue though - easy for loading in and out due to lack of stairs. Soon it will all be over...

Despite the Carling Academy in Sheffield smelling of curried rubber chutney, the Barfly in Birmingham utterly aces out any venue so far for all-round vileness (both inside and out). I now look back fondly to the European venues we visited - even the ones I previously had a moan about. All the British ones we've been to so far have been pretty horrible, the Islington Academy being the only exception. They're under-staffed and never cleaned, the in-house equipment is barely capable of doing the job, the dressing room facilities are third-world and the catering is usually non existent. Normally I wouldn't tolerate a Frenchman telling me my country sucks but I have to say Demians have a point as far as our concert venues are concerned. Very embarrassing.

Sitting at home having a brief rest from the road as we're in London today. Mustn't lie down though - I feel I would sleep until next week. The Sheffield gig was a bit of a drag, taking place in a sticky-floored venue that smelled (not in a nice way) of chutney, not to mention a dressing room which had the aroma of the inside of a beach ball and a production office that reeked of curry. All very strange. Both guitar amps failed during soundcheck, as did Les's keyboards, but somehow everything worked fine by show time. It's going to be a big show tonight - lots of press apparently. Best get back to work...

Turns out the scar from nutting the window in Manchester meant I blended in quite nicely in Glasgow on an evening when Celtic drew with Man United, an event which ensured a steady stream of pissed-up inquisitive punters passing by the bus during load out. They all seemed happy enough, even the chap who admitted to Mick he was considering stealing one of our guitars. Merchandise supremo Sandor narrowly escaped a set-to while buying his dinner, but luckily his favourite Dutch team Feyenoord have historical connections with Celtic so the ruffians let him off.

4th November 2008, after three days without internet connection...

We're back in the UK and parked up where we started, 11958 miles (or almost half the circumference of the earth) later, at Anathema's bungalow of rock next to the M62 near Leeds. We're here because there was no room for us at the venue in Manchester, but it meant that Les, John, Mick and Lloyd were close enough to visit their families for the night. After the show in a lovely old cinema in Lille (quite understandably referred to as the Manchester of France, though you have to be careful what you say as two-thirds of Demians live there) Vinnie headed to Paris and Jay to Utrecht for their respective days off and are flying over for today's show, in thick fog by the looks of things. Rather them than me. The channel crossing was pretty bizarre. After loading the trailer in Lille I wound down with a couple of beers on the bus as we travelled to Calais, then went to sleep for about an hour. We were then woken to show our passports in something of a daze, and I then proceeded to have three pints of Bass ale at four in the morning in a moderate swell. Having a drink on the ferry is a noble tradition which has to be adhered to no matter what the time of day or what cognitive state one is currently experiencing. As has been said many times on this tour, standards must be maintained. There can't have been more than thirty passengers (excluding truck drivers) on the ferry that night, but that didn't stop us enjoying the company of Anathema's old friends Napalm Death in the bar, or Lloyd dining with an old Icelandic bus driver friend who was on his way to pick up Star Sailor. It's a small world is the world of rock (or insipid indie toss in Star Sailor's case).

The photo is of the noble Gimli, son of Groin, preparing for the concert in Lille.

Breaking news: utterly failed in my attempt to buy a kebab by walking straight into the shop window, almost breaking it and my nose. A plaster and a tin of beer seem to have sorted things out for the time being, though we'll see what happens if I need to change a string. More information will follow...

A bit of a low ebb day today. Mick's sick, the weather's gloomy and everyone's feeling a little road-weary. Still, only three more shows and we're back in the uk. Lausanne is a lovely town though. Had a walk down to Lake Geneva on arrival and took some breathtakingly crappy photos, the best of which is shown above. We spent yesterday evening parked up without power at Zurich airport - not a fun situation, and after a few Budvars in a weird bar tempers became a bit frayed, resulting in driver Lloyd ordering those involved to their bunks. We were stopped at the border coming into Switzerland by police wanting to know how much merchandise (shirts, cd's, etc) we were carrying, as they can levy a tax on it. Cue International Mick once again, who did a fine job explaining that the bus was carrying a down-on-their-luck christian folk band and gave them a couple of tee shirts which pacified them quite nicely. Second driver Andrew has flown back home (taking the ten euros he owed me with him, the bastard). Sound check is almost over then dinner will be served. I'm starving.

Managed to walk about ten kilometers over the past couple of days, firstly with Jay around the centre of Vienna - full of huge beautiful old buildings and boring rude people (according to Les), and secondly in Budapest with Mick and second driver Andrew on an epic trek to purchase one roll of much-needed insulation tape which almost resulted in our being attacked by a pair of frisky yapping dogs, a situation ably diffused by Dr. Mick Dolittle who gave them the names Goulash and Schnitzel and sent them on their way with tails wagging. In other news, Danny dyed his hair a vivid shade of reddish-purple while in Austria, prompting a complete stranger on a tram to inform him that though he seemed a nice enough person he looked like a complete tosser. It's so refreshingly different to London where conversation between strangers on public transport is strictly verboten.

Breaking news: a second periodical containing photographs of semi-naked men has been found secreted in Mick's drum cases while setting up in Budapest today. Many suspect a prankster is at work. More information will follow...

A day off in Vienna. Made an effort to get up early this morning and was richly rewarded with beautiful alpine scenery on the drive from the grade-A shit hole that is Rome. We've just had a slap-up dinner at Frauline Miggins' and in the process have learned, through his correct usage of the word "goodzie" to describe the quality of his meal, that International Mick can converse in the local Austrian tongue as fluently as that of anywhere we've visited so far. I haven't been so impressed since the "sondwach" he ordered in Bochum all those gigs ago. In other news, Vincent's shoes fell apart the other day and this is causing him some concern, though on the upside he is providing much important data for those researching the correlation between flip-flop wearing and string-breakage during performances.

The Rolling Stone in Milan  - a breath of fresh air after yesterday. In fact the entire New Age Club in Treviso would fit on the stage here. Dinner was excellent. Currently only the Z7 in Pratteln has a higher rating catering-wise in my opinion. Matt, our esteemed front-of-house operative and full time Gimli look-alike was so pissed during soundcheck yesterday (at three in the afternoon you understand) that he spent at least a minute laughing maniacally through the pa system and then proceeded to make a general nuisance of himself for the next couple of hours. To get Matt pissed all one needs to do is show him a teaspoon of red wine mixed with Sprite (his second favourite drink). Apparently the night before he'd been knocking back vodka down the Traveller's, no doubt egged on by the usual suspects. They know who they are. We're officially more than halfway through the tour now and everyone is looking forward to a rest in Vienna in a couple of days time. Hopefully Matt will have sobered up by then. We've had one day off in the last eighteen. Blimey. In other news, Hull City 3, West Brom 0! Second driver Andrew is deeply upset at Newcastle losing to Sunderland. I hope it doesn't affect his driving.

Our drum tech Mick, who is rightly proud of his work. Photo from the Rolling Stone in Milan.

A bit tired today. We're near Treviso in Italy in a club in the middle of a nondescript industrial estate (a lot of them are like that and it's frustrating because you're kind of stuck with nothing really to do). The stage is tiny and the dressing room is graffiti-ridden and brutally lit. Still, the weather was nice today and Les finally got his electronic compass working so at least we now know which direction we're facing. Last night in Pratteln was good - a huge venue with a great atmosphere and excellent helpful staff. We took a trip to the local music shop to find the counter manned by a chap from Hull. He's the second one so far - there was one working behind a bar in Copenhagen. We get everywhere.

Some Polish ducks in Krakow