Right then, a hell of a lot to catch up on (not least the sleep which even after an early night at home is still deeper in the red than Nick Clegg is telling us our country is) so let’s see how I get on.

If you read Tour Diary pt 1 then you’ll no doubt have been  waiting with anticipation to see whether I made it home safely…………..well……………….drumroll: I DID! Go me. I did have to stop and sleep in the very last services before home, which is only about 20 minutes away – better lame than never I suppose.

After that drive of insanity I got up and went to work, and spent the day staring into space, borderline hallucinatory with fatigue, and even had to resort to spending my lunchbreak asleep on the floor of an unoccupied office – rock and roll, my friends, is the most glamourous thing in the entire world. Anyway, enough moaning; the tour continues;

DAY 3: BRISTOL. In which we go back to work during the day, have lots of people turn up to our gig, instigate mass singalongs, and then go home sweaty and boozy.

There’s a bit of pressure involved in playing a home-town gig on tour – the “will anyone turn up” factor is heightened, the desire to play well increases, the fear that simply everything will go wrong/turn out shit becomes all pervasive………… thankfully it was all unfounded as everything fell in to place to make it a great evening; Big Jeff rocked up at the start, openers Andy “100% Nan-Safe*” Price and Gaz Brookfield worked their magic, my set was 30 minutes of noisy fun (including a nicely ramshackle first outing of my album-closer All Done Bye Bye with Ben on 2^nd guitar/backing vocals, a rare** outing for Gold, and plenty of banterous nonsense ). I then grabbed some drink to enjoy Ben’s set, chatted a bit, and then went back to Castle Thief with Mrs Thief and Kev @editradio to put a few more beers into my face, make him about a million cups of tea, and watch The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer, which I promptly series linked before zonking out.

DAY 4: OXFORD. In which we pick up a new hire car, murder some people,  eat ice cream, drink beer, and play darts (badly).

My hopes for a decent lie-in were dashed by my bodyclock’s insistence that I wake up alert at 8.30am sharp. Stupid bodyclock – didn’t you get the memo that I’m on tour now and must therefore revert to student levels of lie ins…no? Oh, ok then – you’re let off. Don’t let it happen again though you hear? However unfair my sleepytime woes were, they weren’t a patch on Kev being woken up at 5.30am by Monty (our cat) punching him in the face and meowing loudly. Poor Kev – if you see him, be sure to give him a hug.

Whilst waiting for the car hire company to pick me up (yep, we decided to save £25 by not keeping the car for the whole week – that’s how we roll) I watched an old sitcom on G.O.L.D (G.O.L.D!) called “Dear John” about a recently divorced man that was a strange mix of utterly awful and yet quite charming. I series linked that too, intrigued as to how it would develop.

A ring of the phone and it’s off to get car #2 – sadly not an estate this time (must’ve been a fluke upgrade) that doesn’t have an obvious nickname from its numberplate. We thought of one later on but then forgot it. We notice that it’s not a diesel, so have to work out a song to remind us not to put diesel in this time – how confusing.

Arriving in Oxford we stash our gear at G&D’s and head into town to wait for Ben to arrive, look at old buildings, and play “Lewis”…a game that chiefly consists of filming each other pretending to be dead for later splicing with clips from the actual TV series – it’s going to be the best thing ever/totally rubbish. I think my death was the most convincing…up until the point where I started laughing. Later a local friend turned up and took us to a pub where they used to shoot Morse – I’m impressed but have never seen Morse, we’re a strictly Lewis household***.

Ben turns up (hello Ben!) and we go to Nandos for dinner – I have never been to Nandos before. Ben & Kev warn me off the hot sauce, but I sample some on a chip; it tastes pretty good. I proceed to pour loads of the stuff on my plate and mop it up with my medium-strength chicken quarter. They are impressed – I think I have established myself as the alpha male of this tour. GET IN.

Then it’s off to G&D’s for an unusual, but lovely gig in an ice cream café during which I cause a couple of older patrons to leave, am studiously ignored by some Japanese students, and nearly bring the entire building down on my head with an ill advised double foot stomp. Then we got free ice cream; yeah, you should be jealous. After Ben’s set Jack Alcopop and I take the gear back to his & head to the nearest pub – which closes about 10 minutes later. A quick game of darts later (I lose the game spectacularly using my nice darts, then have a quick throw with the shitty pub darts and score a cool 100 - wtf?) we decamp to the Oxford institution that is The Jamaican/Hi-Lows. 

Therin Ben is harassed by a strange man, we discuss street carnivals with the landlady, and the landlord shouts at people who fail to enter the bar using the correct airlock-like door procedure. Thankfully the atmosphere stays constant throughout , and I make a mental note to come back here as soon as possible before we stroll back out into the night at around 2am…with Jack needing to be up for work at 7am. Ouch.

THANKS JACK!

More tomorrow, I'm off for a nap..............