Nechyl

I am at a The Charlatans concert in the Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom. (Again, as ever, the dreamescape version bears no relation the reality aside from the pervading sensation of being the exact place.) I am surprised at the size of the crowd, counting in the region of 10-20 people, marvelling that the band could previously sell out 3 (full capacity) nights in a row. Towards the end of the gig everyone lines up to participate in a sort of ad hoc conga (around some sort of central sound desk construct in the middle of the venue's dancefloor). I am very careful not to stand in any dog dirt that has been trampled into the grass(?). When the gig is finally finished it seems as if that is well and truly it for the venue, that it will be closing forever, the cloakroom on 'lockdown' unless you pay (considerable) money to retrieve your belongings-

I am outside in a market space and spot my old student friend Dubya Arr walking near me. He sports long, greying hair and wears a faded t-shirt and denims, clomping and stomping along comically as we both jokingly pretend not to recognise/acknowledge one another. We eventually stop to talk and I tell him I was at a Canyon (a Canadian alt-country band he and I both like) concert. I shy away from the reality it was in fact The Charlatans, worried that mentioning them will damage my credibility – a decision itself that then plagues me as I toil with considering telling the actual truth. Dubya seems to be helping an old man his dried squid stall and we examine several of his wares, each bisected perfectly down the centre and dried so that the skin has a cooked, cold pasta-like constituency-