Club Fandango,Night and Day,Friday 29 July.

Before I met Yokho,I sat waiting on the benches in Piccadilly Gardens, watching three scallies(two girls and one boy)looning around on a bench. As they walked off, flames leapt up from the bench,followed by hissing and a bang.Of course everybody on the surrounding benches(apart from me) made themselves scarce (a scally terrorist cell seemed unlikely).

A passing Policeman asked a group of Chinese tourists who had started the fire and they pointed out the scallies,two of whom were caught and given a good ticking off.

Yokho arrived just after. She gave me a load of leaflets and guides for Hiroshima (her home town)and then we went to Night and Day.

Why Club Fandango is called anything I don't know-it seemed to be just an ordinary band night. The best band were the first-the Vincent Valerma Show,who were excellent and sounded like a supercharged version of the Happy Mondays. Ghostlyman,who followed,featured an allegedly cute ex-member of the Alpinestars backed by two violins and a cello.They were dull. The Kooks looked the part-very sexy-but sounded like a typical bloody indie band. Maybe they were better than I gave them credit for, but by that stage I was drunk and needed something original to make an impact.