They're (not) jammin'

Yesterday after work was a masterclass in delayed gratification: I used a voucher for a full body massage that I was given by an ex in the year 2000. I found the voucher during a clear-out at the weekend and, with no expiry date on it, I thought it was worth a go. I'm sure Charles Worthington have changed their stationery in the past nine years: I was convinced I'd be busted and was barely able to enjoy the massage, so tense was I about getting caught out at the till afterwards and be forced to pay the treatment myself. But it worked. And there was something she did on the backs of my thighs that made me want to take a sabbatical and pay her to continue indefinitely. Thanks Henry.

Then I went to meet Grania at The Roundhouse, where we were going to see David Byrne's installation, Playing The Building. This is a concept situated in the Venn diagram intersection of pointless, odd and unforgivably wanky, with emphasis on the latter. Basically, the artist had taken an old pipe organ and hooked up wires to various parts of the building. When people press keys on the organ, something, somewhere in the building, will make a tap or a clank or some sort of deep vibration. All the noise is made by existing structures within The Roundhouse. It's meant to make you appreciate the building in a new way. Yadda yadda. What was HILARIOUS was the fact that we went there, accidentally, during a 'jam' session, where people had been invited to bring their instruments along and play along with the building. When we arrived, there were people holding about thirty guitars, a tuba, a couple of trumpets, a couple of saws, one of those weird things that that man in my photo is playing, a cello, a couple of tiny ukuleles, someone blowing across the top of a plastic Coke bottle, a few maracas, some bongos, an accordian, three massively overpowering Chinese gongs and a mad woman who took a drum stick and dragged it in big circles along the walls. I don't know why I labelled only the last woman as mad. Seemingly without exception, everyone there was certifiable. This was to jam what Katie Price is to subtlety. Bonne Maman this was not. I watched everyone with wide eyes and one eye on the door, wondering if I am just desperately sad and uncreative as the cacophony made me frightened. These people had carried their instruments on the tube! To stand in a big room and try and make music - when no one knew what they were playing, no one took control and no discernable chords were played! It was absolutely shambolic, made all the more poignant by the fact that the 'musicians' had all carried their instruments on the tube and so had to pretend it was fun and beautiful, for fear of looking like they were all just wasting their time. I thought it was risible, but I'm extremely glad it exists. Everyone needs a hobby; if yours is 'playing random notes on a miscellaneous instrument while listening to others doing the same in an unconnected way, accompanied by the taps and clanks of a large circular structure' then get your ass down to The Roundhouse before the end of August.

This morning, Laura was in my office and I was looking at my leg, my right leg, near my foot, and I noticed something on my ankle. And I said, "What the hell is that?" and we both looked closer and it was clearly a few drops of a reddish-brownish liquid that had been spilled down my leg, just above my ankle and onto my foot. And we looked a bit closer, and found that it was clearly, unmistakably blood. Someone Else's Blood. I hadn't cut myself. It was not from a graze. Well, at least, it was not from any graze of mine. I looked at it in horror and amazement. What angle would someone have had to be at to get three or four drops of their blood on my leg, when I'm wearing a longish skirt? How much were they bleeding? I worry for them. I tried to argue with Laura that it could have been some sort of berry smoothie, but she looked at me as if I was Priorybund. Apparently it is far more conceivable that someone had spilled blood on my leg than that I'd been sprayed by some errant smoothie. Either way, having had urine on my foot on Tuesday and blood on my ankle on Friday, I am now rather concerned for the weekend ahead. Sperm on my shin? Snot on my knee? I'll keep you posted.