I have just renamed the subtitle of this blog "Where do I come from?"... I think I may well start recording the number of times this occurs per week. Yesterday, lunchtime in the Pump House...

"Hello there, young lady," a whitened paunched man sitting by the bar with a roll-up cigarette demands my attention. I smile and say hello and ask him how he is.

"So, where are you from?" he asks. I stand there thinking, "Here we go again..." and decide what answer I will give on this occasion. It's tiring when people always ask this as their introductory question. The people all around me are watching me: waiting for my answer, wanting to hear my answer.

"I come from the womb of my mother's belly" I reply with a grin in a possibly half-defensive, but joking manner.

"Oohh," he retorts, "Here's another sarcastic one! I think you come from the Planet ArrrrssehOoL..." We joke for a while longer and then I tell him my parents are from Mauritius. He looks at my face and says, "No! I know a guy from Mauritius, but he's a lot darker than you. Are you really from Mauritius?" And it goes on...

Anyhow: yesterday's 'gig' was great fun. After A gave me a 'Vocal Zone': a disgusting tasting strip-a-goat's-throat sweet, all was well. The ten/eleven of us were in the gallery above the huge space of the FMH where there was a Fair Trade fair happening. So the people could hear us pretty well (though we couldn't hear ourselves that well), but were too far away to throw rotten (fair trade) tomatoes (and yoghurt/oatmeal) at us.

In the evening J and I went to the Komedia for a stand-up comedy night for S's birthday. I was so tired it really hurt, so we ended up leaving after the second act, but nevertheless it was nice to sit and eat tortilla chips and salsa and people watch. Bumped into J too, down from Reading - he's such a sweet guy. Got home and collapsed into bed. I feel like I could do with a month's sleep.

Mood: better.