Glomesh Purses, Cowboy Songs, Honey Lager and the Mid Week Blues...

Another rainy Saturday afternoon calls for a moment's pause for reflection...what a week it has been! With Andrea finally receiving news of last semester's RMIT work, positive all but still for reasons unknown no mark, we decided to blow it out with cold beers and cowboy songs! Well to the extent that 4 skinny white boys from Scotland and one big man with a beard and a bigger heart count among the more woeful of wayward cowboys, then it's one more for the world my lonesome friend!

Arab Strap were in town for one night only Wednesday so we trudged down to the Media Club with all the other hipsters and country beaus for some dirty blues and heart-broken high plains drifter heavenly laments. Nothing like rock and roll in a Scottish accent to kick out the work-a-day worries. So with beers in hand we found ourselves a perch beside the bar to enjoy the show. Soon some buddies from work and school joined us as we drank to our good fortune and enjoyed the music. Local outfit Book of Lists blew everyone away with some fantastic Jesus and Mary Chain riffs and loads of record shop hype and for once we were all impressed. Apparently some London bigwigs with Warp records were in the room so there was quite a buzz going around. Andrea is convinced the woman who wandered up to her and complimented her as the best dressed woman in the room was among these Warp hipsters so maybe that long waited "Dusty in Memphis" covers album is not too far away Angie!! Hey you've got the look all you need to do now is convince those record company types to put you in a room with some good backroom session musos and enough whisky to keep it real and bam - you have a hit record. Well this argument made much sense on Wednesday night - perhaps the honey lager had something to do with it.

That reminds me - the damn beer here! Sweet beer my friends!? I don't know but having been raised in QLD with beer so profoundly unpleasant one feels truly rewarded just to finish it let alone acquire a taste for it, one feels more than a little short-shrifted with the lack of imagination over here! Honey lager indeed - it shouldn't be that easy to drink god damn it! Anyway, barring Andrea and I no one seems to care. Let's just say Andrea and I will be very happy to return to the land of Coopers and Cascade pale ale for some real beer in the happy month of June so stock the fridge comrades. We're thirsty!

Arab Strap next wandered onto the makeshift stage and launched directly into some truly beautiful twisted Scottish ballads amid the more terrifying guitar assaults. Go out and buy the Last Romance now - very cool and you'll apparently be keeping the singer in beer money and given his appetite I would suggest that he needs some help poor soul. Sings like a demon though - very fun. To Andrea's delight the band dispensed with the sham of the encore and rather played straight through and then marched of the stage with everyone well satisfied at a night's fine entertainment.

With my 9am appointment the next morning I had given up on this drinking business some time earlier in the night. Just can't get the taste for this honey lager business as I said so that makes my alertness at morning meetings a much surer thing. Well Andrea having Thursday's free this semester felt no such restraint and with the crowd clearing out at the end of the night Andrea insisted on one last beer. Well the famous last beer - you know we Duffs invented the fabled "one last beer" so I was having none of this chicanery! This is where the glomesh purse comes in. Andrea's purse attached to her arm, I proceeded to drag Andrea out of the bar led by the aforementioned purse with Angie protesting all the way in pointing out that we appeared to be moving further away from the bar rather than closer. Certain she was right I continued to frogmarch her out of the venue. With uncommon good fortune a cab was waiting right outside and so I was able to bundle her into the vehicle before she got too crazy! Still demanding more beer Andrea pointed out bars on the way home offering any number of compelling reasons why the driver should stop so we might all avail ourselves of a nightcap.

Even at the door to the apartment building she was pointing out all the times I had made her stay out for one last beer - this was a pretty good argument I must say but still we were home and I still had that 9am meeting.

It wasn't until the next morning that Angie conceded that yes I might have been right and one more beer probably wasn't really a good idea. Pity the way this kind of reasonable insight only arrives the next day. Must work on that myself.

That leaves going away drinks on Thursday night and yet more efforts to restrict overly enthusiastic drinking on a school night. You'll all be impressed at my new found restraint! This Canadian air is sure good for the practise of responsibility.

I'll tell you that story tomorrow.