When (if) you find yourself taking a picture of a plastic duck in the bath of your hotel room at 1 am, the thing to worry about is not that fact that you are doing it, but that you are trying to do it carefully. And wondering which is the duck's best 'side'. Still, one tends to get obsessed with such new developments on tour, like a hotel room with a plastic duck in the bathroom. It is the little (plastic) things that make all the difference. Robyn has been talking about little things that you have to be nice to in the last couple of gigs. These are, in order,

1. spinifex the hopping mouse
2. the pygmy elephant shrew
3. the mongolian gerbil.

All the above are residents of London Zoo. Where we go from there I'm not sure, but I assume Robyn is just doing what you should do on a stage which is telling people what you care about .....

Another day off after Boston and yet more wonderful Soft Boys routing, which could be re-phrased as an important piece of motoring advice for all those travelling from New York to Toronto via Montreal. Montreal is not on the way from New York to Toronto. But it was for us, and very pretty too I suppose, the hills and snowfields of Vermont and a gentle afternnoon with Paul, Morris and Kimberley in the van, including all the usual things you get on such journeys like Kim on the phone to Lee,

Morris asleep

and Paul with his eyes on the road.

Oh yes, and this is me and my gap tooth smile, photo by Morris

...... this is Kim informing us he was conceived the same month that Rocket 88 was recorded that being, apparently, contender for the first rock and roll record ever made ......

Paul plays us Deni Bonet's demo which has one of the most stunning violin solo pieces on it I've ever heard .... and we discuss plans for a live album, which is Robyn's idea, but we don't think we've got it together in time for Detroit so maybe it'll be "Soft Boys Live at the Fillmore" in San Francisco instead ..... it seems to be dark a long time before we get there, and we sleepwalk into the hotel lobby to find Robyn having arrived moments before (except he went via Buffalo which many would describe as a more obvious route) and then at 1 am the double journey is done, and I clamber into my hotel room to be met by an irrestistably photogenic duck (see above) ...

the other significant event today is this morning Morris finally took his SxSW wristband off ..... I am really excited because tomorrow before the gig I'm seeing my old pal Nancy who says things like "no more sense than a bag of hammers" and has married Jeff and has a baby now which I'm going to see for the first time ....... she's got 11 for the guest list which is typical Nancy .....

Nancy turns up and we head off for "sushi pizza"

....... after that it's a long drive into the undertown to meet up with Jeff and some strange kind of duck reserve on the way which looks like the bottom halves of the Easter Island heads to me

..... I think the Holiday Inn duck would find it a little too exposed ..... however the skyscrapers are still quite fascinating and otherplanet-like to someone born where I was and I think no tour diary would be complete without a shot like this

Good show, not a peak but really getting somewhere at the end. It was sold out again. Loud and a low ceiling. Everyone is so friendly afterwards but it's hard to speak. Train Round the bend. TRAIN ROUND THE BEND was fantastic, I thought. I will try and hunt it down from the minidisc ........... I think it was 7 or 8 songs for encores which was ..... Sudden Town, Stones, R&R Toilet (Robyn's guitar stopped functioning so he abandoned it and all I remember after that is his arms spinning round like windmills), Mr K, Rhymney, Silver Wands, Train Round the Bend, erm and maybe I can't remember the last one, oh yes, Face of Death ...... this was a great room full of noise and people ........ and an elevator girl saying "thankyou, thank you" - well thankyou too elevator girl we will look at the video when we can find a machine to do it on ....... and then I had to hunt around for Nancy but eventually there she was, drunk and happy with her friends so we took a taxi and had a late night pizza party in the hotel and then everyone went home cos Erin had to go to school in the morning .........

..... I agree with Julia Roberts, life is good - but YFF, we miss you. [Oh yes we do; they are lads of great beauty and distinction. I think they are the rock and roll band in the world! Roll on Sea-Tac and the return of tha Fellows. Tad viewed from the side SO rules .... but we're all looking forward to clocking Wesley H. tonite. Duck reserve! I'll say ... and Michèle says "Hello Adam H." This is Robyn who has been guest proofreading this section as we lumber towards Detroit. Hitchcock out.]

— Matthew