There's something about a Four Seasons bed that conjures up images of a truly deep sleep, that combined with curtains that let absolutely NO light in meant I woke this morning and had to switch the light on to see what time it was. Usually, I'm pretty good at this game, in fact I sort of pride myself on being able to wake up any time and decide what time it is to within 5 minutes before looking but today was different. I thought maybe 8:30 or 9:00. It was 12:15. I wondered if breakfast was still on the cards so I called down and the most polite and courteous room service person answered and took my order for eggs benedict and fresh orange juice without the slightest hesitation. The food arrived within ten minutes and boy was it good. I inhaled the breakfast delight and steamed through the day's diary entry and thought I would go for a wander around the hilly old town of 'Buda' of which I have vague recollections from when we last stayed here back in 1986. Every time since then we've played here on a day trip. The Four Seasons hotel is on the bank of 'Pest' and it was a five minute walk across the bridge to get to the old town.







We checked out of the hotel at around 4pm and went to the venue for sound check. No chairs on the floor tonight so an excitable standing audience is what we prepared for...and was what we got except that we didn't modify the set in any way to accommodate this. We were pleasantly surprised by the appreciation shown by this unusually young audience, in fact looking out into the crowd I saw many a young couple really appreciating even the newer stuff that we do in the set. Of course they all seemed to know the words to Romeo and Juliet, a song which truly transcends generations.





After the show, we 'ran' to the plane once more for a flight back to London for the four days off. The two hour flight was spent chatting about the tour and demolishing the enormous freshly made shepherds pie the caterers had prepared. We succeeded. A perfect night for flying, we even narrowly avoided a huge thunderstorm which was centered over the Vienna area; could have been a problem if it happened 24 hours earlier. Such is the good fortune of this tour and we were down in Luton and off into the cars with none of the semi-anticipated immigration delay, thank goodness. Off home and in bed by 2:30am. What a day.

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Please note, the competitions have both been extended and the closing date is now MONDAY 26th JULY 2010

This is due to the difficulty level expressed by many folks and also the fact that it's time for me to relax. So what are you waiting for, have another crack at it..

Natural Selection Competition

You need to be logged in to enter this mighty difficult competition

Competition now closed

Inside the new album cover you will see these shelves, but filled with a variety of objects. Listen to the album, read the lyrics and decide which objects belong to which tracks. Use the pull-down menus to make your Natural Selection!

Thanks to all who entered

Competition now closed. The winners are 1st - Gordon Bazzana (got them ALL correct) - Kelowna 2nd - Brian Wilson - 3rd - Colin Bryce - Dallas

How many strings tour competition

Thanks to all who entered the competition

The total number of strings on all instruments carried buy the tour is 287. Stage Right (Kevin) 83, Stage Left (TC) 114 and MK guitars (Mr. Saggers) 90. The winner is ALBERTO ANTONETTI

Instructions

The question was...Guess the total number of strings used on all stringed instruments carried on this tour. This includes basses, ethnic instruments and violins.

First prize, one of Danny's drum heads, used on this tour, signed by ALL the band.