Gregory Crewdson in the Cathedral of the Pines.

"It was deep in the forests of Becket, Massachusetts that I finally felt the darkness lift, experienced a reconnection with my artistic process, and moved into a period of renewal and intense creative productivity" - Gregory Crewdson.

I was cutting it pretty fine. I'd left it to the very last day to get along to see The Photographers' Gallery new show of Gregory Crewdson's work, Cathedral of the Pines. He's a popular guy too, way more popular than I'd realised, so I did well to get in. I was glad I did. His work is superb. Evocative, melancholy, and pensive. I'd even risk the adjective lyrical when describing it.

Spread over three storeys of the gallery it's Crewdson's most personal work yet, all the models are either family members or friends, and it moves away from his impressive images of urban dystopias to a more rural setting. That of the small Massachusetts town of Becket whose population is less than two thousand.

 

The Disturbance (2014)

 

City or country though, Crewdson's work still has something of the ennui of Edward Hopper's deservedly praised paintings and, like Hopper, he's a master of lighting. These works aren't snapshots but posed tableaux that often involve a large team of people and several day's work to get right. They tell stories but, as the still photograph demands, they tell only parts of the stories.

 

We, the viewers, are invited to fill in the blanks. What are these people staring longingly out of windows looking for? What goes on under the arch of that bridge? What's happening out in that forest and why do so many people drive out there? Why are so many naked people out in such cold weather? They'll catch colds.

 

The Mattress (2014)

 

Woman in Parked Car (2014)

 

The Haircut (2014)

 

Of course we don't, and can't, know that. We can't even be certain if Crewdson wants us to know - or if he even knows himself. These ambiguous narratives would appear to be entirely intentional. It seems like Crewdson's subject is the unknowability of others, their protocols, their moral agency, and how they harness or act upon their desires.

 

It'd be pretty easy when dealing with such subject matter to be heavy handed or take a moralising, sanctimonious tone. I think the reason Crewdson's work has gained so many admirers is that, instead of that, it's steeped in humanity. The naked, and half-clothed, bodies in his photographs couldn't be described as pornographic yet they've not been rendered in any way repulsive. They're shot with the honesty that any subject deserves and that most subjects, especially family and friends, would insist upon.

 

Beneath the Bridge (2014)

 

Reclining Woman on Sofa (2014)

 

The Motel (2014)

 

Windows either appear as gateways to tantalisingly different worlds (when shot from indoors, see Reclining Woman on Sofa, The Disturbance, or The Den) or as pictures within pictures (when shot from outside looking in, best demonstrated by the Hopperesque blue clapperboard cottage of Woman at Kitchen Window).

 

The outdoors may be tantalising but it looks dangerous too. It's snowy, bad things might happen, and, in The Ice Hut, it appears food may be difficult to come by. But to stay indoors in assumed safety risks boredom and succumbing to the stultifying routines our minds, our bodies, and the societies we live in demand of us. It seems to me as if Crewdson's interest lies in the liminal state that lies between the way we show ourselves in public and the internal, interior person we may actually be. But then I could be reading his work wrong. That's what happens with ambiguous narratives.

 

The Ice Hut (2014)

 

The Den (2013)

 

The VW Bus (2013)

 

The narrative of Crewdson's own life is less ambiguous. Born in Brooklyn in 1962, as a teenager he joined power pop band The Speedies (whose song 'Let Me Take Your Photo', possibly knowingly, was used by Hewlett Packard in 2005 to promote their range of digital cameras) before making good on his hobby of photography to create his first collection, Natural Wonders, in the mid-nineties. Natural Wonders was an almost dayglo consideration of day to day life in Massachusetts, so in many respects set the template for Cathedral of the Pines.

 

Citing the work of Hopper, Diane Arbus, and films like Blue Velvet and Night of the Hunter as influences, Crewdson, much like David Lynch, seems to poke at what we once called the seedy underbelly of small town American life. Even if the shirt that was covering that seedy underbelly has now been ripped off to for all to see how grotesque it is as America's ugliest minds and egos pollute the body politic via Twitter, Fox News, and Breitbart.

 

Woman at Kitchen Window (2013)

 

The Shed (2013)

 

The Barn (2013)

 

The subjects of Cathedral of the Pines have far more humility about them than many of their nations leaders, opinion formers, and over promoted stump orators. Perhaps the reason they're sad is because they can see what's happening to their country but I don't think so. I think the borderline vacant stares, either into the distance or into the mirror, speak of a deeper, more unknowable, melancholy. It's as if we can only feel most alive when we accept that we will one day die. To accept the inevitability of our body's falling is, in some way, one of the toughest things we can do but in doing so we accept that we are truly alive. For only those who never lived can never die.

 

Woman in Bathroom (2013)

 

The Drainpipe (2014)

 

The Pine Forest (2014)

 

It's an interpretation and, of course, a very tangential one but, surely, art (and photography most definitely is an art form) should at the very least make us either feel something or make us think something. Crewdson's work made me do both of those things and the fact that the large photographs were a pleasure to look at too made the exhibition one I'm very glad I didn't miss. I don't think I'll leave it until the last day next time.

 

Woman on Road (2014)

 

Cathedral of the Pines (2014)

TADS #16:Bayham Abbey (or A long way south to a reasonable smell of death).

Are Theresa May and her Tory party so toxic now that you can catch their germs just by watching them on TV? After staring open-mouthed at her shambolic speech at the Conservative party conference I had a dreadful night's sleep. Waking up several times to shiver, shake, sweat, cough, and sneeze. It was one of those colds that makes your hair hurt and seems to drill right into your eyes when exposed to the light.

It was hardly the ideal start to a day I'd been looking forward to and I was worried I'd find the October TADS walk along the Sussex/Kent border from Wadhurst to Bayham Abbey and back a bit tough. The book had, despite the walk's comparatively short distance of 11.5km, rated the walk as 'moderate-strenuous' and suggested the 'possibly muddy and definitely hard-to-follow woodland paths' would require some Girl Guide/Boy Scout skills to stop us getting lost. I'd taken the precaution of pinging the map over to Adam so he could plot our route on his Garmin in advance.

I arrived in Wadhurst, via Crofton Park and Sevenoaks, just after 11am and had an hour to wait for all my friends. The fact that they all came down together on a separate train had me wondering if they were trying to tell me something. There certainly wasn't much to do around Wadhurst station while I waited so crosswords and sudokos were summarily dealt with as I pondered my unwise decision to travel in advance of the troops.

Once Adam, Teresa, Shep, Pam, Rachael, Neil, Bee, and Eamon arrived (Kathy was in Lundy of all places) we headed off for our walk - in the wrong direction! Correcting ourselves we immediately took another wrong turn by the first of many many white clapperboard cottages. It was beginning to look like the book's warnings were not an exaggeration.

Once we finally got on to the path though, it was fairly straightforward for a while. We passed a tree of huge juicy red cooking apples and a gipsy caravan caught the rapt attention of the Tadley contingent. Both Eamon and Shep were setting a fairly blistering pace and, after a field full of sheep, we turned into Great Shoesmiths Farm. Marked as private the book told us to ignore that and carry straight on so we did, whilst discussing the difference between shoesmiths, cobblers, and farriers. We know how to party.

The field was marshy and after a couple of stiles we passed by a 'curious circular pond' full of quacking ducks and a field of brown cows and on towards Bartley Water Mill. Here the main attraction was a quartet of spotted, hungry, pigs. They were cute if you looked at their faces but, alas, I caught a glimpse of one of their arses just as it was curling one out. Happy as a pig in shit? You decide.

Not far after Bartley Water Mill, and Bartley House, we took a sharp turn down an overgrown pathway, stamping the brambles and bracken down as we went. Pam picked up a minor injury and I nearly tripped over in the undergrowth a handful of times.

From here on in there wasn't really a path at all. We were told, and did, locate a weir and follow, roughly, the course of the small river. It felt like nobody had walked down here for years, or perhaps ever. We didn't see a single person but we did find some black fungus growing on a tree. Adam correctly identified it as King Alfred's cake and Wikipedia tells me it's also known as cramp balls and coal fungus. It's mainly used as caterpillar food and for accelerating the decomposition of fallen ash trees.



It wasn't just the trees that were long dead down in the Bartley Mill Woods. We found the skull of what we assumed to be a deer. The teeth were still connected but the eyes, the brain, anything not made of bone basically, had been either pecked out by birds or eaten by insects.

There was another skull nearby so I hung it on a tree in the childish hope of freaking out future foragers. We also found a dead bird of prey. We think it was a kestrel but we didn't get too close. It looked like it hadn't been dead long and the sound of shooting from nearby fields suggested that, perhaps, a local poacher had got tired of killing pheasants and gone for something a bit more challenging.

Remarkably, considering the sketchy terrain, we arrived back on the busy road exactly where we were supposed to. By the Kent county sign and the road leading up to the Bayham Abbey Ruins. We knew Bayham Abbey was closed for the winter but the gate was open so we thought we'd have a look anyway.

Alas, a stickybeak in a nearby house poked his head out to tell us we weren't allowed to. Noseybollocks also spotted my Rough Guide walking book and mentioned that he didn't approve of the fact the Rough Guide sent people through private property. He was more passive-aggressive than out and out rude but he still scuppered our look at the ruins so we thought of some rude things to say about him behind his back and wandered on to the pub.

The Elephant's Head (or Ellie's as they seem to style themselves) in Hook Green was a lovely boozer. Despite the bizarre sight of a bicycle hanging from a tree and the offer of 'a pint of mixed sausages' on the menu it was everything a country pub should be. Welcoming, unpretentious, comfortable, and with a roaring fire for winter nights and a large beer garden for summer afternoons.

I had a couple of pints of Harvey's Old Ale, a dark and fairly strong winter warmer. We sat in the conservatory and ordered 'snacks'. These snacks turned out to be considerably more substantial than we'd expected - which was great but ruined our appetites for later. I only had cheesy chips but Teresa and Shep's bread/veg combo was enormous for £3 each!

The route back to Wadhurst was considerably less dramatic. Often along roads, we were full of food, we'd had a couple of drinks, and it was very hilly. Like a rollercoaster. Not how you'd imagine Kent at all. Put frankly we were all pretty knackered.

Rachael headed back to the station and the rest of us went to find a pub in Wadhurst. The Greyhound was comfy and friendly. Surprisingly lively too. It felt a bit Christmassy in there if that even makes sense. Having only recently eaten a large snack for lunch few of us were ready to try either of Wadhurst's two Indian restaurants which went against the whole TADS ethos but, after a fair bit of umming and ahhing, we decided we'd get drinks for the train and head back to London.

Shep still asked in the off-license if they did Bangla (they didn't) and we all headed back to Wadhurst station. It was about a forty minute walk in the dark and we caught the train with seconds to spare. A friendly guard said we could sit in first class and we commenced a few rounds of Heads Up.

Pam changed in Orpington, Adam and Teresa headed back to Basingstoke, and then the Uxbridge contingent departed too. There was just Shep and I left. We had a pint in London and we, too, knocked it on the head. It was a pity that the night fizzled out but it was a tougher walk than anyone had really expected and we were all both stuffed and exhausted. We'd gone looking for ruins and at the close of the day we'd discovered that we were the ruins.

In a brilliant years of TADS activity that's seen wonderful walks and days out in Blenheim Palace, Hastings, Cambridge, The New Forest, and an epic two day trek along the Ridgeway our trip to Wadhurst won't rate as one of our best of the year (if the year was an album this wouldn't be one of the singles from it) but I think that just goes to show how much we've raised our game in the last few months of walking. We'll be back in November walking along the Thames Towpath from Richmond down to Hampton Court and I, for one, will be sad that that walk will bring the curtain down on a fine season of strolls.



Eat Brexit. Shit Brexit.

I've been going to London Skeptics in the Pub events for quite a few years now but Monday evening's Brexit Part Deux with Dr Lynette Nusbacher was the first talk that could, in any way, be considered a sequel.

Dr Nusbacher had visited the Monarch last April, then before the referendum about whether or not to stay in the EU had taken place, to deliver a speech, from the perspective of an expert, about what might happen after the vote and why.

As you can read on last year's blog many of her predictions were pretty wide of the mark. She can't be blamed for that, she was far from the only one to make a bad call on it, but I did wonder if she'd at least acknowledge how inaccurate her forecasting, last April, had been.

My thoughts, following last year's talk and in the run up to the referendum, hardened towards a remain vote. It wasn't so much that I understood the intricacies of the financial implications or the legal jargonese we'd be subjected to (I'm not sure many people do, certainly David Davis and Theresa May don't appear to have a clue what they're talking about). I was more concerned with the kind of opportunists, wannabe demagogues, and flat out xenophobes who would be emboldened by a leave vote. Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage etc;

Both my dad and my brother voted for Brexit and didn't particularly seem to care how much it hurt me, my friends, and even my job prospects. My dad cited the fact that he felt Theresa May had lost control of immigration. If he'd hoped to see the back of her then that backfired about as spectacularly as the PM's own disastrous decision to hold a snap election to strengthen her grip on power.

The days following the Brexit vote seemed to throw open the gates to all manner of vile racism and weak claims of patriotism by people whose claim to love England (and it was always England, never Britain or the UK) was often undermined by their inability to learn even the most basic English spelling or grammar.

Judges were called 'enemies of the people', Gina Miller received death threats, Michael Howard suggested we could go to war with Spain over Gibraltar, and common-or-garden morons seemed to think the vote had something to do with bringing back golliwogs to advertise marmalade.

Eventually, the 52% vote to leave was recast as an 'overwhelming' majority, an almost Trumpian rewriting of recent history, and entitled misogynists like Jacob Rees-Mogg rose to prominence by dint of dressing up like Lord Snooty and expounding views the Victorians would've considered a tad regressive.

So, yeah, I've not been a fan of this whole Brexit business and I think it'll probably be a disaster for the whole country but a vote's a vote, a referendum's a referendum, and we'll just have to get on with it. Not because some UKIP oiks have threatened civil disobedience if we don't but because that's how a democracy works. Democracies can also choose to have second referendums though, and if that's decided that's no more an affront to the last one than the decision to leave was an affront to the decision to join in 1973.

Dr Nusbacher seemed to have an even bleaker view of Brexit than I do. Whilst constantly stressing she was in the business of 'futures' and not predictions she nevertheless played out some 'scenarios' that looked an awful lot like predictions to the untrained eye.

Each of them shared a grimness. Each of them pretty much forecast a long, slow, painful decline for the UK over the next few years and decades. It'd be safe to say she felt the Brexit vote had fucked things up for our generation and the next but, like everything else, we'll muddle through somehow.

One scenario she called 'Detroit-on-Thames'. It looked at what happens when a city's primary business (and major supplier of both jobs and wealth) move out. In Detroit it was, famously, the fall of the automotive industry that left huge swathes of the city either abandoned or so crime ridden they were unsafe to visit. In London it's the banking industry.

She saw the banks, followed by the insurance firms, moving to Dublin to remain in the EU. Some would go to Luxembourg and elsewhere but mostly they'd be in Dublin. Simply because it'll soon be the largest English speaking city in the EU. She claimed major London based banks were already investing in Dublin and pushing up property prices there.

It's hard to feel any sympathy for bankers but, even accounting for that, I felt Dr Nusbacher placed too much emphasis on London and Surrey (where she lived), too much on JP Morgan, and too much on the price of Land Rovers. Seriously.

Much as the terms 'elitist' and 'neoliberal' have become weaponised adjectives to be hurled at anyone who you disagree with, this was hewing very close to the David Cameron/George Osborne elitist, neoliberal, cosseted line of entitled thought that so enraged people they took faith in the lies and mistruths of Johnson and Farage.

I felt an attempt to understand the other side of the argument may've shone some light on the inky darkness of the scenarios she's paid to come up with. There was too much boasting of her own credentials, too much 'I'm alright, Jack', and too much repositioning her take from last year's talk. Why should I believe her now when she was so wrong last time?

On top of that Dr Nusbacher seemed to be pretty dismissive of southern European nations like Greece and Italy. The countries of the former Yugoslavia weren't even given the courtesy of being named but were simply lumped together in an amorphous and, apparently, costly and problematic mass.

Dr Nusbacher's main concern with these nations was that an economic crisis could derail the whole EU project. She felt recent events in Catalonia weren't serious enough to upset Brussels (which may be true but it probably feels pretty serious when you're being assaulted by the Spanish police for going out to vote) and, like last year, she still held some pretty uncomfortable views concerning the migrant crisis. I didn't vote to stay in the EU because I wanted Europe to become a huge fortress impenetrable to those in need. I voted to stay in the EU because I believe in inclusivity and helping people out when you can, no matter which country they happen to have been born in.

Dr Nusbacher is a Tory so it's perhaps no surprise she holds these views and that I don't see eye to eye with her. I've always voted Labour and, with a few reservations, I back Corbyn. The doctor didn't mention Labour so much as once in her speech and on this I don't blame her. One of those reservations I have about Corbyn is his non-position on Brexit and the fact that the lip service he paid to the remain camp before the referendum was so half-hearted it all but stated a tacit approval for EU withdrawal.

More importantly, unlike last year's talk, Scotland and Northern Ireland were only briefly skimmed over. Of course time was limited (and Dr Nusbacher was generous in hers) but it'd have been good to hear her thoughts on how the Irish border will be managed.

I agreed with her take on UKIP, she saw them as an irrelevance in the post-Brexit climate who can only justify their existence by constant bellyaching, and I was amused by her position on Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. She saw the man many see as one of the most nefarious in UK politics as frustrated by his lack of power in the Foreign Office, where civil servants do the work and his role is little more than tokenistic, and spoiling, like many Foreign Secretaries before him, for the top job. I suppose if a ranting baby-man former game show host can become POTUS we shouldn't rule out the horrific idea of Bojo the PM.

David Davis is another one lurking around for a sniff of No.10. Our speaker felt May handed Davies and Liam Fox the Brexit gig so that they, like Johnson, could 'own' it when/if it backfires. May doesn't want the shit hitting the fan until it's filled the union jack y-fronts of Davis and Fox and until Boris is crying to have his putrid shit filled nappy changed.

It doesn't matter that much who negotiates Brexit anyway as the EU hold almost every card. The theory, which some will dismiss as just more Project Fear, is that the shit won't really hit the fan until 2019 and that by 2020 Boris's now full to bursting nappy full of excretement will be ready to explode in our faces leaving us looking like something from the top shelf of an Amsterdam porno shop. It's at that point, in this scenario, we wonder why we didn't listen to the grown-ups.

There weren't a lot of positives to take from the evening which seems appropriate as there are unlikely to be many to take from the whole Brexit experience. I don't share Dr Nusbacher's views on many things but, on Brexit, I'm inclined to agree. The whole thing looks like an ill thought out venture, we're hurtling towards a cliff edge and nobody seems to be driving, and when it all goes wrong it'll, once again, as with the banking crisis, be the least fortunate and the most marginalised who will be made the scapegoats and forced to suffer while Boris and Rees-Mogg can retreat to their massive houses, have 'nanny' wash the shit off them, and think about what wizard wheeze they can afflict us with next.

I don't think Brexit will be the fuck up Dr Lynette Nusbacher thinks it will be (her forecasting game is weak). I think it'll be a whole different fuck up but at least it'll be one we voted for, eh?

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:All the stars have splashed and scattered 'cross the ceiling.

"We make a little history, baby, every time you come around" - The Ship Song.

Cheryl, Darren (complete with his packet of Starburst), and I were at the cavernous O2 Arena on the Greenwich peninsula for our first time ever to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The venue inside the former Millennium Dome is so vast that the woman sat in the row in front of us was watching the gig through binoculars. I'd had huge reservations about attending a gig here. Would it be impersonal, corporate, and lacking in atmosphere? Would the music get lost in the rafters? Would the beer be massively over-priced?

It was certainly corporate. Rows of Nando's, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Garfunkel's, ASK, All Bar One, and even a Slug and Lettuce flank you as you work your way towards the airport style security and escalators that take you in to the venue proper where a bog standard pint of lager comes in at a mildly shocking £6.50. But, that aside, it was better than I expected. The seats were comfy, our view was good, and the sound was louder (and better) than I'd have expected at such a soulless place.

Since getting the tickets some time back I'd been telling myself that if Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, to my mind one of the greatest live acts there is, couldn't make the O2 work for them then, probably, nobody could. I'd knock the venue on the head.

I'd been a bit naïve. Of course Nick Cave could make this venue work for him. Nick Cave, it seems, can make any venue work for him. It's almost as if there's some kind of variant of Parkinson's Law in which Cave's presence expands to fill the space available. For all his kudos as an alternative and countercultural icon Cave is, at heart, a showman.

He sings, he dances, he wears suits, he even tells jokes - admittedly of the very dry variety. Even with nearly half the songs coming from this year's necessarily sombre Skeleton Tree album Cave and his truly international group of Bad Seeds (Switzerland, the UK, and the USA are represented alongside Australia) don't allow for any longueurs whatsoever. Which is remarkable as songs like Higgs Boson Blues and Jubilee Street can often expand to double their length to allow Cave to extemporise, or seemingly extemporise, ad-libs and throw himself into the adoring audience like a messiah.

When during Jesus Alone, very early on in proceedings, Cave intones 'with my voice I am calling you' the depth, clarity, and authority that voice carries leaves you in no doubt he means it. When, during an epic Red Right Hand, he claims 'you're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan' you wonder if he's talking about his relationship with his audience. Does he mean us?

The rows of outstretched female hands that greet him every time he steps near the front row seem like they'd be willing to undertake whatever relationship role he proposes them worthy of. Most offer outstretched palms to feel the passion of his heart beating although one iconoclast makes a cheeky grasp for Nick Cave's cock.

Lesser men may have been a bit put off by this but Cave's been doing this for years and it's unlikely that one unsolicited grope would mean much to a man who once fronted The Birthday Party, a band that seemed to thrive on controversy and whose concerts involved stage invaders urinating on the stage and drug-fuelled punch-ups.

There's way more love than hate in the room at a Cave gig these days. It's almost a religious experience. Though he delves back to the early eighties with Tupelo (from 1985's The Firstborn Is Dead), the post-punk, Pop Group influenced, squall of From Her To Eternity of the year before's debut album, and the timeless dignity of The Mercy Seat, new songs like the elegiac Girl in Amber and I Need You's utterly heartbroken tale of loss, desperation and desolation are more typical of the Cave experience du jour. Pianos, orchestration, dignity in the face of disaster, and a baritone voice that can sing to nearly 20,000 people and still make you think it's specially for you.

Both The Ship Song and The Weeping Song stand to show how Cave had mastered the art of the heartfelt ballad long ago. On 1997's The Boatman's Call he came close to perfecting it with one of the greatest opening salvos in album history. Sadly the band didn't play Lime Tree Arbour, People Ain't No Good, or Brompton Oratory (and if they played every classic song they've written we'd probably still be there) but Into My Arms was as romantic, graceful, and as awed in the presence of beauty as it's always been. It's enough to elicit simultaneous tears of joy and pain. Even Cheryl singing along in the seat next to me couldn't ruin it!

The only misfire of the gig was the introduction of a hologram of Danish soprano Else Torp during Distant Sky. It was a minor one and it wasn't terrible but came across as a bit of a novelty - not something that Nick Cave tends to lend himself to. He'll happily joke with the audience (after a heckle of 'your wife's a fox' he dedicates a song to 'my wife, the fox') and, during an absolutely stunning, and stunningly violent and foul mouthed, rendition of Stagger Lee as encore, invites people on to the stage. He puts his arm round a topless dude and tells another guy in a "I HEART TAKE THAT" t-shirt that he's got sixteen boxes of the same t-shirt at home.

During the more intense moments of Higgs Boson Blues and Red Right Hand, Cave seems to have internalised everything he's seen, everything he's been through, everyone he's loved, and everyone he's lost and now, on stage, it's all spilling out at a frightening rate. If it can seem like a huge, primal, barely containable train of thought it's anything but. We've learnt, in recent years, that Cave works hard. The energy of these songs has been sweated over - and sculpted with just as much devotion as the ballads. An utterly perfunctory guest appearance by Bobby Gillespie towards the end of the night throws into sharp relief the difference between a rigorous Bad Seeds gig and a shambolic Primal Scream one.

You can watch a Nick Cave gig through binoculars if you want. You'll get a better view of his face. But it doesn't really matter if you're watching a distant silhouette working the stage like the old master he is, counting the well earned lines on his face on the big screen, or up the front feeling his heart boom (or, indeed, feeling his cock). Because the power of his voice, the power of the band that back him, the skill of his song writing, and the deep wells of passion for humanity that underpin this whole venture, his whole existence, will reach you anyway. You can sit in a comfy chair with an overpriced pint of lager and still feel like you've undergone a deeply emotional experience - one you probably wouldn't have got in the Slug & Lettuce. Nick Cave worked the O2, alright.