DAN'S BIG MOMENT

I guess Westpoint studios just appreciates the Raishbrook mystique more than we do. We always thought he was just a grumpy midget with a salt fetish. But it turns out that when he's not eating cheese sandwiches (with extra salt) or trying to sneak Beatles riffs into Veils songs without us noticing (which he did on Nux, much to his delight, the bastard) it turns out that Dan spends his free time alternating between making decent money at online poker, and studying HOW to make decent money at online poker. He's been training Henning and Ian as well, which means he spends slightly less time hunched over swearing at a screen and slightly more time swearing directly at them as they once more forget the lessons he's taught them about early position. Needless to say, we're gradually coming to realise we're all going to be millionaires by the time we leave, though Henning's the only one who's so far been brave enough to test the idea. Dan effortlessly doubled Dietz' money in about twenty minutes, so I guess it's all on. We'll keep you posted.

More stories about larkspur:

Sarah-the-manager came down on Friday, to say hi and make sure we/Graham weren't royally screwing it up. We played her a bunch of half finished things, which she seemed to enjoy, and then the latest edit of larkspur. At the end of it, we turned to her, grinning like maniacs and said 'so whaddaya think?'

'I feel sick.' 

She meant it in a good way. Or at least we decided she did. 

But I know that probably people are quite sick of hearing about it/seeing pictorial references to it by now, and there's always that risk of bigging something up so much it can never quite live up to expectations (see also: New Years eve, dress up parties, every night out in east london ever) or just, you know, sounding full of yourself. So I'll stop now. 

In between the Lark-madness we've been doing Other Songs. Also, a cookoff between Ian and Henning, or, between the contents of their lovingly prepared meals from home. Admittedly, pitting a large vegetarian shepherds pie against an intricately landscaped assortment of rice, vegetables (Ian : 'and toasted pinenuts!') and the most perfect egg rolls on the planet is perhaps a little bit apples/oranges. The outcome was uncertain. Okay no it wasn't. Ian won the presentation category by a country mile (Me: 'look at the SPACING of the BROCCOLI!') but a loud protest was lodged by the German camp on the basis of size (Henning: 'look how big this is! And it's got PARMESAN!') and taste. I did eat some of the pie, and it WAS amazing.....but......you just can't beat the Japanese lunch. It's a fact. 

I've just realised that that last paragraph's got a distinctly sports commentator vibe. Sorry. We had a day off yesterday and I spent pretty much all of it watching the Olympics in bed. Turns out that women's lightweight weightlifting is one of the world's more surreal spectacles, though the bit where I got a little overexcited during the dressage and spilled the glass of water I'd been putting cigarettes out in all morning in my lap was pretty dramatic too. 

And that's sort of it. Right now I'm sitting in the living room/hallway,  listening to the early stages of work on Killed By The Boom. Currently, it's got a shouted Shane McGowan style drunken intro, courtesy of F.Andrews, some suspiciously bowel shaking subby drums, and a bunch of guitars that sound as though they're being  dragged out of their lairs and vigorously shaken by rat hunting terriers. A good start.