Thanks everyone for all the wonderful birthday messages, I did start thanking everyone individually but the dam burst and I wasn’t able to keep up any more, so thank you, collectively, individually and otherwise – messages from space are only just arriving as are the aquatic messages from the fish people and the lizard government at the centre of the Earth (jk). As it happened, I was putting away Jim Sullivan’s U.F.O. (1969) today, still in its shrinkwrap and still wet – and he’s still missing. I thought it might be one of these groups that took him, but they denied it, and surely they wouldn’t have left his beetle?
Although we got to bed at 7 AM, I set my alarm to get up so I wouldn’t lose the day to the darkness. Olivia had given me a birthday cake at 12.01 because that’s when my birthday began and I got seven hours of it already before sleeping (the day, not the cake). It was of course more Archive organising through the night and we managed to get the table the right way up and some kind of coherence in the front room so you could actually be in there. We are now surrounded with records and from here we have to set up the stereos, find places for framed posters and lava lamps and the next thing is to get the electrician in to assess the power outlets and figure out where they need to be. Any that we have are mostly in the wrong places and there are not enough of them – plus some of them don’t work, there’s an endless list of tasks here.
I was somewhat bleary-eyed, getting up with the alarm instead of waking naturally, so it took a while to get out, having said that I sat and listened closely to a playlist of songs first, that started after Rory Gallagher’s great debut album (1971), digging that tone he had and his touch, but that continued with the following artists. We left, we hit the street and I shared my birthday joy with Joaquim from the café across the road, Narciso from the café next door but one, and the ladies of the day before heading to the jewellers to pick up Olivia’s adjusted snake ring. From there to the coffee shop where they gave me a free birthday croissant. We walked through the central market on this beautiful day and headed to the record store – where else.
There, Jorge was alone, the lads, Rui, José and Jorge had already sent me a nice birthday message (as did Magnet magazine). What happened next blew my mind (a regular occurrence) but I won’t tell you why till tomorrow. In the store, I met Xico from Population 5, who asked us to a bar for a drink, but time was flying and the streets were absolutely packed with massive crowds of students as they celebrated their graduation. Back for the Champions League, Olivia went and got sushi and before I knew it I was back amongst the boxes.
Music today has been the Dave Gilmour – Live in Gda?sk (2008) box set so kindly gifted to me for my birthday by Scott Beals. Thank you again, Scott, I still can’t quite believe it.