Car Jams & Vanishing Organs

Friday: Got a text from Parsley asking wether I'd want the stand and footpedals for the Farfisa he lent me. Why would he want to do a thing like that? I returned the organ to him after their gig at Eastbourne promenade bandstand, and now it seems he has no use for these accessories. It isn't the original stand, but it serves its purpose, and besides, I could use a freebie keyboard stand for the organ (the one that hasn't been pimped yet) that I bought from eBay. I said "fine", he said "pick it up from me on the Saturday, sometime around midday-ish but no later than 3.00pm".

Parsley lives in Borehamwood, I live on the opposite side of London. There is a great journey to be made. I know, I'll take the train.

Saturday morning: Sod the train, I'll get in me motor. If I leave at 10.30am, I'll easily get there by midday-ish. It's the weekend, weekends don't have rush hours.

Saturday, midday-ish: "Hello mate, it's me. I think I'm gonna be late, it's taken me an hour to get from Chelsea to Hammersmith".
"Do you wanna knock it on the 'ead?".
"Tell ya what...I'll soldier on and try and meet you for three, if I get anymore hassle, I'll let you know".

The roads were miserable. Grey, wet and gridlocked. Part of this catastrophe was down to yours truly picking the wrong route. The fact that I didn't have any satellite navigation or an A-Z didn't help matters much either. I just presumed that getting to Hammersmith via Clapham would be a walk in the park instead of a car drive from tail-back hell with road rage symptoms bubbling over, fit to burst at any moment and with more possible repercussions than a detonating Polaris missile.

Somehow, I ended up driving past Perivale underground station. That was not a bad thing, because to my jaded geographical sense of direction, Perivale was north of Hammersmith. North was where I needed to be, north was good. What I wasn't aware of was that Perivale is more north-west-west. Keep going Ister, perhaps you'll see signs for Wembley. You can't go wrong if you find Wembley, can you?

Oh yes you fucking can.

There it was, Wembley stadium in all its rebuilt glory, the arch standing proud as if to say "Welcome to Brent mate, you're nearly there!". Traffic levels were sporadic from Perivale, but you know how it is. Premature Sunday drivers (premature because they're driving on a Saturday), drivers at the front of the queue (that pay no attention to changing traffic lights so that we all get to miss a turn passing them), learner drivers, slow lorries, cars that pull out from the side when it's your own right of way, the pusher-inners, rubber-neckers slowing down to witness the carnage of another's motoring accident and loads more. Every three miles I'd experience all these type of drivers but as I arrived at Wembley, I spotted a sign for Watford and the M25. Brilliant! Borehamwood's not too far from Watford, I'll take that route...well, I would've, had it not been cordoned off by the police. That's all I needed. They probably did it for the bloody Princess bloody Di bloody concert thing today. It was either that or there was a drive-by shooting in Neasden. Aaarrrggghhhh!!!!

The race against the clock was gearing towards me being the loser, the last instance that I looked at the digital time displaying device on the dust gathered dash it was saying "14:38" with a big grin on it's face. Then, all too soon, it was 3.00pm. I pulled over and rang Parsley to inform him that road conditions had gotten the better of me. We arranged to meet a few hours later on the Holloway Road. Fair enough, that'll give me a chance to eat and stretch my legs after being carbound for four and a half hours.

Saturday afternoon, 3:15pm: I somehow ended up on the M1 in a northerly direction and pulled into the London Gateway services. I was so close to Borehamwood, but Parsley had already left for a prior engagement. I opted for a proper meal to help me retrieve my sapped mental energy - Lamb shank, garden peas and mash. 'Twas alright, but I've tasted better.

"Large Coke please, mate. I'm very thirsty. Oh, and how much does this A-Z of Greater London cost?"

I thought I'd have enough time to get to the Holloway Road after my late lunch, so I took the scenic route via Elstree and Borehamwood. Oh look, it's that place where they produce reality TV fave Big Brother. Not much going on there then.

Is that a sign for Edgware? That's roughly towards my direction of travel that I need to be in, I'll go that-a-way. Hang on...what's this? Not more traffic, surely? I vaguely remember passing Edgware, and it went downhill rapidly from there. Hendon, Gospel Oak, all chock-a-block, bumper to bumper, pissing down with rain. What if I attempt to use that A-Z that I bought earlier, perhaps I can use it to help me navigate through the backstreets? Good idea.

Not a good idea. An A-Z does not display minor/major roadworks and impromptu diversions. By this time I had missed the five p.m. mark. I was wondering wether Parsley would still be there as I turned into Holloway Road.

Saturday afternoon, 5:50pm: With the car parked, I walked into The Crown pub as if I were an unwelcome stranger from another tribe, all the elderly regulars giving me the eyeball. I left the building faster than Elvis. Time to make another phone call.

"It's me, where are you?"
"Where are you?"
"Outside The Crown on the corner of Landseer Road".
"You're at the wrong pub, start walking down Landseer and I'll meet you as I walk up".
30 seconds later and Parsley is ready to off-load the keyboard accessories into the car.
"Where did your Farfisa go?" I asked him.
"Not sure, I'll have to ring around. Did you definately give it back to me?" he replied.
"Yep".
"Fancy a drink?"
"Yep".

We walked towards the Landseer pub, where a large crowd had spilled out onto the pavement stretching over to the small recreation ground opposite. Bless 'em, it was an event titled "The Landseer Music Festival" which was really more of a street party in terms of look and atmosphere, with lots of nice barbaque smells wafting from chunky burgers coming from the pub itself. Parsley was there to see his mate's band THE LONDON DIRTHOLE COMPANY (pictured right, named after Saddam Hussein's hiding place prior to it being discovered by US troops in Iraq). Because I arrived just before six in the evening, I missed their set. Shame, but lead vocalist and thoroughly nice chap Wajid blue-toothed me some David Cloud songs from his phone which I've yet to listen to. He's on an evangelical mission to spread the word of all things Cloud and heavenly.

The Urban Voodoo Machine (left) used to be MySpace friends of mine until they started spamming me to death. They played live at the festival too but I found them to be lacking in something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but when you have an image such as this, you expect the band to be a bit special, a bit raucous. But they ended up sounding like another scuzzy psychobilly sleaze rock'n'roll'n'blues band. Image-wise, The Cramps did it a whole lot better than them, and they did it ages ago. They have their own "speakeasy" type club, The Gypsy Hotel in Dalston (?) based on that vampire bar in the film From Dusk Till Dawn, apparently. Well, that's how I'd imagine it to look but without the Mexican brothel flavour.

Saturday evening, possibly after eight: There wasn't much point sticking around for too long. I couldn't stay and get drunk unless I was to sleep it off in the car, so I set out for home. More traffic, more rain, via Walthamstow and the Blackwall tunnel, a route which is familiar to me. I was quite impressed to see how Leyton Orient's ground has developed into a proper looking organisation. Last time I drove past that neck of the woods it resembled the old shallow-wall-around-a-pitch of Wimbledon FC at Plough Lane.

It's always good that even a brief get together with a friend can make the memory of a shitty journey seem distant.