The World According to Spaz The ramblings of a man from a place going to another place completely different to the first place.

Note to self: when long weekends pop up, don't spend them in London, cause no one else does. The place is a ghost town. Hardly any shops are open, only a handful of wayward cars patrol the streets, hell I can't even get stopped on a high street by a charity mugger. I don't know how tumbleweeds made their way to England but at the moment they're blowing through town like nobody's business. They should employ skywriters to write "London: closed for the weekend" all over the heavens, but they'd all probably be abroad and grey on grey doesn't really make for compelling viewing anyway. Ironically it's a clear blue day as I write this, but give it an hour and the gods of gloom should iron that little kink out.

So the Easter long weekend. My beautiful friend Nicole Loves To Party calls me on Saturday night and gives me a complete itinnery of what I should do on Easter Sunday. "What you want to do is get the tube down to Waterloo, go for a walk along the Thames past the London Eye, nip in to the markets at Borough, the Tate Modern, take a book, take a notepad to write about all the fascinating people, pop into the church and say a quick one for me... you'll love it darling". And though she is a dirty hippie, I have to tell you, they way she sold it to me with that ever enviable Loves To Party thirst for life and pursuit of pure joy, she really pulled me out of my slump and made me want to explore this city with fresh eyes.

Then I figured out how to make the telly work and I stayed at home all day.

It was brilliant. Digital TV (ok it's not Sky so you can't get all the matches and movies and stuff), a hundred odd channels - I spent three hours watching Scrubs. Never seen it before - and though it does at times stray towards the cutesy quirkisms of Ally McBeal, it's still a pretty good show. Hours upon hours of channel flicking, mind numbing bliss. I didn't even have a shower. Just sat there on the couch, house to myself, cup of tea, watching the box. Now what could be more British than that.

ps - On the Saturday Handsome Dan and I went to Backstreet rehearsal studios so Dan could practice his drums and I could muck around with a guitar and amp. Magic. So we're at the front desk and we notice on the schedule board that some garage band with a sense of humour thought it would be funny to pretend the they were The Buzzcocks. The guy at the counter goes "Er, no that is The Buzzcocks, they're auditioning a new drummer". Walked past the room and they're playing "Ever Fallen In Love With Someone" which I swear I would have rolled my eyes at and gone "bloody cover bands" if I hadn't known better. Sure beats meeting Craig McLachlan at Troy Horse that time.