Meet my new baby, Nancy.  She’s tiny but oh so beautiful and I adore her…

Ha, you didn’t think I’d call a real baby Nancy, did you?
Of course, she doesn’t have the same background.  I quickly discovered all the new features and now I have the tower of love (y’know, from Jim Noir’s album cover) on there.  I’ve got the previews of several (OK, two) of Duels’ album tracks, including Animal, as my ringtones.  And I have a spare USB lead that I can use for both my camera and my phone.  Ace.
Also I forgot how good unrestrained shopping is.  Well, I say unrestrained, but it’s better than my normal routine of going out with a fiver, spending it too early and then finding things later that I wanted.  I’m now wearing a polka dot vest-type thing and skinny jeans.  I also got a new bag (which I adore), a book I’ve wanted for ages, a mug, five new pairs of knickers (I will NEVER, EVER buy knickers in those boring plastic packs again…for me shopping for new knickers is like therapy), and some makeup and a makeup bag.  I tried to buy more knickers in Topshop (their girl boxers are the best pants in the world, ever), when they decided I’d spent quite enough for today, and I was late for my dentist’s appointment, so I told them to stuff it (well, I didn’t, the assistant was being so helpful, I just said it didn’t matter and I needed to go) and went.  Oh, and I probably got more stuff, I just can’t remember.  I stuffed all my stuff into my bag as I got home and when I emptied it all over my bed, it was like I’d been away for a weekend.  Except I didn’t have my laptop (which…um…doesn’t have a name).  Or a toothbrush.  But I’m just a pedant.

“Oh, more horses.”
“Do you think those ones are transvestites as well?”
“Maybe.”

I think the above exchange shows aptly that I live in a scary and strange twisted family.

How do you do happy?
Why can’t I?

If you’re read anything I’ve written in, say, the last year, you’ll know how much I go to gigs. And February’s been good to me. There have been six gigs this month, encompassing however many bands. Seven Heroes (supporting the Kooks, but I couldn’t be arsed to stay for them), The Rakes, White Rose Movement, Duels, Switches, The Cribs, Giant Drag, Jeffrey and Jack Lewis, Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah (supporting the Paddingtons, again I couldn’t be arsed to stay), Babyshambles, Jack Afro, and now Sol Someone (I can’t remember their name), John Egdell and the mighty, mighty Jim Noir and his man choir.

The support bands were weird. Well, John Egdell wasn’t particularly weird. Five of us were lined up along the front, and it was one man singing gorgeous slow songs with a guitar. He forgot something and went offstage after one song to get it. Sol Someone were…definitely weird. They had numerous keyboards and swapped instruments constantly. The singer was amazingly dressed and had a fabulous voice, and they were quite good, but a little weird for my taste.

Jim and his man choir were welcomed onstage to a loud cheer, but with five of us still lined up along the front, with a gap in between us and the rest of the crowd. They started with the only song I didn’t know, the elusive Tell Me What To Do that I couldn’t find anywhere, but it turns out Katie and Matthew have it, so I’ve been sent it and right now am listening to it for the second time in a row Another good thing about them (because although Jim plays every single instrument and does all the singing on his recorded stuff, the man choir are brilliant and absolutely essential, you could be fooled into thinking they were all one band, Jim included) is their happiness to chat with the crowd. I can’t remember what exchange led to Jim announcing, “This next song’s called ‘Fuck You, Yer Bastards’,” but it raised a laugh. Of course, it was quite the opposite, the sublime Eanie Meany. I can’t remember what order they were played in, but the set also included A Quiet Man, Computer Song, How To Be So Real, I Me You I’m Your, The Only Way and Turbulent Weather. Key of C, however, raised the biggest cheer of the night, until My Patch. They mentioned singalongs. They mentioned congas. I’m a member of the forum, I expected these. With all the space we had, Katie, Matthew and I were able to prance on the spot like he does in the video, until we turn round and see the conga getting going. I found the end and didn’t stop until the whole conga did, after the band had finished playing. We looped round everyone in the room, out, round, round tables, into the backstage area (nobody gave a shit, they were too busy laughing), along past the front several times…they stopped playing and everyone kept singing the…um…lovely refrain ‘If you ever step on my patch, I’ll bring you down, I’ll bring you down’, as we kept conga-ing. Jim leapt off the stage and started patting everyone on the back as they went past him, so I threw my arm around him and gave him a hug. We had to move a bin on wheels to get past one point, so I’d assume the person at the front kept pushing it, and as we were going past the front at one point a man sat in it and was pushed along by the conga. My jeans were falling down, I was tired, I was thirsty, but I kept going and going and going, because I didn’t want to stop. But all good things must come to an end, sadly. No encore, the Noir doesn’t have a massive amount of songs, sadly, but Tower Of Love (one of my absolute favourites on the album but it’s only an instrumental track), Hotsy Wa Wa Blues and Turn Your Frown Into A Smile would have been nice as well.

The guitarist was a bit weird and kept staring at us, and at one point pointed us out to Jim as the fans, we knew all the words. Oh, come on, I knew there couldn’t have been that many of us. So when he talks to us, Katie shows him her ‘Noirgasm’ badge. He loved it. And asked her if he could keep it. The guitarist’s face when he looked at it was priceless though.

Brilliant night, brilliant artist, brilliant man choir (‘Want to buy a man choir?’). One problem- set too short. Far too short. Although they managed to go on past their curfew of 11pm thanks to our conga skills and we missed the last metro home. Ho hum, pig’s bum. Worth it. 11/10, Mr Noir, can’t do better.

I love my ‘job’.  I love the academy itself, it’s big, the main auditorium is gorgeous, if you appreciate that kind of thing (and I do), the staff are friendly, it’s warm, and it even smells nice.  I love the perks of the job.  I love the free gigs.  Maxïmo Park (twice), Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah, Natalie Imbruglia, Belle and Sebastian, Seven Heroes, Babyshambles…just some of the bands I’ve seen for free thanks to giving up a few hours each week.  I love…um…staring at Phil’s arse when he’s got his back turned to me.  Sorry.  But that’s a damn fine arse.  And he’s really friendly and nice and good to talk to, and he’s got a fucking ace accent.  And he’s been wearing the same Ordinary Boys hoodie the last however many times I’ve seen him.  It’s got to smell a bit now, I know my hoodie does, and that’s just from one gig.  Thank you Pete Doherty and your chain-smoking fans.  But I’m still digressing.
I love exploring Newcastle while I’m out flyering.  Within reason, anyway.  I didn’t like the time just before Christmas that I had a bag full of fucking heavy flyers, got lost, found the Cooperage and then had to walk up a really steep hill, still with the bag on my shoulder.  My shoulder wasn’t the same for a few days afterwards.  But I do love the shops I go to.  I love RPM, Steel Wheels, Munchies, Virgin Megastore (I was quite surprised, but they do take posters and leaflets).  I love walking past Lush and getting the blast of the smell.
Today I had to find Trillians, which I’ve heard lots about but never actually been to.  Phil drew me a map on the back of a leaflet and I made myself stop giggling when the sketch of the monument he drew took on a startling resemblance to a cock.  (Look, he drew a street next to it and it looked even pervier…)  I got lost, panicked, spotted two members of Kubichek! (OK, this is debatable, it was a bit skinny for Al and I wouldn’t be lucky enough to spot McGreevy) then thought it would be funny if I saw Ross from the Futureheads as well, and a bit further along DID see him.  I went the wrong way, which turned out to be the right way, but thought it was too wrong, went round the block, went the right way from the wrong way and eventually found it.
I need to start going there more often.  It.  Is.  Wonderful.  A bit bigger than the downstairs room at the Head Of Steam (which I newly love, even though I’ve still only been there once).  I saw someone getting some burgers and they looked huge and smelt wonderful.  The staff seemed really friendly, it’s dark but not too dark, and best of all, they have loads of little gigs on.  And it wasn’t stupidly smoky either, although this was two in the afternoon.  I was ridiculously thirsty and the girls at the bar got a glass of lemonade, which I was this close to grabbing and downing in one go.
How can I babble on for this long about finding a brilliant pub and how much I love working for the academy?!

Dear the NME,

I appreciate that you printed my letter, so hopefully every person pushing there and crowdsurfing could hopefully feel some remorse.  I’m not a great fan of your editing, that at the end said ‘Nice touch.’, not just ‘Nice.’  I do appreciate that I was drunk when I wrote said letter, so it would make sense if it didn’t make sense.  If that makes any sense.  I like the touch of putting a letter from a crowdsurfer at the same gig just underneath my letter describing crowdsurfers as ‘cunts’.
I understand that spellings of my name are interchangeable between Hana and Hannah.  And I’m honestly not picky about which you choose.  But I’m sorry, ‘Hanna’ is not an option.  Especially considering I’d spell my name properly if I was registering for an email address, which was your source of my name.

You cunts.

Love, Hana.

PS, can I have a job?

Is it just me, or is bands splitting up the new forming a band? I blame Art Brut for the latter. Damn you, Eddie Argos! (Good song, though.) But The Needs split up, Do Me Bad Things split up, the Libertines split up although, yes, that was a while ago now, Babyshambles have split up and reformed more times than I actually give a shit about. And now Test Icicles are splitting up and I am far too overjoyed about this.  Alright, I don’t like them.  Although out of all of these bands the Libertines had the best run, all the others either made only one album or, in the case of the Needs, none.  Shame, they were the best one.  Members of bands walk all the time.  I hate to drag them into this again, but Babyshambles’ guitarist walked, came back again, seems to have gone again.  And their old drummer went as well, and formed the Suffrajets, which is still a shit band name.  British Sea Power got a keyboard player for their second album, who then left just as they were about to start working on their third.  With more established bands, this is more understandable, getting tired of it.  But newer bands…I don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for and I don’t think they do either.
Although in the case of Eamon from British Sea Power, he’s in another band now, Brakes, who write seven-second-long songs.  Ace.  And I don’t think anyone knows what they’d let themselves in for forming a band with Pete Doherty.
I’m supposed to be going to see Babyshambles tonight.  I should stop bad-mouthing them.  They’re not all that bad.  But still, I wish they’d split up and leave Pete to getting clean.  And reforming the Libertines.  Very important.
By December, I tell thee.

Last night I had a weird dream involving all sorts of things, including the Rakes and Jim Noir duetting singing Dirty Mind by the Pipettes, and dark clouds, which scare the shit out of me.  No, I don’t mean what’s covering the sky outside my window at the moment, I mean thick black clouds, which I never seem to see in reality, only in dreams, which is nice.  I like strange things happening in dreams, because I can scream myself awake if it’s too scary.  Like the other night, when I had a dream where I shot Amy, so a particularly terrifying teacher from my old school came along, picked up the same (small) gun and shot her again, then picked up a much bigger gun and came towards me while I tried to escape and my parents restrained me.  I think that might be symbolic.  But I digress.

Today my dad has found a switch for the light in the downstairs toilet…um…under the floorboards, and while doing some hammering, managed to hammer through a water pipe.  I’ve never heard him swear so much, apart from when he knocked an open tin of varnish over earlier.  I’ve just been in the shower, am sat quite comfortably in my towel and am getting acquainted with this, my new home.  So…hi, have a seat.  Yes, it’s full of big squashy armchairs with big cuddly cushions.  Would I have it any other way?  Drink?  Anything you want.  Tea?  Coffee?  Baileys?  I maybe miss my old home a bit, I wish I hadn’t deleted it now.  I wasn’t in a very good state of mind last night, when I did it.  But then I haven’t been in a good state of mind for a while now.

But never mind me.  Here’s your drink.  Another cushion?  I’ll put the fire on, keep this place warm.

So…

So many people seem to be jumping ship to here…never one to miss a bandwagon and it looks good to me.  I’ll keep this place warm for when I need it…