I can’t sum up today.

Katie, gimme a hand?
Well, adding details anyway. I've just got to get it all down before, heaven forbid, I forget.
So. Leeds. I turned up at Katie's house early and we set off a little early. I got £5 from my mother for food and we were off.
In the waiting room in Sunderland station, some charv kept connecting to my phone via Bluetooth and trying to send me shite. It's unsurprising how fun it is to say 'REJECT' loudly when pressing the reject button.
They rejected the clip of Animal I tried to send.
We changed in, of course, decent time and got on the train to Leeds equipped with snacks. Brilliant. Scampi and lemon Nik Naks are so underrated, even if they make my fingers stink.
We had a good laugh at refreshments guy ('Is he coming back? Is he coming back? He's not coming back…HE CAME BACK!'), the conductor's announcements, people around us, my complete inability to make sense and make sensible statements, and places around us.
It always rains in Northallerton.
Oh, lest I forget! The defaced Metro! Fan-bloody-tastic. The newspaper, obviously, not the train. COCK.
Oh yes, getting there. We got horrendously LOST trying to find the Warehouse. I'd asked Tom from Black Wire, he said just round the corner from the station. My dad asked a work colleague, apparently they said Wellington Street. I asked the Royal Mail website, that said Somers Street. I asked a map and someone offering directions, they said Somers Street didn't exist.
'Somers Street? I don't know…what's on it that you're looking for?'
'The Warehouse nightclub?'
'Oh, yeah, I know where that is, I used to work there.' We'd walked like hell down Wellington Street and just happened to turn off at the right street. It was right round the corner from where we were, and not very near the station.
We walk round, bloody bagel bar, oh yes, first left. The street sign? Somers Street.
Die.
We spent ages trying to find the entrance before realising that open scummy double door in this back lane, surrounded by vans, was the entrance. That blue van, whose was it? Nah, can't be Black Wire's. But…I recognised it! And it had a Black Wire sticker on the back.
Of course it was theirs. We didn't see them at that point, asked a kindly man a few questions, and were on our way. Fortunately the other end of the street opened onto the Headrow, so at least I knew where we were. So. Mooch.
I'd love to show you my pictures, but it's late, and I've been up for 18 hours at least. But you really need a picture to show the next thing. Next to the town hall, there's some street signs. They point to different streets, no, none of them Somers Street. But one pointing down a street I've never been down before, just saying 'Go throw yourself into the sea'.
Friendly folk, aren't they?
I took Katie, as promised, to the Corn Exchange. She bought beads in Fabric Junkie and we picked up some free NMEs in another shop. They were old, which is why we got them free, they just cut the barcodes off. We ripped pages out of them, scribbled on them, and took these pages for a tour around the city, including on a cash machine and next to some stickers saying 'Suck my balls'. Katie's ripped-out page met its fate on…wait for it…a dead pigeon outside the Cockpit.
Where else did we go? Jumbo. That wasn't meant to rhyme, it just did. Flip through vinyl. OH MY GOD, SIGNED ANIMAL VINYL, THEY HAVE SOME LEFT! I starved for that vinyl. Starved for it. It spent £2 of my £5. I'd already spent the best part of £2 on cherry Coke and some crisps in Newcastle central station. Later I had a cheeseburger in Burger King, and apart from a piece of toast that morning, they were all I had to eat that day. Until later. But still.
I looked at the CDs, but I couldn't starve further. I had to take Animal from someone's hand (they WERE putting it back in the rack) to look. Remember those people.
Katie went back a few minutes later to get THE LAST signed Animal vinyl.
Where else? Borders (we were using the toilets in the McDonalds next to it). Katie posed with 'The Usborne Introduction to MODERN ART', and listened to Morrissey on the listening post.
Anywhere else? Well, from a total lack of anything else to do, we mooched up through a shopping centre, I posed for a picture in an ice cream van kiddie ride, and went to Virgin Megastores, where they had a massive (I say massive, but it wasn't) display of Duels singles. I nearly died over the EPs. THE GRAND GUIGNOL! HALF LIFE! And Katie sat on the floor.
Yeah, so that's how we kill our time. Apart from going to two queue hours early.
We thought we were the only ones daft enough to, but no, there were two kids there already. The ones who I'd picked Animal up from in Jumbo. Ace.
We squeed over different bands. They were squeeing over the Horrors, Katie and I were there for Black Wire. Tom left the building with a girl and I shouted after him, 'YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING STUCK TO YOUR SHOE!' He had, too.
Dan left next and I made the stupidest noise ever when he walked past me. I've been assured he didn't notice.
Our friends went over to talk to the Horrors as they arrived. HOT. Just HOT. And so friendly, we asked for pictures and they said they'd load their instruments and then come back out to talk. And you know what? We'd been let down by a promise like that already, but they bloody did come as well. They actually listened to what we had to say and let us take pictures and didn't mind.
And then Si came out. You know, Si.
Black Wire were on a few minutes late but they were well worth waiting for. They played a couple of new songs first, before Tom's bass was fixed and they launched head-on into God Of Sheffield Traffic. What a song, what a fucking SONG. They played all BUT ONE of the singles, including the new one but NOT including Smoke And Mirrors…I mean, what?! They played one of it's b-sides (fortunately the best one and one of my favourite Black Wire songs) but not the song itself. Some new stuff.
We'd been in Burger King earlier, I got a cheeseburger (it was the only thing I could afford and I was grateful for it) and Katie got a chicken bites kids meal. With Indeterminate Stuffed Thing. An Ice Age related thing. Anyway, we decided to throw it at Si. Not in a menacing way. As a love token. Between us we screamed 'SI!' and when he finally took notice, fling. 'I LOVE YOU!'
'What's that? Knickers?' from Dan.
Cue Tom saying something like 'Well we'd appreciate knickers…' and so on, to be interrupted by Dan taking the microphone away from him.
Thoughts erupt in my head. I like the knickers I wore, and although I'd get my bags out for Black Wire, I draw the line at getting my knickers out. I wasn't throwing them for anyone.
My bra. I've never been a fan of it. Take that off and throw it.
Do you know how hard it is to take a bra off in a crowd of Black Wire fans jumping up and down to Hard To Love Easy To Lay?
Well, I did it. I waited for an opportune moment, and FLING.
It was largely ignored. For a while.
Cue the end of Very Gun and they decide to go out in style. No fun for ME, I'm getting my uncontrollable boobs squashed and crushed and squeezed and pinched and OW. Until DAN PICKS UP MY BRA AND PUTS IT ON HIS HEAD.
I've just reread that sentence and I AM SQUEEING. I'll squee more in a second.
Moment later, he flung himself into the crowd. His head goes down and comes up again a moment later minus bra. I didn't foresee this bit. I've lost my bloody bra.
Prepare to be squeed at.
He was dragged back to the front and assaulted by loving fans clinging and pulling and hugging and kissing and God knows what. I was in a good spot at the front, he'd already acknowledged my presence ('NEWCASTLE'S SHIT, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT' when they mentioned the riots, and he'd grabbed my hand and swung it during songs occasionally), as he left the crowd, among a sea of hands, he grabbed my head and kissed it.
A few moments later, I was lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling, not even thinking that I'm getting crushed. Yes, I am the classic cliché and I'd gone so weak-kneed at that kiss that I fell over.
I was dragged up, clung to by Katie and finished the night perfectly.
Oh, I think I broke the world record for bellowing 'HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY BRA?'
No luck.
Katie is lovely and kind and generous and bought me THE BEST T-SHIRT IN THE WORLD. And it so clearly is.

I do need to pay her back though.
We got outside, wandered down the street, found my dad (who I'd said I would meet outside the station), explained to him, he disapproved of my t-shirt, and I turned round to find a girl holding out a massive white thing.
'MY BRA, YOU HAVE MY BRA!'
'It's yours? I was going to keep it, but it's not my size!'
Oh, and
'Are you really a 34F?'
'Yes, YES I AM!'
I'm not, the bra said 40F and that's approximately what I am.
My dad offered to buy us a McDonalds when we got back to the station, and when we got in we found Jess ahead of us in the queue. Lucky, that, she was getting the same trains as us. She just laughed at my stories.
She also got a lift home from my lovely lovely lovely kind dad when we got back to Darlington.
I'd love to go into more detail, but my computer's about to run out of power, and I have time for about three' hours sleep before I have to get up. If I've missed anything, shout.

Things I Couldn't Fit In
The hexopus
'Suicide! Suicide! Suicide!'
The story of the free water