Friday night was an odd affair. One of the problems with doing flyering for a bunch of bands and artists on the fringes of even the alternative scene is that it's hard to know where to target your promotional efforts. A bog-standard cop-out is to stand outside gigs by The Fall and hope that Mark E Smith's fans still listen to Radio One in the evenings, and have caught the bands you're on about - a long shot much of the time, I reckon. Another option is to see if any of the bands you're promoting previously supported other bands who are playing this week and flyer there. Or, in the case of Saturday night, I went with the tenuous link option and handed out leaflets at the Buff Medways gig. After all, Graham Coxon loves Billy Childish, and Stephen out of Stuffy and the Fuses drums for Graham Coxon. And Billy Childish writes and reads poetry, and we're also promoting poetry. Also, many of the people at these events are open to leftfield ideas... therefore, it's not such a ridiculous jump into the unknown.

It was also a fantastic excuse for me to catch the Buffs again, who to my mind are one of the best live garage bands in the UK. Indeed, I made new friends in the venue of Spanish and Italian origin. I spy a Spanish man in a Buff Medways styled soldier's jacket with brass buttons in a state of jittery anticipation, and begin talking to him.
"I cannot believe it!" he says. "They are playing in a pub! Why are they not playing to thousands? In Spain, we love this music!"
I can't properly explain to him that in Britain, the last wave of fascination with sixties styled music ended with Britpop, nearly ten years ago now. These days, everyone's gone back to their Wire and Gang of Four CDs (though this isn't necessarily a bad thing either).

There's also a rather truculent man with large sideburns and an attitude to match who is bullying members of the audience to dance. I befriend him slightly, but his rather aggressive, shouty, physically over-familiar manner begins to rub me up the wrong way after awhile and I start to give him a wider berth. His girlfriend, a wee redhead of a somewhat tolerant disposition, is sighing and shrugging her shoulders in a defeated, deflated manner.

The Buffs play astoundingly well again, the beats hammering into my ribcage as I stand right by the bass drum. It's a hugely enjoyable evening with some fantastic music - zero points for originality, but full marks for delivery. It's beyond me why people would bother to pay full-price stadium tickets for "The Who" (such as they are at present) when The Buff Medways play North London pubs for six quid.

I stand outside handing out flyers after the event, and I'm greeted with the usual trickle of truculent, dismissive, moody types who seem to have a natural aversion to free information on pieces of paper, interested types (who I always thank perhaps a bit too enthusiastically) and the odd drunk bastard. In this case, the drunk bastard is the manic, aggressive acquaintance from inside the venue, who unbeknownst to me is in the middle of a row with his girlfriend.

"Right, just fuck off, mate!" he warns me. "Just FUCK OFF, OK?"
"Fine," say I, and stroll away. But his girlfriend is having none of it.
"Don't be so RUDE!" she roars. "This is why I want nothing TO DO WITH YOU! You're so fucking OBNOXIOUS!"
He moves towards me to shake my hand in apology, but it's too little too late. His girlfriend runs towards the tube, and he runs after her in an attempt to reconcile the situation. I've a feeling he didn't get far. So... that's one relationship ruined by the innocent art of flyering, though in the case of big-sideburns man, I strongly suspect it would have happened sooner or later anyway.

Saturday night was spent much more in the traditional manner that would be expected - a fireworks night in Victoria Park, Mile End. I attended with vilebody and her friends, as I had been assured that a replica model of the Houses of Parliament would be ignited, and indeed I wasn't disappointed in that score. What I wasn't expecting, however, was the pseudo-hip-hop build up to it all, with rather questionable rapping about Guy Fawkes being a "dood" and an "MC". It bothers me the way East London councils assume that the only way to get anyone's attention on any issue is to use Urban music or imagery, often in a very hackneyed (no pun intended) way. All around our way, they put posters up of people in hoodies and dead weights of jewellery, with big slogans such as "SORT IT OUT! Look BOTH ways before you cross the road, otherwise you'll NEVER get to release an award winning Urban album in a few years time!". I then look around me, and see a bunch of rather confused looking Muslims and Polish people who probably couldn't give a toss about this kind of thing. Then there's the appropriateness of it all, and the grey-haired hair-brained way they approach these things. Saying Guy Fawkes was a "dood" and an "MC" is not only factually incorrect (gramaphone players weren't invented until the 20th Century, and MCing itself I don't believe came around until the late seventies) it's also rather dated (who in the 21st Century do you hear using the phrase "dood", apart from people attempting to imitate Bill and Ted?).

Quibbles aside, however, the burning of the Houses of Parliament really was quite a sight to behold. The rather dapper looking Guy Fawkes figure sat atop the inferno, actually looking rather like Billy Childish's stuckist poet chum SP Howarth. The fireworks were cacophonous and colourful, and the whole event obviously gave a whole bunch of left wing Londoners (and myself, I have to admit) a demonstration of childish wish-fulfilment. We don't really wish to burn the Houses of Parliament, obviously, but we sometimes have odd dreams about it. The mull cider we had back at vilebody's house was also very pleasant indeed.

A nice weekend, then. Now, while my head's still on business, you ARE all going to attend Spinster at the ULU on the 20th November aren't you?