Toronto:



We left the kids on a bench in Royal Oak, Michigan. We tried throwing them into a tree but stopped when we saw we were being filmed by at least 3 CCTV cameras. This being America, we envisioned being pulled over by cops later for littering a tree with bears, which might almost have been worth it. As it was, a passerby asked Duct-tape guy if the bears were ours (it was 1AM) and then suggested they looked like bombs. Frankly, anyone dumb enough to think that someone would bomb the arse-end of Detriot by leaving four bombs disguised as valentine's bears on a bench at 1AM is either a scriptwriter or too stupid to be anything other than an donor for nice bright people with failing organs and terminal illnesses. Cute though, aren't they?

The view from the afternoon. I've noticed a disturbing trend - all over the USA and now Canadia it seems you can go to Meet Donald. Why would anyone want to? He always strikes me as a bit of a tosser. I guess people would like to meet his money--if indeed, he really has any. Me included, as long as I didn't have to touch him.





Now the tour is winding down (12 days left), the days off are actually like days off. Albert and Matt have an afternoon of promotion in Toronto while the rest of us hang around the one hotel room we've kept on for us to hang around in. I went out for breakfast at a place called Eggspectations which had one notable feature - a bilingual bottle of brown sauce.





Brown sauce (delcious, fruity and spicy) is a staple of the english diet, and it is rarely seen outside of the Sceptred Isle (which can only be due to the fact that it's an acquired sophisticated taste and all the other countries in the world are peopled by natives with vulgar palates), that I was happy to see it here. And, as an added bonus, it was labeled in English and French. Despite the centuries old animosity between the two countries there is, I think, a grudging affection between the British and the French. We're both beligerent, haughty, and have a strong sense of independence. Certainly looking at Europe from the viewpoint of spending 10 years in America it seems that Germany, England, France, and Holland all have so much in common that it's almost funny that they view themselves as separate from each other.

And Canadian maple syrup tastes more of maples than American maple syrup. When I toured with Pulp during 1995 I could tell the diffence between different champagnes just by taste (Moet and Chandon was very much considered cooking champagne). 10 years in America and now I'm an authority on syrup. Quality.



Yonge Street, Tronto.

Today's the kind of lazy day where you call friends or email all your ex's because you have time to wonder how all the people you've known are doing. Toronto is rushing through its Monday afternoon outside, everyone looking forward to six pm, or whatever time they knock-off. Our day is more nebulous, check-out at 2PM, bus call at 11PM to go to Montreal.

Time is always so relative, especially on tour, and it never seems more so when you're hanging around in a foreign city watching everyone else's world flash past. Like being in Tokyo, or Xi'an, or Berlin or Perth you see that all over the planet people have similar schedules, similar concerns, similar lives; lives that not only mirror your own but at the same time are completely independent of your world. We're none of us so special nor so unimportant. I think that's one of the things I like most about travel. It makes you get over yourself. Despite language and social status, we are all so alike.

Working in an environment where there's always someone to meet you at the airport, always a rooming list of the the best rooms at the hotel, always a crush of people trying to hang out in your world (not always, I admit, but more often than not. What's a bit of poetic licence, eh?) it's easy to get used to a certain amount of attention - however disparaging I might be about said attention. It's good to be reminded that you're not only not all that, but you're not even any of that in the scheme of things. When I was younger and needier I used to think that Aleister Crowley's quote "Every man and woman is a star" meant that I was (allowed to be) special too (where I come from one was never encouraged in such thinking). And maybe it did, then, but nowadays I think the emphasis for me is on the every man and woman.