Spargel Everywhere: The Monochrome Set Germany Tour 2015: Part 1 - The journey out & Cologne

During the course of their last German tour, my favourite band, The Monochrome Set, were signed up to a German record label called Tapete (amusingly translated as 'Wallpaper'). A year later, their first album under the new label - Spaces Everywhere - is out, and the band embarked on a 9-date tour of Germany to promote it. I was lucky enough to be invited to join them on the tour bus for the trip, which was pretty 'flaechendeckend' ('surface covering' - much like the wallpaper indeed!), and as randomly fun and exciting as it was punishing. And I wasn't even working, though as the tour progressed I increasingly morphed into 'band runner', and was assigned an assortment of more or less offbeat errands to carry out. Oh, I should also say that the 'scented bit' was pretty minimal on this tour, and can readily be woven into the travelogue proper rather than having its own post at the end.

THE JOURNEY OUT

I set off from home at 7am on Easter Saturday, and as ever was surprised to see so many people about at such an unfeasibly early hour. On arrival at the airport I was crestfallen to find a massive queue at the one operational Germanwings check in desk. No one seemed to know what was up with the other desk, though a member of the ground staff - who bore an uncanny resemblance to David Suchet - could be seen listlessly tinkering with some knobs as we shuffled forward to the remaining counter at a snail's pace. Some forty minutes later, a fresh-faced young colleague came bounding up, and within seconds the check in computer sprang miraculously to life.

An Easter-themed airport security alert

In the spirit of using up my fridge contents in a timely manner, I had with me two hard boiled eggs and an egg-shaped bar of soap in a decorated cardboard shell, the latter a gift for Val the Cookie Queen, whom I was meeting towards the end of the trip. To my surprise, both of these Easter-themed items provoked a lengthy security alert. There was concern that the real eggs might be raw, and though I finally persuaded the X-Ray machine staff that they were in fact cooked - and that surely only the most foolhardy of travellers would risk carting raw eggs all over Germany in a rucksack - as a precaution I was given a special bag to put the eggs in for their onward journey. Meanwhile, the soap egg caused a stir, because the staff were adamant that it was a tin of Vaseline. Three X-Rays later, we finally confirmed that the offending petroleum jelly staple was merely another suspiciously behaving egg.

Once in the Duty Free, I was predictably assailed by a clutch of perfume tester-toting sales assistants. No, I don't want to try the new Jimmy Choo, thank you. My overriding priorities were a cup of tea, a cafe-neutral spot in which to consume the eggs before they caused any further brushes with officialdom, a stamp to put on Tara's birthday card, and a post box to post it in.

Taking a chance on Germanwings

The atmosphere on board the Germanwings flight itself - just 11 days after the fateful crash in France - was a curious mixture of tension, excessive bonhomie and gallows humour. Beady eyes were kept on the toilet nearest the cockpit, and had either of the pilots attempted to answer a call of nature, there would have been a chorus of: 'Nooo, please hold on - you said yourself that the flight time was only an hour and five minutes!' Seating-wise, I was 'mixed up' in a stag party bound for Dusseldorf, and as the plane was about 15 feet from touch down, one of the lads behind me said exactly what I had been thinking: 'It's okay - I can jump from here!' The filling in my in-flight sandwich had been shockingly skimpy - something which would normally have been a source of considerable irritation - but any disappointment on the catering front was more than offset by my delight at landing safely. As I disembarked, I pressed a handwritten note in German into a flight attendant's hand, which said: 'Happy to put my life in your hands - thanks so much for a safe journey.' It sounds a bit corny looking back, but at that time of heightened emotions and loss of confidence in the airline, I felt I wanted to tell the pilots that I wasn't going to let this tragic aberration destroy my own trust in them.

COLOGNE

Source: mannup.vn

A dishevelling putty crisis 

No sooner had I got to my hotel in Cologne and unpacked a few things than I realised I had left behind a crucial hair product in my armoury - one unfailingly described by hairdressers just as 'product'. To be more specific, it is a 'styling paste with ultra matte finish' called 'dry muk', one of the very few unguents that gives my fine hair volume without leaving it lank and greasy. Now I only know that it IS the above, because I am now reunited with the tin and in a position to read the label. At five o'clock on Easter Saturday in Germany, my chances of finding something I usually referred to as 'product' seemed slim. The lady on the hotel reception recommended a supermarket round the corner, but a quick scope of its haircare options drew a blank. Next up I tried a drugstore across the road, and ended up buying a tub of some kind of 'dishevelling putty' by Wella or L'Oreal, on the fairly flimsy premise that this a) didn't smell horrible and b) wasn't for men, as many of the more recognisably 'product-looking products' seemed to be. I still had misgivings that this might not be as dry and light as my usual brand, and when I spotted a hair salon that was still open, I decided to show them my purchase and generally throw myself on their mercy.

The senior stylist took one look at my tub and clucked her tongue disapprovingly. She confirmed that the dishevelling properties of this particular paste would come at a fairly sticky and oleaginous price. After consulting with a colleague and poking around the fixtures in the salon, she finally put her hand on a tub of Sebastian Craft Clay, described in English on the box as a 'remoldable-matte texturiser'. Certainly its grey clay-y colour looked promising, and I reluctantly parted with 20 euros - the price of being able to 'verstrubbeln' my hair while away. My shock at the price must have been all too apparent, for the stylist immediately opened her till drawer again and handed me a small bottle of sparkling wine. I may try this trick again sometime - in any kind of shop, even.

The madness of King Georg

The gig that night was held at King Georg, a venue 'in the round' attached to a stylish retro cocktail bar, described at more length in this post from the 2014 tour. The little dog in a bag was still officiating at the cloakroom, and there was the usual notice asking people to kindly not stand in front of the mixing desk. But this year I fell foul of another prohibition. For after the gig, Andy the bass player gave me a strip of drinks vouchers. He suggested I exchange them for some bottles of water to drink in my hotel or take on the next day's journey, however, the barman forbade me to take my load of liquid swag off the premises. To circumvent this, Andy - who was staying over the venue and thus able to move freely between bar and band accommodation - casually suggested I give all the water to him. Once in the street outside, he promptly handed the bottles back to me. It was the first of many 'left field' tour moments to come...

It was here too that I first met the sound guy and our driver for the tour, a genial giant from Augsburg called Alaska. Yes, you heard right!, and we had hours of fun on the bus trying to think of other US states commonly used as Christian names. In the end we only came up with Georgia and Dakota, so please share any other suggestions in the comments!

Bonkers 'on tour' in Germany again: The travel bit - Part 2: Cologne & Augsburg

For anyone with the capacity for more 'band on tour'-style travel trivia, read on - this is the report from the middle section of the itinerary - I have had to split it into three parts!  For anyone else, there will be a perfume-themed post from the trip along soon, plus a report on Neil Chapman's talk on vanilla scents at the latest Perfume Lovers London meet-up...

Cologne

While we were in Hamburg, a glowing review of the Monarch gig appeared in the online version of Die Welt, a German broadsheet newspaper based in Berlin and comparable to the UK's Times.  In a happy turn of events, Frank Schmiechen, the deputy editor-in-chief of Die Welt, was in the audience and felt moved to write about the show. By Wednesday morning, his review had also appeared in the hard copy version of the paper, occupying some two thirds of a page in the Culture section.  The photo used was a few years out-of-date, mind - anyone coming along to a gig and hoping to see a male keyboard player in a red velvet dress would have been sorely disappointed.

Before we set off for our next destination of Cologne, I volunteered to buy a job lot of Die Welts so that everyone could have their own souvenir copy. Any brownie points I earnt by legging it to the newsagent's at the station and carting off armfuls of the compact version were quickly offset by my treading on the drummer's toe, and nearly poking our entire party's eyes out with my knitting needles, which were casually sticking out of the top of my rucksack.  The dodging of sharp objects was clearly going to require constant vigilance on this trip.

The venue in Cologne (King Georg) was a cosy and wonderfully retro 60s cocktail bar, all done out in pink, with leather banquettes and a stage 'in the round'.  Jane took a complete set of photographs that she conceded would only appeal to people with a fetish for right ears.  I managed slightly better from where I was standing, but it was still a stupendous feat of geometry to incorporate all four band members in a single shot.

The Monochrome barflies ~ Source: Jane Barnes

I spied another dog at this venue too, sitting on the counter by the entrance - one of those sweet shitsu-type breeds at the opposite end of the size spectrum to Hamburg's labrador(?).  I remarked on this recurrence to the bass player, who replied in a deadpan tone: 'Yeah, I know - dogs are on the rider.'  Also worth mentioning is the fact that the walls of King Georg were clad in wood panelling, while I was wearing shiny black trousers. These had served me well in Hamburg in the 'coordinate trouser fabric to wall covering' game, because it was so dark there that the walls could have been shiny black for all any of us knew - and I was generously given the benefit of the doubt - but Cologne proved a textural challenge too far.

Augsburg

The next day, in a bid to make myself useful at the train station again, I went to buy tea for the bass player and me in a nearby McDonalds.  Slavishly following the sales assistant's outstretched finger in the direction of the milk and sugar, I walked smack into a glass wall, spilling about a quarter of the tea over my hands, and scalding myself in the process.  The bass player was most gracious about being shortchanged in this way, and I made a mental note to pick up a couple of lids next time.

Frauenzimmer - my rather girly pink room at Grand Hotel Cosmopolis 

Exceptionally, our whole group was staying in the next hotel in Augsburg - for the first night at least. Formerly a nursing home, the Grand Hotel Cosmopolis has undergone an extensive conversion and is now part quirky art hotel, part social project.  For the first three floors of accommodation are reserved for asylum seekers, while the top two consist of individually designed bedrooms showcasing the work of local artists. The rooms are not en suite, however, as such modern amenities would have constrained the eclecticism of the room designs. ;) I took to using the bathroom on the top floor though, to minimise the risk of bumping into band members using the facilities on the floor I was on.  Even so, I opened my door a crack the next morning only to hastily close it again, having glimpsed a man in pyjamas just feet away.  This brief sighting was later confirmed as the bass player, hanging out his laundry on a communal balcony.

I never did like those integrated hangers with the metal clips...

The top floor bathroom deserves a special mention in fact for its unique 'usage instructions' - these were painted on the wall by the shower in cursive script, and went as follows (I am translating loosely):

1. Please do not turn the hot tap all the way, or the water will go cold again.
2. We are high up here and the hot water takes a while to come through - please be patient!

And then the kicker, assuming you had managed to comply with 1 and 2:

3. We wish you a successful stay in the bathroom.

In all my years of travel for business or pleasure, I have never seen a sign like that.  I did manage to coax the hot water out in the end, but I sense that a non-German speaker's stay may have been less successful.

That Thursday was technically the band's night off, but the support act (the very wonderful Friedrich Sunlight) had invited us all to a 'secret gig' in their rehearsal room, to which they had invited all their friends - so not so very secret then ;) - and those of another local band, and everyone ended up playing a short set. The space in question was not unlike a youth club or community centre, and was notable for its juxtaposition to a Vileda trade outlet, Vileda being of course the Rolls-Royce of squeegee mops and dusters.

Source: vileda.com

'Secret gig' next door to Augburg's premier mop destination

Giles Coren - Boondocks-Basher And Dream Lunch Date

I enjoy reading Saturday's edition of The Times. I don't always read it on the Saturday it is published, mind. The carpet is carpeted with unread sections of The Times from several weeks ago. Mixed in with those are bits of the Guardian from the Saturday before last, when I got up too late to catch my preferred paper. And the purchase of today's edition of The Times merely adds to this stealthy accretion of half read newsprint. It wasn't always like this - but since I started writing my own blog and enjoying other people's, my consumption of papers and novels has plummeted. I foolishly asked Mr Bonkers yesterday to name my top three faults and, quick as a flash, he replied:

1. Spending too much time on the Internet
2. Spending too much time on the Internet
3. Spending too much time on the Internet

So, you know, I may have to review my allocation of leisure time at some point... But meanwhile back to our muttons, and an article by Giles Coren that I did find time to read last week. Giles Coren, son of the late Alan Coren, Punch contributor and Sage of Cricklewood, is very funny. He is possibly not quite as funny as my all-time funniest journalist, Caitlin Moran, who also writes for The Times, but he is pretty darn hilarious. However, his coruscating wit can be near the knuckle and below the belt, which is quite a feat if like me you usually keep your hands at keyboard height. And while he is doing all of that, he also manages to sail very close to the wind - so close indeed that he is actually in the wind, busily putting it up other people. Two of his most vitriolic hatchet jobs were the columns he wrote about skiers and dog owners. I would link to these articles if The Times hadn't taken it upon itself to erect a paywall.

And in last week's column there was a telling throwaway line - I'm paraphrasing here, as the paper went out with the recycling and I can't verify the exact wording - but the gist of it was that anyone with an ounce of intellectual credibility moves to the capital at their earliest opportunity. The rest of the country was dismissed as the "boondocks". I had not come across the term before, but it is clearly another term for "cultural desert". A cursory glance at Wikipedia bears this out:

"The term boondocks refers to a remote, usually brushy rural area, or to a remote city or town that is considered unsophisticated. The expression was introduced to English by American military personnel serving in the Philippines during the early years of the 20th century. It derives from the Tagalog word 'bundok', meaning 'mountain'. According to military historian Paul Kramer, the term had attached to it 'connotations of bewilderment and confusion', due to the guerrilla nature of the warfare in which the soldiers were engaged."

Now Caitlin Moran, my favourite Times journalist, is from Wolverhampton, and I feel sure that she would never trash most of the country in such a sweeping, "broad brushy rural" manner. And if my memory serves me, Janice Turner is from Rotherham and Carol Midgley from Burnley. They may all be living in London now of course, but I still don't think they would condone this boondocks jibe.

Now I will cut Giles Coren some slack, because he has just given his baby daughter the sensible name of Kitty, rather than Allegra or Cosima or Calliope, as you might expect from a non-boondocks dweller. And for any humorist - or perhaps any writer - being provocative comes with the territory. As Michael Cunningham, author of "The Hours", sums it up:

"A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if he's any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world."

So, after my annoyance about the use of this derogatory term had subsided, I decided to roll with the punches and let it go. Sticks and stones and whatever. And anyway, I know that it is actually a smart move to live up north, as the cost of living is so much cheaper than in the capital. Why, you can buy a whole terrace for the price of a glass of Merlot in a trendy bar in Hoxton!

But somehow this flip aside in an otherwise entertaining column managed to fester away in my brain, causing it to scramble my synapses in surreally surprising ways. Then out popped the following dream, epically combining subjects as diverse as blogging, the Internet, mental health, immigration, the recently enlarged European Union, food storage, perfume, gastronomy, technology, marine life and disappointment. Why, Wikio's filing system would have a field day with it!

So....in this dream Giles Coren is a practising psychotherapist, and I have checked in for a session to counteract my blogging and general Internet habit. In the consulting room is a big table, and GC is sitting slap bang in the middle, like Alan Sugar in the The Apprentice, with some kind of sidekick/friend/adviser/"eyes and ears" next to him. Now I wasn't expecting a friend, I thought to myself, especially not one who was biblically bearded and kept sniggering as I outlined the reason for my visit. GC himself just smiled inscrutably all the while. And then I spotted another person in the room, sitting cross-legged on the floor at one end of the table. He was surrounded by uncut loaves of white bread and empty Tesco carrier bags, and I knew instinctively that he was from Lithuania, and that if he didn't put most of those loaves in a freezer sharpish, there would be a lot of wasted bread tomorrow.

I hadn't got far with my explanation of my Internet addiction when I decided to tackle GC about the boondocks comment. Whereupon he promptly apologised and offered to take me out to lunch. I brightened considerably at this prospect, for GC is also a noted restaurant critic with access to London's best tables, so I was clearly going to be in for some top scram.

Then the dream cut to one of those long, thin, ultra modern restaurants - a bit like a sushi bar but without the sushi. Though with fish, as it turned out. We were sitting at the bar on high stools, and at one point I leaned over to sniff GC's cologne, but he saw me coming and spun away in time. It was a very forward gesture on my part, I know, especially between therapist and patient, but we fumeheads are driven to sniff strangers with the same compulsion that drives dogs to sniff legs and lamp posts.

Then all of a sudden GC whipped out from his jacket pocket a pair of what looked like 3-D glasses, but they were in fact Blu-Ray glasses, so named because, with them on, you could look into an empty plastic laundry basket (which had mysteriously appeared at our feet at this point), and see an aquarium of fish. There may even have been rays in there, but GC was hogging the glasses. They were so cleverly designed, apparently, that the water didn't run out of the holes in the basket. And then the cat miaowed, wanting her breakfast, and I woke up.

So I never sorted out my Internet addiction. I never got to eat lunch. Hey, I never even saw the fish. I did, however, get an apology out of Giles Coren for the boondocks remark. A retraction in print might be too much to ask. "In your dreams", as they say...


UPDATE: On a whim, I sent the link to this post to the man himself, and today received a humorous reply. GC wasn't apologetic as such, but he wasn't angry with me either for bashing the boondocks-basher back. And if he had been angry, he would have had all sorts of coping strategies at the ready from his book on Anger Management. The gist of the email was that most of the journalists writing for The Times at the moment are from the regions, and he therefore feels the need to defend his beleaguered metropolitan corner: "I am the last of a dying breed".


Photo of Giles Coren from Treehugger.com, photo of Boondocks from thatgrapejuice.net, photo of the North/South divide and of a terrace from flickr.com, photo of a bar from purves-contracts.co.uk