Thanks to anyone who came to the Plan B night at Border’s in London yesterday - especially in that weather. Didn’t miss too much if you didn’t check out the Dirtbombs at The Garage afterwards…but tonight! Oh my god. Two shows in Brighton within five minutes walk of each other - and both so incredible. Joanna Newsom made all the girls weak at the knees (”but she’s so beautiful,” they sighed as one) and the boys dreamy-eyed with pleasure at the harp and the voice and the a cappella shouting. Rush over to The Beach with Ben Blackwell in tow, to The Dirtbombs’ second night. Oh my god. There are 20 of us fanatics down the front, during one equipment breakdown taking on the entire song with just drum support - Ben and Pat on fucken fire - and, well…it was how I always fucken want my rock’n'roll to be. Spontaneous, raw, brutal and MOD (check the narrow lapels next to me). Vincent did his French boogie, and many cigarettes were smoked. The encores were entirely gratuitous and very much appreciated.

Re: Border’s talk. I enjoyed myself, for once. The Chicks On Speed question was fair enough (”Why put CoS on the cover of the first issue: doesn’t it run contrary to the old CTCL creed?”) - but kinda off-beam, inasmuch as we would’ve put one of Sarah’s photos on the front if we’d really wanted to try to sell a few extra copies, not one of Andrew’s extraordinary illustrations of a small animal being dissected by a lab technican. The Libertines question just seemed strange to me: like, why would I care if a singer in some crap band chooses to take a crap drug or not? It was good to see Meg White getting some deserved kudos, and my apologies for any bitterness inferred from my statement about Nirvana. I’m over that former president of the Bruce Springsteen fanclub writing the big Cobain biog, really. Yeah, that rich kid cunt. No. Really I am.

Apologies to AMP, who didn’t get a chance to read out her life story like promised, but we’re hoping she’ll be convinced to shove it up here one day. And Mr Stevie Chick (who moderated) really is both a star and perhaps the nicest music critic I’ve ever known. The fact he shoved my bicycle in the back of his car on top of boxes of the new Loose Lips Sink Ships, thereby saving me a very troublesome ride home, merely confirms the fact.

It was a very decent turn-out, though - between 80 and 90. With more hovering behind the bookstands.