wow. Went to see Blondie tonight. It was a freebie and though I was addicted to Parallel Lines at the age of about 8, I just thought, hey another gig. This was as part of the motor show - no I don't give a monkeys about the latest small/fast/green cars, but a free gig's a free gig. I kind of got the feeling that Debbie et al felt they had sold their souls to the devil, taking what must have been a fat cheque for playing to a lot of balding or hairsprayed, too-tight jean or God awful crop trouser wearing 40+ year old blokes in Canning Town, but after a few tracks from Parallel Lines - it's the 30th annniversary (FUCK!!!) - they really seemed to get into it.

Debbie, bless her, took off her heels after about 5 tracks, including my favourite, One Way or Another, and changend into a pair or Birkenstocks -that's my girl! - stating, 'oh it's that time in the evening' and carried on jumping around. She's still got an amazing voice, fresh and strong, and her face looks just stunning. She's lost some weight and has clearly had some facework down, BUT she doesn't look as if sh's trying to be a 20 year old. But she's got bone structure to die for and as a friend said after confessing she was one of his earliest wank fantasies, she's still worth knocking one out over. Noice! However, I guess to a woman in her sixties, that may be as big a compliment as 2 dozen red roses was at the age of 25. Actually I think that's Darwinian proof of the value of women as we become less capable of expanding the gene pool: we older birds have got to take it where we can.

Jumping around like a loon attempting to sing along to Rapture, Call Me and a rendition of Purple haze and Hey You Yet off of my Cloud, songs that were lyrically ingrained 20 years ago however was a huge improvement on the 'Butthole surfers' gig on Saturday night.

Now I'm happy to admit i know shag all about punk, but the gig at the Forum last weekend did provide food for though. I'm not a fan, but sitting upstairs looking down on those thrashing about in the bygone-stalls, was a bit dispiriting. Surely if i'm going to enjoy the full experience, it's got to include elbowing a few people, skidding over a bit, and generaly jumping around like a twat. But hey, I'm prepared to experience it from a different perspective.

But the essenece of the evening did seem to involve social inadequates - both audience and band - attempting to shock for the sheer sake of it. Images of circumcision had all the blokes I observed - about 80 per cent of the audience - clutching the nether regions for protection's sake. On the video screen, these images were swiftly followed by up close and personal footage of someone giving birth. I muttered to my neighbour, death and torture would be next, which I smuggly noted to be true, in the guise of car crashes in many shapes and forms, bull fighting and running of the bulls in pampalona showing what appeared to be death by el toro replayed over and over again.

the names of these tyep of bands all appear have serious sexually aggressive overtones. They are however also very amusing, at least to my Viz-type mind. The butthole surfers. Morgan Freeman's psychadelic semen and my favourites, The Fuck Buttons. However, watching a bunch of nearly 50 year old blokes sharing the stage with a gaggle of what appeared to be 16 year old girls, looked vampiresque to say the least. A thrash around as an encore appearing to be merely organised chaos to me looked pretentious and exploitative of the youngsters involved.

Desperate. But hey, I'm not a socially useless IT support officer for whom this is my only expression of emotion.