My carefully planned research into the bus times to Arnold fell apart at the first hurdle when I realised too late that I had worked out my route using the Saturday timetable. Having already woken up late this was a massive setback as Sunday buses are sporadic at best, with this one stopping at every possible stop on the way. It also didn’t help that I have never been to Arnold (I know, I haven’t lived) so I wasn’t sure where I was. It was only yesterday that I realised the theatre was part of an all purpose council leisure complex including the swimming baths and a library and no doubt some other amenities, and that it isn’t on the same road that the bus timetable writers seem to think it is on so it was fortunate that I happened to see it out of the window and get out at the next stop. As I had read the wrong timetable I couldn’t get straight to Arnold and had to get out in Bulwell. There was something oddly nostalgic about being in Bulwell on a Sunday having not been here since I was doing The Sunday Alternative on Trent Sound.

At Bulwell bus station I was approached by a shifty looking young man asking for a light, as I was getting my lighter out of my pocket he unwrapped the cellophane and pulled the foil tab from his cigarette packet and dropped them on the floor. I pointed out that there was a bin nearby and told him he should pick it up. He asked if I would give him a light if he picked his rubbish up and I said yes, telling him that if everybody dropped their shit on the floor we would all be up to our knees. The guy actually apologised (to a fashion) and said that he was “a cunt for it”, to which I replied that the sentence would work without “for it” and walked off before he could work out what I meant.

The reason I had forgone my Sunday lunch was the launch of the album Christmas in Slab Square, a charity album featuring some of the best Nottingham musicians released in aid of Notts Wildlife Trust. I paid to get in and was there as a member of the audience therefore I left my pad and pen at home so this isn’t going to turn into a review, but it was a brilliant show in which each act played a short set ending with their seasonal contribution to the album. Bainy and Andrew Haynes (remember them?) were the hosts and the line up consisted of Winterhouse, Lorna, PTO, The Amber Herd, and Wild Man of Europe. It was nice to see an alternative Nottingham music collection like this rather than the same people you see at every gig going, and the theatre setting meant that people in the audience were that bit more civilised and didn’t talk while the bands were playing (have I mentioned before that I hate that?). That is apart from the family that sat behind me complete with chair kicking kid, luckily they seemed to leave after one band though.

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