Nearer the beginning of the tour, and of our time at the outer-space hotel in Bremen (right next door to the only Primark in Germany), we took two haribo gummy bears, both red, and placed them each in one of the lovely wine glasses that came with our room.

In the first bear's (henceforth to be called "Weissbare") glass we put water. Just regular Bremen tap water. The equation for this bear as follows:

1 red haribo bear+water

In the second bear's (henceforth to be called "Mineralbare") glass we put water AND one of those fizzy dissolving vitamin and mineral things that turns water orange. So:

1 red haribo bear+water+1 fizzy vitamin thing

Then we waited. We waited for days and days, for an entire week. Science!

Results were shocking.

Weissbare lost all colour whatsoever. In fact, at first, we thought he had dissolved completely, until we detected the faint jiggling outline of an overgrown gummi. Weissbare had, my friends, become enormous, and lost all his colour, but maintained his shape. Until we tried to scoop him out of the water. Then he disastorously glopped into pieces, much to our horror.

Mineralbare, on the other hand, only grew a little bit, but kept most of his colour (final state: medium orange). When we scooped him out of his water he was fit and firm, strong and rubbery.

Still, we liked Weissbare more.

End of German story one.

You know how sometimes you’re magically able to eat more food than is physically possible? Like more than the size of a human stomach, by far? We did that this morning, when Heiko from our German label, Dandyland, (also the brains behind this ‘Songs and Whispers’ tour) made us a gigantanormous brunch. Hurrah for eating! It was great.

Then a gig in Achim, at a place called “Katakomben.” There was bat-and-witch themed décor and lovely nachos. The audience put up brilliantly with my inane punning-across-three-languages banter. Oh, and we played some music, pretty well, I think.

Wow. We hurt. Last night’s foosball, Jagermeister, and robot –dancing almost killed us, it turns out. We stumbled through our balconytv set in Hamburg as well as we possibly could, then we ate a lot of emergency falafel. (The Balconytv.de tune will be up for watching in about four weeks, we are told.)

And on to Delmenhorst, for the evening’s gig. They give us really nice sandwiches. We play our songs slightly slower than usual.

TODAY WE ATE PANCAKES ON A PIRATE SHIP!

It’s true. We did. There’s a restaurant-boat in Bremen. A Pirate-Pancake boat. Amazing! Isn’t it?! It is!  Our waiter was wearing a triangular hat and billowing trousers. A lot of things were made out of barrels.

Then Neil bought a new bag and we played a little afternoon gig in a record shop (Hot Shot records). They supplied me with a stool, which was nice because usually I don’t get a stool.

Our evening gig was in a theatre (a real theater this time, not a movie theater. There were false moustaches in our green room). During it, Neil made up a new German word: “Entgeldschon.” Also, three kind audience members told us where we could get proper, non-Aldi Baumkuchen. Yes! YES!  

After the gig, our brilliant support act, Dogs Run Free, took us out on the Bremen-town. Until 6am. Wow. Not only do they play a mean tune, those boys can also rock the party with the foosball, Jagermeister, and robot-dancing. Watch out Bremen.

Day 3:

We actually had some time to site-see today, hurrah! We
saw a famous Bremen statue of a bird-on-a-cat-on-a-dog-on-a-donkey. We
saw many other gorgeous Bremenese things, but that was the definitely
the highlight.

Our gig was in a place called Oldenburg, in a
venue called “The Polyester Club.” They let us play even though we
weren’t wearing polyester, which was nice. We explained to the audience
about the legendary German cake “Baumkuchen” about which Ben had seen a
documentary and for which we were desperately searching. They kindly
explained to us that it could be got at Aldi. Oh.

Day 2 (March 25):

Here in Germany, it snowed today. Big, fat, wet snow. I got up and ran in it, in my shorts. It wasn’t nice.

Then we played a mini set at the Bremen airport. Which was hilarious.

Then we went to Bremenhaven for the evening gig. Bremenhaven is great! We saw a WWII U-boat! They have a polar bear! (In the Bremenhaven zoo, not in the submarine. Although, we didn’t actually go in the submarine, so there might have been one there too.) Our gig was in a movie theater, which was, actually, really great. We played up on the stagey bit in front of the screen and the blue-and-red lighting cast our stretched shadows onto it.

The gig was way easier than last night’s, and an audience member gave us a pen. Free German pen! What a place, Bremenhaven.

Summary: Go straight to your gig after 18 hours straight travel and
play a 90 minute purely improvised set while unable to stand. That sort
of thing.

The English Bit:
We
left town in Ben's big black van at 3am, driving east ever east, until
we reached Harich in time for our 9am ferry. Watched the sun come up over
flat Essex fields.

The Boat Bit:
First of all, I didn't know
ferrys could take six hours. In my mind, anything longer than two hours
is a sea voyage. We undertook a sea voyage, on what I now understand
to be one of the choppiest seas around. The North Sea. I never had
trouble with sea-sickness on the ferry to Vancouver island. This was
not that ferry.

The Holland Bit:
We landed, finally,
finally, in the Hook of Holland. Also known as Hoek Van Holland. We
drove through very very slow traffic past very many windmills and
general Dutch loveliness. No time to stop for Cheese, unfortunately.

The Germany Bit:
And
then lots more driving. Loads of driving. This time in Germany. We ran
late. Two hours late. Certainly no time to stop at the hostel before
heading to the gig. We headed straight to the gig.

The Gig Bit:
The
audience was waiting. The opening act had been playing for two hours.
There were open Becks from the down-the-street beer factory waiting for
us. No time to set up drums! No time to soundcheck! Emma, Neil, go make
stuff up! Which we did. For almost two hours. Ben and Ben sneaked in
when they could. People seemed to love it. Not being on a boat made me
dizzy and woozy, which is weird, but there it is, and I couldn't stand
up. Played most of the gig kind of leaning against mic stands. More
beer. Then we were given eggs on buns and then we were done.

And then bed. Two more gigs tomorrow.

Germany!

Germany.

Just so you know, Neil got a trombone.

Neil got a trombone and I'm getting my french horn fixed and Ben has a trumpet (but you already knew that).

I, for one, am pretty excited.

Earlier in the year we made a video with our friend Bob Blunden. Yesterday Bob told us that it had won a prize (the jury's choice) at a french music video festival! we're not even french! * We are all fans of good quality cheese.

You can see the results at www.protoclip.com where they have a high quality version of the video running online.

*Emma is a Canadian

Hi Everyone,

Just in case you didn't know, our November 16th gig is going to be the best ever. This is because:

-It's the official album launch party/festival/hullabaloo for the new album 'I'm Always Explaining to Mom How It's Different Here.'

-We're going to have the FULL BAND! We haven't had the full band in ages. Ben-drummer's been busy being a Dad and Ben-Bass's been busy being an International Man Of The World. But we've got them now. All together. Again. Aw.

-Tony said he'd make a cake. A cake for you, the audience. (And me, obviously.)