It’s amazing the disruption a tiny aging rock star with a guitar and his also famous band mate can create.
Bono and the Edge brought traffic to a near standstill on Camden parkway one evening this week. It was right by the pub Cornflake and I were eating in.
It was an odd sort of day. Bright, sunny and warm followed by dull, rainy and freezing.
I am aware that this is England, but I’m still, after a lifetime, unaccustomed to the weather’s level of unpredictability and lack of respect for the inhabitants of this island. Small decisions like what to wear are rendered impossible, outings require a suitcase with several changes of clothes.
Weather aside, this week I’ve been exhibiting a high level of pissed-offitude due to studio sculdugary. Un-scheduled works of a very disruptive nature are about to take place in my newly rearranged studio. Starting on Monday holes big enough to fit a charming but sizeable builder through will be drilled in the ceiling and outer wall shell. Marmalade has suggested that if the repair work that should follow hastily takes too long, we should apply for planning permission to build a mezzanine.
Dinner out was in part to cheer me up/calm me down and partly to relieve Cornflake of the necessity of cooking. It was raining so much that we drove the ten minute walk to the pub.
Cornflake had booked our favourite table by the big picture window. The barmaid wanted to know if we were planning to eat. Well yes, we’ve booked a table. Embarrassingly, they didn’t have much food, she explained.
The result was burger and free drinks, free drinks to apologise for lack of choice. I told them I’d likely have chosen a burger anyway but they insisted, so free drinks it was.
Then the Bono incident kicked off.
Is that Bono? I asked Cornflake referring to a small man wearing dark glasses and carrying a guitar. He might have lip read through the window, he waved. I found myself waving back. He was also suffering from weather induced wardrobe confusion, sun glasses, no brolly.
I feel your pain Bono.
I’ve read he’s having difficulty writing, I’d start right there if I was him.
It looked like they had intended a busking situation, promotion for an upcoming tour I imagine, but the weather decided differently for them.
After filling the street with excitable soggy members of the public, he and his band mate with their guitars and half a dozen camera wielding types came into the pub. Bono asked if we’d mind if he and the Edge sat in the window to do a number, they’d try not to be too loud. And so they performed a song by our table, then left.
‘Thank you so much for your patience’ they said. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening’
I said the obvious and I hope they realise that what I said was ‘you too’ not ‘U2’, because that would just be embarrassing.
fat tart 