Norway is over, Germany is on. We have an unfeasible amount of broken stuff: plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose.

Here are some things that happened to us on the Jutland Peninsula and further north:

In Aarhus in Denmark, we ate a 16 inch pizza in the shadow of the Domkirke, the second tallest cathedral in Northern Europe. We got up very early to find our van had a flat tyre, and were only able to remove said tyre with the help of passing dockworkers, as it had rusted on. We gave them a case of beer.
We then spent a night on the ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo, and realised the days were getting progressively longer. We did not see any whales. Damo fell out of his bunk.
We arrived on Oslo at 9am, only to find it was bank holiday, and raining very hard, and nothing was open, and having been scourged in the days previous to this by some weird tour virus, we spent most of the day asleep or watching crappy cable channels until it was time to load-in. Beverly Hills 90210?
The next day we drove all the way to Bergen, a drive worth mentioning only for being one of the most impressive we’ve ever been on. The changing climates based on what altitude we were at were fairly extreme (we left in heavy rain, the top of the pass was a frozen icescape, and the valley below it was full spring. It was hot enough for Si to put his head in a river). I did not see Tollund Man walking through the mists on the mountainside, but I wanted to. We arrived in Bergen in what was apparently midsummer, although this might have had something to do with the gulfstream.
In Stavanger we played in a pretty huge venue, and got confused when it was still light at midnight. Sweet.

Obviously the whole Norway leg of the tour has been pushing the boundaries of where 65 have been, so if you were one of the few people who came to these shows, then thank you for giving us something cool to do in between driving. We hope we’ll be back.

Since arriving back in Germany (we played Hamburg a week ago. Or was it a year? It feels like a year. It was a week ago) we have been excited mostly by cheap food and drink, because Scandinavia is very expensive, and also by the following incredible venues, which are well worth visiting if you are ever in the neighbourhood.

- Bielefeld Forum, twinned with Rochdale where our sound guy Avalon John is from. I hit a guy in the head by mistake with my guitar. Sorry dude. Here we got drunk with a band called EF and then stayed in a pretty plush hotel. So plush in fact, that they questioned at least one of us as to whether we were actually legitimate hotel guests when we stumbled for breakfast next morning. We countered this by completely decimating the free breakfast.

-Liepzig Conne Island: a giant house/bar/venue/skatepark/ping-pong retreat, populated by people who dance. To everything. Immense. After we came off stage, Rob thought a piece of drumstick had got in his eye. This resulted in a 5 minute makeshift operating table scene in a grimy backstage room under a naked bulb, resulting in Damo pulling a six inch human hair from BEHIND HIS FUCKING EYE. It was a little scary, but also cool, the kind of thing horror film directors would pay a lot of money for.
After this, Simon saved me from a spider, and we diffused a possible socialist-fascist stand off in the midnight streets.

Today we are in Berlin Magnet, where we played last year. Nothing much has happened yet, but we’ll see what unfolds after soundcheck. Our friend and co-conspirator Bunn is visiting, so we’re going to give him his cold back. Fairs fair.

Take care of it.

Joe. xx