Gig 56 LLC- The Great Outdoors.

I've gone back to a post a week and was worried I'd missed some gigs, but I see the last post was to report on the last LLC. I've done nothing in between, so we're alright. But next week it's unlikely I'll manage to report on all the gigs. Here they are...

Gig 57. Monday 29th. -Edinburgh Stand.
Gig 58. Tuesday 30th. -LLC.
Gig 59. Thursday 1st. - Castle Leazes Student Union.
Gig 60. Sunday 4th. - The Fish Tank - Durham.

That lot will earm me a handsome £20. Well, Thursday will - the rest will get me bugger all. Monday will cost me and Al £20 each in petrol. D'y here that day job- your days are numbered!

Anyway, last LLC was the great outdoors. I didn't have anything until an hour before when I actually looked at my camping equiptment. A Swiss army Knife.

The first thing anyone does with such a knife is open up both knife blades, big AND small - then they do a very bad Darth Maul Impression. Of course if you actually compere them to anything in your kitchen, it's small knife and ridiculuosly small knife. Most outdoors tasks require a fairly hefty blade, I can't imagine when anyone thinks "2 inches long - far too heavy and unweildy. Killing this bear will require the delicate touch." But the most frequently used tool of the Swiss Army Knife is actually the corkscrew. About 1000,000 are sold a year and on 900,000 that's the only blade that is ever is opened. But why is that on an 'army' knife at all. If there was such a thing as a British Army knife, I wouldn't design it with something to aid the average squaddie to get any more pissed and rowdy than he already is. However, this is the Swiss army, they're a bit more sophisticated. "So Jean-Pierre, I think it is time to break out the emergency rations... red or white?"

Next most used is the bottle opener, by this stage it's still essentially a 'booze stick'. Which, to be fair suits most of my camping trips. Ray Mears doesn't tell you this, but you can get a fire hot enough to melt the bottle from a sainsburys French larger. (Makes a nice key-ring.) Alongside the bottle opener is the can opener. They look very similar, so here's a system to remember them;

Sleepy Tortoise. (Look at him yawn.) and Angry tortoise.


Sleepy because he's been opening beers all afternoon and Angry because he's been working for 10 minutes and he still hasn't got his beans open.

If you look closely you'll see that their noses are screw drivers, very useful in the wilderness. If the fire's burning low, just approach a tree, unscrew a branch and pop it on the fire. But do replace the screws, otherwise the tree can lose a lot of sap.