Hey ho, now sitting upstairs in The Highline Ballroom listening to Mark Howard, the opener for Neil. The ballroom is a smaller cosier place than BB Kings, though run by the same lovely people – beautifully friendly from the start, offering food, wine, anything, within reason, we ask for. Neither of us are drinking at the moment – too much to enjoy yourself at night then do a couple of hundred miles in the day, although we used to be able to do it easily. Those days have gone. Neither of us looking forward to going back to the hotel tonight. Holiday Inn Expresses are franchised and very variable. In some you are greeted with a welcome smile by receptionists who understand you have had a long drive and are tired. At this one it was as though they resented our intrusion. No welcome just a scowl. Maybe it was us, but today as we walked out to the venue, loaded up with flight cases etc, I thought I had better let them know we weren’t checking out yet. Immediately I had to give my first, second name, and room number which, having stayed in about six different rooms over the last few days , I couldn’t quite remember. The guy let out a huge audible sigh, as though I was a total idiot. We hate this place – can’t wait to check out. Anyway the gig went well, a good sing- along crowd, and Neil realized he hadn’t actually put a foot wrong over the last few gigs. The highline even packed away all the gear for us, which was a mixed blessing – had a feeling we night be looking for things for the next few nights. But we left about 11.30 and got back to the hotel at 12 am and after a quick look at the news – slept. The thing is with news in the USA, that nothing seems at all serious because it is interspersed with so much crap – difficult to extract any sort of news from it. We watch MSNBC mainly because there is less crap on that channel. Oh yes, and Neil watches golf.