Today I smashed the blue lamp. I pulled it off the table with the Hoover cord and it smashed into a million beautiful blue pieces. Tragic, a one-off from a second-hand furniture store, you can’t just go and get another one. I wasn’t exactly in love with it, but it was blue. I come from a family that had ornaments. My father used to say that every one reminded him of a place and time. Some people collect spoons from different places, others Mondrians, but what about horse brasses? My parents had them on the hearth, it was a common decoration when I was growing up, but I don’t think they were exclusive to us, they were popular. I remember some people had display cases full of the best crockery which only came out on special occasions for fear of being chipped or dropped. Bone china, exquisitely patterned and delicately fired, it seems like grandma’s appreciation for such things is dying out, grandma taking that appreciation to the grave.

We had a coincidental random group of people over tonight for the first Archive event dinner. Everyone suddenly appeared in town at the same time. It was Swedish Katarina (I babysat her cat in Stockholm) and New Yorker Keith from The Fleshtones. Lucia from Argentina, who took the inner sleeve photos on the Space Summit album, and her partner Max from Austria, Karen and Luke from Ireland on their hols with the family. Luke has donated cool mags to The Archive (NME/Sounds/Record Mirror/Melody Maker and more) and of course, Rohan from Australia on his last night staying with us. Add Olivia from Germany and me from England and we had eight different nationalities. There was something really fantastic about that. Olivia cooked some wonders, and Rohan did his famous dessert, what a lovely night of food, talk, and music.

Earlier and after the smashing, I skyped with Sarah in Texas who will be here soon to see our progress with The Archive and the preparation for the big truck. We still have to book it, we have to make sure we can raise the funds to complete the task. Everyone thought the place was really kool, despite having three rooms either empty or full of boxes and paint tins – you can see the dream.

It was actually a holiday in Porto today, something called Assumption Day. It’s apparently a big day in Catholicism to do with Mary dying and ascending to heaven. Still, the ladies of the day were out all day and into the night, despite the closure of lots of places. I suppose the tourists still roamed the streets unaware, potential business for the girls, although I’m not sure it’s the tourists who are the customers, it seems like the tourists are more interested in the tiled churches and the ancient winding streets, they want to be out, not in.

Music today has been Captain Beefheart‘s Safe as Milk (1967). A song (I’m Glad) came up randomly and that made me listen to the whole album.

Music Of The Daze