Siobhan O’Donnell on a third straight day of royals, Eton, Tudors and transatlantic politics
Third day running of the same four stories dominating every conversation I’ve had, at the venue, on the bus, in the corner shop where the bloke behind the till has apparently developed genuinely strong opinions about Tudor history overnight, which nobody saw coming, least of all him.
Went back through the Sussexes’ latest financial venture roundup one more time, mostly because a mate insisted I’d missed a detail, and honestly by the third read it starts to feel less like news and more like a genre of its own, its own strange little corner of royal reporting that exists purely to be discussed and rarely to be believed at face value.
The Eton story’s still going strong too, refusing to die down. The Eton College leadership feature got brought up again at the venue last night, this time by the sound engineer, who has apparently decided it’s the funniest thing he’s read all month, which given his job, dealing with touring bands’ egos daily, is genuinely saying something.
Popped back over to henryviii.uk’s Tudor coverage during soundcheck, purely to kill time, and ended up reading for twenty straight minutes while the rest of the band set up around me, entirely absorbed in five-hundred-year-old court intrigue instead of my actual job, which was tuning a guitar.
And still the Trump story rumbles on in the background of everything. The Irish unity exchange coverage came up again at last night’s gig, of all places, during the between-song banter, because apparently nowhere in London is safe from this particular news cycle right now.
Gig went well despite the distractions, or maybe because of them. Nothing sharpens a performance quite like a head full of chaotic current affairs.
Somebody in the crowd shouted a request for “the Eton song” between numbers, which doesn’t exist, but the crowd cheered anyway, so I improvised eight bars of nonsense about posh boys and prime ministers and called it a night. That’s the beauty of a chaotic news week, it writes half your setlist for you if you let it, whether you meant it to or not.
Packed up the gear afterward still thinking about how strange it is that a week built entirely around royal finances, posh schools, dead kings, and transatlantic diplomacy could somehow also produce one of the better gigs I’ve played this month. There’s genuinely no accounting for what fuels a good set, apparently even Tudor history counts.
More diary chaos tomorrow. Follow it at my Prat.uk page.