Set list – Tuesday 5th February

Starter:

Summertime
And I Love Him
Bye Bye Blackbird
I’m In The Mood For Love
Call Me
Route 66

—

Main course:

For Sentimental Reasons
The Boy From Ipanema
At Last
The Lady Is A Tramp
Night And Day
Autumn Leaves

—

Dessert:

Moon River
Corcovado
What A Difference A Day Made
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Cry Me A River
Fly Me To The Moon

—

Cheese course is also available.

- Malaysians drive on the same side of the road, and have the same plugs, as us. (These two facts are not related, except in their Britishness).

- It’s cloudy nearly all the time in Penang. When the sun breaks through, you feel the sort of heat you feel when you’re standing with your face too close to an open hob flame. Or on a regular basis if you’re a blacksmith.

- Things are very cheap in Malaysia. (I had a big salad and a fruit platter on room service, and it cost me £5. Imagine! And that included a tip.)

- The Malaysian climate is not conducive to walking.

- As a result: Malaysians are big on cars.

- And scooters.

- Malaysians address women by their first names prefaced by “Miss”. Hence, I am “Miss Andrea”. But then, people’s first names can also be their last names. I haven’t quite worked this one out yet.

- Malaysian cats are teeny tiny.

- So, in general, are Malaysians. They are in direct proportion to their cats.

- In Malaysia, you have to learn how to cut meat with a spoon.

- Unless you’re dealing with the fruit platter in your hotel room, in which case you have to learn how to eat fruit with a knife and fork.

- Malaysian women really like their beauty treatments.

- Malaysian men really like ordering a whole bottle of whiskey from the bar, which they promptly sit down with, share and finish off in one night.

- Laptops demagnetize hotel room keys.

- Michael Buble is very, very popular in Malaysia.

Or to be more precise: ‘The afternoon after the day before’.

I woke up at lunchtime again… and have resigned myself to realising that this will probably be the norm while I’m here. My jetlag has been replaced, seamlessly, by musicians’ hours.

I had a night of crazy, vivid dreams.. or rather, one long crazy, vivid dream which took various strange twists and turns, each one involving climbing somewhere or scaling something - a stone wall, a hill in the Peak District - or running away from someone. And in each case, despite being terrified, I managed to do it and arrived at the top/my destination in one piece. And, well, I’m no doctor - but after the way I was feeling yesterday, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what it all meant. (Which is why ‘dream doctors’ tend not to be geniuses.)

I’m still feeling a bit fragile, and not quite myself - or at least, the self I had been up to yesterday - so I’m just going to take it easy today. Hence this view right now:

A part of me is feeling guilty for not getting out there and exploring at the moment. But another part thinks: a) it’s really humid, so take it easy; and b) you’ve got two months to explore the place, so take it easy.

So that’s exactly what I’ll do for the next few days or so. Swim, read, blog, email, upload photos, work on music stuff. And generally take it, yes, easy.

Last night’s gig was rather lacklustre. Which was disappointing, but not wholly surprising given my mood, and the fact that it was so quiet in the bar. But I did a brand new song for me (’Route 66′, which it turns out is a Malaysian favourite) and chatted to a father and son who were in the audience - correction: were the audience - and who were on holiday from Holland. The main musical learning curve following last night’s show is that the band would prefer it if I write a setlist out for each night, rather than call the tunes as we go along, so that they’re more prepared for what’s coming next. Which is fine, and isn’t too surprising, given that whoever bound the copy of my music pad over here put my 130+ songs in a completely arbitrary, non-alphabetical order, so it takes the trio five minutes to find said song in the pad. Well, except for L, who’s cannily numbered all the pages.

I’m sorry that I don’t have anything terribly exciting to write right now. Like I say, I’m still slightly quiet after yesterday’s mood. Thank you again to all of you who wrote to me or left comments after that - it meant a lot.

And in the meantime, I’ll leave you with that list I was compiling (see next post).

“Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.”

- opening sentence of The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon.