Went to see the Human League, Heaven 17 and ABC last week in a nostalgia-fest called The Steel City Tour at the Hammersmith Odeon (or Apollo or whatever they call it this week).

Heaven 17 and ABC were okay; you could hear the groan when Martin Fry announces that the next song is from the new album…

Human League were fantastic, great stage lighting with the entire stage made up of LEDs making it into one huge screen, and they sounded really good. I didn’t get any photos when the bands were on but here’s one of the stage.

Human League stage, Hammersmith Odeon/Apollo, Steel City Tour

They did most of their hits, including my favourite, “Love Action”. Vic and Cedric enjoyed it too, even though they weren’t particularly keen on the Human League beforehand.

On a completely different note, a few of the people at work have started visiting Trinity Buoy Wharf at lunchtime. There are a couple of places there to eat, one is the Driftwood Cafe, a white van doing paninis and a variety of wholesome foods and Fatboy’s Diner, an American-style diner.

Fatboy's Diner at Trinity Buoy Wharf

The diner serves the usual fare of burgers, hot dogs etc, along with malts and shakes. It’s pretty good value for the location, and although the interior is a bit run down, it’s a pleasant change from our usual dining spots of The Steamship or Telehouse at East India.

Built in the late 50′s, the diner was originally the Georgetown Diner of Georgetown, Massachusetts. It is Worcester Lunch Car # 849, the next to last diner built by that company. It was stored in Ipswich, Mass, restored in New Hampshire and then shipped to London. It was previously situated in Spitalfields Market in London. The diner also appeared in the Gwyneth Paltrow movie “Sliding Doors”. www.fatboysdiner.co.uk

Last weekend, Vic and I went for a walk down to Greenwich. It was a chilly day but the walk was pleasant and we had a hot chocolate before turning around for the return journey at Greenwich.

Here’s a picture of me taken by Vic, all wrapped up in the cold:

Nigel at Island Gardens, Isle of Dogs

As ever, recent photos can be found at the Lazyllama Flickr Photostream.

We had a great weekend, lots to do, the weather was mostly pretty good; good enough that I got a bit of a tan anyway.

Highlights for me were:

• Alabama 3 acoustic set
• John Hegley
• African Head Charge (once the sound was sorted out a bit; it was terrible for the first 3 songs)
• John Shuttleworth
• Adrian Sherwood (Lee Perry was quite funny to start with but got a bit annoying after a while)
• Russell Howard (as seen on Mock The Week)
• Tom Middleton’s “Summer of Love” set
• Cider Bus and the food stalls in the Enchanted Garden
• The Disco Shed
• Burning down the house on the hill.

Other stuff I saw, but didn’t hang around for, or caught the end of:

• Leonard Cohen
• Beth Orton
• Bomb The Bass
• Martha Wainwright
• Ty
• Roots Manuva
• Roisin Murphy
• Martina Topley-Bird
• Hot 8 Brass Band

We were in the Quiet Camping section of the South Camping field. The toilets there were pretty much clean with paper and handwash throughout the festival. More waterpoints or some sinks would have been useful. The security there was also fairly innocuous and we didn’t see any heavy handedness. A tent a couple down from us had money stolen while they slept and two police officers were patrolling the area the next night.

Although the food was pricey, it was mostly of a very good standard compared to the woeful burger/noodle stalls I’ve encountered at other festivals. Manic Organic were charging £7 for a plateful of tasty veggie food. I didn’t go to Glasto this year, but seem to remember they were charging £6 last year.

The festival programme was £6 extra, with some of the money going towards The Big Issue, but charging for the programme was a bad idea, given that the times weren’t announced anywhere else obvious.

The main field was pretty messy with litter by Sunday afternoon, but others were remarkably clear of litter, certainly better than any Glasto I’ve been to. Watching the rubbish collection, it also looked like people did bother putting the recyclable stuff in the right bins.

It was definitely a good idea not having vehicles moving around on the main site, it stopped the ground from getting churned up and made it safer for kids, and there were a lot of kids at the festival.

We missed Bill Bailey as he was on first in the comedy tent when there were no other major crowd-pullers on. We had a look over an hour before he was due on and the tent was full.

Nice clear journey there and back, but we were both shattered by the time we got home.