well ! meshmass played the 'spirit of gravity' at the green door store in brighton, englistan, last night (thursday). by the time i had driven the 7 or so miles to this distant and romantic location it was possible to see through the windscreen of the little white van, something which had been rendered if not impossible then at least unlikely by a combination of frost and condensation. even my electrically powered driver's door window was frozen shut. windscreen wipers had no effect on the tiny crystals which had formed in an impenetrable sheet over the road ahead view, but i succeeded in scraping a little slot through which to peer and proceeded with a certain degree of caution (naturally, a degree or two below freezing.) it was warmer, or at least less frosty in brighton, where i had the usual excitements about parking, but promoter geoff reader kindly informed me that there was a parking permit behind the bar which i exchanged for my driving license. richard was already set up before i got there and a table and chair had been prepared for me, so i set up the laptop and then discovered that i had forgotten the mouse. after a minute or two i realised that i could not operate the computer without a mouse as i had disabled the touchpad 'pointing device' due to that fact that i kept doing unexpected things by touching it accidentally with my wrists, and i could not work out how to switch it on again without a mouse. geoff reader tried to help us and we were partway through examining the contents of the windows control panel - ho ho - when once again the staff at the spirit of gravity/green door store came to my rescue by digging out a mouse from some back room and we were able to play. we started more or less as the doors opened and it turned out that we were going to be LOUD. it's a while since we played through a P.A., and the temptation to be LOUD was irresistible, resulting in a floor-wobbling and trouser-flapping inferno of distorted guitar, squealing saxophone and sub-human bass through which the outlines of some marimba samples could dimly be discerned. at one point the guitar became so loud that i felt there was a great wind behind us, blowing us forward. we played for about an hour and despite everything people seemed to rather like it - they're tough, these brightonians. so, many thanks to all those who came - i recognised dave tribe and chris parfitt at least among them, and we all hope to see you again in the not-too-distant future.