Stan's Cafe

So the heavy touring is really underway, images and reports from Norwich say Of All The People In All The World is going well there as part of the Science Festival. Jake and Graeme are there with the new recruits.

Our trip to Portland started inauspiciously with a taxi driver lost off Birmingham’s middle ring road. Marvelling at a lack of local knowledge remarkable even by Birmingham minicab drivers I talked him in, in real-time from Highgate to Wheatsheaf Road. Only when he arrived did it emerge he was from Heathrow and his Sat Nav had bust. Fortunately that was the only glitch, we glided through all kinds of security and customs and passport control, rocking up in Portland at 15:00 Eastern Standard Time (or whatever it is) 23:00 GMT. We hung on to try and blag the jet lag, a delicious salad and beautiful beer, by the time we’d been up 26 hours straight we called it quits and turned in sleep the sleep of the righteously knackered.

Pacific Northwest College of Art is a fine place and the show is going to work brilliantly in their main foyer / gallery space. The atmosphere is lovely, reminiscent of the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver up the coast, we should be in for a fun time. The staff here and the PICA (Portland Institute of Contemporary Art) crew are all friendly and efficient. The only people who can stuff it up now are ourselves.

James