I've spent the whole of this afternoon in the garden tinkering with bikes, after a kind freecycler gave me his 1953 Humber (and a beautifully aged Brooks B83 saddle - wow). Yesterday was my birthday, and Susie made me a Nonagon cake. Watch the video here to see how uncannily accurate it is.

I was hungover for most of the day: not from alcohol, but from the sheer sensory bombardment of the Self-cancellation gig that kicked off the Instal festival at the arches on Friday night.

Instal usually attracts an art school crowd, and this was no exception, but in the audience Sushil and I also encountered improv-heads Raymond MacDonald and Bill Wells, and fresh from his radio show Vic Galloway, who congratulated me on being an XTC fan (I knew he had taste).  It was a very interesting evening, but probably more interesting to talk about than to experience - type 'instal08' into flickr to see some photos. There were plenty of ideas but not much stagecraft or projection, and pretty much no humour at all. Rhodri Davies was one exception, playing the charred remnants of a harp with a blowlamp to stunning effect (photo of the end result here - the piece had ended when the soundbox hit the floor). I really liked Sarah Washington's interpretation of self-cancellation: she put on earplugs and ear defenders so that she couldn't hear any of what she was doing, then played her various homemade radio-based devices for about three minutes, which was rather beautiful. We audience had to do the listening for her. But my hangover was probably due to Mark & John Bain's terrifying Archisonic piece, which took seismic readings from the building and then amplified the resonances until the whole building was resonating. Very very loudly. For about 20 minutes. Even when we escaped to another floor a long way away it was still incredibly loud. And I stupidly forgot to pack my earplugs. People were staggering out of the main performance space looking shocked and ill.  Because it was all low frequencies, you could still hold a normal conversation in it, if you managed to ignore the fact that your whole body was vibrating, and that you felt like you were living inside someone else's headache. I wonder if it did any structural damage to Central Station up above.

Sushil and I came back here for tea afterwards, and to watch some of Fred Frith's Step Across the Border, as a reminder that being avant-garde can be achieved with technique, skill, humour and entertainment.