Went to see Hooky's An Evening of Unknown Pleasures last night at The Glee Club in Birmingham. Compered by Howard Marks, the do is a sweet treat of chat and good humour. Hook and Marks (or Hook and Crook, as Marks commented) make a good double-act, albeit one slow to warm up due to Mr Marks' evident 'speed-of-speech OR the life style' state. However, once it got going the night was like Hook's book 'The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club' come to life. The evening is big on laughs, and Hook is candid, throwing half the night open to questions from the audience. The love/hate state of his relationship with Bernard Sumner was very much - inevitably - in attendance, with Hooky flipping between some cheeky pokes at his former partner in crime and obviously loving (and rather bruised) efforts to defend Sumner's honour.

There are a few musical moments book-ending the evening, generally revolving around Hook playing over backing tapes, and it was a bit ramshackle (what with it being the first night), but really it's about PH's current turn as an ace rock raconteur. There was a whole heap of memorabilia on show, too, which had most of the punters engrossed at the start of the night and during the intermission. Definitely worth seeing if you get the chance, and it actually got me thinking that more faces should be exploring this model.

Subsequently having a bit of a New Order morning, so thought I'd add some loveliness for the Massive...