Hotel Hobbies

Introduction: From an unnamed article in No1 Magazine written by Debbie Voller on 30 May 1987, sent to me by Kristie English:

Fish: "All the tracks are dedicated to places that inspired me, and this song always reminds me of the time I went to Champney's to dry out for a week. It was a complete waste of time!"
Pete: "Hah! He got wetter!"
Fish: " I wasn't sneaking the bottles in, I was sneaking myself out. I was the only person waking up on the health farm with a hangover! This song is about being on tour and it's really late at night and you're bored, and you hear all these girls wandering down the corridors and you peer through the spy-hole in the door to see what's going on! The whole album's about a guy called Torch, a successful writer who's trying to change his lifestyle, dry out, and write a new book. He's in a hotel and his last bottle's empty and he's smoked his last cigarette - he's in a bad way."

'Cardiograph'
A machine that records heart rate by drawing a graph (in much the same way that a lie detector does).

'Happy Hour'
A tradition where for an hour, drinks are sold half priced or cheap in an attempt to bring people in to a drinking establishment when they might otherwise not be tempted. It is usually early in the evening.

Songs with a link have explanations.

• Introduction
• Hotel Hobbies 
• Warm Wet Circles
• That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)
• Just for the Record
• White Russian
• Incommunicado
• Torch Song
• Slàinte Mhath
• Sugar Mice
• The Last Straw
• Happy Ending?
• Going Under
• Tux On
• Beaujolais Day
• Story from a Thin Wall
• Shadows on the Barley
• Sunset Hill
• Tic-Tac-Toe
• Voice in the Crowd
• Exile on Princes Street

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