Stuart Braithwaite: ‘Over the years, I’ve pretty much mastered the day off’

The dreaded day off: 30%

This week I’ve been on tour – an odd activity that has consumed most of my life for the past three decades. It’s a curious mixture of planned boredom interspersed with furious, intense activity under the watchful gaze of the paying public. As a performer, I don’t actually work that much (about an hour and a half a day), but the rest of the people on the tour work from the moment they wake until it’s pretty much time to go to sleep. It’s because of this mammoth workload that the necessity for the dreaded “day off” arises: days where you find yourself in a random city with no plans whatsoever.

Over the years, I’ve pretty much mastered the day off. My plan usually revolves around finding somewhere good to eat. As a vegan, I use the app Happy Cow, which lists all suitable eateries. Usually – though not always – the part of town that contains a vegan café or restaurant will also be in the same vicinity as the record shops, my other reliable pursuit on days off.

What’s real vs what’s actually not: 25%

The other day, rather than commit another heinous act of bed-rotting, Barry – who plays keyboards in the band – and I ventured over to Birmingham, under the navigation of our old A&R man, now turned successful author, John Niven, to see a preview of his new play, The Battle. The play is about the mid-90s chart war between Blur and Oasis. It was thoroughly amusing, though I did think it somewhat of a shame that he couldn’t find two better bands to write a play about – admittedly, the bands I suggested would struggle to half-fill a pub once, never mind a massive theatre for weeks at a time.

Towards the end of the play, an olympically inebriated audience member took umbrage at the play’s accuracy – a pretty wild take, given that it was drenched in exaggeration and nonsense – and berated the actors. Such were her projection skills that I was briefly convinced she was part of the performance.

The incident reminded me of a time when a rather posh friend of John’s witnessed a lively altercation between ne’er-do-wells on the streets of Glasgow’s West End and, having just been in Edinburgh for the Fringe, presumed that the entire debacle was, in fact, street theatre.

Blanck Mass soundtrack: 10%

Yesterday we celebrated the artistic achievement of another friend of ours – Ben Power, once of the criminally underrated noise duo Blanck Mass, now a leading light in the world of film and TV music, whose latest score was for the star-studded heist movie Crime 101. Cinema is the ideal way to spend your time, as it requires zero effort and no human interaction whatsoever. Touring can be pretty draining, so it’s nice to be able to completely switch off when you get the chance.

The film was really great – very intense, with subtle messaging, which isn’t the norm in Hollywood today, where most entertainment is about as subtle as a brick to the face, presumably because studios assume most people are playing with their phones and need the plot explained to them as if they possess the comprehension skills of a severely drunken toddler. Ben’s music – with a small cameo from my cinema-going pal Barry Burns – was fantastic and really added to the tension of the film.

Stressing about football: 10%

One activity that I can indulge in whether on tour or at home is stressing about football. It’s incredible how much emotional energy one can exert into the professional sporting fortunes of 11 strangers employed at great expense. My team, Glasgow Celtic, have had one of the most turbulent seasons in living memory, but are somehow (at the time of writing) still in with a meagre chance of retaining their crown as Scottish champions. I suppose in such an uncertain world having something to obsess over that doesn’t really matter in the ways that other things do is a comfort. The highs are epic and the lows devastating, but once all is said and done there is always next season if it goes to proverbial shit.

Britney: 25%

There are fewer activities I enjoy more than taking my small dog, Britney, for a walk. Today we climbed the Lanarkshire hill Tinto on a gloriously sunny, yet bracingly windy day. When we reached the top in typical Scottish manner the weather changed and we found ourselves in a cloud. It would have been nice to have the view, but the simple pleasure of going somewhere different with my small furry companion was utter bliss. I can’t recommend it highly enough.