There's no interview today, and there's nothing scheduled for next Friday either. These things come in fits and starts, and I'm glad to be taking a little rest for a while. The transcriptions alone take bloody hours; it usually takes me ten minutes of typing for every one minute of recording, and most interviews clock in at between 15 and 20 minutes each. And that's just the raw transcript, before I start the editing process. Not complaining! Just saying!

Anyhow, the next published interview looks like being Gary Numan, in a fortnight's time. (A surprisingly excellent interviewee, and I have high hopes.) In the meantime, I'll be starting Year Six (SIX!) of the Which Decade Is Tops For Pops? Project next week, with the first instalment hopefully appearing on Monday evening. In which case, I'll need all the free time I can get.

Yeesh, when did life get so busy all of a sudden? At work, the new bunch of clients are working me hard, with the additional burden of daily conference calls at 9:30 every morning. Nine chuffing thirty! Crack of bloody dawn! It is Hell.

Yesterday, I mailed my submission to You Are Not Alone (see next post down for details). It's a re-working of something which appeared on the blog in 2006, and I have to say that the re-editing process was something of an eye-opener, in terms of how my writing style has tightened up in the last couple of years. Having become accustomed to the rigours of word-count-driven economy, I was startled to discover how darned waffly the original was. It's much better now, I think.

Yes, I know what you're thinking: you'd rather return to having daily blog posts from the old Waffly Mike, in preference to a couple of freelance copy-and-paste jobs per week from the new Professional Mike. Well, we have discussed this before. And I'd love to oblige you - but this isn't 2003, and my priorities are re-aligned.

(And my life is, in every respect, much improved. I was talking about this with friends the other day, who reminded me of how unhappy I used to be with certain aspects of my lot. In this respect, we agreed that the China trip in late 2005 marked something of a turning point.)

Onto the meat and potatoes of today's post, then. Amongst my non-blogging offline friends, who merely use the web for sensible things like shopping, banking and the gathering of practical information, very few have been converted to the Joy Of Blog over the years. Sure, they might follow Troubled Diva (in the vain but touching hope that one of these days, I'll post another jolly heart-warming ramble about the cottage garden, or another racy confessional tale of nightclub debauchery), but that's pretty much as far as they'll venture into the blogosphere.

That said, I've had a number of people tell me that while they "don't read blogs" in general, they have formed an attachment to the odd one or two. So, for instance, my sister doesn't read blogs, but she does read Petite Anglaise. "Bob" in the village doesn't read blogs, but he does read Girl With A One-Track Mind. A work colleague doesn't read blogs, but she does read Non-Workingmonkey. And so on.

(Meanwhile, although K has yet to start following any other blogs at all, he always reads my Twitter home page, to find out what my pals are up to. He's even got a little crush on one of them. Not saying who! Are you mad?)

This got me to wondering: have any of your offline friends latched onto a lone favourite blog? And if so, which one? Answer me, do.

We're off to Aunty and Uncle's in Kent over the weekend, regrettably missing Gordon's London Blogmeet in the process. Have a lovely weekend yerselves. The next fortnight will be mainly devoted to Which Decade. Such excitement!

Labels: blogs, journal, myself

After the extreme highs and lows that characterised the year before, 2007 was an altogether smoother affair, but not without significant moments of Personal Growth and Development. I'll be remembering it as the year when I published a blogging anthology, in a week, for charity (aided and abetted by a fine band of helpers, of course) - and also as the year when I started interviewing singers, musicians and random celebrities of various hues, for the Nottingham Evening Post, whilst continuing to attend as many live shows as humanly possible. (I've said it before and I'll say it again: where else do you get to hear analogue?)

It was also the year that Post of the Week got off the ground - and although I'll be taking more of a back seat with it in 2008, in order to concentrate on getting a community blog for our village off the ground, its future looks reasonably assured for now.

Other than that, I gave a talk on blog-writing versus book-writing at a literary festival, I had a couple of fun weekends in Amsterdam, and continued to visit London whenever suitable excuses presented themselves; most notably when Danish Eurovision fans, Portuguese illustrators and Belgian blog-celebs came to town. (Oh, and for the occasional film preview as well - for this was the year that the pushy PR peeps came sniffing around some of us bloggery types in earnest, and I'm not above accepting a freebie or two in certain circumstances.)

On the home front, we saw a lot of K's warm and wonderful family, as the loss of his sister in the spring of 2006 continued to cast a long shadow. A surprise gathering of the clans to celebrate K's dad's 70th birthday at a country pile in North Wales was a particular highlight, not least for the chance it gave me to get to know our two bright, charming and delightful young nieces. The cottage garden (aka PDMG#1) had its best year ever, and will be appearing in a magazine in the next couple of months or so (hey, you know what we're like). Over in Nottingham, the old concrete yards were replaced by a brand new garden (PDMG#2), and a new kitchen was installed, amidst much corporate f**k-wittery and call-waiting stress (and this latter was another of the year's less welcome themes). In the cottage, with viciously inappropriate timing, a ceiling collapsed on the day that Shaggy Blog Stories was published, and the deafening roar of de-humidifiers duly ruled our lives over the next few months.

At work, I changed both clients and desks, moving into a lively corner of the office and ending six years of aloof semi-isolation. This was definitely a Good Thing.

In August, I compiled a list of "Twenty-Five Things I Want To Do Before I Die". By the end of the year, I had accomplished two and a half of them (and as far as one of them is concerned, thereby hangs a lengthy and significantly perspective-shifting tale, but that's for another day, if indeed at all).

And then there was dear old neglected Troubled Diva, which slid ever further away from its 2002-2004 heyday, becoming little more than a repository for freelance music reviews and interviews. In the past few months, the issue of What To Do About Troubled Diva has dominated my thinking in a way that has yet to yield any firm answers. As the rigours and disciplines of print journalism have taken root and soaked up most of my spare energies, so I have moved ever further away from the "Troubled Diva" persona of yore. Although I remember him with affection, I am already looking upon him as another person, from another lifetime.

All of which begs the question: whither blogging, and whither this blog? As ABC's Martin Fry warbled, a generation ago: I don't know the answer to that question. If I knew, I would tell you. Ooh, how enigmatic!

To the few long-suffering regular readers who remain, and to anyone else who might happen to be passing: may I wish you the happiest of new years.

And now I am off down the pub. Some things never change.

Labels: journal

K and I really enjoyed the recent Channel 4 documentary "The Sex Blog Girls", starring our very own Zoe One Track.

Needless to say, this was my favourite part of the documentary. Two whole seconds of immortality (rounded up to the nearest whole number)! Why, I nearly wore out the pause button...



And then, just a few minutes later, this popped up:



"Darling!", I squealed at my best beloved. "How could they have got you so wrong?"

Labels: blogs, journal, onetrack, television

It's a strange age, 45.

Even up to a couple of years ago, taxi drivers would occasionally call me "young man". (Usually at journey's end, as I squiffily fumbled for change. They know what they're doing, the little tarts.)

Last week, as I was heading into town for my lunchtime cob (local vernacular; means "bap"), some old boy blundered round a corner, rather too quickly. "Sorry, youth", he muttered myopically, as our guts briefly barged. I can surf off such slip-ups for days.

But there again, see. On my way into the Bodega Social Club the other night, I was kindly spared the effort of walking all the way round the corner to the back of the roped off entrance walkway. As he chivalrously unhooked the front section of rope and beckoned me through, the smirking doorman bestowed this deadly rite of passage upon my stooped shoulders:

"Step this way, Grandad! You come on inside, and take the weight off your feet!"

"Grandad's on the guest list", I icily retorted - aiming for Imperious, but landing somewhere around Huffy. Yeah, that told him.

I always knew this would happen. Right from the age of 14, as my occasional dates with Uncle John Peel ("Britain's Oldest Teenager!" I joked, in the letter I never wrote) became nightly, unbreakable ones, I knew I these were no mere passing generational fancies. No, these passions were for life. (For a fickle little madam, I can be surprisingly steadfast.)

The other night at the Foals gig, with 95% of the audience under the age of 23 and a significant proportion in their teens, I counted just two other middle-aged men, up on the balcony, away from the fray. "Let's stand at the bar and look like we're Industry!", I muttered to Sarah as we wedged ourselves in, dizzy from the fug of Biactol, rotting trainers and two-week-old T-shirts.

I don't attend such events to be Down Wid Da Yoot, to leech off their energy, or indeed to feel much in the way of collective connection. I go because, on a good night, I get to witness a certain freshness of spirit - an instinct, an attitude, an attack - which has yet to be dimmed by recognition, repetition, routine. By them, or by me.

And besides: I was 19 once, and it hasn't really changed that much. (Just don't tell them that. Best if they don't know.)

That's why 45 rocks. Halfway between 20 and 70, and close enough to feel you can touch it all.

Caught up in the middle, jumping through the riddle, Grandad's on the guest list tonight!

Labels: journal, myself, opinion, popmusic

I'm "between clients" this week, and hence engaged in little of overtly economic value. It's at times like these that the office becomes more like a Day Centre than an actual office. (It gets you out and about; you can get yourself a nice cup of tea whenever you want; there are like-minded souls to chat with; and even the occasional piece of light occupational therapy, just to keep those brain cells ticking over.)

As someone whose default setting is an unspecified low-level anxiety and a vague sense of impending doom (which will somehow involve being "found out", although I couldn't tell you what for exactly), this comes as sweet relief indeed. Last Friday night, as my inner anxiety-butterfly did its usual fluttering about, in search of somewhere upon which to alight and tremble, I realised that for once, I had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT WHATSOEVER, EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE REALLY IS AS FINE AS CAN BE. Which was almost disconcerting, as if my security blanket (*) had been snatched away. (Yes, readers: I can even feel anxious about not feeling anxious. It's a rare skill.)

(And in actual fact, I woke up at around 3:00 on Tuesday morning in a complete state, having just dreamt that I was in major trouble at work... for, um, typing "joy division" into my office manager's Google. Bearing in mind that I never normally get nightmares - the worst that normally happens being a tedious, never-ending series of Public Transport Frustrations - this was clearly a case of my anxiety glands having to work the night shift.)

So, anyhow, I'm using the time to get through all manner of overdue items on my to-do list (once a certain Procrastination Quotient has been factored in, of course - why, I'm even catching up with long-ignored blogs - hello, everybody!) And the old freelance side of things gets ramped up a couple of notches in the process, of course, to the extent that I can be quite the Picky Madam: why, this very morning, I turned down a last-minute interview with the drummer from the Kaiser Chiefs, no less. (The reason being that I dislike the Kaiser Chief with a rare intensity, particularly that godawful "Ruby-Ruby-Ruby-RUBAY!" effort, which remains my most loathed song of 2007 to date.)

Life of Riley, basically. Which soon shall pass, obv. So I'm loving it while it lasts.

(Reader's Voice: "So, does this mean a return to your earlier, funnier, me-me-me posts? We liked you when you did them!")

(Author's Voice: "I wouldn't bet on it, Buster...")

(*) Bad metaphor. Anxiety-butterflies don't land on blankets; they land on... I dunno... toadstools or something? Sorry, I'm out of practise at this kind of thing. Anyone got any spare pop stars?

Labels: journal

No, we've not been to a dodgy strip club; instead, yesterday saw me taking K to his first ever blogmeet, at a formerly gay (and now much improved) pub on the Bayswater Road. Waggledance was their guest beer - and at a whopping 5%, it was a fine ale indeed - but since K was going to have to be driving us home from Derby station that evening, shandies were the order of the day. I'm sure you can picture the amusement.

Perhaps I shouldn't even be calling the blogmeet a blogmeet, since it wasn't an openly publicised event. Rather it was a gathering of The British Blogpals Of Lucy Pepper From Portugal - who, amongst her many more celebrated achievements, is also responsible for the first two images at the top of my sidebar.

Most of the blogpals were familiar faces; others I was meeting for the first time. K had never met any of them before, and he doesn't read blogs anyway, so I did a certain amount of discreet "background" hissing - but it wasn't an easy social situation for him to step into, and he did well to last the course with such good grace. (Tellingly, he formed an immediate alliance with Lucy's Professor, one of the two other non-bloggers in the room.) Perhaps I should have dragged him round the table with me, showing him off and making sure that EVERYONE LOVED HIM. But that's not our style. So I was rather pleased when Bob (hooray, another Gay at a Blogmeet for once!) took me aside and told me that K was "lovely". Because, well, he IS. And it always pleases me when people agree.

---

(I always operate on the default assumption that everybody who meets K is madly jealous that I got in there before they did. Yes, I might be delusional. But at least my delusions are romantic ones.)

(Example: the nice older lady on reception at our hairdressers, who didn't realise that we were partners until it came out in passing a couple of months ago:

Nice older lady (with feeling): I love him.

Mike: So do I. But I saw him first.

Our hairdresser: Yeah, but she had him last.

You have never seen two people rouge up quite so swiftly. But I over-parenthesise.)

---

As for me, the usual phenomenon occurred, whereby I left the pub feeling I hadn't spent nearly long enough talking to people, even though I had been there for over five hours solid. How does that happen?

We would have packed swatches (see posts below; way to fill a comments box; updates as we get them), but they'd never have fitted in the day sack.

I am very tempted to give you neatly turned pencil portraits of the bloggers I'd never met before, but perhaps discretion is the better part of valour.

I had one Waggledance too many, and ended up burbling. But that's all part of the experience.

Mike loves meeting bloggers!

Labels: blogmeets, blogs, journal

Feeling slightly amazed that I've already been up for 2 hours. On a Sunday morning.

Worrying about the weather.

Nipping round the Myspace pages of the acts which I haven't heard before. Hmm. Really wish the Hold Steady hadn't cancelled.

Heavy showers forecast. Packing lightweight waterproof, Gore-tex lined cap, fleece & mat into day-sack, along with optimistic sunglasses.

Still agonising about the one major clash in the Summer Sundae line-up: Fujiya & Miyagi versus Spoon. It's not easy having leftfield tastes.

Questioning the purpose of wearing my "lucky pants". (Olive green Aussie Bum, white piping, curiously flattering.) (TMI?) (TMI.)

Sunday drivers plus traffic jams equals missed train. It's only a 30 minute wait though. And chill...

The Lea Shores. Jesus fronted post baggy/shoegaze, Ride meets Roses. With violin.

And that was our first mention of the word "shine". With stuff like this, it's a statuory obligation.

Now rhyming flyyy, hiiigh and "you're my butterflyyy". Time to move on.

Vetiver: a perfect sunday lunchtime band. Nothing to disturb the Observer readers mooching on the grass.

Foxy busty blonde lady, to me and Dymbel: "I fancy you. And you. It's for a dare... but maybe I would have done anyway." Oh dear!

Packed tent for The Strange Death Of Liberal England, possibly benefiting from We've Not Heard Of Any Of These People, So Let's Go For The Ones With The Interesting Name Syndrome. Ooh, 10 out of 10 for youthful energy and exuberance...

Ben Taylor. Son of James. Similar lack of hair. Acoustic. Droll. Best so far.

Ben Taylor throwing out so many Myspace addresses that one wonders if he's on a Murdoch kickback...

Cherry Ghost: the word "solid" could have been invented for him. Overly precarious trousers for a man in his 30s. Not his "lucky pants", one feels. Earnest, mildly dishy supply teacher rock. All very 6music/word magazine. I'm not won over.

In the market area, resisting the urge for a Tracy from Big Brother makeover.

Stephanie Dosen: seen her before, supporting Tina Dico was it? Kooky and lugubrious. Cameron Diaz goes folk.

Koop: pleasant Gilles Peterson approved mellow jazzy funkiness. And still no rain! Result!

Mm, tinkly vibes. Rob is texting me crap jokes from the cabaret tent. I shan't share.

Koop remind me a little too much of my snotty soulboy acid jazz years. I'd have loved them in 1992.

And the vibes tinkle on. Not the most emotionally expressive of instruments, are they?

Spoon: again, solid. Better than Cherry Ghost, but I am unmoved. Dymbel loves 'em though. Shall try Fujiya & Miyaji instead.

Spoon were improving as I left. But Fujiya & Miyaji are more my thing. Funky krautrock from Brighton.

People are dancing! And about time too. Young people are holding up cardboard signs. FREE ANAL HERE! (plus arrow) and GET YOUR OWL OUT! Surreal...

Fujiya & Miyaji deffo the best yet. And now, the generic & wildly popular indie sounds of the Pigeon Detectives. Hmm, Johnny Borrell lite, anyone? Yes Virginia, there is such a thing.

Aw, I shouldn't be such an old curmudgeon. They're the right band at the right time and they're working it well. Cross generational respect!

Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals: performing solo inside a giant TV set, with cartoon test card. Experimental!

K is stuck on the phone with my aunt (a chatty woman), and sending increasingly angsty text messages.

Gruff Rhys now joined by lady singer inside TV set, both seated behind desk, news reader style. Oh, and now there's a band.

There's a bit of a lull, so I'm relaxing in the run with a beer. Nice day, if a little short on epochal, life changing music. Pleasant innocuous vibe.

Cheerfully ignoring Echo and his Bunny Men, to whom I fell asleep at the London Lyceum in 1980. 40-something blokes with eyes half shut are gyrating drunkenly in the evening sunshine.

Ok, The Cutter, I'll give them that. I was young once!

Polytechnic: competent guitar band, but I am developing indie indigestion. It's been a long day.

Oh! This one sounds like Los Campesinos: "You! Me! Dancing!" I can get behind this.

Spiritualized Acoustic Mainline. As my friend says, perhaps I've never taken the right drugs. That said, their symphonic lugubriousness is appropriately crepuscular.

Ah, me old mate Duke Special, headlining inside the De Montfort Hall. Nice to be on familiar ground. As cosy and comforting as a steaming mug of cocoa, and hence just what these aching old bones are in need of.

Duke Special was a lovely end to 10 hours of good, if not often great music... and my first festival to boot.

Searching in vain for meteor showers on the drive home. 45 degrees south, if you're looking...

Labels: gigs, journal, popmusic, twitter

Wise words from my beloved K, who memorably reduced an entire posh country house dining room to an awed hush, merely by declaiming them, with some measure of force, when offered a post-prandial coffee by the well-meaning waitress.

Would that I had heeded them last night, at the blogpals' get-together at the Secret Mystery Location. But, no. Fearful of peaking too soon (for the wine had been flowing from earlier than I am used to, bearing in mind the louche bohemian hours that I am wont to keep), I thought that a tall mug of fresh-from-the-cafetière would Perk Me Up and help me Stay Focused.

Which is probably why I woke at 4am this morning, and stayed restlessly semi-conscious for the next three hours, until knocked up by my Secret Mystery Hostess for a lift to the railway station.

(Two small pieces of information that I might safely divulge: Secret Mystery Hostess keeps a superlative cheese board, and she makes a mean chocolate tart. Honest, I thought it was from Marks and Sparks!)

Zee to the oh to the onked, that's what I'm feeling right now. I might not even be able to make it all the way through Big Brother tonight, let alone the totally ace, are-you-watching-it-yet, oh-you-should-you-should, Studio 60 On Sunset Strip (which does require a good deal more concentration than "does Amanda fancy Brian back", or "they're all being mean to Amy, especially that Carole, ooh you wanna watch her, she's taking over").

So, let mine be a cautionary tale.

Hey, at least my reasons for crappy half-hearted posts are varied ones...

Labels: journal

The 2000-odd capacity Indigo club - whoops, sorry, IndigO2, can't be missing a Brand Reinforcement Opportunity - is billed as the Arena's, ahem, "intimate space". And fair play to their design team: it's a swish-looking, well-appointed venue, which does its level best to make you forget that you're actually still trapped inside a corporate hell-hole in the middle of nowhere. OK, so some seats would have been a nice touch, but they were strictly reserved for the 75-quid-a-pop "VIP" crowd, separated off from the rest of us in their own dedicated balcony area.

But hey, we proles in the £27.50 (incl. booking fee) standing area - some of whom had been queuing for over an hour (but not us, diligent researchers that we are), only to discover that we all had equally good views of the stage anyway - didn't care about any of that. After all, we had gained admittance to the hallowed inner sanctum, and to the opportunity that some of us had been dreaming of for years: to see Prince in after-hours mode, kicking loose and jamming with his band, all in the name of pure musicianship rather than stadium show-boating. As I said before, these Prince after-shows are the stuff of legend.

The atmosphere in the Indigo2 was buzzing. On Wednesday night, the band had played for an hour and three quarters, with Prince joining them for lengthy sections. Sure, we didn't expect him to be on stage for the whole period. We knew that. There would probably be 30 or 40 minutes of warm-up first, that kind of thing.

For now, Prince's dedicated DJ was spinning a set of predominantly funky house over the superbly crisp and warm sound system, mixed with the occasional "special", such as an exclusive new mix of Sexy MF, cut up with samples from the C&C Music Factory's Gonna Make You Sweat. Chelsea Rodgers, my favourite track from the new album, got people smiling and even a few of us dancing. Not too much of a crush in front of the stage, plenty of people chilling out on the floor towards the back of the venue, saving their energy for later.

At around 1:15 - same time as Wednesday, nice bit of consistency there - the lights went down. "Please welcome, from New Orleans, Dr John and his band!"

Woah, tres tres cool! As the veteran New Orleans performer settled at his piano, leading his band through a delightfully rolling Iko Iko, the four of us exchanged grins, marvelling at our extra luck. Fancy Prince being able to land such an impressive special guest! That's influence for you.

(Well, how were we to know that Dr John had already played a scheduled concert at the same venue, earlier that evening? We can't all be experts.)

I wondered how the rest of the show would pan out. Dr John's band were over to the right side of the stage, with most of the left side left empty, including spare microphone and instrument stands, and even a spare keyboard. Presumably the John band would hand over to the Prince band at some stage, maybe with some combined jamming. Woah, a Prince and Dr John collaboration would be something special all right... we'd just have to wait and see.

Time passed. Dr John's old favourite Such A Night got an airing, but I didn't recognise much else. Actually, my attention was starting to wander. So far, so Jools Holland. We needed to step up a little.

My attention was wandering so much that I didn't particularly notice the stage hands clearing away some of the unused equipment on the left hand side, even as the band played on... although was it just me, or were they beginning to flag now? Did I detect an uncertainty, an awkwardness, a reticence to hog the whole show?

As one number finished, a figure in the wings made a motion to the band with his outstretched fingers. It looked like the international sign language for "five more minutes". Phew, and not before time.

A couple more numbers later, the same figure made the same hand signal. And was it just me, or was the end of each song being greeted by ever louder applause, as if to hasten the end of the set?

At around 2:30, after about an hour and a quarter on stage, Dr John finally called it a day, "so that Prince can come on and do his stuff". Big cheer. About bloody time and all! I noted with some amusement that Dr John hadn't played his best known song, Right Place, Wrong Time. That really would have been rubbing salt in the wound. Two chuffing thirty in the chuffing morning! Ee, the accommodations that we make for genius!

The curtains closed, and the music came on again. A notably less scintillating selection than last time, but we were barely concentrating. Although, hang about, did we really need to hear Chelsea Rodgers again? And why were they starting to focus more on Prince's biggest hits? What a strange way of building the mood for a jam session...

Time passed. A good forty-five minutes or so, I'd say. And then, a friendly word from a young guy who was just on his way back from the bar.

"Thought you might like to know. They've just told me at the bar that Prince left the building about 20 minutes ago. He's tired and he won't be playing."

Even as we began to process the news, the music started to fade and the house lights started to flicker on and off. No announcement, just a general numbed-out bemusement as word slowly began to spread. Nearly three chuffing thirty in the chuffing morning, over four and a half hours after our last sighting of the man, and now, NOW he deigns to tell us.

I stared at my £27.50 ticket again. "PRINCE AFTERSHOW", it said, in big capitals. By the exit door, a member of the Indigo2 staff was all placatory apologies, they weren't to know, he just upped and went, etc etc. And by the way, sir, you can't take that out with you. I handed him the flat dregs of my plastic mug of lager and stumbled out of the venue, still in a daze.

The reason that we bought the tickets in the first place? There was an item on Radio 4's Front Row, telling their listeners that Prince would be playing a late night set after each one of his 21 London dates.

Throughout the complete online ordering process, via the O2 website and Ticketmaster, at no point was it ever suggested that Prince might not play.

During the whole of that Friday night, not one announcement was made to that effect. Oh, of course, they never actually said that he would be playing, either. We were just rather led to assume that. Because, you know, who would pay £27.50 for a DJ, an act that we hadn't come to see (who was already in the venue anyway), no seats, no food, and the chance to buy the only alcohol left on sale for miles around?

As to how much money Prince himself will be earning from lending his name to this rather costly ongoing lottery (the following night, he joined his support act Nikka Costa on stage for just one number), one can only speculate.

Over on the main fan forum, the hardcore faithful had little sympathy for our collective plight. These aftershow no-shows are commonplace, apparently. It's all part of being a Prince fan, apparently. God, didn't we know that? This was an aftershow party, a chance for like-minded souls to hang out together and discuss the tour. If there was no atmosphere, that was our fault for not making an effort. In fact, it was probably our fault that Prince had decided not to play. Not enough dancing, everybody squashed in front of the stage, how uncouth! All those drunks, slumped on the floor, how disrespectful! How could he be expected to face that?

And, for heavens sakes, hadn't we read the posting on Prince's official site? (Posted on Monday July 30th, well after we had bought our tickets, but that's by the by.)Oh, it was unexpected, all right. Can't fault 'em on that one.

Over an hour into our homeward journey, at Toddington services on the M1, the four of us finally found somewhere that served food. Desultorily chowing down on my egg mayonnaise roll and smoothie (£6.48, plus a free apology from the cashier at the ruinous expense), a few yards away from the heap of prostrate bodies on the floor of the amusement arcade, I wondered whether, at that time of the morning, there was any more desolate place to be found in the British Isles. Cheers for that, Prince. Cheers for that, O2.

My final waking thought, as my head hit the pillow at 7:00 am: I am too old for this shit.

I mean to say. A well respected and much admired, nay loved, figure of immense cultural influence, who earned his reputation years ago but who has been coasting ever since, now well past his peak, teasing his remaining supporters with half-shows and no-shows, and arrogantly assuming that they will put up with whatever shit he deigns to throw at them? Whoever heard of such a thing?

Labels: gigs, journal, o2, popmusic, prince

It was an ill-starred evening from the off. A section of the southbound M1 was officially closed, with an accident to the north of it causing traffic to crawl for miles before coming to a complete standstill. Fortunately, or so it seemed, we could see the standstill kicking in just beyond the last-but-one junction before the closure, allowing us to leave the motorway in the nick of time.

Less fortunately, the crawl continued, bumper-to-bumper solid, all the way into St. Albans, and through it, and out the other side again. By the time we hit the unexpectedly and blissfully empty M25, we had less than an hour to get from Hertfordshire to the O2 Arena in North Greenwich, in time for the predicted show-time of 20:30. I was already mentally preparing myself for missing the first thirty minutes of Prince's set. Not to worry, though; we also had tickets for the after-show, and so could expect many, many hours of music ahead of us. What was the odd half hour or so? A drop in the ocean.

At 20:25, we screeched into the O2 car park (advance cost: £22.30 including booking fee). By 20:45, we were in our seats, beers in hands. Given that our four-and-a-quarter hour journey had allowed us no time to stop for food, a liquid dinner (plus one banana each, smuggled through security by Dymbel) would have to suffice.

Three minutes later, the show began. Bless him for waiting for us. Our luck was changing. Smiles all round.

Just under two hours later, the band left the stage for the last time. During those two hours, Prince had been absent for the opening number, two lengthy instrumental interludes, two teasingly over-streched intervals between the two encores, and the first number of the first encore: a good 25 minutes, at the most conservative estimate.

Of the 20 songs performed, just 7 of Prince's 37 UK Top Thirty hits were represented: Cream, U Got The Look, Peach, Kiss, Purple Rain, Let's Go Crazy and Take Me With U, plus a spirited version of I Feel For You. Four other numbers were covers, with Prince performing on just one of them: a perfunctory slog through Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music, for which he forgot nearly all the words.

The sound quality in the O2 Arena was abysmal: booming, sludgy and echo-laden, with a general absence of top-end clarity. However, our seats gave us a good overall view of the stage, which bore the shape of that funny little squiggle from the "Artist Formerly Known As" years. Although billed as an "in the round" show, the main performance area was the extended catwalk formed by the squiggle's downwards arrow, with additional curly runways running off to each side. However, for those of us who were seated at the top of the squiggle - a circular area, with the band seated in the middle - Prince's face-forward appearances were limited, and frustratingly brief. About once every ten or fifteen minutes, he would quickly trot round the uppermost circumference, barely pausing to acknowledge us. No matter; we had an excellent view of the screen, and much better all-round vision than the people down on the main floor. A shame, then, that the spot-lighting was so poorly arranged, with Prince all too often cavorting in near-darkness.

For a large chunk of the audience, getting the beers in seemed to be of equal importance to actually watching the show, with what amounted to a mass exodus during the first and longest of the instrumentals (Maceo Parker from James Brown's old band, parping his way at leisure through a languid and syrupy What A Wonderful World). The people directly behind us swiftly reached the Totally Shitfaced stage, but at least their noisiness was benign. (Elsewhere in the Arena, a spectacularly inebriated woman threw up over the backs of the people in front of her. We wuz lucky.)

Oh, but we mustn't grumble. The show had its moments, and the band were shit-hot - especially the four-piece brass troupe, as led by the aforementioned Mr. Parker, and especially during the set's "funk" section, with Black Sweat and Controversy scaling the very heights of tightness. For the diehard fans, following the seldom heard Joy In Repetition (from Graffiti Bridge) with Parade's Anotherloverholenyohead was altogether A Bit On The Special Side. For the more casual crowd, solid, bankable tracks from Purple Rain dominated the end of the show, and it was fun to hear an updated Kiss: "You don't have to watch Big Brother, to have an attitude..."

Only one track - the straightforward old-school rocker Guitar - was performed from the new album, copies of which were handed out to everyone who entered the arena, just in case our ideological scruples had prevented us from picking it up with the Mail On Sunday a couple of weeks earlier. Hearteningly, it turned out to be one of the strongest and best received performances of the night, already sounding like a bona fide hit in its own right. Saving it up for the last song of the last encore was a bold but justified move.

But oh dear, what a pointless palaver those encores turned out to be. We already knew that on the opening night of his 21-date run, two days earlier, Prince had fooled half the crowd by waiting until the house lights were up and the venue emptying, before dashing back on stage for a seemingly impromptu third encore. So we weren't about to be fooled again. A stand-off ensued, with absolutely no-one budging, even though the house lights had been on for ages. And yes, oh GOODNESS what a shock, back on he bounded, for a repeat version of the same stunt. Which of course meant that we certainly weren't going anywhere after the next exit. After all, there had been three encores on Wednesday, with nearly two and a half hours of playing time, so surely he wasn't going to call it a night after two encores and less than two hours?

No such luck. After another expectant stand-off, during which we noticed our nearest camera operator patiently sitting tight and checking his text messages (so THAT was a sign, right?), a tannoy announcement was made, asking us to clear the venue. Which of course prompted a certain measure of booing. Oops. It was a ragged end to what had sometimes felt like a ragged, under-powered and half-hearted performance. Two dates into the run, wasn't it a little early for Just Another Day At The Office Syndrome to be kicking in?

Despite being urged, via a special reminder e-mail, to "hang out" in the O2 after the show, the crushing reality was that, at a couple of minutes before 11pm, seemingly all of the venue's food and drink outlets were closing for the night. If there was a funky little after-hours joint to be found in this gargantuan, antiseptic Branding Opportunity of a venue, with its faintly menacing air of regimented slickness, then we certainly didn't stumble across it. Back to the car park we trudged, vainly casting around for non-existent burger vans, for the only sit-down we were likely to find between now and the after-show party, queues for which were already stretching far outside the building.

Ah, the after-show party. The anticipatory buzz was palpable, even in these corporate hell-hole surroundings. Prince's after-show sets are the stuff of legend, after all. Our night of mixed fortunes was about to get very special indeed. Of that at least, we had no doubt.

Jump straight to Part Two.

Labels: gigs, journal, o2, popmusic, prince

Well. So much for the brave new "one blog post per day for the whole of August" initiative, which spluttered to a premature halt yesterday, on Day Four.

My excuse? Yesterday was my first day over at the cottage in three weeks, the first decent weather we've had in living memory, and the first chance to get to grips with the unkempt wilderness that PDMG#1 has become since our last visit. Oh, and I hadn't actually gone to bed until 7am on Saturday morning, for reasons that shall be made abundantly clear in my next post, to be titled "Prince at the O2 Arena: The Great Funk And Soul Swindle." All things considered, it just wasn't a day for switching on a laptop. The Germans have a word for it: Hitzefrei. And quite right too.

So, yeah, I owe you one extra post in recompense for my lapse. Consider it banked.

I am writing this from the cottage kitchen, upon our return from an uncommonly agreeable "early doors" at the Hartington Youth Hostel, of all places. No, really, you'd be surprised. Beautiful old Elizabethan manor house, locally brewed beer (I started with the "Hairy Helmet" and progressed to the sublime Hartington IPA), outside seating in the capacious and leafy gardens... a hidden gem, so it was.

The bright pink rose on the boundary wall of PDMG#1 is nothing short of spectacular this year. Here's what it looked like, ten minutes ago.


And now, if you'll excuse me, it's al fresco supper time. (Oh dear, when did our meetings become so rushed? It's not you, it's me...)

Labels: journal

...are that, when you make rash promises about blogging every day for a month, you don't actually have to follow through with beautifully constructed vignettes in a tightly defined Site Style, that will have everyone sighing and cooing and wishing they could nominate you for Post of the Week (for which I'm doing this week's shortlist, so please get over there and nominate).

Oh no. Instead, you can just switch the damned thing on and burble until your time's up. Which, in my case, will be when K gets off the phone to his mum. (He's a dutiful son, and rings her every night. She's a "chatty" sort, and phone calls rarely last less than 20 minutes, bare minimum).

What can I tell you about today? Well, we've landed ourselves another magazine cover story, as the oh-so-aspirational Derbyshire Life has seen fit to lead their August issue with a lengthy article about our village, complete with a photo of the cottage. I'd link, but the "This Month" section of their website is currently displaying a scan of the March issue. Ah, bless.

On the freelance front, I've conducted three interviews this week: one with a local hip-hop label, another with a "turntablist" who records for the same label, and another with the guitarist out of Hard-Fi, whose new album arrived by post at the start of the week. How do you conduct a courteous and respectful interview with someone from a band whom you used to love ("Hard To Beat" was my Fave Single of 2005), but who are just about to release an underwhelming follow-up? Well, I tried to accentuate the positive. Other than that, it looks like I've secured an interview with Andy Bell from Erasure (having talked to Vince Clarke earlier in the year), but wasn't quick enough off the mark to bag the Super Furry Animals. You win some, you lose some.

K and his mum are still nattering, and I'm stalling. Ooh, tell you what right: BT have been giving us the runaround summat shocking. We've been trying to order BT Vision at both addresses, but they've not only accidentally cancelled both orders - they have also posted us fifty, yes that's right, FIFTY, bills to the cottage, on the same day, in separate envelopes, only to have them intercepted by K's mum and returned straight to the postman. What kind of madness is that?

I just heard a click downstairs. Either she's on one of her longer monologues, or they're all done and dusted. So I'll be off, then. But before I go, a big shout-out to z of Razor-blade of Life, who has promised to match my one-post-per-day with one-comment-per-day. Do feel free to play along, won't you?

Labels: journal

Oh, it's YOU. Hello, you!

It's been Can't Be Arsed Theme Week, here in Trodiland. Not so much at work (that's actually been quite fun this week, mainly because I have been assigned a task that people actually Care About, with a deadline that Actually Matters, with a difficulty level that's Stretching But Not Impossible), but my downtime has been just that for once. No commitments. No diary dates. No freelance assignments (ah, the good old Music Biz Summer Lull). And, what with K gadding about the US all week (contemporary art in the Catskill Mountains, TV interview in Pittsburgh, watching Little Feat in Missouri, the Richard Serra exhibition at MoMA in NYC), I've been all on my ownsome, and, well, lovehimtobitsandallthat, but it's been NICE. A rest is as good as a change.

Telly. Pooter. Doing some mix CDs for this weekend's Big Fat Civil Partnership Engagement Party in Clapham. Preparing mentally for predicted excesses of said forthcoming weekend. Recovering from predictable excesses of the last weekend, spent visiting Alan "Won A Blogging Award, Can No Longer Be Arsed" Reluctant-Nomad in Amsterdam.

Ey, it were great in Amsterdam. Bar crawling on the Friday, ending up down the Cockring, as you do. I've changed my mind about that place. Sure, you get a lot of drunk desperate people, stumbling around upstairs in the Last Chance Saloon - but down in the clubby bit in the basement, the vibe is relaxed and friendly. Stripped down funky tribal house, with warm, throbbing basslines and no cheesy breakdowns. Kinda womb-like. On an even level.

My New Best Friends were from Eindhoven and Leicestershire. Mr Eindhoven was all Boggle Eyed Thumbs Aloft Wa-hey, so I assumed heavy pill-age. Not so, not so. Somewhat unecessarily, Mr Leicestershire warned me about his rampant sluttishness. "That's cool!" I reassured him. "I am taking it for what it is!" I do so love flirting, when there's no question of a sticky follow-through. You know where you are. It's a kicky little ego-tickle, and sometimes that's all you need.

Over to my right, a blandly handsome and very drunk young man in a sewn-on singlet was not taking Alan's No for an answer. (It might have been a Maybe, until certain rather outré, not to say messy, sexual suggestions were hissed in his ear.)

Opting to beat the 5am rush, we stumbled home, Alan once again displaying a quite astonishing lack of direction. How many months has he been there now?

Saturday shopping was quite mass market, by my foofy standards. A short sleeved check shirt from Dockers, and a slight variation on the same theme from H&M. Hell, I know my range. People of a certain age do tend to restrict themselves to the outfits that they wore in their heyday, and I seem to be no exception. Gorgeous, gorgeous Diesel jeans, just the business for that night's Big Gay Circuit Party at the Odeon.

Dinner with my new desk neighbour E, also visiting for the weekend. She and I had hatched a plan to introduce our respective ex-pat Britgay friends, and it all seemed to work rather well. We were also joined at the dinner table by a couple of charming heterosexual pornographers, who run their own special-interest website (caveat clickor).

"And do you... sometimes... er, possibly... appear in front of the camera?", I asked the female half of the couple, a petite Thai lady, choosing my words carefully.

"Of course I do! Well, come on, look at these!"

Goodness, I had quite failed to spot the capacious boobage below. Quelle faux pas! She seemed almost affronted.

(Etiquette tip: when meeting lady pornographers, a suitable compliment upon "the rack" is considered de rigeur.)

(Remember when One Track outed me as a knocker clocker? Perhaps I've been trying a little too hard to mend my ways. You can't win, can you?)

The Big Gay Circuit Party was agreeable, if initially a little up its own arse. But then Amsterdam doesn't have any regular major gay dance clubs, so there was bound to be a certain over-awed sense of occasion. Things loosened up nicely, though, despite a dodgy "retro hour" of the sort of horrible late 1990s/early 2000s trance which sent me scuttling off to the sanctuary of rural Derbyshire in the first place. And we did like the go-go dancers, led as they were by a middle-aged, barrel-chested, overweight Grotesque, be-wigged and be-horned, who revelled in a kind of imperiously sinister auto-eroticism throughout. As if to say: I Am Your Future, Circuit Boys, and I Care Not One Flying F**k What You Think. A neat and necessary little subversion of the proceedings, so it was.

Our new ex-pat Britgay chum danced "ironically", on a raised step, going through every move in the handbook. He's big - nay, evangelical - on something called Neurobics, which involves stimulating the brain cells by peforming everyday tasks in unexpected ways. Getting dressed with your eyes shut, that kind of thing. We tried Neurobic dancing, me pump-it-pump-it-pumping with my left fist instead of my right. Hmm, still not convinced. Alan and I beat the 5am rush again, and got drenched to the skin for our trouble. Yes, they've got the rain over there as well.

Sunday was spent in Smart Café Recovery Mode, firstly with Caroline (celebrating an impending change of job), and secondly with Non-Workingmonkey, with whom I conducted the official Post Of The Week Exit Interview (N-WM was one of our regular judges for a while). N-WM has been flat-sitting for friends, in The Most Gorgeous Canalside Apartment That One Could Possibly Wish For. It's going up for sale soon, and Alan's looking to buy. Ooh, serendipity. Contact details were duly exchanged. I am going to be staying there next time. No, I think you'll find I am, actually.

It's Nottingham Pride tomorrow. There was a preview piece in t'local paper today, liberally furnished with quotes from myself, but it's not online and I didn't write it, so you'll have to manage without. (It was basically an edited remix of this old post, which basically says it all.) I won't be attending (Clapham, remember), but you should. It'll be fabulous! We've got Bananarama and everything!

Right, that's your hour's worth. Beer time. Also, Boots "Shapers" Salad Time. (I've been losing weight for the London boys, and dipped under 11 stone for the first time ever yesterday morning. Major milestone.) Is it Big Brother yet? Busy busy!

Labels: amsterdam, gay, journal

Life in a medium-sized city does have distinct advantages. “Large enough to be interesting, small enough to be friendly”, that’s what I always say. And so, when some bright sparks suggested arranging a photo-shoot in the Market Square for all of Nottingham’s “creative” types (writers, artists, musicians, designers, and yea, even unto can-we-say-humble bloggers), word was bound to get through.

All togged up in the nice smart Gieves & Hawkes jacket that I wore to the Lowdham Book Festival, I toddled along to the square just in time to squeeze myself into the back of the shots. Within seconds I found Dymbel, who was soon introducing me (as “blogger extraordinaire”, gawd bless him) to various authentically rumpled, literary-looking types. (Those crisp, tailored lines were such a giveaway.)

“Hello, I’m Mike! I’m an integral part of the mass amateurisation and dumbing down of culture, which threatens to obliterate the last shreds of respect for an intellectual elite! And you are....?”

Well, I could have said that. You know, all waspish-like, for laffs. But instead I came over all Aaargh This Is A Networking Opportunity I Cannot Cope, and fled back to the sanctuary of the office.

First thing I did: Google for the guy that Dymbel first introduced me to. (“You must know each other. No? Well, maybe you move in different worlds.”) Oh crap, he was only one of the most senior and well-respected members of the Nottingham literary community. And I’d just shaken my head and blinked. Well, he hadn’t heard of me either. Cuts both ways, dunnit?

An hour or so later, loins duly girded and best face forward, I was over at the Broadway Cinema for the official post-shoot canapé-and-fizz bash, getting there just in time for the last few seconds of the last speech. Basically, this was a launch event for something called the Nottingham Creative Business Awards 2007, which you can read all about over here. All neurotic passive-aggressive snark aside, I wish it well.

Before long, I found myself talking to a couple of published writers: Clare Brown (who doesn’t have a blog) and Nicola Monaghan (who has two: a fiction blog and a “creative process” blog). Naturally, both conversations homed in on the bloggers-with-book-deals phenomenon, the are-blogs-for-writers-a-help-or-hindrance question, and so forth and suchlike. Most enjoyable.

While Nicola clued me up on the Bookarazzi website, another resource for bloggers with book deals, a familiar face sat down opposite. “Just relax”, he said, pulling out his pad and pen.



This wasn’t the first time that Brick had drawn a caricature of me – his splendid James Gillray pastiche (“All Broad Street trembled as he strode”), as commissioned by Dymbel and Dymbellina for my fortieth birthday, still enjoys pride of place in the cottage – but it was the first time that he, or indeed anyone else, had done so impromptu.

If you’re one of those people who comes over all self-conscious and coy whenever a camera lens is wafted in their general direction, then imagine having that feeling extended for ten minutes or so, while you try and make interesting conversation with nice bright creative types at a Networking Opportunity, with blues music blaring into your left eardrum, just loud enough to block out what was being said diagonally opposite. But I coped, really I did, maintaining both my posture (ooh, three-quarter face on the left hand side, the best angle!) and my brightest, most engaged smile.



An hour or so later, and we were on the top floor of Waterstone’s, awaiting the arrival of Armistead Maupin.

“Look at my new digi-dictaphone!”, I chirped to Dymbel and Dymbellina. “I hope it can pick him up from this distance.”

“Er, Mike, you do know that you’re not supposed to quote writers without their express permission? It’s not exactly ethical.”

I instantly rouged up. Call me naïve, but surely public events like these were, by their very definition, on the record? Evidently not. Well, too late to go asking around at the eleventh hour. I’d make the recording anyway, and then have a word at the signing session after the talk.

As expected, Armistead Maupin was pure delight from start to finish. (The article appears in the Evening Post on Friday, and on t’blog soon after that.) As the final applause died away, the woman to my right leant over. I’d noticed her looking over a few times, and had assumed that she was glaring at the digi-dictaphone, not so subtly wedged between my Pradas.

But no. This was K, a fellow German graduate of the class of 1985, whom I hadn’t seen for over twenty years – even longer than Armistead, come to think of it. With so much to catch up on, I didn’t make my way to the signing queue until perilously late in the day.

When Mike Met Armistead, then. It wasn’t quite the communion of souls that I’d hoped for. By this stage, over a hundred eager punters down, the great man was clearly flagging, and unmaskably disengaged from his immediate surroundings. I tried, of course – and in giving me his permission to quote him directly for the article, he was the very model of graciousness. Signatures were procured, for me and for sadly absent “fag-hag extraordinaire” MissMish (her suggestion, his dedication).

Ah, the creative life, how it takes its toll. The article took three hours, the recording just the right side of audible, the copy filed just before 1:00 a.m. Bloody difficult, but enormous fun. And I’m not complaining neither. It's turning out to be quite a week...

Labels: books, journal

Yesterday's little blog talk went just fine, thanks for asking. It was a modest turn-out, but certainly enough to make the event worthwhile, and thanks are due to my hometown posse (including JP, MissMish, Rullsenberg and Cloud) for turning up, lending support, and pouring ale down my neck in the pub over the road afterwards.

However, being my own harshest critic and all and all, my immediate post-talk thought was annoyance that I hadn't managed to squeeze all my material into the allotted 45 minutes. As it was, I spent too long on the first half (essentially a 2007 remix of the talk I gave at Broadway Cinema a while back), and ran out of time to get stuck into the all-new second half, thus spluttering to a rather abrupt halt. Which was a shame, as the second half was all about bloggers and book deals, and the differences between blog writing and novel writing, and I'd spent a long time researching and assembling the material. In fact, it was the second half which I was looking forward to the most. Lesson learnt: do a timed run-through in advance, and chop your material accordingly. (I did this last time, but got a wee bit too complacent this time.)

That said, the talk went well, and I managed to strike the right balance between scripted and off-the-cuff material. It would also have been fun to have extended the Q&A session at the end, which did give me the chance to shoe-horn a couple of sections from the overly abridged second half. And it was good to meet Sally Morten (one of the Shaggy Blog Stories contributors), as well as a previously unknown regular reader (who asked me some rather penetrating questions about blog stalkers, before re-assuring me that his presence at tomorrow night's Ted Leo & The Pharmacists gig didn't mean that he was one of them, ahahaha, dear me no, thanks for reading, see you at the gig).

I left Lowdham with a very strong urge to do this sort of thing on a more regular basis, preferably with at least a 60 minute timeslot. So, readers, if you're hiring, then I'm ready, willing and able...

---

Anyhoo, since I promised to do this yesterday... for the benefit of those who turned up, here's a quick link-list of various points arising.

· Technorati: The State of the Live Web, April 2007.
· The "Online Disinhibition Effect".
· Heather Armstrong on being "Dooced".
· The Bloggies: 2007 Weblog Awards.
· Bloglines: personalised site feed aggregator.
· Hallam Foe: official blog for the forthcoming movie, which received a special preview screening for bloggers last month.
· Belle De Jour - the first UK blog-to-book success story.
· Girl With A One-Track Mind and Petite Anglaise - bloggers turned writers, whose stories both made international headlines in 2006.
· E-mail from Nicholas Hellen of the Sunday Times to Abby Lee (Girl With A One Track Mind).
· Random Acts Of Reality: ambulance worker's blog, now available in book form.
· The Policeman's Blog - another "job blog", now available in book form.
· Wife In The North: offered a £70k book deal less than 6 weeks after starting her blog. (News story in The Times, February 2007.)
· The Friday Project: independent publishers who specialise in the blog-to-book market.
· Lulu.com: self-publishing service.
· The 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize: literary prize for blogs-to-books, aka "blooks".
· Shaggy Blog Stories: self-published UK blogging anthology, conceived and executed in seven days, to raise money for Comic Relief.
· Post of the Week: set up by myself and others, in order to promote great writing on personal blogs.
· Felicity Lowde sentenced to six months' imprisonment for online harrassment of blogger Rachel North: BBC news story; Times news story; Rachel North's reaction; interesting background article on Lowde and "Narcissistic Personality Disorder".
· Blogger.com: allows you to set up your own blog in minutes, at no cost and with no technical know-how.

Labels: blogs, books, journal, linkage

BING-BONG!

After just over twelve years of so-called “casual” smoking (for which I have my mid-1990s hardcore clubbing phase to blame, ecstasy having turned out to be my gateway drug to nicotine), I stubbed out my final cigarette on Wednesday May 23, just before midnight. Interestingly, and I have to say surprisingly, I could barely wait to finish the godawful stinky thing – despite having smoked my penultimate cigarette with more or less total equanimity, mere minutes earlier.

That, my friends, is the genius of Alan Carr, whose “Easy Way To Stop Smoking” book comes heartily recommended. His is the first (and hopefully the only) self-help book that I have ever read, and it is quite unquestionably the worst written and most annoyingly repetitive book I have ever read – but nobody said that medicine had to taste nice, and its overriding virtue is that, bugger me sideways with a Camberwell Carrot, IT WORKS.

Sure, the actual “method” itself could be condensed onto three pages – and in large type at that – and you do find yourself wondering when Carr is going to stop droning on and Get To The Bloody Point Already, but the ground has to be prepared for the subtle but significant cognitive shift which you will be performing upon yourself, and there simply isn’t a shortcut.

If the likes of Alcoholics Anonymous insist that their members accept the existence of a so-called “higher power”, into which they must place their trust, then the same holds true with the “Easy Way” method – except that in this case, the “higher power” in question is Mr. Carr himself. It is my hunch that people who fail to stop smoking after reading his book do so because they have failed to take this initial leap of faith, clinging onto the belief that they are uniquely different in some way that he has failed to address. In this respect, some degree of humility is called for. Perhaps that’s the book’s greatest demand of all.

The most remarkable discovery which I have made – and until completing Carr’s instructions, I never believed it possible – is that deciding never to smoke another cigarette again, and sticking to that decision, is an absolute walk in the park. Honestly, it’s a doddle. The addiction under which I suffered turns out be more of a psychological than a physical one, and once its psychological aspects have been exposed and blown out of the water, then its physical aspects present only the most minor of challenges. Sure, there’s the occasional twinge – but these are invariably momentary, and swiftly dealt with.

Perhaps the course of cognitive behavioural therapy which I took some eighteen months ago helped pave the way – for there are certain aspects of the Carr method which seem markedly similar to CBT techniques. Well, whatever. All I know for certain is that I’ll never spark up another fag again, and that feels f**king fantastic.

My thanks once again to darling Peter at Naked Blog for turning me onto the Carr method in the first place.

(Oh, and if you’re wondering whether there was any significance attached to the date on which I chose to give up, then here’s your answer. Let’s just say that it seemed like a highly appropriate occasion upon which to stop killing myself.)

BING-BONG!

PDMG2 (the Nottingham version) has been planted (by one of the gold award winners at this year’s Chelsea flower show, as we were more than a little thrilled to discover), and is already looking delightful, despite being little more than a collection of differently shaped leaves separated by large expanses of soil, brick and stone. With PDMG1 reaching full maturity in its fifth summer, we can now look forward to the same pattern of steady growth repeating itself in a new location.


BING-BONG!

After many long months of snail-like progress (and they told us it was going to be a quick in-and-out job, HAH), the Nottingham kitchen has finally been finished. (Apart from the new light fittings, and a replacement for the over-large dining table, but those are but mere trifles.) It’s been a while since we dabbled with the nightmare world of the mid-range mass market design solution, but the budget was tight and we were determined to stick to it. Oh, the frugality! There is hope for us all.


In the final analysis, and despite all the buckets of shit which their various logistical cock-ups threw at us along the way, MFI (yes, you read me right) actually provided us with a smart, attractive and well-designed set of units, which make far better use of the limited space. Decent products, shite service, but all matters satisfactorily resolved in the fullness of time. (We even managed to get a free top-of-the-range washing machine out of them. Long boring story, but a tribute to K’s negotiation skills, his saint-like patience, and his disarming capacity for charm.) You gets what you pays for, basically.


BING-BONG!

As even the least observant of you will have spotted by now, this blog has now become Flickr-enabled, thanks to the Sony DSLR camera which I gave K for his birthday, right at the start of last week’s holiday in Derbyshire. As it’s fully compatible with his existing collection of pre-digital Minolta lenses and filters, he has been having lots of fun experimenting with techniques, and seeing what can and can’t be done.

Consequently – and not entirely without a degree of self-interest, as this blog has always been somewhat lacking in original photographic material, and it’s good to be able to bring his skills on board – I spent much of last week working as K’s picture editor: downloading, rotating, re-sizing, advising on what to keep and what to chuck, suggesting new ideas for shots, and doing all the uploading to Flickr. Well, what else is there to do on a rainy day, when you haven’t brought any books and your partner refuses to play board games? (As far as I’m concerned, this latter is our most glaring and troublesome incompatibility as a couple.)

So, from now on, TD will be more of a team effort than before. I do words, he does pictures. This is what we call “synergy”.

BING-BONG!

The holiday, yes. Chiefly characterised by hour upon hour of sodding rain, interspersed by brief breaks in the weather during which K would eagerly scamper into PDMG1, in pursuit of yet more “raindrops glistening upon new growth” macro shots.


Also characterised by a succession of house guests – both family and friends alike – and finishing with a visit by Dymbel and Dymbellina, who walked with us to The Gate in Brassington for Sunday lunch...

BING-BONG!

...which turned out to be my last square meal until Wednesday evening, thanks to a dodgy prawn in my baguette which wreaked its hideous revenge over the course of Monday and Tuesday. The positive spin: at least this gave me an unexpected extension to the holiday, even if much of it was spent in a horizontal position (amongst others more distressing to mention).

BING-BONG!

And finally: a plug, a moan and a thank you.

The plug is for my forthcoming talk at the Lowdham book festival at the end of the month, in which I shall attempt to yak on about blogging for thirty-five minutes or so, with particular reference to Shaggy Blog Stories and the whole “bloggers with book deals” phenomenon. (Dontcha just love the bit in the blurb which says “How come they get them but I don’t?” Like I’d know the answer to that one...)

There will then be a question-and-answer session, and possibly an opportunity to purchase a signed copy of the book (should you not already have one, by some strange twist of fate). Entrance is free, and it’s a lunchtime gig, giving you the rest of the afternoon to pootle around what I am reliably told is a damned good book festival. (Blake Morrison! Rosie Boycott! Simon Hoggart! KIKI BLOODY DEE, sweetie! And ME!)

The moan is at you miserable lot, for failing to shell out two measly quid for the Shaggy Blog Podcast. Wanna know how many we’ve sold so far? A pathetic SEVEN copies, that’s how many. Come on, readers! Hands in pockets! Dig deep!

The thank you goes out to those of you who were nice enough to vote for Troubled Diva in the "Best Personal Weblog" category at the Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards... in which I am proud to report that we finished in joint last place, with 2% of the vote. Congratulations to Petite Anglaise, who romped home in pole position.

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Coming up tomorrow: a Freelance Friday with a difference, as Troubled Diva proudly presents an exclusive interview with Marc Almond.

(Apart from the bit that’s going in t’local paper, but that’s only a fraction of the finished article. Let's just say that I was lucky enough to catch Marc in an expansive frame of mind.)

Labels: journal

During the past few weeks, I have been struggling to complete what must be the most boring work assignment that I have ever been given. It’s a massive documentation exercise, which involves picking my way through over ten thousand lines of COBOL code, and it requires copious and sustained usage of the search, copy and paste functions. The level of creative thought involved is minimal, and is generally confined to finding the most efficient ways of crunching the data, with the minimum keystrokes. And yet, for all the dumbness inherent in the exercise, it has also proved to be a huge personal challenge.

The biggest difficulty for me is sustaining concentration. The work is so brain-numbing that I find myself unable to stick at it for much longer than twenty minutes at a time without being driven to distraction (and you can probably guess the nature of the distractions). Music helps, of course – particularly uptempo, optimistic and strongly rhythmic music, and particularly when I can get the tempo of the music to match the tempo of my copy-pasting. The cupboards have been duly raided for “banging” DJ-mixed CDs from the 1990s, most of which have been languishing unplayed for the best part of a decade: Pete Tong’s Essential Selection, Danny Rampling’s Lovegroove Dance Party, Fantazia’s Restrospective Of House, and the occasional Orbital CD for relaxation. If you lay music down for long enough, it’s remarkable how it refreshes itself.

Nevertheless, this exercise is in danger of killing off more brain cells than my 1990s hardcore clubbing phase ever did. Which is another reason for the paucity of updates on this blog, and another reason for the continued delay of The Great Troubled Diva Meditation On Class.

I have paced around the perimeters of this vast subject for days now, staring up at it and looking for a convenient way in. Since no suitable entrance point has been forthcoming, I am left with no option other than to charge blindly in, and to let the words steer their own course. F**k it. It’s a blog. Directionless busking is what we do.

*pause*

*writes a couple of sentences*

*deletes them*

*stares into space*

*checks Bloglines for updates*

*cleans the kitchen*

*returns to laptop*

*re-opens MS Word*

*stares at screen*

*sighs*

*says yes to a sandwich*

*decides to do what he’s best at: copying and pasting*

Labels: journal

Sunday night, Derbyshire.

K, getting into bed: I don't think I like the tone of your latest Twitter.

Mike: What, because you were away for most of it? But darling, your return was the shattering climax to the whole weekend! The cherry on top of the cake!

K: God, you're good at thinking on your feet...

Mike: That's not fair! I thought it up five minutes ago, doing my teeth. I knew you'd sneak a peek on your way up...

K: Hahahaha!

M: Hahahaha!

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Friday evening, Nottingham.

With K away at a Vet Fest in Brum, the city's nightlife is mine for the plucking. Why, I could go anywhere.

So, the Lord Roberts then.

I'm trying out my new(ish) vari-focal contact lenses again, for the first time in several weeks, because I'll be damned if anyone's going to see me in a gay pub on a Friday night with specs on. I don't like this slow drift towards becoming a full time specs wearer, even though these are the best pair of specs I've ever owned. Not that I have any aesthetic objection towards full-time specs wearers per se - reader, I married one - but unlike my fragrant Civil Partner, my specs are not a fundamental part of who I am. Quite the reverse, in fact. And in any case, I'd quite like to be in with a theoretical chance of being cruised. Even if only for a split second: ooh he's nice, whoops, bit older than I thought. Yes, that would do me for the evening. Simple needs. Unchained from that particular lunatic a good few years ago. (*)

Trouble is, these lenses have half-blinded me. The gas lamps in The Park were the trippiest; great whooshing coronas flickering all around, like rushing on a pill, sans the anxiety attacks. In the pub, I can barely see JP's mouth across the table. He's a fast talker, and I'm struggling with ambient noise, and my ears must be due a sluicing anyway. I didn't realise how much I'd been relying on lip-reading. Half-blind, half-deaf, and for all I know I could be the Hottest Stud in the pub, except how would I know a thing like that in my condition?

I settle for being the Enigmatic Stud in the corner who never returns glances.

Not that I'm in the right place for that kind of caper. As a gay venue, the Lord Roberts has possibly the most de-sexualised atmosphere of any bar I've ever visited, in over 25 years of Outness and Proudness (excepting maybe the Retro Bar in London). That's a large part of why I like it here. You can come down with your mates, get a decent pint of bitter (I know!), grab a table and settle down for an extended natter, and all without any of that ghastly business whereby everyone keeps glancing distractedly over your shoulder while you're talking to them. Soft lighting, comfy chairs, traditional theatre-pub decor, no belting club music, no selfish superficial arseholes... how many other British cities are blessed with a gay venue like this one? We take it for granted, but we're lucky to have it.

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Friday night/Saturday morning, Nottingham.

(*) Believe that, and you'll believe anything. Dot. Dot. Dot.

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Saturday afternoon, Derbyshire.

This is the first time I've ever taken a taxi from Derby station to the cottage, and on this hot, sunny, glorious day, I'm enjoying the raised view that the Hackney carriage seating affords, adding extra detail to the familiar journey. As the bulky vehicle pushes further into the countryside, leaving its familiar city-suburb-city routes ever further behind, and looking ever more incongruous with its surroundings, so my awareness of jumping between two worlds is similarly heightened.

Past Kedleston: hotel, golf club, National Trust hall, and that fine old red brick wall which even now refuses to yield what lies inside. Through the bland commuter village of Weston Underwood; through Mugginton - Lane End, with its perplexing, mildly irksome free-floating hyphen and its closed-for-refurb pub with the Oo-er Missus name; left at Hulland Ward, gateway to the Peak park; right towards the ersatz Countryside Leisure Experience that is the Carsington Water reservoir (a useful trap for the Derby day-trippers, plodding dutifully in their hundreds along its featureless banks); a wiggle and a twist, and aah, here's where we start, on the approach to Bradbourne, as the landscape closes in around us on the narrowing lane with its treacherous bends, and the green becomes greener, and the hills steeper, and the valleys deeper, and the blossom whiter, and the lambs friskier (mmm, locally sourced shanks from the White Peak butcher!), and here's the church where Alan Bates is buried, and it's not far to go now as the road descends and the home valley opens up ahead, offering the first faint glimpses of the village, and is the cab driver enjoying this as much as I am, thirty minutes outside the city, not a clue where he is, but what a perfect afternoon for a mystery tour, and here we are at last, thirty quid and five for your trouble, you're best off heading back towards the A515 and straight through Ashbourne, ah you know it from there do you, good stuff...

...and the garden looks a picture. Best year yet. We're beginning to know what we're doing at last, we started preparing in good time, and as it enters its fourth year, the planting is coming to maturity. The mulch is down; the roses are pruned, trained and sprayed; the bare patches on the corners of the lawns are filling in; the hardy geraniums are creeping through the circular grid supports; the smaller daffs are still in full bloom; the first of the tulips are popping out; the hot reds, dusty purples and dusky pinks dotted down one side are melding together and making sense; and for now, there's nothing to do except pull out a chair and relax, letting it all get on with the simple process of growing.

So glad I came. Even as recently as a year ago, I wouldn't have bothered, seizing my chance for two nights on the razz in preference to all of this wonder and delight. Our pride and our joy, truly.

Tune out, switch off, settle down.

I don't even bother rigging up the laptop.

Post-jadedness ensues.

Labels: bars, cottage, gay, journal, nottingham, pdmg

Messages texted to Twitter between 1900 and 2120 last night:

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Back in nottingham for tonight's sugababes show.

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Walking past beverley knight's performance in the new market square. Damn, that girl can sing...

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My plus one appears to be a no show. His loss!

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Having a moment of existential alienation in the half empty cheap seats. How dare they? Sharpening my blackest pencil. Also, cold.

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Have just discovered that there's another support act to endure after this one. Kill. Me. Now. I could still be in derbyshire, dammit...

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They've locked the outside smoking area, and aren't allowing pass outs. Bastards! Bang goes my one chance of fleeting pleasure...

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Existential alienation swiftly converting to a generalised misanthropic loathing. I had more fun running for the train at derby station.

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Anyway, where are the gays? I see no gays. They're probably half a mile away, down the front, in the good seats.

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I have seen a gay! He is wearing a sparkly silver cowboy hat and is waving glow sticks. I feel a warm surge of kinship.

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Oh. The "gay" is actually a glow stick seller, working the pre teen market. I feel a cold twist of betrayal.

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Woo! It's sugababes time at long bloody last! I shall shut up now. Thank you for "being there" for me during this time of trial.

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...and here's my decidedly sour review, which originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.

The Sugababes – Nottingham Arena, Sunday April 1.

With sixteen Top 20 hits under their belts over the past seven years, including five Number Ones, The Sugababes can lay claim to being Britain’s most successful girl group since the Spice Girls. To mark this, their first arena tour has been billed as a Greatest Hits show, and thus a celebration of their achievements to date.

After a long wait, and just as the audience’s patience was wearing thin, the girls finally took to the stage at 9.20, and proceeded to rattle off nineteen numbers in just over an hour and twenty minutes – a bare minimum of performance time for a show of this scale. Backed by a simple four piece band, and surrounded by a barrage of wonderfully stylish computer-generated light patterns, they quickly proved themselves as confident, powerful live singers.

That said, there was little of interest in the vocal arrangements, which stuck fairly rigidly to the melodies, leaving little scope for creative flair. Although the three voices meshed together well, the three personalities behind the voices seemed oddly detached throughout. For a girl group to succeed on stage, there needs to be some sense of a team spirit – that this is a gang of best friends, who stick together and support each other. Bananarama and The Spice Girls had it; Girls Aloud have it in spades; but The Sugababes seemed all but strangers to each other, occupying their own separate spaces, and barely acknowledging each others’ presence.

As the sole remaining original member, Keisha seemed very much the leader of the group, with the strongest vocal presence. Balancing her aloof attitude, Heidi was all smiles throughout, while “new girl” Amelle stayed mostly in the background, never stealing the limelight, knowing her place.

Only during a stripped-down Ugly did anything resembling true passion bubble to the surface. The rest was competent, professional, but disappointingly sterile.