Skip to main content

37 Red Balloons.


Today’s my thirty-seventh birthday and I don't want to worry anyone, but to stay on track, I need to release my equivalent to Double Fantasy in three years' time.

This is another way of saying, “If I want to achieve as much as John Lennon did in his lifetime within the same time-frame, I need to get it all in before I turn forty in 2021; I’m nothing if not ambitious.

I didn’t sleep at all last night, which was nothing to do with my impending birthday, though as the hours crept by, I inevitably found myself pondering today’s milestone and what it means to me. It’s a strange one to reckon with as, while I’m under no illusion I’m old, the fact I’m edging dangerously close to the next biggie - my fortieth - is a concerning. The past decade has flown by in the blink of a crow’s-footed eye, so who’s to say the next ten years won’t too? Is my brain set to the wrong shutter-speed or did I black out for a while somewhere down the line?

This morning I had an answerphone message from my old flatmate Dave to wish me many happy returns. It sticks in my mind that when we first lived together, I was twenty-one and he was twenty-eight…and while I didn’t see him as old by any stretch of the imagination, at that particular point, his age seemed a long way off to me. Now I’m thirty-seven and he's forty-five; what happened there? I’ve always had plenty of actor friends who were older than me - it goes with the territory - but while I was once always the youngest person in the company, I’m now probably somewhere in the middle; I’m also three years away from Lennon’s age when he died and fifteen years older than Buddy Holly. It doesn’t bear too much consideration.

The other endlessly weird thing to note is the fact I share a birthday with Glyn, though I’m older by a year. Perhaps that’s why he hangs around with me: to make him feel better off by one.

Popular posts from this blog

Not The Bayeux One.

The Carole King album Tapestry has been my 'getting-ready-in-the-morning' soundtrack for the past few weeks.  It's been a favourite album ever since I was a student, which makes for a pleasantly gentle way to usher in the start of a day. I've always been a fan of a well-crafted song, which is something of a Carole King hallmark, ever since she started writing with her first husband in the early Sixties. Tapestry may be an unimaginative choice for a favourite LP, as it suggests I haven't delved that far into her career, but it's still an undoubted classic; anything with '(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman', 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' and 'You've Got A Friend' on it can't really fail; if nothing else, it proves she likes writing songs with long titles.  Next month, she's set to perform the album live in its entirety for the first time at a gig in Hyde Park, which I would have loved to have gone to, if it weren...

Hitchin is Mine.

As of six o’clock tonight, I take over the Hitchin is Yours Twitter account for a week; a stewardship I’m anxious to get right. I’m proud of my hometown. It’s a great place to live, with so much going for it. I've always sold it to my non-Hitchinite friends; so much so, that a lot have gone on to move here. Any town expansion plans are partly my fault. Feel free to picket outside my house. I love its history and architecture. Take St Mary’s Church, for example. The building is beautiful inside and out, and huge for a town of our size. There has been a place of worship on site since the 7 th Century. Much of the present building dates from the 1300s. You wouldn't get that in America. (Don't forget the British Schools Museum too.)  Hitchin is a hive for creative people and a hub for the arts. It boast two theatres, two comedy clubs, a couple of art galleries, a festival for world music and a thriving music scene. This drew...

'Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..."

While I’ve been practising meditation for quite some time now, I’ve recently taken to using the mindfulness app 'Headspace' . If you’ve never meditated before, or you’re an old hand at it, it’s a great resource, offering daily ten-minute guided meditations that create a sense of progress, rather than stagnating and going through the same process every day. Until I started using the app, I’d often listen to a handful of audio guided meditations I have on my phone in case of a brain emergency. If you see me with my eyes closed and my earphones in on public transport, I’m probably doing this (unless I’m sleeping and using this blog as an elaborate alibi). While the tracks on my phone are great, they can get a little repetitive as I become too familiar with them and start to anticipate everything the person on the recording will say. This is where Headspace is great, as it offers you a daily course with a different focus each day, as well as pl...