Skip to main content

Out and About.


My dad came out of hospital today, which was good news all round.

I was glad it was today and not Monday, when my mum will be at work and I have my show in Camden in the evening, or tomorrow when I’d be preparing for it. Also, it was just good to know he’d be back at home full stop, as I know he was getting sick of it (no pun intended). My wife and I went to pick him up early this afternoon and remarkably were back in the car - having gone up to the ward to help get my dad’s stuff together and then walked back to the car park - less than twenty minutes after arriving, which was pretty impressive, particularly considering my dad’s walking about has been minimal since he was admitted; perhaps it was his keenness to get home that helped it all be so speedy.

After we’d got him back and had sorted a few things out for him, we returned home to a reasonably quiet evening. I decided to reserve any further work on my show for tomorrow and not today, though I don’t have much to do, having run it a couple of times over the last few days. Being honest, I’m struggling to find the enthusiasm to think about it much at the moment, which has nothing to do with the show itself and more to do with how I’m feeling, plus the fact getting a decent sized audience is proving to be a struggle; it can be hard to find the want to do it when you feel like no-one else is interested; it’s particularly frustrating when you continually put in dates for industry people to see it for them to seldom come; perhaps I should get them to book the dates themselves at times they're free? It would certainly cut out the middleman.

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...

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

'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...