Star Blog

I don't have time today to go through all the emails that have arrived in the past couple of weeks, which is what I usually do on a Friday, but I just wanted to comment on one I got from a good guy named J. Hogan, from Albany in New York, who wrote a very nice email basically asking me, as I moan about the perils of fatherhood, not to forget that being a dad is also, as he put it, 'still more rock'n'roll than rock'n'roll'. And 'J' should know as he used to be in a band that signed a deal but didn't make it, though he's still playing, incorrigible nut-job that he obviously is.

Anyway, I know what he means of course. I do tend to turn my children's misadventures into war stories but then I do that with just about everything that happens in my life, so don't worry 'J' (you must mail me your names, dudes) I'm with you on this one. My kids are absolutely the best thing that ever happened to me and despite all the agony they put me through on a daily (nightly) basis that's nothing compared to all the love and laughter they also gift me, and I wouldn't take them back to the baby store - ever.

Meanwhile, back down the word-mine, it's been another day grappling with the flame-coloured enigma that is Axl Rose. Finished another chapter today, which is just as well as I've had my publisher, Ingrid, sending me extremely nice emails reminding me that I AM LATE with the manuscript. She's so classy she does it without you even knowing. You only realise she's kicking your ass about 10 minutes after you've finished reading the messages. Bless her. So now you know what I'll be doing this weekend (again). That is, when I'm not beating the kids or tying them up and leaving them to fend for themselves in the woods...

Another unbelievable night spent pacing in the dark. One child started puking at two in the morning just as the youngest began screaming for his bottle. Wife tackled sick girl while I rammed a bottle in the boy's gob. It was four in the morning before any of us got back to sleep. Up again at six to get ready for London. Had a shower and realised it was the first one I'd had for two days. You know you're fucked when you start forgetting to wash yourself...

Got off to a cracking start in London, writing my name in blood on no less than THREE cheques to the VAT. That's me totally wiped out now, flat broke, done in, fucked, forget about it. "Actually, not quite," said my accountant. "There's another cheque to write for them at the end of October and another at the end of November - that is, if they accept our deal. And then there's the tax due in January."

Have been contemplating robbery. Or becoming an international drug dealer. And all because my government doesn't know when to stop kicking when a man is down. At this rate I'll be paying off the interest on the loans I'm gonna have to take to pay off the tax and VAT for the rest of my life. If I live that long. The insurance people that my bank told me to be totally honest with wrote to me yesterday to say they are turning my application down. So if I croak now the wife and kids are on their own.

Sloped over to Planet Rock, which is round the corner from my accountant's office and where at least everyone knows my name and treats me to a smile and a cup of tea, and who should I bump into but Roger McGuinn - you know, him from The Byrds. He was in there doing an interview with Mark 'I Own Afternoons' Jeeves. He even sat there and played 'Eight Miles High' for Mark on his seven-string acoustic. (Oh yes, Roger has one that goes to seven.)

Sadly I missed that as I went for a pee and found myself locked out in the corridor. But then the way my luck has been going lately I'm just lucky I didn't fall out the Gents window.

Had some good news. My friend Cookie Vance called and wants to have dinner. This is especially good not just because Cookie is the sort of woman you definitely want to have dinner with but she also happens to know the proprietor of a v.cool French restaurant in the West End called La Passione. I probably spelt that wrong but it doesn't matter. I don't want everyone going there and spoiling it for her. If I had my way, this is the sort of thing I would spend most of my evenings doing. As it is I found myself sitting on the train thinking about going to bed early and catching up (please God) on some of that sleep I've been missing these past few days, weeks, months, years. I'm not holding out too much hope but I'll let you know how I get on...

Another spectacularly early start to the day - 5.05a.m. I remember the time exactly because it is exactly the sort of time I would remember, having spent almost my entire working life trying to avoid that sort of ghastly, brain-damaging part of the clock. At least, not when it comes to getting out of bed and starting the day. Years ago, when it was a fairly normal time for me to be climbing into bed after another long night eating the worm, as we used to say back in the air-guitar '80s, that of course was different. But I didn't have children then, I just took a lot of drugs.

Anyway, as you have no doubt already inferred, it was one of said children - the middle one, aged 3 and 1/2 - that caused me to find myself staggering around in my underpants and shirt on backwards this morning. She's not well, poor thing. That makes all three of them now. To wit: oldest = broken arm, youngest = teething. Now the middle one has some sort of infection. Collect the set, that's what I say. Be best friends with the Doctor. And I don't mean Who.

However, if there is any advantage to being up while it's still dark, it's that you get to start work bright and early - or dark and early, in my case. And lo, I did find that I got a mighty amount of pages done on the Book of King Axl. And lo, now I am not only dog-tired but halfway round the fucking bend. Enter you: hoping for a bit of rock goss and finding only this: a mental case and his ailing family of shorter but no less mental case-ettes.

Now I'm off to cook dinner. Bangers and mash and baked beans. Only the best for me and mine. Oh yes, and a LARGE glass of red. Because I'm worth it. Obviously...

Ross has been banging on at me again about sorting out my passport so he can start taking me on trips with him to America. There's nothing wrong with the passport, just the journalist visa for the US, which ran out about a gazillion years ago and which I've never got round to renewing - partly through laziness (it's a hassle, man) but mostly because, if I'm honest, I am still getting over all the years we spent zooming round the world together in the 80s, as evinced in Star Trippin'.

Now though it looks like I might have to. Not only am I broke but between the dreaded Tax Man and the insane blood-drinking VAT lady I am about to end up in Debtors Prison. I know Ross is right and that the bucks are to be made in America but I honestly don't know if the old bod and even-older brain can take it anymore. I love America and those of you that don't have either never been there or are towel-headed nazis, but you don't know what it's like travelling and working with Ross. It's like living in the gym with your fitness instructor, the fun just never stops, and though you come home richer, you also tend to come home completely knackered on every level, or I used to anyway.

Still, no good complaining. I should be kissing his feet he still wants me to do this. And as David Bowie once said to me, I want to do these things while I still can, before I'm simply toooo old. Or as Ross said just now, "You got to live your life, Mick - FUCK THE REST OF 'EM!" Quite so.

Meanwhile, back in the reality show called my life, I am working like a bastard trying to finish the Axl book - the only hope of any real cash before the barbarians storm my office gates. Someone just told me the GN'R show in LA at the weekend went down like a condom with the end chewed off at a whore's tea party. Apparently Axl came on stage late - NO! Who would have guessed it? You are becoming sooooo predictable, Waxy. I mean, what is it with you, pathological or something? NO! Surely not...

A Weekend, In Brief, in the Life of a (Mildly) Famous Writer.
Friday: lunch with my bank manager, Matthew. Went to the Dr Who pub, which was packed as it was market day in the small Oxfordshire town where I live. Talked about my various projects and felt like the two women at the next table - so close they were virtually at the same table as us - were listening in the whole time. Which cramped my style somewhat. But then how stylish is it to sit there telling someone how great things are going, when he knows full well you're going to ask him to lend you a vast some of money at the end of the meal? Well, not a vast sum for the bank but big enough to keep me awake nights.

Saturday, 8.00a.m. The mobile rings and its Trevor from Planet Rock. What is he doing calling me at that time of day? He is calling to tell me he is at the seaside in Norwich where he is literally in the middle of buying two huge crabs for his tea. Obviously. "I knew you'd be up," he says cheerfully. This is a reference to the well-known fact that anyone with small children never sleeps - especially not at weekends or on Saturday mornings when the rest of the world is having a lie-in. Trevor of course is an old hand at this Dad game. He hangs up and I wonder just how he's going to cook those crabs.

Sunday, 5.30p.m. The mobile rings again and it's Scott Gorham, returning my call from three days ago. Which just shows you how wrong you can be. I was convinced he was going to flake out on an interview arrangement I'd made with him, only for Scott to come back and tell me he is Definitely Doing It and confirming just when and where. So there you have it: rock stars can be good blokes after all. Who woulda thunk it?

Sunday, 6.30p.m. My wife makes me drive to a local car lot where there is a Land Rover she "just wants to show" me. It "doesn't mean I want you to buy it." Of course not. I remind her that we are flat-arse broke. Worse, we are creeping ever more steadily into Huge Debt. "It's nice though, isn't it?" she asks. "What is?" "The car." No, it is not.

Monday - the wee hours. Sitting here writing this, wondering just why I'm not in bed yet when I could hardly stay awake this afternoon as I tried valiantly to do some work on the Axl book. Weird that. Read somewhere that the curse of middle-age is a constant craving for sleep at every time of the day - except night. How very fucking true. How very, very, fucking true...

Don't expect too much today. I was up early this morning - 4.00a.m. - because my wife was crying she was so exhausted looking after our nine-month-old son, who is teething and seems to have gone about two weeks without sleeping. Obviously I have been helping too but the truth is because I have to work I have not been there for her at night very often lately. I got my chance to make up a little bit for it though last night... this morning... today... whatever it is.

The last time I felt this knackered it had to do with a very different sort of all night thing and a quite different sort of babe (clue: not a boy) and it was several years ago. Of course, my wife is many light years younger than me but how she copes with this I don't know.

Anyway, enough of that. For a real change of scene I recommend you check out Ross's blog (you can click to it at the bottom of my Press page), he just got back from shooting The Who in New York and tonight he's off to the Georgio Armani night at London Fashion Week. It's good to know there are still members of the old Kerrang gang who know how to rock without looking pathetic. Me, I'm off to heat up a pizza, see if I can squeeze a glass of red wine out of the bottle I bought last weekend, and hope the baby decides to zonk out long enough for me to squint at the telly.

Oh, and pick up my wife from where I left her last night blacked-out on the bedroom floor...

Got let out of my cage and spent the day in London. Went to see Robert my agent to have a natter about our two current book projects, both of which I'm late with, but which he was very reassuring about. As long as I'm doing my best - and I am, I am! - he says Everything Will Be All Right.

What was even nicer though was that I hadn't seen him for about three months and I'd forgotten what good company he is, full of stories, full of wise words and cool advice. Anyone who sits you down in their office at 11.00 in the morning and insists you listen to "This fabulous new jazz artist I've discovered" while you sip tea is a fucking genius as far as I'm concerned.

Then this afternoon I spoke to Trevor at Planet Rock who said no, he wasn't joking, he really would like me to record a short series of readings from Star Trippin', for broadcast five nights running for two weeks. Bloody hell! I've never actually done a 'reading' before, let alone 10 of the buggers to be broadcast on the radio. I rang Robert for advice and he said I'll just have to sit at home practising, timing myself (Trevor wants each extract to last for 10-minutes, practically War & Peace in radio terms). I shall feel like a berk doing it but that's not anything new.

Got home just in time for the children's daily screamfest as my wife attempts to get them in the bath and to bed. Just had time to check my emails before I sat down to this - and yes, I know, loads of you have been writing. I'll get round to responding properly soooon, though a quick thank you to Colin Irwin who wrote to assure me that he was an Iron Maiden fan who loved Bert Jansch. That's the spirit, mate. You see, there's hope for us all.

Oh, and Cookie, if you're reading this, and I always picture you doing so, give me a bell and let's arrange that dinner. I need another excuse to go to London and see the nice people...

Was talking on the phone to Francis Rossi tonight about the Quo tour bus. He says he has his own 'space' at the back - a double-bedroom-cum-lounge, replete with shower room, portastudio, laptop, iPod, fridge, TV, guitars (electric and acoustic) and etc. What with flying being such a pain in the arse these days - I swear, they'll be making us all fly naked in see-through planes before they're done - he says he and Rick Parfitt (who has the same deal down the front) have taken to travelling absolutely everywhere now by bus. He says they even prefer it to spending the night in hotels, waking up by some river in the woods like a pair of gypos camping out under the stars...

It's the first time in my life I've actually been jealous of anyone travelling on a tour bus. It sounds great when you're a kid and dreaming of 24-7 drugs and groupies while cheerfully strumming a few hits, but the smelly-fart, boring-joke, grumpy-old-men reality is much, MUCH less alluring, let me tell you. Suddenly though, the thought of having your own luxurious 'space' as you whistle along through the night, far from home, sounded positively dreamy. I think I might have to wangle a few more trips. It's something I haven't done for years. I've had enough of the road to fill a lorry driver's lifetime, now the same might be said of being stuck at home.

At least, that's how I feel tonight as I listen to the baby crying (again) because my wife has dared to put him down in his own cot to sleep (the cold, heartless cow!). Francis has eight children by three different mothers. Now you know what has kept Quo rockin' all over the world all these years...

Had a very creative day. You might imagine this is a fairly normal occurrence for a well-known 'creative type' like my very good self but actually I spend most days flogging around like an old dog with its tongue hanging out, chasing its own too-short tail. Or fire-fighting, as we call it in the trade. That is, being a slave to emails, the phone and whatever else marches across your desk, which in my case can include everything from Ross Halfin giving me earache about something good that I have missed out on (again) to various offspring complaining of sickness and/or broken limbs.

Today, though, for some reason, was different. I have been working on a suitable Introduction for the Axl book, something that both sets the scene, entices the reader to read on, and sets out my stall in terms of what the book is actually going to be about. I usually leave these things until last and the book is actually written but this time I found myself churning it out ahead of time. Partly, I think, in order to help myself ascertain what the bloody thing is actually supposed to be about - a hell of a thing not to really know when you're already halfway through it but there you go.

Anyway, I rather surprised myself by not only finishing said introduction but actually being reasonably pleased with it when I read it back. So that's what this book is about, I thought. So that's who I am and what I do all day when I'm not busy mopping up dog sick or listening to my wife go on about how very urgently we (she) need a new car.

Best of all, with the intro finished, I actually found myself with time enough on my hands to do Other Things, like arrange a quick phone interview with Francis Rossi of Status Quo for a magazine piece I'm doing on tour buses (oh yes, only the quality gear for me and Francis), sort out Scott Gorham for something else I'm helping out with (but Can't Talk About Yet), confirm a Bert Jansch piece I'm doing for Classic Rock (cue blank looks from all the Iron Maiden fans out there, to whom I say this: I forgive you, we can't all be knowledgeable rock historians) and (really going for it now) accompany my wife to the butcher's to select something 'nice' for dinner.

There were some downsides of course, like the bloke from the website who was supposed to ring and interview me not ringing me and interviewing me, and my brother informing me that, no, Star Trippin' hasn't actually sold ANY copies this weekend (for Christ's sake everybody, have a heart and buy one will ya, if just to keep the mad brother off my back!). But I'm in such a good mood I'm going to ignore all that.

In fact, all I need now is for said wife to don her fishnets and give me the bang of my life and it will have been damn near what you call yer actual perfect day. It seems I am still allowed them sometimes...

Uphill all the way this weekend, trying to get back into writing the Axl book but with everything conspiring against me - bad phone calls, well-meaning friends that get under your feet, emails from nutters, and a one-armed daughter who can't even wipe her own bum let alone feed herself. Actually, I've got two other kids who can't wipe their own bums or feed themselves either. I must have really upset the wrong dude in a previous life.

Some good news. Got a nice phone call from Scott Gorham on Saturday night. He tells me he might be taking Thin Lizzy out on the road again in time for Christmas, in which case I think I might go to whatever the nearest gig is. We're gonna meet up and have lunch sometime soon anyway and catch up. The last time we spoke properly was almost a year ago when I was working on the Phil Lynott 20th anniversary of his death story for Mojo. As regular readers of this blog will already have sussed, I don't exactly hang out with many musicians but Scott is one of the good guys.

Meanwhile, it's Sunday, and it's my father-in-law's 64th birthday. He's one of those guys who is still so youthful (some might say childish even) that you just know he's going to out-live us all. All good. The only disconcerting bit for me was when I started singing 'When I'm 64' down the phone to him (I'm hilarious, me) and my wife asked me afterwards "what that funny song was?"

Oh gawd... yes, she's a fair bit younger than me. Mostly, it seems to me, this is a good thing. But sometimes...

Well, it wasn't a pink cast in the end. In fact, it was only a 'soft' cast, the breaks not being as bad as first diagnosed. Panic over then but it's amazing how much seeing your child in agony takes out of you as a parent, in terms of time and energy. I was exhausted by the time I actually got my arse back in front of the laptop today - then had to scramble madly to try and make-up for time, doing all the things I was supposed to do yesterday, then wondering why there was no time left to do what I had to do today - er, today.

I shouldn't even be writing this but, well, I know what a drag it is when you click on of a sad, sad morning only to be greeted by a fat white blank. For me too, it's become like a habit writing this.

Meanwhile, the news on Planet Rock today says that London council are shutting down the Intrepid Fox pub in Soho, and that there's a huge outcry because - gasp! - it's said that this was the very spot where Mick Jagger offered Ron Wood the job in the Stones back in 1975. Well, maaaaybe it's true but personally I have hundreds of other memories - or half-remembered memories, if you know what I mean, barman - of the place. Mainly that it was a regular watering hole for me and the Kerrang! gang of the mid-1980s - and a right rancid one at that, as I sort of recall, full of semi-famous musos waiting to turn their back on the place the minute they got a squint at the charts. Shut the bastard down, I say. It's only a boozer. Who cares if Mick did invite Ron into the bogs there for a sneaky snifter, it's not exactly like they got up and did a gig, is it? I doubt either of them could even find it these days...

Tried speaking to Ross earlier but he was too busy organising his latest trip to New York to see The Who. In fairness, he did ask me if I wanted to go too, bless him. Maybe I should have said yes - but then I wouldn't be able to sit here moaning about it, would I? And besides, I've still got a book to write. A couple of books, actually. Though I don't like to talk about that too much as it induces so much anxiety my hands start shaking and I find myself staggering towards that bottle of red wine I know is waiting for me in the kitchen. And if I do that then it really will be all over for another day. Then again...

Not a very rock'n'roll day. Not unless you count hanging out at the children's ward at the hospital and as my name's not Gary Glitter it's safe to assume I don't. Was just gearing up to get back into the book big style this morning when my 6-year-old daughter's school phoned to say she had had an accident. Long story short she'd fallen off the monkey bars and 'probably' broken her arm. The same monkey bars, inevitably, that my wife and I have told her a zillion times not to go on because one day she'll fall off them and break her arm.

Got her to the hospital where the X-Ray showed she'd actually broken her wrist in two places. Her wrist and my wife's heart. Some hours later we emerged - the good news, tomorrow, when she goes for her proper cast, she can choose the colour. She's having pink, a good choice for a girl her age.

Turning the phone on in the car coming home there was a message from the garage saying our other car - the family car, or dog car as we know it - had been repaired and was ready to pick up. The price? Enough to break daddy's heart this time.

There were some other messages but by the time I finally got home it was all I could do just to sit down and write this. Then we discovered we didn't have any kids' medicine in the house and so I drove around looking for somewhere still open to buy some. Forgot to take my mobile phone with me and an hour later still hadn't found any chemists open. Then I remembered the all-night Tescos. Got home just in time to begin the night shift looking after the patient.

It's tough at the top. I'm told...

Whassamatter, kids? Been feeling the old withdrawal symptoms, eh? Wondering where the blogmeister had gone? It seems I can't turn my back for five minutes without a load of weeping wailing emails dropping through my inbox, asking me where I've been and whether I'm feeling all right.

Well, actually, I haven't been feeling very all right. Or rather my bum hasn't. There, see, betcha wish you'd never asked now. That was on Sunday anyway. The rest of the time I've simply been too busy doing what we writers are apparently meant to be doing with our time - i.e. WRITING.

Writing and shitting - why do those two things just seem to go together? I'm sure someone out there will be pleased to tell me. Meanwhile, I read on the teletext tonight that Led Zeppelin are being inducted - another bowel-twitching word - into this year's UK Hall of Fame. Wow, I bet Jimmy and Robert are out celebrating about that. I don't know, there's just something so mini-me about the UK Hall of Fame. Like, who really cares, apart from the TV, radio and record company yobs? Personally, I always thought the US version was a pile of old coats too. I mean, what is it, like a museum or something? Like the Dr Who thing in Cardiff, where they have waxworks of Elvis and whoever the other all-time must-haves are, is that it? Faaaabulous!

Anyway, as you can see, it's great to be back. More again this time tomorrow, when I will be expounding on exactly why - if you love your sister/brother/father/mother/husband/wife/boyfriend/bird so much - you simply must, must, must buy them a copy of Star Trippin' in time for Christmas. Hurry now while stocks still last and my media mogul brother who runs the publishing company still has any hair left on his head...

The end of another week so here I am looking at some of your emails and the first that caught my tired eye was from my exceptionally old mucker, 'Crazy' George Bodnar, former rock photographer (and 'friendly rival' of Ross's) now making a living tugging his thinning forelock as he walks backwards shooting snaps of bonnie Prince Charlie and his offspring and horse. George writes to tell me that his life 'is certainly not as exciting as my rock days, although I just did a session with Maggie Bell, Chris Farlowe and The Manfreds', whoever they are. For as he points out, 'not everyone can be lucky enough to catch a First Class flight with Stephen Tyler'. Who on Earth can he be thinking of? He then witters on for several paragraphs about his sleeping wife and the spider that is hovering over his head (I'm not making this up) before signing off wistfully with a story I really don't want to read about some 'private gig' he once had with Celine Dion. Now you know why we used to call him Crazy...

Another one from Neal McIntosh, who you might recall wrote to me recently to tell me he is skidaddling from the UK to take up residence in Basque country - lucky hombre - who writes again, this time to tap me up for a mention of a Spanish band called Estopa which he describes as 'a sort of mix of flamenco stylee with heavier guitars, in particular, the tracks 'Vino Tinto' and 'Partiendo la Pana'.' He makes no mention of whether he's actually bought Star Trippin' yet which I take to mean he hasn't. Surely he can afford to shell out a few pesos or whatever it is they use for money over there for a worthy cause like me? Well, Neil? Or are you one of those freeriders I like to set my mate Ross on. Be warned, amigo...

Tim McMillan of Kettering also writes again to tell me of his shock to discover a certain former Kerrang! writer of my generaton working for what he describes as 'a porn mag' back in the 90s. I know the guy you mean Tim and, trust me, writing about it was about as close as he ever got to doing it back in the day.

Also, one from someone simply calling herself/himself (you never know for sure on the net) 'Susan' who wants to know if I have the low-down on what the hell Izzy Stradlin thought he was doing acting as Axl's stooge on this year's New Guns N' Roses tour, especially after panning the whole idea of even calling the band Guns N' Roses in previous interviews (not least when he last spoke to me a couple of years ago). Well, I might do, 'Susan', but consider this instead: if the new line-up of GN'R is supposed to be just as good as the old one, and the old one is not supposed to be as important as we all thought they were when they were actually going, then why bother wheeling out Izzy every night anyway? What's the message Waxy is sending us? 'Hey, good news, we've actually got one of the original members here tonight - and here he is!' Cue: loud cheers (certainly louder than for any of the new boys whose names most people don't even know how to pronounce yet). But Waxy, didn't you say the old line-up didn't matter anymore and that the new one is just as good if not better? Confused? Yes, they are. Both of them. As for what the new line-up thinks of all this? Well... who cares, right?

Finally, for today, one from Sergi, a proper proud Spaniard this time (pay attention Neil) from a website called themetalcircus.com, who writes a joint email to me and Ross Halfin asking if he can interview us both for the site. The boy is clearly a fool but a well-meaning one, no doubt, so Ross and I have decided to punish him for his cheek by actually granting said interviews. If Sergi survives, he says the results will be up on his redesigned website in early October. Not that I would hold your breath. Not unless you're the one that's actually going to be talking to Ross, of course. In which case my advice is to hold your breath, bite your lip, cross your legs and count to 100 before replying to anything he says. It's not that he doesn't like you, he doesn't like anybody. Not even me...

At last, a happy day. Yes, it does happen occasionally. I went to London to see my old mate Trevor White, who is now the boss at Planet Rock. We had a nice chat on the roof terrace of the big building the station is housed in, in Leicester Square - what a view! And I don't just mean of the non-male tourists in Leicester Square! (You gotta remember, I live in a small country town where men are men and all the good-looking women are either taken or already live in London.)

Then we went back inside the mega-plush offices (anything with air-conditioning and coffee-machines seems plush to a self-employed hermit like me) and he took me into see Mark doing his afternoon show. This was fun for me as I actually listen to Mark's show most afternoons when I'm in my office writing (or trying to). You can always tell a real DJ by the way they make talking to you at the same time as doing a live show appear so effortless. He even got up and made tea! What a guy!

It reminded me of when I was a DJ working for Trev at Capital Radio in 1989. It was only a weekly late-night show but I used to be so nervous before I went on that I used to spend the final half-hour before the show started locked in the Gents, and I don't mean washing my hands. Ah, happy days...

Later we went with Liz, the station's main producer, and her boyfriend, Adam, a producer at Radio One, to the Free party to launch their new DVD. Ross Halfin was going to come too, which I was really looking forward to as we don't often get to see each other these days, but somehow his antennae had warned him off and he decided to bail out at the last minute. As ever, his instincts were bang on the money. The party was at The Glasshouse, somewhere in the bowels of the Cafe Royal in Soho. It looked like what it probably was most nights of the week - a high-priced Eurotrash brothel for men who like men. What the boyos at the record company were thinking holding a party there for Free fuck only knows.

Still, we said, we're here now, we'll have one drink and go. The on the way in I bumped into Dante Bonutto - former Kerrang! compadre, now working as 'consultant' to Universal, the record company who have put out the DVD - and he casually mentioned that the bar was charging £5 a beer. The fact that it was charging anything at all for drinks was an outrage - imagine if I invited you to my 'party' then charged you for your drinks. But FIVE POUNDS for a glass of beer?

We left. Instantly. I like Free. I don't like having the piss taken out of me though. Instead, me, Trev, Liz and Adam all went to a pub, where we laughed our arses off for a couple of hours, telling each other stories from the vaults.

Trev and I shared a taxi to the station, both of us bound for the sanctuary of our country abodes, though pointing in different directions. The miracles kept coming when I got there, too - behold a waiting train, with clean seat, coffee and sandwich! Then, as though the day would never end, when I got home I had two lovely emails from old friends I don't see or hear from nearly enough - Cookie Vance and Dr. Peter Makowski. Both saying nice things. So this is how it feels to be alive.

Back in the pub, Trevor told me that reading my blog made him depressed I've been so miserable lately. I hope this makes up for it Trev cos I really enjoyed today. Now I'm going to bed, where if my luck holds, I will find my beautiful young wife waiting for me, a rose between her teeth. Or at least a certain peaceful look on her face. I don't deserve it but you've got to take your luck where and when you find it...

The kids went back to school today - so that's it, the summer is officially over. Of course, being England, that meant we had our warmest day since July - 28 degrees and two changes of shirt before lunchtime.

The other strange thing about today - only a couple of phone calls (well, except for for Linda, who always has dozens, but then she actually has friends) and even less emails. So few in fact I began to wonder if the Curse of the Computer hadn't struck again in some mutant form. I checked and... apparently not.

Which can mean only one thing. There's something going on here... and I don't know what it is.

Spent most of the day finishing off transcribing the Free interviews. Transcribing is the most tedious job in feature writing. It's also one of the most interesting and important. Tedious because there's an awful lot of ums and ahs in any conversation, let alone where one of the two voices is trying to push hard for answers. Interesting because if the voices answering the questions actually have a story to tell - and Andy Fraser, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke have a hell of a story to tell - then you can't help but listen, simple as that. And important for obvious reasons. You don't want to misquote them or get the facts arse backwards. You don't want them doing an Axl and claiming you've made the whole thing up. (Not unless they're going to write a nice song about it.)

At the end of all this important and interesting tedium, however, the brain had returned to its normal jelly state and the older than old bod was starting to rebel. Dizzy spells, black spots before the eyes... Was it just me or was it sweatingly humid today in ye olde England?

Fortunately, I had the perfect excuse to knock it on the head early - my eldest daughter's 6th birthday. As part of the fun I went to watch her do her weekly swimming lesson - something I never usually have time to do. She's just learned to swim a few feet without the float and is very proud of this fact, so it was a good time to go. She met her friends down at the pool too and so got even more presents.

Afterwards we asked her what she wanted for tea and she said pizza. Not at all what daddy fancied but what the hell, you're only six once so pizza it was. Afterwards, I felt sick. Not that I let on. Not until she was in bed and I could burden her mother with all my woes. (That's what mothers are for, right?)

Right now, as I type this, I'm listening to Planet Rock. The Nicky Horne show. Jesus, this takes me back. When I was a teenager I used to sit in my bedroom, scribbling 'lyrics' into a red exercise book while listening to Nicky Horne's Capital Radio show, Your Mother Wouldn't Like It. How is it that 30 years later so little has changed? Especially after so much has happened? My friend Maureen Rice - who is now the editor of Psychologies magazine and therefore should know - once told me it was to do with having children. It brings your own childhood right back into view. I think she's right too. But this other stuff... listening to the same DJ playing (almost) the same records... still bashing out your private-thoughts drivel... I can't blame that on the kids, can I?

Had a squint at Ross Halfin's website diary just to see what's really going on out there and what a breath of fresh air it is too. He has a little pop at Lonn Friend's new book - kind of Lonn's version of Star Trippin', to do with his days as editor of RIP, a poor man' US version of Kerrang! in the 80s - and as ever the thing that makes you laugh most about what he says is that it's all horribly true. And if there's one thing most people can't stand it's that.

Good old Ross. When my children get to a certain age, instead of sending them to college I'm going to send them to him for a three-year degree course in bullshitonomy: the secret science of how to tell the fakes from the for-real people. They might think I've sent them to hell to begin with but, trust me, they'll thank me for it in later life...

Flying on one wing here with the computer so if this ends mid-sentence you'll know why. Isn't life strange, though? While all this has been going on I have spent nearly all of today not on the computer but on the phone. That used to be a normal day for me but since email and mobiles took over and changed everything I can and do now go for days and weeks without using my regular landline to actually (ulp!) speak to someone. In fact, I thought I'd forgotten how until today.

Spent about two hours of it yacking to Anna from the BBC about her forthcoming documentary, giving her the low-down on the high times of some of your favourite rock star types. I don't know if what I told her was actually any help but she did laugh a lot so that's a good sign, I suppose.

I also did a phone interview today with Sion from Burn magazine, to do with Star Trippin'. He was asking me about the Old Days and what I thought the best way to build a magazine is, i.e. by listening to the marketing monkeys or trusting your own instincts. Naturally, I told him to trust your gut. When you've spent as long as I have filling it with all sorts of stuff the last thing you want is to let it go to waste. (A disgusting thought on every level.) And I never met a publisher yet anyway that really knows what the fuck constitutes a great rock mag. A good one, maybe, but never a great one.

The rest of today I've been rocking and rolling with... accounts stuff. Oh yes, there are very few more kick-ass ways to spend the day than putting all your incomings (far too modest) and outgoings (fucking ginormous) into a nice neat package for your accountant. Like Nelson lifting the telescope to his eye-patch or a dog with three legs...

Now back to this computer. Perhaps an axe through the keyboard?

A short entry as my computer has decided to rebel and I'm not sure when I will be able to get it to work again. Don't ask me what's wrong, I don't know except to say nothing is working right - a terrifying thought when you're halfway through a book/a feature/a blog/a life...

A shame to end the day this way because otherwise it's been a good one. Linda and I took the kids over to see our friends Lyn and Tom, and their children Charlotte and Alex. Tom worked in Pakistan for three years and cooks a mean curry - several curries in fact. We spent a lovely afternoon sitting around yacking away, everybody talking at once while our baby barked at their dogs.

Anyway, gotta go. My computer whizz brother Gerry is on the phone and I need his help... bad.

No book today - or yesterday. I am letting the whole thing go to hell for a couple of days while I get on with other stuff. Mainly because I have to, the world keeps turning no matter how busy I think I am, which means dealing with letters about tax, VAT, school placements, life assurance, broken cars, broken teeth, and all sorts of fun stuff that middle-aged fathers and husbands routinely get put through the wringer with.

I'm also taking a bit of time out to do some other things - like trying to write a big feature on Free for Classic Rock. Never having written anything substantial on Free before it's something that actually gives me some pleasure - or would if I could just get a free go at it, no pun intended, instead of being bogged down by all this other shit. And then there's the very nice lady from the BBC I've been talking to about a documentary series she and her team are making that she thinks I might be able to help with. And then there's the continuing saga of Star Trippin' and the fact that it's about to become available in shops throughout the UK. And... well, other stuff. The beat just goes on, as they say, and who am I to get in the way of all that? Just keep up, dad, and for chrissakes try and slap a smile on your miserable, unshaven face once in a while...

The other reason I've put The Great Book aside for a couple of days is I'm just burnt out with the bloody thing. Fascinating and fabulous though Axl Rose might be when he looks in the mirror with his big sunglasses on, I feel like I've been living in the same room with him for just about long enough these past few weeks. I need some air. Badly. Or I'm not going to be able to get back in there with him.

And so, here I am, wailing away about it all. I was gonna get into some of your emails today - they're piling up again, some good ones too, and don't think I don't appreciate it cos I really do, they sustain me - but for some reason today just ain't the day. Tomorrow, though... now that might be different. Right?

Right?