Star Blog

A day off. Oh yes. So shoot me. It began early too. Got home from London last night and had a glass of red while reading the Sunday Times. 2.00a.m., no kids, no wife, no TV, no nothing. Just me, the glass of good red and the papers. Woke up about 3.00a.m. with the red down my shirt and the papers by my feet on the floor. Didn't care, just got up staggered upstairs to bed.

Then today, because eldest daughter doesn't get out of school till late on Mondays because of extra music lessons, me and the rest of the tribe went to Oxford for a mooch around. Checked into Borders where they've got a special Old Git sale on at the moment - that is, CDs for sale at like £3.99, the sort of stuff no-one in their right mind usually buys. Never having had a right mind, I bought a bunch, including the one I'm listening to now - Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline. Slagged to high heaven when it was released - how dare the spokesman for his generation stop taking drugs and writing stoned rants and record a cool country album in Nashville, blah fucking blah - this is the sort of masterpiece I can really relate too these days. The sort of thing I can really lay back and let wash over me. Beautiful, crazy as a coot country music, I especially like it that all the smart cunts hate it. I also like it cos his voice is so weird. Never sang like it before or since. Fuck 'em, eh Bob? My kind of fucking guy.

Also got coerced into buying the Grease film and soundtrack on CD, DVD and probably quadraphonic, such was the pressure from the wife and youngest girl. Then had to listen to it in the car all the way home as they all sang along at the tops of their voices. Tried to get them interested in Bob singing Girl From The North Country with Johnny Cash but got shouted down. Eldest daughter is rehearsing for a school production of Grease, you see, and youngest daughter has decided she's in it too. As has wife and baby son, who I now call Captain Jack because he loves his show-tunes - and his beads, and his dancing. He's the gayest, butchest baby man I've ever known. Built like a brick shithouse, dances like a kite and sings like Shirley Bassey. Bless him.

And that's it. Got some funny emails too, one from Mark Blake of Mojo (pointing out how Roly Mo always rolls uphill in the opening sequence of Fimbles - Mark's a sad dad too) and one from my old drummer mate from the Pogues, Danny Heatley (telling me about the time he crashed his car cos a wasp 'the size of a golden eagle' flew up his leg) that made me laugh out loud. God bless them both, and all of you that can be bothered to email me - mick@mickwall.com I promise I'll get round to quoting from them very soon. Just as soon as I finish my day off, Bob stops singing in his funny country voice and this bottle of good red is finally dead...

I am turning into a car killer. Driving home from London on the M40 last night from the Planet Rock show, I ran into something - again. I went years and years as a driver without ever having hit anything. Now in the space of the three months I've been driving home in the early hours after doing the weekend shows on Planet Rock I've nearly run over two deer, almost collided with a huge owl, grazed an enormous bastard of a badger that did a body roll then got up and ran off into the woods. Then, last night, not on a country road where I might have had time to do something about it but zooming down the motorway with no choice but to keep going, I ran over - bumpty-bump - what looked like another badger, though smaller, so might have been anything. It looked like Roly Mo the Fimble in an old raincoat.

It's a horrible feeling. A friend was telling me her teenage son laughed when she got upset for running over a rabbit but he's a teenage boy, they are programmed to laugh at such things. An old twat like me is liable to have a nervous breakdown at the thought of killing something with a face. Not that I mind eating them of course (not anymore anyway, I was veggie for 13 years but that was more to do with a psychotic previous girlfriend) I just don't want to run the fuckers over in my car.

Spent the last couple of days head bowed over the laptop bashing out reams of stuff, trying to clear the decks so that I can start work on my next book. Tell you about it later. The important thing right now is to try and get everything else out of the way first. This is trickier than it sounds, and there's really only way to do it - and that is to, as Ross always says, JUST DO IT! (He really should have been a gym instructor.)

So that's what I've been doing. Meanwhile, the house and the life in it continues to swirl around me. Sometimes not so much around me as through me, like a whirlwind ripping at the branches of a tree. I feel bits and pieces of me go flying off in all directions all the time.

Getting ready now for the Planet Rock show tonight - from 9.00pm on DAB, 0110 Satellite TV or just click here www.planetrock.com For once I'm actually ahead of the game, so after I finish twirling this out I'm going out with the tribe for a traipse around our little home town. There is a French Market on in the shopping centre today and it's sunny out there so we're off to see how much tat we can persuade ourselves we absolutely must have and blow the expense. Grab some olives and baguettes while we're at it too (and maybe some wine).

Actually, writing about it, makes me wanna get going, so I will.

Writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing...

Haven't been sleeping at all well these past few nights. Don't know why, just find myself plagued with dreams and nightmares. Some would say it was a guilty conscience but I can't think of anything that would be doing that to me. Not unduly, anyway. Must be something rearing its ugly arse from a past life. Either that or just the endless, relentless pressure of being, well, me. Or a much older version of me, perhaps. Whatever it is I wish it would stop, I'm so tired I can't think. Found myself nodding off over the laptop this afternoon. Thought maybe I could talk myself into a strictly medicinal afternoon nap, then eldest daughter came home from school and began her clarinet practise. That woke me up. Just not in a good way.

Went to the groovy second-hand bookshop in Wallingford this morning, thinking a change of scene might benefit. Anything to get out of actually sitting down to work for a couple of hours. Mooched around for 45 minutes but couldn't find anything I really, really wanted. They've still got the first edition From Russia With Love which I would like but at £350 I just can't justify it, not even as the splendid object d'art that will keep growing in value over the years that I keep telling myself it so obviously is. Not with the tax bastards breathing down my sun-wrinkled neck anyway. Maybe nearer to my birthday. If I can stay alive and awake long enough...

Funny how the days can just slip away. As I write, this one's almost gone and I don't feel like I've really done anything... much. Had to go to London today for a meeting at Planet Rock. All the regular DJs were there, along with the senior producers, web editor, marketing chief, and me, feeling like the new kid in class, which of course I am. It was interesting. It really impressed upon me how much we're all trying to make this work. Trev, the boss, was very nice, very encouraging. Everyone was very nice, encouraging. Believe me, not all meetings are like this. When it was over, I felt like hanging around for a while - very unlike me. Usually when a meeting (any meeting) is over I feel like legging it away as fast as I can.

I couldn't hang around though as the (unwritten) work is starting to pile up again. Classic Rock need stories that should have been done and dusted weeks ago. Planet Rock need something for the website, the French mag needs their monthly column and then there's the little matter of the books I'm supposed to be working on. Not to mention the pile of unopened letters (aka bills) on my desk awaiting my urgent attention, it sez here in large print on the envelopes. Don't get me wrong, it's good - essential - to have work on the table. It's also boring to come home to, especially when it's sunny outside and the kids are all playing in the garden. But hey, those are the sorts of problems you want to have, as Robert my agent always says.

Right, I'm off now to look at some more of your emails, especially the one from Patrizia Mazzuoccolo, my Norwegian radio producer pal, who writes to tell me I have got her mixed up in my head with someone else as she is not "this tall, blonde Amazonian type" that I mentioned on this blog a couple of weeks back, but, as she puts it: "Rather the opposite in fact - jet black hair and not that tall (5' 7") though a little amazonian if you count my big ass and tits, very little I can do about that and I'll be damned if I wear a burka."

So now I have no idea who she is, except that she sounds even more interesting than the person I thought she was. She also offers to send me a picture, "to prove that I am BUTT UGLY!" But I don't believe that for a moment. All women everywhere think they are butt ugly - except for the ones that are so good-looking they know they are, at which point something enters their eyes which makes them even more butt ugly than the truly butt ugly ones. Do you know what I mean? I bet Patrizia does...

The morning after the Planet Rock weekend before. With the kids at school, the house was relatively quiet when I woke this morning in my usual Monday morning stupor. Wife and boy must have still been at the shops, or not back from dropping the girls off yet. And I had one of those half-sleep, half-wake moments when you have a half-dream... about something real. It was a sunny morning in LA about 18 years ago, I was at the height of my infamy and yelling down the phone all morning from my hotel balcony overlooking the pool. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Bad-tempered, the phone still stuck to my angry ear, I answered it. Standing there was one of those supersize-me blonde bimbos you only see in LA. Big all over, hair, ass, tits, smile... everything except her skirt, which was s-m-a-l-l. She was holding a tray and on it were two of the tallest glasses of frosted Tequila Margarita you ever saw.

"Hi," she breathed sweetly. "Pete sent me..."

Pete was the manager of The Black Crowes, one of the people I had been yelling down the phone to. Not because of anything Pete had done - Pete was far too cool a dude to ever have done anything wrong his whole life - but just about the band's stoopid record company in London, a cesspit of assholes trying to ruin my busy day.

"He said to call him."

She came in and sat herself and the tray down next to me on the balcony. I called Pete. He was gurgling. "Hey, I thought you needed cooling out," he said. "So I sent Naomi over."

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked, eyeing her as she bent over and handed me a drink and a nice long look at her cleavage.

"Whatever you want," Pete gurgled.

I put down the phone and sat there gaping at Naomi. Then I took a long hit on the Tequila. it was good, ice-cold. I took another.

"Well," I said. "This is nice."

She looked at me and smiled and I felt myself cooling out, just like Pete had said I should.

I still didn't know what to do, though. Or rather, I did, this being Hollywood. I was so taken aback at the situation though I couldn't think what to say next. Instead she sat there and told me about herself while I sat there just looking and pretending to listen.

And then... well, let's just say I'm saving the 'and then' part for a book. Maybe the book me and Ross have been talking about. Maybe something else. I still haven't decided. It's hard to think of these things when you're busy running around every day just trying to keep your ageing head above the mortgage water. But I'll get to it. One of these freaky fucking days...

New entry to follow. Meanwhile, check out the Planet Rock show tonight, starting at 9.00pm UK time, on www.planetrock.com

Email me on-air at mick.wall@planetrock.com

Sweet as...

Back to the boring grind today, doing crazy way-out stuff like sorting out bills, writing more begging letters, answering emails and sorting out bits and pieces for the Planet Rock shows this weekend. The last bit was fine, at least it had something to do with music. The rest, though... Christ on the cross, it never ends. Got a letter from the tax office today telling me they had charged me another £350 for being late paying my bill. They love sending letters like that, those people. I wonder if they all used to be traffic wardens in their previous lives, and whether they dream of being civil servants one day? Small people with tiny lives dreaming dwarf dreams.

I was going to answer a few of your emails here today, too, but the first couple out of the sack so depressed me I couldn't manage it. One from some lunatic telling me he used to be in a band no fucker has ever heard of 25 YEARS AGO, and how he'd like to hook up with me and play me his music. Jesus Christ, someone fetch a priest. Then the next one was from an even bigger lunatic pestering me to read something he's written on some website about some fucking thing I couldn't give a toss about. What do they want from me - a pat on the back? A suck of the cock? I blame MySpace. It's full of nut-jobs like that, all yacking to each other about silly shit no one in the real world gives a fuck about. God save us from them.

Actually... I did find some nice emails from non-lunatics. Like this one from David Mackey in Berlin who simply writes: "Keep it going... I work from home and it's good to hear that there is someone else out there going through the same shit as me everyday."

And this one from Steve (no surname) who writes asking if my old book on Marillion, Market Square Heroes, is available via this site. Sorry, mate, no. It's been out of print for years. Even I only have one tatty copy. However, Helter Skelter in London had some on their shelves a few years back. That's the sort of place that would know how to find it anyway. Or Ebay, I suppose. Though beware, there are more loonies on Ebay even than MySpace.

Or the one from Becky who describes herself as "from the very northern tip of Surrey." Becky writes emails that make you think of hot rock chicks and bottles of Jack, then describes herself as "actually a fairly sensible 51-year-old teacher." Good for her, but what does she teach? The dark arts? Like reading and writing. maybe? Think about it, they don't come any darker.

There are others but that'll do for now. Feel free to write to me though, either via the various buttons here or via mick@mickwall.com Keep it clean though and remember: I know where you live. And if I don't, you can bet Ross Halfin does (Ross knows everything) and you don't want me sending him round, do ya? Thought not...

One of those days it feels good to be alive. Seriously. Got the train to London this morning where I was having 'brunch' with my rock'n'roll bank manager Matthew. We went to Jo Allan's in Covent Garden. I got to Covent Garden early and wandered around the Piazza in the unbelievable sunshine - July in April - looking at all the beautiful people. Or 'birds' as they are also sometimes known. Being a family man my interest is only academic these days, naturally. But living in a small country town like I do, going to Covent Garden on a sunny day is like going to LA used to be for me. I literally turn into a tourist, admiring not just the miniskirts but all the buildings and shops too. The dizzy sights. The colours and smells. The vibe. You'd never think I was born there. Years ago, I even used to work in Covent Garden, back in the mid-80s when Kerrang! had an office there on Long Acre. The place wasn't so beautiful then but the women always were. Not that I had much idea what to do about it then anymore than I do now. Back then, I would simply run into the nearest pub and drink beer and whiskey. Today I simply toddled off in a sweat for my lunch. I mean, brunch.

Matthew was on good form, dispensing his usual wisdom. He didn't seem to mind me bringing my begging bowl with me either and even paid for the meal, which was very sporting as I was sure it was my turn. (It was.) I can always tell when it's been a good lunch (brunch) because I find it hard to keep my eyes open on the train going home afterwards. Not because I'm drunk. The days of drunken lunches are well over for me. No, I sleep in direct proportion to how content I'm feeling over the way the lunch has gone. If it's gone badly, I sit there stiff as a board, guzzling coffee and staring at the other passengers with my bloodshot third eye. Today I found myself zedding out almost as soon as the train left the station. Still broke, but in possession of something almost as good as money. Hope. And some nice memories of the endless Piazza babes in their endlessly skimpy summer costumes.

I got home just in time to meet my eldest daughter coming home from her first karate lesson. She immediately laid into me with some frighteningly stiff punches and kicks. At which point, wife announced that she was also going to take up karate. "Why don't you do it, too?" she asked. I looked at her. "Don't worry," she said. "I told the Master you were an old git and he said that was fine, lots of old gits do karate. You can even wear your glasses."

Karmically, after Covent Garden, I suppose I deserved that...

Wife went to the hairdressers this morning so being the Good Husband I of course am, I offered to look after our 16-month old son. I didn't mind at all, actually, as he and I get on great. For some reason he seems to really like hanging out with the old man and I like being on my own with him too. Mostly we just sat around in front of the telly watching Tweenies and scoffing cereal and toast. Then when we'd done that I put him in his buggy and we went out for a long stroll in the park. By the time we got back 45 minutes later he was asleep. I quite fancied going back to bed myself but just then the old lady phoned on the mobile to say she was looking radiant and on her way home. Settled for a shower and a clean shirt instead.

Spent the rest of the day finishing off the Dylan piece. Kept trying to put it off by ringing people about stuff but no one was in, so in the end faced up to the inevitable and got down to some writing. It's amazing how hard it feels to do that sometimes, even now after all these years. Even when it's something not too strenuous like gassing on about music you actually like for a change. Anyway, I finished it just now so currently basking in the afterglow of the smug git who got all the cream - and sent it on an email to an editor that pays. There is no better feeling for a so-called writer to have so I'm enjoying it while I can.

It won't last of course. Even as I write this I can hear the tribe gearing up for that riotous nightly ritual that can be heard five miles away otherwise known as bathing-the-kids. Perhaps if I stay sitting here typing up twaddle wife will be fooled into thinking I'm busy and... er, no. She's just arrived and is reading this over my shoulder, fine, solid woman that she is, and with such a nice hairdo and wonderful smile and... (Gotta go...)

Spent the day sitting here trying to work on a piece about Bob Dylan - a little stroll through some of his best (and worst) albums. I'd forgotten quite how good some of them were. Especially the ones from the 70s onwards. The so-called classics from the 60s - Highway 61, Blonde On Blonde - sound remarkably juvenile to me now. Brilliant, of course, for their time, and for quite a few years afterwards too, but so hung up on their own wordy brilliance they tire you out listening as a grown man with wordy children of his own. It's not until you get past them that you start to hear the real Dylan. I'd never realised how good Nashville Skyline was, for instance. Then Blood On The Tracks and Desire.

It also reminded me how often some of my friends that like heavy metal and hard rock tell me they hate Dylan. I used to think it was simply a cultural thing - with Dylan representing the kind of earnest, spotty, NME-reading former student that looks down on heavy metal music, hence the natural antipathy towards that kind of self-righteous geek's ultimate idol from those of us that are actually partial to a bit of Black Sabbath or whatever. Now I'm not so sure. Most of the people I know that say they hate Dylan have never actually sat down and listened to one of his albums, you can tell by the ugly look they get on their faces when they start spouting their vitriol. Or if they have it's been with the same advanced prejudice that the Mojo-loving Beatles nut reserves for Yes or Genesis or whoever. Personally, I think they're both wrong. Anyway, who cares, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. Dylan rocks, and so do the Sabbs, man. Is that really so hard to get your head round?

Mostly today, though, when I wasn't exploring the inner-meaning of the Zimmerman I've been on the phone, feet up on the windowsill, gazing out the window at the sunny street. The phone in my office is almost a relic these days, most business being conducted via email now. Just occasionally, though, the thing sprouts back into life and I'm reminded of what it used to be like before computers. Once, back in the 80s, I was on the phone non-stop for about seven hours, during which I had a bath, breakfast and lunch, then evening drinks, the phone glued to my ear the whole time. Now and again I would put it down and as I did it immediately - IMMEDIATELY! - began ringing again. Crazy, dude. Those were the days. (Not really.)

Well, today wasn't quite like that. But I talked on it enough to finally bore myself stupid. The hot topic of the moment is, of course, money, and my stunning lack of it. You might say this is what happens when you take holidays in the sun and spend the whole time buying Buddhas (or mothers of) and whiskey-laced Irish chutneys, but balls to that, you've got to live a little, right? Besides, there is always someone worse off than yourself, much worse off. I can usually put names to 'em too. That said, the Wall cupboard is remarkably bare at the moment. I keep hoping some mysterious book royalties will just arrive out of the blue, it being April, one of the two months a year when that happens, but so far zilch.

Off now to make myself some bread and water for dinner, then sit in my threadbare armchair watching telly, a tear in my glass eye because there is no Life On Mars to look forward to tonight. Meanwhile, as Bobby says, "It's life and life only..." Smug bastard, bet he's not short of a bob or two. Ooh, did you see what I did there???

Well, hello, again. Yes, I'm back, healthy, tanned, rested, in a terribly good mood, and just back from the bank where I placed my lottery winners check for five squillion quid, riding on the back of a flying pig. That is to say, I'm back. As for the rest, fuck off, I've got three kids, how do you think I feel after a week of full-time baby-sitting?

Actually... it wasn't too bad at all. The weather was amazing. Global warming being what it is, having July weather in early April was most welcome as we tottered across the stones of Ringsted Beach. Even better was sandy Weymouth, where the babe-in-bikini count was particularly high, thanks.

Even better were the splendid towns of Blandford and Dorchester. Dorchester is the well-known one, the pretty 'historic' town, so always nice to mooch around in. Went to Emma's cafe where they serve fresh-squeezed orange juice and organic everything, then into Edinburgh Wool where wife and I both splurged on cotton gear for the summer, v.nice whatsits and how's-yer-fathers. Then off to the Teddy Bear Museum - naturally. Stopping off via the Sausage Factory for some Godfathers (sundried-tomato and garlic) and Old Smokeys (bacon mixed with sausage, smoked).

Blandford is where my favourite shops are, though. The Oxfam book shop there is mega - picked up Hollywood Animal by Joe Esterhas for £3 and a handful of Roald Dahl and C S Lewis gear for the kids for £4 - total shop, six books for £7. You can't beat it, bud.

The farmer's market rocks too. Bought some Irish pumpkin chutney laced with whiskey, some banana and dark chocolate spread (oral orgasm), smoked cheddar, organic porridge (with blueberries and cranberries), all sorts of free-range, homemade this and that, I was in hog heaven.

Then onto Crystal Sense where I bought a small golden statue of Quan Yin (mother of Buddha, goddess of peace and empathy, solver of all problems, no kidding around) for my office. (We already have a big black and gold one of her on the mantelpiece in the lounge.) Also got a nice Tibetan tapestry for the bedroom wall - Buddha, in repose, natch. Plus some silver fairies with birthstones for the girls. Did I mention we really love it in there. Dee, who owns the gaff, is this v.cool older lady of Irish descent and always good to chat to. She also keeps trying to persuade us to buy this rambling old house she knows on it's own patch of land perched on a hill halfway between Blandford and the village we always stay in. Drove up there and had a look - bea-u-tiful! All I need is a couple of big dogs, a gun, and about half-a-million quid and we're moving in tomorrow.

Got home on Saturday, just in time to cram some food down my neck and jump back in the car for the drive to London and the Planet Rock show. Was tired but it was actually the best show I've done so far - for me, anyway. Did it all again the following day, and by the time I got back last night I was fucked again. But feeling good about it, which is the important thing.

Now I'm back and ploughing through 70-odd emails. And writing this, slightly wondering why. When you haven't done it for a week or so you do tend to forget why the fuck you bother. Perhaps someone could mail in and remind me...?

A bad week for blogging. Too much to do before buggering off for Dorset. Get the feeling also that the blogging has become part of 'work' in my mind, a duty to perform, even though it isn't done at all dutifully, made up of nonsense from my so-called real life as opposed to rock star gabble. Whatever, the past couple of days have been about winding down and getting into v.low gear for the week away. So low in fact I can't even remember what I've been doing. Apart from yesterday, when our friends Tom and Lyn came over with their kids Charlotte and Alex, and we went through a case of red wine, and my home-made bolognese. I wasn't pissed, but I did forget to make the salad. Though I did come up with a great idea for Tom and I to do our own version of the Hairy Bikers TV thing, though with less hair and no bikes. That is, it seemed great at the time. I'll see what I think after the holiday.

I won't be able to blog at all while we're down in Dorset, either, as I can't get online, the cottage being in such a remote spot. Can't even get a mobile signal, which is of course one of the most appealing things about the place. So this is my lot for now. Have a good Easter. Come and find me again when it's all over and forgotten about. Or not, as the case may be...

A lovely day yesterday. Sun out, laptop off, office door firmly closed. Not because I haven't got anything to do, but you've got to have one day off, haven't you? Otherwise what's it all about, Alfie? And that sun looked good out there. Half-term from school for the kids too this week so we all went out together and bought a new lawn-mower. Oh yes, rock AND roll! Then we went to Wallingford where we rocked hard into the bakery then 'hung out' with the homies in the town square, eating kick-ass pastries. Even the kids weren't a pain (much). Then we brought the hammer down on Waitrose, loading the basket up like a crack addict filling his pipe. Except in our case it was all about fresh meat and fish and something v.good from the red wine counter. Came home and got stuck right in.

You'd have thought that would be enough to refuel the tanks but no. When I woke up this morning I was still so knackered it was all I could do to hobble downstairs to a bowl of cereal and a squint at Lorraine Kelly on the gogglebox.

Reality finally kicked in when the mobile began ringing. Have spent the rest of the day (and night) sitting here typing. Trying to make a clearing in the word-woods for our little getaway at the end of the week. We're going down to the cottage in Dorset where the plan is to Do Fuck All for a few days. Something I've been working on for some time now...

A beautiful day. Cold but sunny. Went for a long walk through the park with the tribe this morning, the girls on their bikes, the boy in his buggy, me pushing it. After getting home at 2.00a.m. from London the night before, this is my idea of good exercise. The show went well last night. Even being aware of the golden rule - whenever you think it's good, someone else will tell you where you went wrong - I still think it's the best one I've done. Sod's Law ensures that means tonight's show will be my worst. But hey, that showbiz, kid.

And anyway, according to Shelley Von Strunkel in the Sunday Times my stars are rocking at the moment. Dreams about to come true. New opportunities knocking. All that. If only I still knew what my dreams were. The older I get the more my dreams have narrowed down to touchable, bottom-line stuff like paying the mortgage each month and doing a head-count on the kids. Assuming both those things add up every month, all my dreams have already come true.

I suppose there are other things, but they simply don't infect my waking hours the way they used to. The great novel? Oh, please. Like I haven't got enough to do already. Travelling the world? What, again? And with three kids in tow? Tell you what, let me just sit here in the armchair by the window with a glass of red in my hand and think about it for a while, OK?