Star Blog

Spent the whole day in London doing 'stuff', most of which I'm not allowed to mention. "Do you write a blog?" I was asked during my first meeting of the day. "Because this must remain confidential, OK? You have to promise you won't write about it yet." OK...

By the time I came out of that meeting there was a message on my phone saying the next meeting had been cancelled. Which I didn't mind at all. Instead, I sat and had scrambled eggs and smoked salmon at a cafe in Brewer Street, reading the paper. Then walked up to Borders in Oxford Street where I bought series one of Entourage on DVD (very good, much better than I remembered) and the SpongeBobSquarePants movie for the kids. On my way out the door though I spotted something they would like even better - no, not Mermaid tails (currently, the holy grail) but soft cuddly toys of Macca Pacca, Upsy Daisy and Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden on CBeebies TV. The 21-month-old boy is craaazzzeeeee for that stuff, especially Macca Pacca. What's weird is that the girls are into it too. It's the most trippy kids' show on TV, their eyes sort of glaze over as they sit staring at it. Mine too actually whenever I get to join in. My mate Mark Blake tells me it's the same with his small boy. But then as he puts it, you get the feeling the makers of that show were no strangers to magic mushrooms back in their college days.

From Borders I tottered up to the Gap where I bought a far too expensive Italian wool pullover. Well, the nights are already getting longer and the first chill of Autumn is definitely in the air, and anyway, I was quite enjoying this unexpected couple of hours just mooching around on my own. It happens so rarely these days I just had to make the most of it.

The next appointment was at the BBC, where I was booked into a studio for an interview on the Dave Fanning drive-time show on Ireland's RTE station. Apparently the Axl book has just hit the shelves in the Emerald Isle and Dave and the boys thought it would make the drive time hour pass that bit quicker to have me on yapping about Mad Old Axl. It was a pre-record so I didn't actually have to wait around till the show started. It also meant Dave and I went on for much longer than they actually needed. But then it's always good to talk to him. A legend in Irish radio these past 20 years, he talks faster than anyone I know and is also more intelligent than most of the motormouths you usually get doing those sorts of shows on the radio.

After that I was supposed to do another pre-recorded interview, this time for the Vodafone Live Music Awards, talking about Motley Crue and how their 1987 Girls Girls Girls tour was one of the - quote - Most Elaborate Ever. It wasn't any such thing of course but Vodafone had a cheap clip from it of Tommy Lee doing his drum solo (the one where the kit used to rotate like a spit) and so that would do as far as they were concerned and would I come on and talk the whole thing up. (Well, you know me, anything for a fiver...)

But as I was about to jump in the taxi I got an urgent email from home. I've got a very poorly mother-in-law at present, who lives around the corner from us, which means wife is on 24-hour-a-day alert. And this was suddenly one of those moments where she needed to drop everything and get over there, and could I come home now pleeeeeeeeeeeeease and look after the kids. Goodbye Vodafone, hello Macca Pacca...

One last thing, several people have sent me emails recently asking about - bizarre question - music. Pointing out that I don't mention it often. And? Well, they just ask what I'm actually listening to currently. Truthfully, I mostly listen to Late Junction on Radio 3, which goes out late at night about four times a week but which I pick up on the internet via the BBC's Listen Again service. It's all very esoteric late night stuff, from monks chanting, to odd (sometimes very odd) bits of blues, folk, jazz, African, Japanese, classical, anything but rock-type music. And I love it. Especially as I have almost never heard one piece of music on there that I've ever heard before.

If we must talk rock though, check out the new Joe Bonamassa album, Sloe Gin, produced by the one and only Kevin Shirley, who also emails me sometimes, though that's not why I like the album so much. Joe just happens to be the best white blues guitar player out there since Stevie Ray Vaughan bit the dust. Fact. Oh, and Status Quo have a good new single just about to come out too. I'm serious...

Got off to a slow start then spent the rest of the day catching up. Woke up at about four this morning, having a bad dream about some sort of initiation ceremony which entailed children putting a hot metal plate to the side of my face, whatever that means doctor. Then couldn't get back to sleep worrying about this Planet Rock series. Or rather, not so much the series, which I'm into, but what it means in terms of time and all the other things I'm supposed to be doing that aren't getting done because of it. Tried to tell myself: don't worry, be happy. But just found myself lying on my back staring through the dark at the ceiling worrying about being happy.

Eventually woke wife up who told me to put the light on and read. This did the trick. Half an hour later I was just falling into a deep sleep and the start of an even weirder dream when the boy smashed open the bedroom door and threw his giant teddy at me.

The day went steadily downhill from there, though nothing drastic occurred, and any day where nothing drastic occurs always qualifies as a notional good one. To me it does anyway. Ask anyone who's had as many bad days as I've had and they'll explain what I mean.

Now the girls are pestering me because they want to know if I can find them some mermaid tails on the internet. They have become obsessed with a kids TV show called H2O, about three mermaids, so now they want all the gear. So now you know what I do when I'm not working or pretending to sleep while worrying about work: I'm one of those weirdoes who looks for mermaids' tails on the internet.

By the way, I notice I'm not getting as many emails to the mick@mickwall.com address as I used to. Is it because I keep not getting round to mentioning them? Don't be deterred. I read and cherish them all, it's just that things have been so hectic lately I literally don't have the time to reprint them and discuss here. However, all comments sent to my MySpace page about the blog are published there, unedited, so knock yourself out if you want to. Meanwhile, I will be updating this site and probably adding a forum... soon. Honest injun...

No blog yesterday as I was still fighting off the after effects of a week in Dorset with the family, followed by two late nights in London rocking the Planet on the radio. A good day, though, sitting in my sunny English garden, watching my two girls putting on 'shows' for me. All songs and skits out of High School Musical 1 and 2. Had no idea they were so enormously talented. Thinking of sending them out to X Factor auditions. Should keep them busy (and out of dad's way) for a few days...

Meanwhile, back to work today with a vengeance. Liz at Planet Rock called to say they want new intros to the six programmes I've recorded so far for the forthcoming Legendary albums series - and could I come in on Thursday and record another eight shows as well? She's a lovely lady that Liz, knows her stuff and is always kind to underling presenters like me. But I still wept openly like a baby when I got the message. Fortunately she has taken pity on a very old and tired fuck and we are now doing it all on Friday and I am recording four (not eight) shows. Though I will have to go in next week and do eight (or 20, or something, but that's next week, so it's not real - yet - right?).

Also dashed off a few bits and pieces for Classic Rock for a forthcoming special they're putting out in the Autumn, cracking wise about the 80s and my part in it, sort of. Ross is in there too, of course, so that will be fun (though not for the picture editors, obviously).

And that's it, apart from updating my MySpace page - or trying to. I want to get a pic of the Axl book up there (and here) but have not found the time to do anything about it yet other than bother Julie with emails asking her how to do it, which she has kindly responded to but which I haven't actually read - properly - yet. But then what can a poor wine-hungry old shit do? Maybe later, baby. Maybe...

Actually did a good show tonight. Well, what I thought was a good show anyway. Sod's Law dictates that whatever you think is a good show isn't necessarily what other people think of it. Particularly radio producer 'others'. The same works in reverse too, of course, which means that the Saturday night show must have been killer as I felt flat as a witch's tit doing it.

Got home absolutely ready for that big glass of red I usually save for such occasions - then fell asleep. Woke up in the armchair at three in the morning, a full glass next to me, as though mocking me, a sandwich glued to my shirt. Crawled up the stairs to bed. Fuck, I didn't realise I was so tired. That holiday must have done me more damage than I thought...

All you BlackBerry snobs will be pleased to learn that, no, I couldn't figure out how to do a blog on the damn thing while I was away. But this of course in no way reflects on the sheer sexual potency of my beloved BlackBerry, but on my own technophobic shortcomings. Or put another way, I hardly need much encouragement to do nothing about nothing when I'm supposed to be on holiday.

I say 'supposed' to be on holiday because as anyone with three small monsters will tell you, there is no such thing as being on holiday when you're forced to trail said monsters around behind you on a very tight leash. Late nights, early mornings, boot camp is a piece of piss for poofters compared to being on holiday with a wife and three small kids.

Anyway, I'm back. The good news is that while I was away the Telegraph ran a big full-page colour review of the Axl book, saying how amazing it is, which of course it is. Well, when I say 'amazing' what they actually said was that it makes for a grim read. Which it certainly does, Axl not exactly being the life and soul of the party, miserable, unpleasable sod that he legendarily is. But you knew that, those of you not addicted to sad GN'R chatrooms that think it's better without Slash and Duff (yeah, right) anyway. What you won't really know until you read the book is why the red-haired dictator is the way he is. May I suggest a quick diversion to the amazon pages after you've read this? Credit card in hand. You know you want to. And just think how pleased my bank manager Matthew will be. He may even take down the wanted poster of me on the wall of his palatial, gold-encrusted office.

Anyway, gotta go. Just got back from London and the Planet Rock show and there is a nice glass of expensive red-haired wine waiting for me in the other room, and I believe I hear a monster beginning to stir from his fecund nest upstairs. I do hope his mother gets there before I do. For his sake...

Drove to London yesterday to record the first six shows of the upcoming Planet Rock legendary albums series. Got in the studio and started working at about 4.30pm - didn't get out again until nearly 11.00pm. That's a long time to be sat there listening to your own voice making mistakes. Eventually got it right, or most of it. Sort of. No idea really what it was like, will have to wait and see when the shows air in September.

Now today we're throwing everything into the car for a few days down at the cottage in Dorset. Our house sitter turned up really early though with his dogs which made everything take 10 times longer. I mean, I love German Shepherds - especially these ones as they're both ex-police hounds and you can get them to do all sorts of tricks. But not at 8.00am when you only got to bed at 2.00am and the kids are screaming and your head is hanging off your shoulders.

And of course it's raining outside. The ideal way to start your English summer holiday. Am gonna try keeping the blog going while we're away as I am after all a fully paid up member of the Blackberry club now. (Amazing how many people sneer when they hear that, like telling them you're a BMW driver.) But I'm not holding out much hope as I can't figure out how to work the internet part on the phone yet. Or rather, I can if I want to access porno videos (hmmm...) but I can't seem to access my own website. So if you don't hear from me again for a few days you'll know why.

Another long day made short by a complete inability to get the fucking job done. Clearly, this is because the old brain is not what it used to be. Partly through age, partly through not giving enough of a shit, partly through circumstance - i.e. got my new Blackberry today, my second in a week. I also sent the first back today. Spent 10 minutes looking at the new one determined not to even open the box because I didn't want to lose another minute fucking around with the stupid thing. In the end found myself ripping open the box and just diving in pressing buttons. Miraculously this seemed to work. So endeth the latest saga of man vs. technology. Just in time for the next saga to begin, this time entitled man vs. two grumpy wankers at the door with our new running machine. What a palaver. You'd think they were doing you a favour carrying the damn thing in. Fuckers. I gave them the mean stare and silent treatment as I shut the door in their faces.

Back to the laptop... oh god, only six scripts out of 30 written for the Planet Rock series and we start recording tomorrow when I've promised I'll bring in at least seven scripts. Still, at least I spoke to Ross today. That is, we swapped phone messages a few times. Oh, and both Tina and Rain left various little messages for me on the myspace site, which is exciting as they both have the most enticing myspace pages on the internet. I mean, these girls are out there, and smart with it. It's like I've always said, there is nothing sexier than intelligence. Unless it's intelligence posed with its back to you and its slender legs crossed in a pair of fishnet stockings and, er, handcuffs. Let's hope tomorrow is just as good...

The plan was to get up early, work out, buy a LARGE cappuccino from the flirty middle-aged Spanish bombshell in the coffee shop, then spend the day flogging the laptop to within an inch of its miserable virtual life. Well, I managed to get the first three things done. Then hit the downhill slopes from there. Hate to say it but the main problem was the sodding Blackberry. It just didn't work. Do this, said the technical support guy at Vodaphone. Do that, he said. Do this do that do this do that and the world will be fine, you'll see. Several hours later it still wasn't.

I did everything that git told me to do but the thing still wouldn't pick up emails, which made it like owning a new car with no wheels. So I told him as politely as I could that I would be returning "the device", as he called it, forthwith, and that he was never to darken my metaphorical or actual doorstep ever again. Then rang T-Mobile, who I got my existing moby from, to see what they could offer me Blackberry-wise instead. Spoke to a cool Scottish guy called Stuart who promised me a happy ending by noon tomorrow. We'll see.

The irony is that while all this was going on another Vodaphone bloke was phoning me asking if I'd like to take part as a filmed "talking head" at this year's Vodaphone Live Music Awards, jabbering for a pre-recorded segment about Motley Crue. "Sure," I said, "how much?"

"Oh, we don't have much of a budget," he stuttered. This from Vodaphone, yeah? Like some spotty teenager from MacDonalds telling you they're a little short on burger buns.

If the kid hadn't seemed so daftly innocent I might have told him to join his mate in the so-called technical support department. As it was, I advised him to tell his evil masters that they could either cough up the ackers or quit bugging me. You see, I always knew I had what it takes to be a business man. (Cue: hollow laughter from the wife in the wings.)

All of which left me sitting here at 6.30pm wondering where the day had gone and why I hadn't written more than a page or two of the silly bollocks I'm supposed to be writing. Another day down and no nearer the finish line on the Planet Rock albums series. In the old days I'd have just got the drugs in and kept going through the night. Except this isn't the old days so I'll just have to get up early again tomorrow morning. Rock and roll, baby...

A sweaty, rainy, nothing working right, nothing right working quick enough, uphill all the way, pain in the arse sort of day. Though not evil. Just... frustrating. The sort of day where the inside of your mind looks exactly like what's outside your window. Which in my case has been uniformly grey, with occasional unwelcome spots of rain. Nothing too drastic, just nothing very inspiring. Nothing drastic enough in fact. The sort of day you can't wait for to end. Not because it's killing you, but because it's simply so... not even boring, just... unsatisfying. Like an unfinished sweet you find stuck in your hair. If you had any hair...

I was gonna go through the list... Blackberry not working right, car not working right, brain not working right... but then I thought, naw, who gives a? Then I thought I'd like to comment on some of the extremely interesting emails I've had from people lately but again, I can't be bothered. Not tonight anyway. Maybe it's MySpace sickness. I've got to get over it. Ever since I tumbled headlong into the virtual abyss of it a few days ago I keep going back for another peek, just to see what's happening. The word pathetic springs to mind. Alongside other words like sicko addict.

Perhaps a lie down in darkened room... naked... just me and my wife... except she's as bent out of shape today as me. It's the children. With no school to go to and no nice weather to leave them outside tied to a tree to, they are driving her quite quickly mad. Which means I'm going down the tubes too. Worse, I'm sitting here writing about it, like that might help. Sad sicko no-haired addict...

Mondays are supposed to be my one day off a week but I couldn't make it happen today. Again. The trouble is I haven't gotten even halfway through these scripts for the Planet Rock special album shows I'm doing and we're leaving on Friday for the cottage on the English Riviera. Yes, delightful Dorset. We left it so late to do anything about it by the time we got round to it we couldn't get two consecutive weeks so we're doing two one-off weeks instead. Not great but better than no-nothing at all.

So... I got up late and worked even later. Got something done though so at least I can go to bed feeling semi-righteous. Also took possession of my new Blackberry today - cooooooool. I know what you're thinking - middle-aged crack. Well, duh! And what's wrong with that? This means no excuse not to post and blog while I'm away. Though this may be a double-edged sword. Also, it can only make my new-found MySpace habit only worse. To think I used to slag the whole thing off. Now I can't get enough of it. The reason being I've actually come across some 'friends' I think I like the look of. Like Rain and Tina. Two smart gals who know how to intrigue you with their art. Go to the page if you want to know more - www.myspace.com/mickwall - I think. Just look, I'm not hard to find. Some of my friends are more interesting than me though. Like Julie, whose Angel self-portrait is great. I want to buy it so that I can say I've got a Bennett original from the early days before she went supernova but it costs three grand and dads like me just don't have that kinda cash lying around. And even if we do there's a line of wives and kids and Blackberry sellers who want it first.

Meanwhile, it's late, it's hot, I'm tired and not. And in the morning I'm off to see Dr Nick the rocking dentist who is trying to save what's left of my teeth. Maybe he'll slip me a bag of that novocaine I know he keeps on ice for special occasions. And then again maybe he won't. Smug good-looking, shiny-toothed, nice bloke bastard...

Got up exceedingly late, due to wife's unusually kind heart. First time I've managed to stay asleep past midday in fact since before we had children. First time I can remember anyway. From the bed I staggered to the jumping up and down machine where I proceeded to hone my athlete's body into whip-like perfection while sweating worse than a pig's hole poised above the sausage machine.

Came down from my power shower in time for a roast chicken breakfast-lunch. Again all done by wife without any help from me or any moaning from her - extraordinary. Wondered perhaps if I'd swallowed one of my old funny pills by accident and woken up in a parallel universe. Well, it would hardly be the first time. Except good things don't usually happen to me in that other universe. And this was puzzlingly good. Or maybe she was just buttering me up, getting me in the right mood to tell me she'd finally got up the nerve to run off with the butcher, whose had his watery red eyes on her for many moons now, that cold pink-fingered fiend.

But no. She really was just being super nice, God bless her endless curves. To reward her, after breakfast-lunch I went out and did manful things in the back garden, trimming back that monstrous rose bush and mowing the jungle-like lawn. Afterwards, I was sweating like two pigs' holes. It was so bad I had to bury my sodden T-shirt in the dirt in case wife touched it and fell pregnant.

After all that, how could I not have a great show at Planet Rock? Indeed, how could anything ever go wrong again? Well, scraping the rear end on the driver's side of my precious MG on a concrete post in the pissing stupid Chinatown car park was one way. That and having the most god-almighty indigestion throughout the whole show was another way. But then, you can't have it all, can you? Not unless your name's Ross Halfin and it's your 50th birthday this weekend so you've gone to LA to hang out with hoors and drug dealers. Not that I am in any way shape or form jealous. Not when there are lawns to mow and pigs holes to savour...

Long hot summer day, not the kind you want to spend three hours in the car driving to work on. But hey, thems the breaks. And I'd be complaining more if I didn't have a job to go to, at least once in a while. Actually, wife put it best for me recently when she said: "Look at it this way, you never get a chance to sit around just playing records at home anymore, you may as well make the most of it doing your radio show."

Well said that woman, though of course it's not her that has to nose the car through the flotsam (read: shit-faced wankers) of Soho in the early hours of a Sunday morning. But then it's not me having to bath and bed the children on my own. Put like that I've definitely got the most edible slice of the pie.

Anyway, I did what I had to do, then drove like a bastard to get home again. Amazing how many people emailed in to the show about the Axl book though. Someone pointed out that I haven't made much mention of it here on this site or on my MySpace page, and they're right. Made me think I should at least stick a scan of the cover up somewhere. Er, Julie, are you reading this? Can you help, mate?

Meanwhile, if you'd like to win a signed copy of the year's best rock biography, I'm giving 10 copies away via the http://www.planetrock.com/ website from Wednesday this week. You know me, I'd tell you if it was rubbish. But it's not. In fact, it's the best thing I've done bookwise for... years. No messin'.

Right, plug over. I'm off for the sweet sleep of the totally worn out and buggered now. Back on air again, UK time, live from 9.00pm Sunday tonight at http://www.planetrock.com/

G'wan, you know you want to...

No one thing characterised this day, except maybe the sun blazing outside my window, and the fact that wife and kids were out all day, which was supposed to give me the perfect excuse for getting some serious work done on the scripts for these upcoming Planet Rock documentaries but which in fact meant I spent the whole day pissing around doing little things, hoping they would add up to some sort of big thing. Which of course they didn't.

On the plus side, I did work out this morning, pushing my body towards the peak of physical perfection, come and get it, ladies. Then picked up my car from the garage, newly serviced, washed and ready to rock, just in time to roll down to the coffee shop for a FUCKING LARGE cappuccino. Then came back here and squinted at emails (hello Cookie!), bought a Blackberry over the internet (well, come on, a man in my position, how did I ever get out of bed in the morning without one?) added a few more lunatics to my friends list at MySpace including one from what looks like a bondage queen from Florida. Definitely my kind of friend, forget the sodding bands.

Then wrote two quick stories for Classic Rock, for a new series they keep telling me they're going to run one of these weird days, of stories that are sort of a mix between this blog and what you would call 'proper' features - i.e. war stories from the chequered past of a rock twat like, er, me. One was about the time Ozzy cooked me Sunday lunch then got so drunk he passed out into his food. And the other one was called Bad Sex and is about some of those occasions in the (distant) past when I found myself naked but not alone for no good reason other than being in the music business. A bit like the friends on my MySpace page. Sort of. Except that with the stories I really did live it, rather than gaze longingly at pictures on websites about it.

Right, really must get down to some serious work on those scripts now. Or maybe after I mow the lawn...

A funny sort of not much doing, doing too much of nothing sort of day. One positive thing, I finally figured out how to work my MySpace page. No thanks to my brother who set it up but no longer replies to emails from me asking for help with it, but all down to the ever-generous aid of Julie Bennett, famous artist in the making and all-round good soul. (She also designed this website you keep logging onto.) Check out her own MySpace page sometime - www.myspace.com/juliebennett - I guess. I'm not sure, I'll check and find out in time for tomorrow. Meanwhile, check out your old mate's - www.myspace.com/mickwall. I even have some music there now. And lots of friends, including a Top 40 comprised almost exclusively of females. Why this should be I don't know but there you go. They all seem like nice girls. At a glance (or two) anyway.

You see, this is what happens when an old fart finally gets the hang of something once new. They ruin everything with their sniggering and old-timey style jokes. Well, what did you expect? Hot links to the official Bon Jovi site? Gimme a break. Now that I have got the hang of it though I promise I will branch out into something more worthy at some point. Does Mozart or Miles Davis have a MySpace page I can ask to be friends with? Or Andrew Marr? Or maybe, say, Bob Harris? If anyone out there has any good ideas, my wife would certainly be interested to know. (She doesn't like what she calls my "whore chart".)

Meanwhile, back to proper work tomorrow. I'm doing a new series of one hour classic-album shows for Planet Rock and I've got to write the scripts for all 30 shows before I go on holiday again at the end of next week. I'm looking forward to it in a sort of double-large-cappuccino-no-sleep-till-doomsday sort of way. But then I've always been a sucker for hard work (read: money).

No blog yesterday. Way too weary after going to and from London - again. Lunch with Paul from the Mail on Sunday was good, though. We went to Kensington Place, which is a good place for fish so I had the monk fish. Best I've tasted in ages. Plus the female waitresses actually smiled, had nice breasts and chatted pleasantly to you. Joe Allen eat your miserable stubble-chinned, male waiters' hearts out.

Paul was a nice, interesting fellow. Not sure what he made of me, though. Some old rock fart. When I mentioned how much I'd be delighted to do some more stuff for him, he mentioned something I might be able to do for the paper "next year." Which was him trying hard to say something pleasing but thinking: what can this old rock fart actually do for me except write about other old rock farts?

Years ago, Alan 'Fluff' Freeman warned me I'd have this problem if I kept on working so much with rock bands. "People will think that's all you know about," he said. I rather doubted it at the time and how wrong I was. Alan knew what the fuck.

So here I am, late-40s, one foot in the media grave, good for nothing except heavy metal and the creatures that lurk therein. God, how depressing. Yet I don't do badly out of it. Still depressing when you look at it like that though. Said goodbye to Paul on the streets of High Street Ken, while he went off to a glittering Fleet Street career and I went back to my Led Zeppelin albums (or whatever it is he imagines someone like me does).

Better day today. Wife's 30th birthday. Cue flowers, balloons, cards, treats, unexpected visits and gifts from relatives and friends. Well, none of my relatives, obviously. If they can't even be bothered to send a card to my children why would they bother with my wife? Well, fuck 'em. Their time will come and I for one am really looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, not to be bitter, because that isn't the feeling round here today at all, not with so much fun going on, me and wife and kiddly-poos are off for a Chinese meal now. That is, I'm off to the take-away house and they are laying down a blanket in the lounge for a picnic in front of the telly. It'll be the usual toss-up between In The Night Garden (on CeeBeeBees) and The Simpsons. I don't care which, just that we're all in it together. Us and the hot chicken fried rice and stir-fried mixed vegetables. Beat that, Kensington Place...

Was hoping to have today off - I'm always fucked after the weekend back and forth to London - but the mobile began ringing as soon as I turned it on and it was all stuff that had already waited for a week while I was away so couldn't really wait anymore. All fair enough. Except it meant I was still sitting in this chair till just now - nearly 11.30pm as I write - typing like an ape. But you know what they say, it never rains but it damn near chokes you, glugging up around your eyes like shit from a broken toilet.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining though cos I'm really not. I'd rather be busy than the only other alternative I know, which is broke. Busy broke is OK, sitting around scratching your anus broke is definitely not OK. And I've had enough of living the not OK life, cheers.

Meanwhile, I'm off to London again tomorrow for one of my lunches, this time with my new best friend at the Mail On Sunday, Paul Kendall. This always happens whenever I get something published in the paper. I get taken to lunch by a really nice editor there then never hear from them again - until by chance they need me for something.

Paul actually sounds like a geezer though, so I'm hoping we hit it off and I get more stories to do for him. I've gotta say, the buzz I got out of seeing the Don story in print could become very addictive. As could the money, the Mail on Sunday paying approximately ten times more than most of the magazines I work for. Not that I'm knocking them, you understand. If it wasn't for Classic Rock - still the best pound-for-pound champion rock mag in the world today - my children wouldn't have shoes on their feet. It's just that it would be nice to do something for a nice proper grown-up newspaper once in a godforsaken while, you know?

Who knows, maybe Paul and I will bond and he'll become Godfather to my youngest. Or I'll become the weird old uncle his kids never knew they had or even wanted. Maybe. Not that I'm desperate or anything, though, obviously.

Strange trip home last night. Every variety of night creature was on the road. From the death-trip crazies and car-loons of London all seemingly looking to have a crash or at least a punch-up, to the bizarre host of green-eyed owls, foxes, rabbits and weird insects that seemed to just throw themselves in front of the car as I pushed the bastard hard to get me home in record time. How I didn't kill something-anything I don't know. It was like they were all trying to make up for the time they lost with me last weekend when I was on my hols. Fuck-ing weird, boyo.

Then, weirder still, listening to Bob Harris on the car radio, he nonchalantly mentioned that he would be going off the air for a while as he has prostate cancer and will be beginning what he described as the second phase of his treatment, which means radiation-therapy - which means he will be too weak to work. Fuck. Poor Bob. Poor all of us, in fact, the way I see it. Cos we're all heading for the same destination eventually, right? Whether it's cancer, car-crash or whatever.

Actually, I felt like weeping. I don't know Bob. Not in the conventional allo-mate way. But I've been watching him on TV and/or listening to him on the radio since I was 14. He even lives down the road from me in Oxfordshire these days. So in far too many strange ways to list here, I really do feel some sort of connection, affection even. Particularly for his work on the radio. I mean, make no mistake, Bob fucking rules that medium. The gravelly voice, the warm personality, the v.cool music, the obvious love he has for his work. God bless the silly old fart but you won't find anyone more 'for real' on the rock'n'roll radio than Uncle Bob Harris.

He explained on-air that we shouldn't worry because it appears they've caught the illness in time and that he hopes to back in October. And he said all this without a trace of self-pity or indeed anything other than casual letting-you-know-just-in-case-ness. A real class act. As always. Hope he comes back soon. Meanwhile, Bob, if by some chance you actually get to read these words, I'm praying for you, pal. Cos we need you back there on the radio. Showing us how it should be done...

Well, we're back. Somehow. Where the last seven days went though is a mystery to me. Dorset weaves a magic spell over us like that. One minute we're there stalking the golden sands of Weymouth and looting the shops of Dorchester and Blandford, the next we're all back home wondering if it was all a mad wet dream. I suspect it is both.

Anyway, would love to bore on about it but am already too tired and stressed. Just checking email after a week away will do that to you. Of course, just cos I wasn't here doesn't mean life didn't carry on as before. Even more so in some cases. For instance, I don't expect millions of you buy the Mail On Sunday but if you did happen to peruse that fine journal of record last Sunday you would have seen a story written by your old mate splashed across the centre-spread of the Reviews section on my own tremendously old, now dearly departed mate, Don Arden. The best thing of all, from my own point of view, was that they actually published the story I wrote, more or less word for word. This happens far less frequently with newspapers than you might imagine. Indeed, it is so rare I feel unduly honoured. Of course, there are those in my so-called profession who would sneer and say that anyone who writes so well for the Mail On Sunday they don't have to rewrite it should be ashamed of themselves. But they are evil shitbag snobs who deserve to die. Slowly. As I'm sure you agree.

Meanwhile, back in Dorset, I got dragged into the BBC Radio studios in Dorchester to talk about Don on RTE, the Radio One of Ireland. Which was hilarious, not least because I am Irish myself, not that you'd know it from my accent (unless you heard me yelling at the kids, then it would be obvious because that's when my wicked dead father's voice emerges like an angry poltergeist).

Then, as if the so-called week off wasn't packed enough, I came home to discover Q magazine - that other first class journal of record - have given the Axl book a four-star full-page review in their new issue, written by the one and only Paul Brannigan, expert Kerrang! editor and all-round top bloke. It even came with one of those little red Q Recommends stickers. I mean, beat that Dostoyevsky! Seriously, though, I have to admit, I'm chuffed. Recognition from one's peers and all that. Of course, if they'd said it was rubbish I would be sat here telling you how little the whole thing means. And I would be right, of course. But they didn't, so now I can hardly get my head through the door.

Which could be tricky as I have to squeeze it into the car now for the drive to London for the Planet Rock show tonight. I'm a bit worried actually. After so much good news, I'm obviously due an almighty kick in the arse. Please God don't let it be while I'm in the middle of a link. Again...