Star Blog

A work day, no matter what else is supposedly going on in the world today. That's what I kept reminding wife of anyway. Not that she takes any notice. I think she thinks a work day means just more of the same except that I also somehow manage to fit a bit of work in. And I suppose she's right.

Started well, though, work-wise anyway. Andrew Davies from the Mail On Sunday emailed to say the revised (rewritten, redrafted, re-thought out, oh christ why couldn't I have got it right first time) draft of the Jean Michel Jarre piece was fine. Then I got to work on Axl. That is, the updated additional material the publishers want for the paperback edition which comes out in the UK in May. I didn't think I'd have much to say - yes, he's still loony; no, the Chinese Democracy album hasn't been released yet shock yawn horror.

But I've been keeping notes about various things as they've cropped up throughout the year and actually there is quite a lot to add after all. Probably a whole extra chapter. Meanwhile, the US edition is out in the New Year. What fun. The Led Zeppelin book, meanwhile, continues to gnaw at my brain, giving me even more reason for not sleeping at night. A friend emailed me a bootleg clip today of them doing 'Misty Mountain Hop' at the O2 and it gave me a jolt. It was exactly as I remembered it - and then again nothing like it. These things never sound as good as they do on the night of course. But it really brought it home how hard Plant had to try and manage his vocals. The 60-year-old voice just doesn't do those high notes anymore. Other than that though, he really carried the gig. The others were good too, obviously, especially Jason who had the hardest job of all as Chad Smith, Dave Grohl et al looked down from on high. And I had expected Plant to be doing us all a favour. But actually he was great. A total pro.

Meanwhile, its goodbye to 2007 and hello to whatever the hell comes next. Out with the old and in with the not quite so old. Wife has been preparing by throwing out sack after sack of old clothes, toys, shoes and anything else she can find that isn't nailed down or has my name rubber stamped on it. Looking back at the blog from this time last year I see I was working on the Axl book that day too. I'd like to sum that up as life coming full circle or something. Except of course that would be bollocks. So I'll just leave you with these words: Happy New Year. And may we all get everything we deserve.

Had a v.serious talk with wife the night before last in which I made it clear that we were now officially broke and that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to spend any more money on ANYTHING other than the absolute necessities, i.e. food and wine for daddy and enough bread and water to keep the kids and cat going. "OK," she said. "No," I said, "This time I FUCKING MEAN IT!" She looked at me: "OK," she said. OK...

Then yesterday we went out. I wasn't going to, I have my unfinished Led Zeppelin Symphony to get back to and which is starting to give me sleepless nights again. But she looked at me and I thought, well, fuck it, it is the weekend. So we did something we haven't done in, literally, months and months, and went to a certain nearby town where there is an arcade where we get quite a lot of our antiques. Not that we have a large collection. And those things we do have are used as functional objects (apart from the paintings). And we just like it there cos it's nice to wander around, especially if the boy is asleep, which he almost never is anymore, not even at night, the little bastard.

Yesterday, however, God or the Devil or one of those must have been smiling/frowning on/at us because the boy was out for the count in his buggy which meant we could actually have a good look around without too much interruption (only the girls with their usual endless questions, why, what for, how, when, can I have chocolate, I need to wee-wee etc). This proved to be fatal, as I realised the moment we entered the furniture shop which is my favourite part of the arcade.

In the past we have bought our bed, a chest of drawers and a chiffonier from here and we nearly always find something we like whenever we go in. Yesterday that proved to be a gigantic flamed Mahogany linen press, circa 1820. A huge thing with its top cupboard converted into a place to hang your suits, jackets, shirts, whatnots, making it into a wardrobe and just the sort of thing we've been after for over a year now. The knobs on the drawers are brass lions' heads and the whole thing is just gorgeous. Only snag: the price. Not cheap. Not fucking cheap at all. I looked at wife: "No way, Ho-zay." She looked back. "OK..."

Then the owner, David, a big bear of a man who I have become quite friendly with over the years, told me who he'd got it from: a Very Famous Comedian who shall remain nameless at the request of his widow, and that he'd be prepared to shave a certain amount off the price if...

The plastic was in my hand before you could say debtors jail. Drove home whistling, the world a mighty fine place to be. Then woke up this morning in a cold sweat wondering what the fuck we'd done. "It's an investment," said wife, trying to cheer me up. "Just think, we can always sell it if we get poor or you die or something." Which was nice of her.

Just before Midnight this arrived:

'Mick... I said keep your diary going not write War and fucking Peace... Happy New Year or Christmas... I amazingly rather enjoyed mine... Off to the East, Ross x'

Which just goes to show you can't bloody win. Mind you, I wouldn't mind being 'off to the East' for a few days. That boy sure gets around. Instead, I'm stuck here trying to finish off a piece on Jean Michel Jarre for the Mail On Sunday's Live magazine. They like what I've done so far, they just need a little more 'colour'. That is to say, less about the wine and the song, and more about the women. And the money, and what he splurges it on. So can I get him on the phone TODAY for a bit of an extra chat please. I don't mind. I actually enjoyed meeting him, especially in Paris which of course is exactly where you want to meet someone like Jean Michel. And at least it gets me out of having to go shopping with the family. Which I also don't mind.

While I'm sitting here waiting for the phone to ring I've been updating my MySpace page. That is, ogling the babes and adding a few new faces with interesting profile pics. I've noticed that quite a few of my 'friends' have buggered off since I stopped doing the blog regularly. What's weird though is that once they've gone I can barely remember who they were. In fact, of the 466 of my current so-called friends there are probably about half a dozen I actually feel I 'know' - Julie, Becky, Tina, Rain - and hardly any of those that I've actually met (not you, Dan, b'woy).

It's fascinating though how many MySpacewomen feel the need to put pictures of themselves on line wearing hardly any clothes at all and in as many provocative poses as possible. This is way sexier and more interesting than cyber porn. None of it is technically nude, though often as close as you can possibly get. While a lot of it is actually extremely inventive, artistic, charming and... well, addictive. To both the viewer and the viewee, one suspects. I like it. Like being turned on but not so fully it makes you put your hand down your trousers and at the same time, ironically, more aware of these people as actual people. Which is of course the most exciting thing to comprehend of all. And also the most puzzling.

Not that those are the only people you will 'meet' there. There are others, men and women, who just seem like genuine souls with something to say. Considering how disdainful I used to be of the whole internetworking thing, I actually approve of a lot of this. Up to a point. I don't see myself putting any pictures of the old bod up there anytime soon though. Not even for 'artistic' reasons. No, it's no use begging...

Xmas day got off to a surprisingly late start. Well, late by small kids' standards - just after 8.00am. For some reason they decided to let Mummy and Daddy off the hook. Saving the best till later, actually, because by 9.00am downstairs looked like the playroom of a lunatic asylum. I remember years ago living with a (mad bitch) girlfriend who liked to start Xmas morning with coffee, champagne, chocolate and big fat joints. Admittedly, back then I too thought this the height of something if not exactly chic then better than a poke in the arse with a soft dick. Oh how far off those days seem now. Now it's a long (loooooong) procession of tiny hands ripping open impossibly huge items gaily wrapped seemingly mere hours before by wife and me. (Mainly wife.)

This is great fun but after what seems like the first couple of hours greatly wearying. There are only so many dolls, cars, games, clothes, mermaid tails and attendant etc parts that I can keep focussed on with just a cup of cold tea for sustenance as the DVD of Shrek 3 plays loudly in the background. I did, however, manage to make the traditional Dad's Fry Up Brekkie. Which everyone enjoyed. Especially Dad.

Then at about 11... I sloped off back to bed. I swear I couldn't keep my eyes open a second longer. Wife was very cool, no moaning, no slamming doors, just peace, love and understanding. For once. When I woke up it was the middle of the afternoon. Just time to shower and get downstairs in time to make the Traditional Dad's Dinner. No turkey, just two plump free range chickens, done in my own Very Special Way.

After that... well, look, I could be here all day telling you that. But just make up your own sentences using the buzzwords cheese, wine, cookies, music, songs, shouting, cat hugging, laughing, crying, more wine, coffee, kissing, shouting, dancing, TV, music, TV, shouting and lots and lots of shit EVERYWHERE. Place still looks like Santa's dumping ground two days later.

As for Boxing Day: more of the same only more and more and more so. Plus Linda's Mum and Dad. Her Dad looks fatter by the day (he's taken up cooking since his retirement) while her Mum is looking thinner by the hour (she's taken up not eating). It was bizarre and macabre in parts and funny and nice in others. Mainly it was just sodding Xmas. Again. Oh Lord how many more...

And then there was the night we went to see Status Quo. Towards the end of my stay at the hotel, I was so sick of the food there that was I driving into a cafe in Abingdon to eat breakfast every morning and coming home every night to have dinner - before leaving to go back to the hotel afterwards where I woud get a couple more hours writing in before going to bed and pretending to sleep. But at the time of the Quo gig in Oxford I'd only been at the hotel a couple of weeks so wasn't in contact with home much at all. Which made wife's visit that night extra special.

For the first time since we became parents seven years ago, we'd arranged for someone to look after the kids. That is, for the whole night. And it was like going on a date again - almost. She came to the hotel (in Oxford), got dressed there, we had a drink together, then left for the show. Very weird not having any ankle-biters around to distract us. Like being proper grown-ups again - almost.

When we got to the venue Simon Porter, Quo's manager, and his wife Christine, were there to meet us. They took us backstage to say hello to Francis and Rick, who had never met my wife before - and was kind of the whole point of the trip really. Ever since they found out I had a wife nearly 20 years younger than me they've wanted to meet her. Partly, I assume, to check I wasn't lying. And partly, no doubt, to see if she was a hunchback or something.

Well, we met, they did their double act thing and wife stood there smiling, not really knowing what to make of it. Afterwards she whispered to me: "They're much shorter than I'd imagined in real life." People say that about me too, I reminded her. "Yes, but you are short,"`she said.

Then Simon and Christine took us for dinner at this Chinese place across the road from the venue which I must have walked past at least a hundred times in the 12 years I've lived in the Oxford area and yet never once looked into. One of those v.cool places with such an unassuming facade - that is to say, crap-looking - that you wouldn't normally gve it a second glance. But that if you do actually venture inside reveals itself to be one of the most brilliant restaurants you've been to. Huge basement place, a-may-zing food, great service, I didn't want to leave.

Fortunately neither did anyone else and by the time we finally left for the gig it was almost over. We got there just in time to catch the last number - Whatever You Want, plus the encores, Rockin' All Over The World and, er, something else good. That's my kind of gig. In, out, not too much shaking all about, a few quick hits and then home.

When we got back to the hotel we were like a pair of giggly teenagers - almost. We could have simply carried on driving and gone all the way home but the hotel was paid for and, well, you know, there's something horny about staying in a hotel, especially when it's your first night alone together, kid-less and fancy free for over seven years. Then just as we were getting undressed, Penny, our saintly friend who was looking after the babbaloos, texted wife a picture of our boy, tucked up in bed with the caption: Little Sleepy Head.

That did it. Floods of tears. Unwarranted guilt. Deep yearning to immediately drive round there and scoop the kids all up in one big loving armful and whisk them home. And that was just me. You should have seen the state of wife...

I said I would try and fill in some of the blanks but now I'm here... ah, well, you know. Let me at least tell you about the hotel I was in for a month. One of those rundown four-star places that look good on entry and far less so by the time you exit. Like an old girlfriend you run into that still looks good after a few drinks but whose breath stinks in the morning. Not that I didn't like it there. Apart from the room service menu which really was awful, I liked it a lot. The thing is, I got some work done. So much so it made me realise how much of my precious working time gets cut away simply by trying to work from home. For instance, as I write this on a foggy Sunday afternoon I can hear my youngest daughter screaming in the next room. In the old days when I used to operate out of a small boxroom upstairs it wasn't so bad. Whatever else was happening in the rest of the house it wasn't happening in my face. There were less children running around then too.

Now that we live in a big enough place for me to have my own 'study' downstairs it's hell. As I write this, my two-year-old son has just walked in. I love seeing him but not every five minutes when I'm working. In fact, I'm starting to hate working from home - or trying to - so much so I'm seriously considering renting an apartment just to have somewhere to get some fucking work done. It's unbelievable. I've been working like this, off and on, for 30 years, and I can deal with anything but I cannot deal with this. Even in the days when I lived in a drug pit of stinking students and career criminals that played decibel-defying music 24-7 I was able to work. Kids beat all though.

So... yeah, the hotel was great, despite the shitty decor, the crap food, the Eastern European staff that couldn't understand a word I said and, eventually, the butt-clenching Xmas parties they started to have - cue: punters fighting and throwing up in the car park all night long. I could deal with all that because I had a room I could sit in with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door which meant no one actually knocked on it or came through it. And I GOT SOME WORK DONE.

Now I'm home again it feels more impossible than ever. Like, I had to pause AGAIN before I wrote that last sentence because wife came in and apologised for all the noise, at the same time as interrupting me yet again to do it. Jesus Christ. I love my wife and kids but I am starting to hate being here. I mean, really.

Then there's the bah humbug factor. Every time I come up for air someone's talking to me about Xmas. I know it's that time of year but I'm on a deadline for chrissakes. So no, sorry, but I can't just pop out for a drink, go round to see the family, sign cards for the neighbours, worry about the chicken or whateverthefuck it is now. I love Xmas because my kids love it but can I get back to you a bit nearer the day? It's like John Lennon sang: 'And so this is Xmas, and what have you done?' Fuck all so far, John, fuck all...

Well, hello again. Yes, I was gone and gone for good but now, thanks to Ross Halfin mainly, who has told me how "arrogant" it looks just stopping like that, I am back. For how long I don't know, though I suspect there's no real way to ever end this bloody thing. It was nothing personal by the way, I've really enjoyed and been extremely flattered by the attention and most of the comments the blog has received over the past 18 months, I'd just had enough. Things in the family are v.difficult right now, with my wife's mum being so ill, then there were the weeks I spent mostly at a hotel wrestling with how to write a book about Led Zeppelin. That is, the sort of Led Zeppelin book nobody has ever read before. And then the computer on which I tap into the internet broke. Just like that. Apart from anything else, there just hasn't been the time. I've even had to give up doing the Planet Rock shows at the weekend. All of which, coupled to my own growing disgust at the thought of sitting here every day sharing whatever cobblers was running round my mind, meant I really could not be fucked to do this anymore.

As you will have gathered if you're still with me, I still can't really. I do think Ross has a point though and if I'm going to stop I should at least say goodbye properly. Or au revoir, at least. I have to say, I've also been quite taken aback at how many emails I've received from people asking for the blog to continue. People like Colin Irwin who has never given up and continues to pester me to this very day. Or Becky Underwood, who is kindness and sympathy personified. Even Guy the Gorillla who writes from Australia telling me to "suck it up" and get back to writing. (Cheers for that.) While my (real) old friend Maureen Rice sent me a wonderful email that was so persuasive it made me ashamed. (And so well written - like one of the better entries on this blog, only, um, better.)

So anyway, here I am, no idea how to start again or what to fill you in on - my dinner with Quo, my visit to the Zep show, my trip to Paris this week to interview Jean Michel Jarre, my right bollock which hurts and makes me wonder if I've got testicular cancer and which I'd go to the doctor about except it's bloody Xmas and so it will have to wait and besides I've had enough of doctors these past few weeks, months, long dark nights...

What I might do is come back and put stuff in on a day by day basis. Fill in some of the blanks before I completely forget them. If anyone's still interested. And then again...