Star Blog

One of those weeks where there was NO chance of blogging. You have to be sat in front of a computer to do that - or I do - and I just haven't been here this week.

Monday I was out all day with the family. I promised them I would do this every opportunity after the year we've had, where I've been living away for most of it, not even being able to make it down for half our summer holiday. So ... good to do. Costly, though. We seem to be making up for lost time in the shopping dept. snapping up everything our greedy eyes fall on. Today that meant new pairs of shoes for all five of us - two pairs for wife. Or put another way, about £250 worth of footwear by the time I got to the check out desk. Did get myself a very fash pair of boot-type-shoes though. You know the thing. The kind that say I'm-not-young-anymore-but-I'm-not-that-fucking-old-yet-cheers, and yes, I can afford this sort of thing (when the tax man's not looking).

Tuesday I was up at 6.00a.m. finishing off the script for a Planet Rock 'Classic Album Special' I was writing and presenting on Hello by Status Quo - this officially being Quo Month at the station. Finished it just in time to cram a sandwich into my yawning gob, throw on some semi-clean clothes and run out the door for the train to London. First time I've been in the Planet Rock studio since last November. Amazing how quickly it all comes back to you, though. Spent the afternoon recording then bumped into Nicky Horne on my out again and stood around putting the world to rights, along with the station's new zillionaire owner, Malcolm, who'd I never met before. I hadn't realised he would actually be there, sleeves rolled up, mucking in. But he was. A good sign. Got home in time to eat, neck a glass of red and work out my route to my job the next day - meeting point, glamourous Hemel Hempstead.

Wednesday was up at 6.00a.m. again - why O Lord, why? - trying to get it together to drive to Hemel Hempstead in time for a morning meet with a film crew. Totally unconnected to the Quo programme on Planet Rock the day before, weirdly we were filming interviews with Rick Parfitt (at a guitar warehouse in Romford) and Francis Rossi (at his home studio in Purley) for a forthcoming DVD thingy. The whole thing took about 12 hours. Not the interviews, just the travelling, setting up and general crap that goes into these things. Luckily, the crew who I'd never worked with before, were tres cool, good fellas from Leeds, no mucking about. Rick and Francis were their usual chatty selves too. "Don't tell me what this is about, I don't want to know," said Rick, who has recently become a member of the Old Dad's Club, of which I am currently president, of course. He's had twins though, poor, poor bastard. He looked about 10 years older than the last time I saw him. Francis, of course, never changes, despite having eight kids by three different 'wives'. If anything, he was looking even better than the last time I saw him. The only thing he moaned about was that the interview went on till nearly 7.30p.m., or as he put it, "an hour past my first joint of the day time."

Then yesterday, Thursday, I was back at Planet Rock in London re-recording the whole Quo programme as the sodding computer didn't catch anything I'd done two days before. I didn't mind actually as this second go was a huge improvement on the first. I actually sounded like I knew what I was doing. Most rare. Then in the evening I went with them all to view their new premises in Edgeware Road. Pretty much the whole production staff were there, along with Malcolm the zillionaire. Afterwards we repaired to the local pub, The Phoenix, aptly named considering how close the station came to extinction until Malcoilm got out his giant-sized chequebook a couple of months ago. The place was a weird blend of Paddy pub - Guinness, Magners, whiskey, in large, very large, or fucking large glasses; departure lounge - Sky News on the huge wrap-around TV monitor; and Thai restaurant - replete with menu, chopsticks, and lots of spicey stuff with hot sauces and raw carrot shavings on little paper plates.

Stayed in there long enough to remember why I used to enjoy going to pubs in the old days. It was even better now, though, that people can't smoke in them anymore. Mind you, the place was practically empty apart from the Planet Rock crowd. I see this becoming a new home from home for them (and possibly me). Good also to see Trevor White, head honcho of programmes, looking relaxed again. How he steadied the ship long enough to sop it from going under I don't know but he's looking well on it, whatever it is.

Got home even later than the previous two nights. And now today, Friday, I am... working on Status Quo again. Writing notes for a coffee table book they've got coming out later this year, which I'll talk about some other time. It looks like I'll be doing little else but Quo-ing it for the next couple of weeks. Well, there are worse ways of spending your lonely middle years, I suppose.

One last thing I can't let go unsaid. Jimmy Page and his 'boyish' pigtail, Leona Lewis and her 'lovely' dress... is there anyone out there - anyone at all - who thinks that what they did on the top of the double-decker 'London' bus in China last Sunday was even remotely like a good idea? Someone I know said Robert Plant must have been pissing himself with laughter. More like weeping tears of shame...

Another weird day of two halves yesterday. From 8.00a.m. until 2.00pm I was babysitting boy and eldest girl (and dog and cat) while wife took youngest girl to the JR for another visit to the official Wall Wing of the hospital. This time for Mag 3 tests on her kidneys. For those that don't know this involves a lot of heat for a five-year-old - needles jutting out of limbs for hours, peeing while being X-rayed, etc - but my little darling handled it all well, apparently. Results anon. Prayers pending. Both kidneys with onions please.

Meanwhile, her dad was back home struggling to cope with domestic lunacy by feeding up the blighters and forcing them to watch back-to-back episodes of Spongebobsquarepants. Or maybe it was the other way around, the brain wasn't working well enough to know. In the end I turned all New Dad and took them for a bike ride. That is, I walked slow while they pedalled frantically. Down to the duck pond, past the shops, via the stretch known as Chav Central where the pram-faced mothers are worse than hip hop gangstas, and back home again. Whole thing took an hour and a half, at the end of which I gave them ice cream and biscuits, hoping they would flake out long enough to give me five minutes semi-peace.

Yeah, right. Wife and Other Child were home not long after though so I at least managed to squeeze in a shower before Part Two of the day ensued with the long-promised now not quite-fancied trip to the clothes chop I have been weedling out of for ages. Ended up in Cowley at Matalan with a huge basket on wheels spilling over with about £400 worth of clothes, of which about £2.50 worth was for me and/or wife. I mean, yes, we had to get the girls lots of school stuff for the new year which starts in two weeks, but this was weird. Unless you've shopped with two girls - and I don't mean teenagers or above, I mean single-digit age kids - you have no idea how precocious and fashion-savvy they somehow are. I wasted the first 20 minutes trying to join in then gave up after being told one too many times how I must be JOKING they'd NEVER wear that in a MILLION years! Then just pushed the cart and ran after the boy while the girls threw more and stuff into the cart.

Even the boy - who is two - knew exactly what he wanted and didn't want. How can that be? I've got the best part of 50 years on him and I still have no clue what I want or don't want. Anyway, thank god for credit cards. At least it feels like you're not really being made poor. Until much later, by which time it doesn't matter anymore anyway, all bills being boots in the arse whatever the small print.

Today has been a bit better though. Wife and kids have gone out this afternoon to visit Nanna and Granddad, leaving dad to get on with some work, which so far has involved lying on the couch reading the newspaper, making coffee and feeding the dog, putting on the dishwasher, making more coffee, then coming in here to my office to ogle the woman across the road with the large chest and small pink vest bending over weeding her front garden. It's what Saturdays are for. Or should be...

Good day yesterday. Went see Simon Porter, Quo manager, who drove us down for a meeting with the design team working on a project for the forthcoming Quo tour. Have no idea how much of this might still be confidential, so can't spoil the party here. Just to say that every year Simon always somehow manages to make the annual Quo UK tour a bit more special than just another tour, and this year he really has excelled himself. Pleased too he's asked me to be involved. It not only gets me out of the house - meeting cool people like the ones we visited yesterday, very 21st Century company, huge barn-like offices next to fields with horses and a stream with ducks - but it gives me something to write about that isn't just the usual yawnsome tour-album-tour stuff.

Less fun today though visiting the Bottom Doctor at the hospital in Oxford. Got there ten minutes late because parking at the JR is beyond evil, and when I apologised to the blonde receptionist she smiled and said "That's OK, we're running about an hour late anyway. Please wait over there."

By "over there" she meant stand with about 100 other poor arse-compromised specimens. So many all the hard plastic seats were taken. Could. Not. Handle. It. Not even a little bit. The thought of standing there for "an hour" - in NHS terms, at least two - with a lot of other sore red arses hanging out was simply too much. Fuck THIS, I said to myself. As you do. And asked for another appointment.

"Yes. The earliest we could see you would be November 6th," said the blonde sadist behind the desk, clearly taking weird pleasure in my, um, discomfort. I left vowing to go private. No idea how much it costs, though fairly sure whatever it is it will be too much. But really! I've been trying to get some bastard with the initials 'Dr' before his / her name to sort my piles out for nearly a year now. And many more years off and on before that. I've had enough. The children won't be able to eat for a month and wife will have to do the school-run barefoot but fuck it all, my arse needs serious caring-sharing attention. And going private means you get good drugs and a nurse with nice tits to hold your hand while they do whatever unspeakable thing it is they have to do to you.

Meanwhile... back in the ever-more interesting world of rock, I expect you've heard the exciting news about Jimmy Page teaming up with Simon Cowell 'discovery' Leona Lewis for a doubtless staggering version of 'Whole Lotta Love' at the Olympic handover ceremony in Bejing on Sunday? David Beckham will be there too, doing backing vocals presumably. When a pal told me this the other day I didn't know whether to believe it or not. This, after all, is more Brian May territory, isn't it, than Dark Knight Page?

But no. It seems that without Robert - still busy doing the right thing with Alison - Jimmy really hasn't got anything else to do. Bless him. And of course Ross is along for the ride too. Wonder how he'll get on with the Very Talented Leona. I just hope they've got a good version of Nobu out there...

Christ what a day. I had almost finished going through the Zeppelin copy edit thingy when - fuck it all - the computer did a really weird thing and something like 165 of the 450-odd pages just vanished from the screen. OK, when I say the computer did a weird thing, I mean I somehow pressed an unknown combination of buttons inadvertently that made a weird thing happen. It still blew what's left of my brains out last night. I went to bed with my head tucked under my arm. The upshot, me sat here at 5.30 this morning, trying to fix it all, re-doing something I had already spent all yesterday doing, except re-doing it in half the time to meet the 9.30a.m. deadline. Oh yes, there is a god and he lives right up my arse.

The only good side of shit like that is what follows after the document is finally sent flying down the invisible pipes of the internet to its fuck-arse destination, the feeling of having fought against unfair odds and having won through, somehow, good old fucking you. So I made myself and everyone around me a hearty breakfast, then showered and lay down on the bed with the cat for an hour, dreaming of a world without phones.

The only trouble was the real day had to start after that and by midday I was in the car with wife and kids and driving to the shops and other urgent destinations. Before returning to the office, where I have spent the last five hours working on the libel report of the Other Damn Thing I'm also working on at the moment and which rather infuriatingly for you I still feel unable to mention yet directly by name. As you may have gathered though, it's something of a... um... book. No other word for it. And it was written pretty fucking quickly even by own world beating standards. But here's the good part, reading it back today, it reminds me of this blog. That is, something written blindingly quick, with no regard for what anyone actually thinks or being fair or right or any of that old cobblers. Just right off the old battterooo straight onto the smudged and dirty screen. And guess what, I quite like the bastard. Not cos it's good, or great or even mildly anything. It's just fun and quick. After nine months writing, and two years researching Zep, it may even have been just what the doctor ordered.

Tell ya more about it later. First, I've got another evening ahead of me reading the proofs. And drinking red wine. Oh yes, that kind of book...

Reading back yesterday's blog entry a strange delrium seemed to have overtaken me. Well, not to worry, it's all gone now. Back to reality today, working my way through the copy editor's report on the Zeppelin book. Unlike the Editor's reactions, which are to do with substance, like is the damn thing any bloody good, copy editors are essentially more concerned with style. This ranges from the correct use of commas, to pointing out annoying things like repetition, and questioning what an author clearly waffling actually bloody well means. All good stuff. Except for when the copy editor oversteps the mark and tries to talk an author down from his/her lofty perch on the literary mountain and suggests serious cuts to their work. Such has been the case today. The only way to combat such outrages is not to yell FUCK OFF as is the obvious inclination but to try and argue one's corner, with tact, taste and general good humour. None of which I'm any sodding good at of course.

So... a long day. Still going on, in fact, as I run from it for a moment to write this. Not that the copy editor is evil or stupid or even particularly wrong. But as my wife pointed out, the copy editor has spent a few intense weeks on this, I have spent over two cunt-filled years. The copy editor might have lost a bit of sleep. I appear to have lost the 20-year friendship of Jimmy Page (how dare I try and write a better book than the bog-awful Hammer Of The Gods), Robert Plant (he'll change his mind when he sees it) and related friends like - apparently - Cookie, who ceased all communications the moment I fessed up and told her what I was doing. (Please come back Cookie, I miss you...)

So sod the copy editor. I'm sticking by my guns. Right or wrong, tedious or terrific, this one's mine. So there. (Cue sound of insane Joker-like laughter...)

Well, yes, I left without saying goodbye. What else could I do? Finished working by midday Monday, took one last - LAST, DAMMNIT!!! - phone call. Then threw anything I could think I might possibly need into the car, plus one of those FUCKING LARGE portable cups of coffee, punched in the house alarm and roared off down the road like a bastard in a haze of ozone-unfriendly fumes. Fuck the good earth, I'm off to sunny, god-fondled Dorset. That was my attitude and I don't mind saying so.

And what did I find when I got there? Why, the same things I'd left behind almost - a house full of screaming kids and a wife with a long-suffering face (and back and legs and god knows what else). Unbridled joy. It was also raining and stayed raining for the next week or so. Sheer ecstasy. It was too. For the first time in nine months I felt like I had NOTHING TO DO. Even if that 'nothing' meant being bossed around from dawn to dusk by people no higher than my knee, it felt good.

Of course, this being The Year Of The Locust or whatever you call a cunt when you want to be polite, the phone didn't understand I was on a break and I found myself writing features for the Planet Rock website, answering yet more queries (a good word for it) for the Zeppelin book, plus several other things I knew were waiting to happen but in my holiday-induced foolishness had assumed might just, you know, go away or something. But didn't.

Not that I am complaining. Nosirreee. This time two years ago I had so little work I was practically retired. Now I've got so much coming out of my arse I'm dreaming of being retired. Hand on heart, there's nothing like it. Oh yes. So anyone out there thinking of hiring me to write MORE FUCKING BOOKS and whatnot, go right ahead, I'm back now and ready to rock.

Sort of. It's amazing what 10 days of rain, kids, wife, piles, and your own increasingly old face in the mirror can do for your ambitions. Oh, and we bought a dog. A 10-week-old Springer Spaniel. Pedigree, natch. I like my dog shit to be classy. We have called her Ruby and she is a beautiful doll. Amazing to think that after our last dog, Annie, died last year, I vowed then we would never have animals again, or at least until either the children grew up and left home or we became inexplicable millionaires and could afford a farm big enough for me to escape and hide on. Now we have a cat and a dog. As well as everything else.

A good holiday then? No, a great one.