Star Blog

Oh god what a day. It makes me yawn and ache just trying to think about it. Wrote another War Story for Classic Rock in the morning. Then transcribed my interview with James Hetfield for a story in Metal Hammer in the afternoon. All this in between sending and answering emails about... god knows what. Can't remember. The Classic Rock radio show (got a new producer who doesn't know the ropes yet but sounds like a groovy cat so here's hoping), some Radio 4 show I was going to be on later this week but that has now been cancelled and... fuck it, I really can't recall the rest. It all seemed so urgent at the time. I do remember loading the dishwasher and putting the laundry on, at least once. Wife was out all day and so I thought you know. I also took time to throw some meat and vegetables into a big green pot and start a small fire under it, not forgetting to add stock, seasoning and the sweat from my rapidly aging brow. Oh yeah, and I also staggered around on the treadmill for 45 minutes or so at some point. I'm trying to do that every other day at the moment and so far so good except I keep waking up the next day feeling like I've been hit by a truck. It's funny, wife has recently taken to running with the dog on the clumps every morning and she wakes up fit as a fiddle, barely know she'd twitched her arse. That's what 19 years difference does for you, I suppose. That and all the long nights and longer days in between. Wait, it's coming back... I also drove like a bastard to the pharmacy late on after boy threw himself backwards off the couch. I think he was being Buzz Lightyear at the time as his last words before the almighty bump were "I come in peace!" Me, too, mate, and look where it got me...

Tired, tired, tired. The clocks going forward an hour at the weekend didn't help obviously. Neither did the fact that wife and I sat up late talking last night. It's the only chance we get to talk without children, emails, phones or dogs interrupting. Another night of long involved dreams doesn't exactly leave you feeling rested either. You can see why sleeping tabs have retained their popularity. Not that I'm tempted. Did too much 'sleeping' in my younger years, thanks for nothing.

Anyway, today trundled on with or without us. Wife drove eldest daughter down to Newbury to do her Grade 2 exam on the clarinet this afternoon, which menat I had to pick youngest daughter up from school. "Go faster, daddy!" she squeals cos she's in my MG. I swear that girl is going to be the terrible tearaway of the family when she gets probably not too much older. Then tonight I was on babysitting duty again as wife and eldest went to karate, leaving me, youngest girl and boy to fight over the telly. (Guess who didn't win, cheers.) It wasn't too bad, though. I mean, I like Fireman Sam. And Charlie and Lola. I just wish I felt that sleepy when I was in bed.

In between all this I have of course been in here hammering away at the laptop, mainly trying to get the website stuff Julie needs sorted. But also doing some album reviews for Classic Rock and trying to transcribe the James Hetfield interview in time for next month's Metal Hammer. Also got a burning desire to work right now due to the arrival of gas and electricity bills totally £700 at the weekend, and then notice today of an enormous VAT bills (or FUCKING enormous as I believe they say in G20 financial circles) from Damian the rock'n'roll accountant. Christ on the cross, how I'm going to pay that is currently one of those mysteries you see people with green-lit eyes worrying out loud about on the Living Dead channel or whatever it's called. Tooooo depressing. Especially when you're tired (but not sleepy).

Didn't go to Metallica in the end then, though did speak to Lars on the phone who was very nice about it. "Let's meet up at Knebworth instead," he said. I'd like that. Then Ross rang me from his car on the way to the show. He'd literally only just arrived back in London that morning from Australia and was sounding hazy, I think that's the right word. "I hear you're going to a rock'n'metal party," he said. "I was, I said, until the trains stopped working. "What!" he cried. "What do you mean?" His son, Oliver, who was due to meet him at the show, didn't know yet about the trains. Poor kid, what a nightmare. I left Ross to try and sort it out. Then Alex, the editor of Metal Hammer, texted me. "You here, sir?" No, I texted back. The trains and blahblahblah. "Cunts," he texted back. Quite so. Then Pete Makowski emailed me. NO, I DIDN'T GO, I mailed him back. "Don't blame you," he mailed back. "Nightmare." We decided to make up for it by going to a Handsome Family show in Reading in a few weeks. Pete suggested it. He knows I like that rootsy sort of vibe. Nothing fancy, like so much else about me.

Fortunately, today has been more pleasantly dream-like. The sun has been boiling like an egg in the blue saucepan sky. The wind has been a bastard though. Cold as lice. Not that that stopped wife and I treating the kids to some outdoors time at the swings-and-roundabouts. The more time they spend doing stuff like that the easier our evenings become as the fresh air catches up with them and the metaphorical blankets settle across their cages. Trouble is we are not immune to the same effect and before you know it our Us Time has turned into Zed Time Big Time Is That The Fucking Time Fuck It Time!

Where does it all go you wonder in those rare moments when you can think straight? Actually, I don't even want to know. Listening instead right now to the Classic Rock show on Rock Radio. Don't know who the DJ is but by God he's good. Fucking good, as they say in pro radio circles. Hear for yourself at www.rockradio.co.uk...

Too busy to blog, I don't actually remember what I was doing yesterday that kept me so rapt, I really don't. Apart from sending Julie various things down the line that she needs to get going on revamping my website. But I didn't finally get around to that until about 5.00pm. Before that it's all a blur. I remember talking on the phone to Pete Makowksi for a good hour or so, though who knows what about, other than the usual, you know, life, death and the meaning of Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page. And I do remember spending way too much of it wondering how in hell I'm supposed to get to the O2 tonight without a tube train to take me there once I get to London. The Jubilee Line is closed for refurbishment and the only alternatives are all infinitely unappealing. As follows 1) get the riverboat taxi. Nice idea, until you discover the first one doesn't leave until 5.00pm, takes 30 minutes to get to the arena and that your interview with Lars is scheduled for 5.20pm. 2) Get in the car and drive there. Not such a nice idea. An hour and a half to drive to London, then who knows how long, two hours (three?) to try and find my way around London to deepest, darkest Greenwich or wherever the hell the place is. On a Saturday. The worst day of the week to even walk in London let alone drive anywhere. Or 3) Drive to London, get a British trail train to Charlton, then look for a bus to take me to the arena. In the wind and the pissing rain. On a Saturday. And then, even if you've succeeded in not losing what's left of your tiny fucking mind doing that there's the problem of getting back again. On a Saturday night. In London. At Zombie and Creep Hour. Fuck...

In the end I decided to do the interview on the phone. It's only a 15-minute job, finishing up where we left off the other day. I'd still like to go to the show, though, especially as Lars and Kirk were sweet enough to ask me. I just don't see how I can do that right now. Maybe inspiration will strike as the day wears out its welcome, or Lars makes me feel guilty when we speak. We'll see.

Meanwhile... here I sit, still sending new website stuff to Julie, while listening to Marquee Moon by Television on Spotify. I remember thinking how the title track was possibly the greatest rock song I had ever heard when I first bought the album back in 1977. Listening to it now, my views have obviously, um, broadened somewhat. It's still one of the best rock tracks ever though. Those minty, cob-webby guitars, that seductive sexy rhtyhm, those deathly quill-and-ink words... "I remember how the darkness doubled. I recall lightning struck itself. I was listening, listening to the rain. I was hearing, hearing... something else." Fucking poetry, mate, and no argument allowed.

Oh... where to start? With the broken down studio, perhaps, where Geoff Barton and I were forced to sit chewing the cud - inevitably about "the old days" - while waiting for the swearing and perspiring engineer to try and work out what was wrong - before finally recording this week's Classic Rock radio show? Or perhaps with the attack of the Almighty Shits that nearly forced me into an alley like a dog with no collar on my way to the studio in Paddington? Or maybe with the sweet and touching coversations I found myself having later in the day with the good old boys in Metallica?

Let's start with the shits. I know this has become something of a regular topic in this blog over the past few weeks but, hell, they're back again. Or rather, they returned unexpectedly for a one-night-only-back-by-special-demand command performance yesterday afternoon as I tottered like a man with a bullet in his gut from the train at Paddington to the studio where we record the Classic Rock show. At one point, convinced I wouldn't make it, I staggered into Star Bucks on the Edgeware Road only to find their toilet out of order. Fucking fuckhead fuckers!

Anyway I got to the studio just about and... well, you really don't want to know the rest. Except to say that if you were in the region of Edgeware Road in London yesterday at about 1.30pm and you felt the ground tremble and quake alarmingly for several seconds, um, that was me. Sorry.

The show itself did eventually get recorded after an hour or so of fiddling around grimacing, when a Studio Chief was summoned who waved his hands like an old-timey preacher and the whole desk suddenly magically burst back into life. I guess that's why they pay them the medium-bucks. Still, at least Geoff and I got a chance to chat. Mainly about our kids. And how much we dislike hanging around backsatage at gigs these days, although Certain PRs and Managers Who Shall Remain Clueless think they're doing you such a big fucking favour.

Anyway, did the show, then scarpered off back home, tummy feeling much better (and much emptier, thank you) in time to do a round of phone chats with James, Kirk and Lars from Metallica for a bit of stuff I'm not in a position to natter about yet. At the end of which they were all kind enough to invite me along to "hang", as we demi-rock-gods say, at their show tomorrow night at the O2. Which, weird tummy-rumblings allowing, I will be doing. While it's true I don't get out to "gigs", as I believe they're still referred to, as much I once did, let's face it, if there is a better live rock band operating anywhere in the world right now, I'm buggered if I can think of who they might be.

By the way, in case I haven't bored you enough yet with my new Spotify obsession, I am currently ploughing through the back-catalogue of the great Little Feat, Roll Um Easy, to be precise. Great, great joy. Even if I no longer have any joints to bogart.

One of those days that runs away from you like a cheese-riffing mouse from an old fat cat. The kind of skewed journey you start out convinced you know the destination of then discover yourself being driven down a completely different path as though persued by a whip-wielding lunatic. Not all bad, necessarily. Just not exactly what you had in mind as you munched your morning toast. For example, I was supposed to start getting Julie over all the bits and pieces she needs to start work on refurbishing the website today. Eight hours after I sat down to do that I still haven't managed to send a single thing. I suppose I could try doing a bit of that right now, except I'm tired. And hungry. And desperate for a bit of... nothingness. You know, those useful zeroes at the end of a day that allow the mental batteries to recharge just a little. A good night's sleep would help too but I have begun missing those again lately as dog and boy conspire to turn my light insomnia into full-blown waking nightmare delerium. Not even jumping on the treadmill this morning seems to have helped. Instead of leaving me feeling energised, I just feel fucked. What are those health farms like, I wonder? Would a short recuperative spell in one of those help? I quite fancy the idea of a week or two in a sort of hospital-hotel-whorehouse-gym type environment. Just for my mental stability, you understand. And the greater good of those sweet leaves that fall around me. I bet you meet a lot of interesting types in these places too. Pete Makowski once told me about a stay he had in a rehab joint back in the 80s. "Bring your contacts book, that's all I'm saying," he said. And you can see it, can't you? The Priory, or wherever, as the new Masonic Lodge for the 21st century, everyone rolling up their sleeves and revealing secret tattoos. Would you really come out feeling any better though, relaxed and refreshed and ready for rocking anything your shite-life slops at you? There's only one way to find out.

After another night of being woken by the dog, who has got the runs (cheers, God) then the boy who just can't stay out of mummy's bed, I woke up dead in the boy's bed with the sodding dog lying across my cramped legs. The next thing I knew I was chasing boy across the playground at school while the sun beat down and the wind chill factor soared to minus 93 or what felt like it. Either way, I was missing my figurative and metaphorical hat.

From there wife and I clumped across the clumps with sickly dog, faces to the wind, in every sense, moaning and muttering at each other. Still, you need a bit of that sometimes and traipsing across hill and dale is probably just the place to do it. After that the rest of today has been a breeze, more or less. Car had to be taken in to the garage to finish the job they started last week. Shower had to be fitted in somewhere between. As did sausage sandwich eating. And of course work. Today that meant putting the Classic Rock show together, fun but far more time-consuming than you'd imagine, then getting stuck into the updating of my website. Along the way I discovered that nearly a thousand of you dedicated users (lovely phrase) come by this spot every day. Jesus! I mean, I'm flattered, naturally. At the same time it is kind of creepy, doncha think? Perhaps you should introduce yourselves. Then again...

The new refurbished site should be up and running bit by bit over the next couple of weeks. Exciting. For me anyway. And for you users too if all goes well. Hoping to give you more than just the one reason to come by here every day. If you have any suggestions by the way on how best to do that now's the time to mail them in as Julie is busier than a dozen queen bees, god bless her honey-making ways. Meanwhile, I am continuing my quest to reach the bottom of the barrel of Spotify. Today that has mainly meant Mott The Hoople. Came across that track Born Late 58 which always reminds me of my old mate Maureen Rice, another once-upon-a-time Mott fan, as years ago she told me she saw it as "her" track, being born in December '58. I remember sitting there as she told me this desperately trying to think of some cool track that might relate to me in the same clearly essential way. And not being able to. She always did get the better of me...

Had lunch with Julie my artist friend at Pizza Express in Baker Street today. Nice gaff. Definitely recommend the Romana pizzas. Julie has kindly agreed to update my website to make it seem a little less, um, 2006 and more sort of, well, 2009. That was the buisness part of the lunch anyway, which took about 30 minutes. The other two hours we spent gossiping about the art world, which she is now part of the ruling family of, the music biz, which I try and stay away from usually unsucessfully, book publishing, radio broadcasting, and giving money to charity, which we both do quite a lot of in our different ways. Mostly it was just really good to see her again. Julie is good people, as we used to say back in the days of flares and chillums. But if we see each other once a year we're doing better than usual. It's like that with a lot of the best people I know, I've noticed. Here for all too short a spell today, gone for far too long later today. And too often tomorrow. I'd love to say more but my boy has just come in and pissed on the floor of my office and I've got to go and pretend to be cool about it.

A proper Sunday, as in one of those days that disappears without you really knowing what the fuck. Mother's Day, of course. A pain, if you ask me. Valentine's, Mother's, Father's, Easter and the rest (even sodding Xmas, if I'm honest) I hate them all. Wife loves them though so I'm obliged to participate on some level. I got my oar in early this year though with the ring, which pretty much let me off for the actual day. The kids also built up some heavy kudos by all producing homemade cards and, in the case of eldest girl, a lovely letter which had both her and her mother in tears. (Christ.) As for the rest of it... I can barely remember and it's still only the evening.

Right now, I'm typing this while listening to the Classic Rock show on Rock Radio - www.rockradio.co.uk/Scotland. Or 96.3 FM if you happen to be in Scotland. It starts to go across the whole network next month but for now Scotland is our proving ground and, um, it sounds all right, actually, even if I do say so myself as I sit here wallowing in it. I'm also feeling satiated in other ways, having just demolished another roast chicken dinner with the family. As you'll know by now, I'm the cook in this house and even though I like to moan about it in truth I wouldn't have it any other way. Not least as wife can't cook at all. I love it though. My excuse is that it gets me out from behind my desk and into another mental zone entirely. I also get to drink the occasional glass of something medicinal while I'm doing it. Astrologically, they say Cancer's are great foodies who, when they get ill, usually do so via their stomaches, and it's all true. The only other jobs I've ever really had other than writing and such have been in various kitchens. Who knows, maybe I missed my true vocation.

Well, Thursday was a good day. Drove into town to record the Classic Rock show and it all went very smoothly. A situation not to be sniffed at when it comes to recording anything, let alone a three-hour radio show. Scott Rowley, my successor as editor-in-chief at the mag, was the guest this week and he came armed with tracks from new albums by Hot Leg and Joe Bonamassa, all of which were good and interesting. You'll be able to hear just how much on Sunday from 8.00pm at www.rockradio.co.uk/Scotland.

Then Friday I had a v.easy day, going for lunch with Quo manager Simon Porter. The sun was shining, the car, which had acquired a new cam belt and water pump this week, ate up the M40, and Simon sprang for the bill, god bless him. The icing on the cake though was the nice surprise of a framed gold disc (two gold discs, actually) for last year's double 'Pictures...' album, which I did the sleeve notes for and helped put the accompanying DVD and book together for. It's a funny thing, getting gold discs when you're just a writer. Something a little fraudulent about it, you might think. Yet the only times it's happened to me - usually - are when I feel I really did contribute something towards that album's success, as with the two gold Iron Maiden and Guns N' Roses records I got back in the late 80s. (The exception was the gold record Train gave me for Drops Of Jupiter in 2001, when really all I did was make sure, as editor, that Classic Rock got behind the album.) All this stuff sits on the wall in my office. Where the Quo one will go though - bigger than all the others, due to the fact it was a double-album - I'm not sure. Wife says the lounge, I say ouch. Unless you're in the band I'm not sure you should put gold records up in your lounge. (Even if you are in the band, frankly.) We'll see.

And then there was today. Another goody, overall, though the sound of youngest daughter screeching from the next room as I scribble these notes kind of puts a dampner on that thought. Nevertheless, today has been a good family-type deal, from top to tail. While the girls were at stage school this morning wife and boy were out with the dog while I was on the treadmill, listening to Jonathan Ross on Radio 2. When I say 'listening', of course, I mean putting up with his inane babble between some quite good records. I'm not saying he's not funny, or clever or etc etc. I'm just saying he has the most awful speaking voice and that it's only when you're only half-listening (like when you're bumbling along on a treadmill, sweat and spit flying in all directions), that you realise just how awful it is. I really couldn't make out half of what he was saying, other than to notice how pleased he sounded with himself, along with the theatrical belly-laughs of his lapdog producer, Andy.

Things got instantly better this afternoon when we decided to go rocking crazy and drive to Asda in Swindon. I don't know if you've ever been but in these parts it is officially listed as the 8th wonder of the world. And rightly so. I mean, the fucking place is gigantic. I've wandered around smaller towns. And they sell EVERYTHING. And they sell it CHEAPLY. Wife and I got right into it, both of us pushing around gigantic shopping carts which we spent three solid hours filling till they were brimming over. At the end of it we still hadn't even visited half the store, we just gave up because our feet were hurting and even the kids were begging to go home. So there you have it. 40 may not be the new 30. Comedy is certainly not the new rock'n'roll. And whoever said grey was the new black was obviously a cunt. But spending your entire Saturday shopping in Asda in Swindon, now that's what I call super radical, dude. I mean, it is so where it's at I don't even feel I need to explain. You just either know what I'm talking about, mamma-jamma, or you can kiss my sweet-as. And on that note, I'm off now to inspect my fridge while I decide which delicacy to make myself sick on as I wait patiently for the kids to finally collapse and go to bed, wife to follow and Match Of The Day to begin, so that I, too, can get some serious zzzzzzzzzzzzzeds in. (I always fall asleep to Match Of The Day, just as I did when I was about 12 and was first allowed to stay up late by my parents to watch it. Which means what? 50 is the new 12? Shit, don't even get me started...)

In between trying to work, or at least going through the motions for the benefit of the invisible slave driver that exists inside what's left of my head, I have been fiddling around with Spotify. Not making playlists or sending people the 21st century equivalent of mix-tapes, I'm way past bothering with that, or other people. Just punching in the titles of albums I once owned and lost along the way and can't be buggered to shell out for again on CD but would still love to hear for nostalgiac reasons. For example, right now that means Before The Flood, the live album by Bob Dylan and The Band from 1974. Recorded during Bob's big comeback tour of the US the previous year, I remember being very taken with this as a 15-year-old, scrawling the words IT'S ALRIGHT MA, IT'S LIFE AND LIFE ONLY on my bedroom door in felt tip pen. Listening to it all again now on Spotify I realise it's the first time I've heard it in... 30 years? Don't recall what happened to the double-vinyl copy I once owned, it either got caught up in the Great Punk Cull of 77 when I ditched all my Stones, Dylan and Beatles albums (about six, in total, as I recall), unable to listen to them anymore in the light of my conversion to the New Religion of the Sex Pistols, The Clash and etc - or I sold it during the Great Secret Stash Wars of the early 80s in exchange for you know what but not why.

Hate to admit it, but it was probably down to the punk thing, for yes, I once had spiky dyed-black hair and sulphate-coloured eyes. I knew it was wrong but these were still the days of burning non-conformist rock heathens on huge bonfires made up of old copies of NME and Melody Maker. I mean, even John 'Integrity' Peel did the same thing, swapping his flares and posh privately educated voice for moth-eaten cardigans and a gruff Scouse accent. How I regretted it a couple of years later, though, when I'd finally escaped the shackles of caring overmuch what my so-called peers thought of my record collection. Yes, I still had stuff worth playing in the shape of my Patti Smith and Television albums, but mainly all the really good gear was gone.

Anyway, back to Dylan and The Band... the only thing (well, two things) that let Spotify down is that the track listings of the albums are all over the place. Hence you get Blowin' In The Wind, the set closer, cropping up on the Spotify version of Before The Flood bang in the middle of the set, replete with "Thank you, goodnight!" at the end. And of course you can't burn any of this stuff onto a CD and play it in the car, an absolutely essential requirement at this late stage of the ever less funny old game. Now I know all you hip crazy kidz out there are way ahead of me here and know all about which sites to go to to do exactly that for free but being over a Certain Age, I haven't got a clue about that. If any of you want to put me in the loop, as they might possibly still say somewhere, please do. Meanwhile... sitting here right now listening to Bob and The Band raging through Like A Rolling Stone, I realise the joy of Spotify is that it means I will never ever be tempted to buy this stuff again. Unlike, say, things like Truth by Jeff Beck, Hotel California by the Eagles and certain Miles Davis albums, all of which I have been tempted into springing for at some point from Amazon in recent times, only to be thrilled for all of five minutes when they arrived (or about as long as it took to whisk quickly through the intros to some of the tracks) before realising with a heavy sigh that I really will never play the bloody things again. Nostalgia will only take you so far. The rest, as they should start saying, really should be history...

Another long, beautiful, sunny day. Slept well last night for once, plagued by waking-dreams as always, but immersed in sold darkness for at least six hours, no piss stops or anything. As a result, full of energy when I got to my office. Cracked straight into writing this week's Classic Rock show, then went to pick boy up from pre-school as wife was at puppy training class. We ate ham sandwiches and watched Yoko, Jakomoko, Toto together on TV. Spent a couple of hours finishing off the show after wife (and puppy) got back, then jumped on the treadmill and did 50 minutes of that staggering-drunk old-git thing I call jogging. Not 50 continuous minutes, obviously, but a couple of long-ish, for me, bursts, enough to make my tail wag anyway. Then I cooked dinner for the tribe, always planning to get back to work afterwards but now that I'm here too busy feeling the aches and pains of the treadmill to do much more than this, then slope off for ice-cold juice and a long blank stare at the TV waiting for Madmen to begin, before someone throws the blanket over my budgie cage again. And yes, it's Paddy's Day, always a day of mixed feelings for me as my dad, a born Paddy, was born on this day. Which makes this pretty much Satan's Day too, in my world. Still, the old bastard is long gone now but how well I still remember how I used to dream of dancing on his grave when I was a child and still under his Stalin-like control. No doubt my own kids will have some choice memories of me to make them shudder as they grow up. But, none, I hope, like the ones I still, uh, cherish of my old man. Anyway, I've wandered off now. As I was saying, another long beautiful, sunny day...

One of those days where you feel you're walking through a maze. A very sunny, pleasant-valley green maze, as it turns out, but a long and winding maze notheless. That is, I set off down one path and found myself being unexpectedly on another, then another, turned this way and that as the day unfolded. mainly by phone calls, though email played its usual insidious part too. And at the end of it, what did I achieve? A lot of head-scratching, a bit of smirking, some actual thoughts of some importance, but not, it has to be said, a lot of what you could actually put a measure up against and call work. But then, sometimes the most important work isn't the stuff that fills the screen but the time you put in - or allow to have put into you - simply thinking. Sunny, too. I swear, this time of the year is now the most summer-like the UK gets. By June and July it will be pissing with rain again like last year (and the year before). Right now, though, just like this time last year, the sun has got its hat off and the sky is showing too much flesh. Oh, and I downloaded Spotify today. For once, I am an early adopter, rather than an oldie-come-lately. I suggest you do the same. Cos let's face it, if I can do it, anyone can. And it's free. Any album you like, any track - free! Here's the link www.spotify.com. Don't say you don't get your bellyful here...

Very much a family weekend. Having been forced to withdraw myself from so much that's been going on family-wise these past few weeks, either through work (too scared by the recession to say no to anything) or illness (thought it was the food, then realised it was everything else) it just seemed like it was time to force my re-entry on that score. So.... dog-walking, child-entertaining, shopping, outings, swings, parks, roundabouts, cooking, TV-watching, driving, talking, mainly listening, and absolutely not losing my temper (easier than usual as I was actually enjoying myself most of the time) and at the end of it... I'm fucked. In a good way. Tomorrow, back to work. For now though...

It's Sunday evening, 8.00pm UK time. Time to hit www.rockradio.co.uk/scotland/

Then hit the Listen Live button.

And there I will be with the Classic Rock show.

Until 11.00pm tonight UK time.

Almost the perfect day. Woke after a night's (well, five or six hours) actual sleep, helped wife and kids (plus kids' friend who we were also taking) to school where Red Nose day was in full swing (non-uniform day, wear something red, bring 50p donations per child etc etc), then did the noble good-husband thing and dropped wife off back home for a spot of Jeremy Kyle on the TV while I walked the dog alone. This being my first fully well day for a week I decided to go for it, walking the hound up dale and down glen, over the hill and so far away I wondered if I'd actually have the strength left in my pegs to get back to the car. But I did. Then home, shower, humming an enchanting melody that came to me in a dream and would be No.1 if only I cared for such fripperies. As I towled down and considered my first shave of the week I planned out my day. No work today, I decided. Instead, a spot of shopping perhaps, treat wife to a picnic (in the car) lunch on the way to and from Azda... At which point I remembered. SHIT! I was supposed to behaving lunch in London with Ian my book editor at Orion. Cue a horrendous dash to the train station in time to make a 1.15pm at Joe Allen's in Covent Garden. It all seemed such a pain. Until I got there. Perhaps because it was Friday, or maybe because it was the first time we'd ever had lunch together where we didn't have a book already past its delivery deadline to fret about, but not only had Ian brought his large expense account with him but for once he was in no hurry at all. As a result, we didn't emerge again until nearly 5.30pm. A proper publisher-author lunch straight from Ye Olde School. Take that world recession mongers! I was so relaxed and at peace with my own immensely little world that I decided to treat myself to a post-prandial constitutional and stroll through Covent Garden. Early Friday evening in Spring in Covent Garden... there are few better places to be for a solitary gentleman of a certain age. After I'd paid my usual visit to the occult book shop in Wellington Street, I found myself swanning around the Piazza, drowning in the sights and sounds of the world's most beautiful women swishing past me hither and thither. Next thing I was staring at the jewellery in Carat's. In particular, a heart-shaped diamond ring set in white gold. It made the old breast heave and sigh for wife, on whsoe dainty finger I felt it would find a more than adequate home. And, well, it is mother's day soon, isn't it? So I went in, waving my plastic fantastic, while enjoying a very definite 'moment' with the blonde, French-accented beauty behind the counter, and before you could say 'But you're broke' I was out the door again clutching a tres elegant white bag with said ring nestled inside its own little white box within. Then I walked from Covent Garden to Piccadilly, like Oscar Wilde, hopped on the train and soon enough found myself all but home. Was wife pleased by the ring? Like Saturn with its very first. Oy oy, I said to myself, we could be in for un nuis d'amour here, matey. Sadly, though, it was not to be. Eldest daughter appears to have picked up the same demon bug that polaxed me this past week and spent the entire night on or off the toilet, wife doing her best to help. Poor loves. Would it be too indulgent to admit, however, that I still woke up smiling this morning? For I am a man, and easily pleased. Sometimes.

Almost a return to normal. Christ, what a relief. Being ill like that for a whole week... it makes you realise what hell on earth it must be to be permanently out of the game. One thing to feel like compacted shit, another to know you are just going to feel worse and worse until. Anyway, not my fate just yet it seems. Meanwhile, life staggers on. Today that meant driving into London to record the Classic Rock show for Rock Radio. It's a different deal pre-recording. There's an edge you don't have when you're shooting live, impossible to replicate, the best you can hope for to be a damn good bladerunner. What saves it for me is that I'm so involved in putting the show together. Yes, it's based on what's going on in the magazine on a month-by-month basis, but there's so much going on in those pages these days there's practically no limit to what you can do. This week, for example, that means Rush and Led Zeppelin side by side with Lou Reed and John Martyn, old money rockers like Dio and Sabbath right next door to newbies like Raising Sand and Shinedown. The trick is to let the music do the talking. But nothing sounds better with good music than good chat sprinkled here and there, and after all these years I know I can do that. Stull, there are good days and bad, like in any burger joint. Today was one of those good days. All I need now is a good night to go with it - that is, one where I sleep right through like a toddler with its dummy - and I'll have picked up four aces. Too much to ask? Maybe. But you know what they say, you don't ask, you don't get. Before I go, a quick word about a completely different radio deal. If you go to the BBC's Listen Again service right now at their website, and tune into this week's (i.e. tonight's, Thursday's) Bob Dylan Theme Time show, you can hear Bob taking calls from listeners (very fucking weird) and playing their requests. (Well, one.) As I sign off, Bob is playing Wanda Jackson's In The Middle Of A Heartache. I mean, come on, where else are you going to get a little of that kind of pure cut craziness in this space day and age?

Fuzz Lightarse to Rock Command. My ship is almost repaired and I should be ready for take-off again by first light tomorrow. I'm still not sure what caused the unsightly damage to the fuel pipes or why they were spouting such toxic clouds for so many godforsaken days and nights but whatever it was it finally seems to have stopped. For now. Anyway, as of tomorrow, it should be full-steam ahead again. That is, the right kind of steam and not the foul concoction befouling this already rotten planet's atmosphere this past week. Please inform my next of kin and all other relevant parties, and pass on my apologies for this unforeseen delay in communications and the resulting smell. God's speed (Lemmy will point you in the right direction), your space-servant, Fuzz...

Well, not quite closed death's door behind me yet but definitely feeling less close to falling through it backwards, grasping at my gut. Walked the hills with dog and wife again this morning which definitely helps you hang onto whatever planet you're currently hiding out on. Still living on bits of dried toast and warm beans though. They say work is a cure for everything too and, sure enough, the fact that I absolutely had to put the Classic Rock radio show together this afternoon, ready to record on Thursday, definitely seemed to help too. Also, listening to John Martyn, Solid Air. Since his death in January everyone has had their say about John, so I won't add to the mountain of grief here, except to say that Solid Air is one of those albums everyone needs to have in their collection, even poor hoodies with nowt but glue for taste. Me, I've been living with various versions of Solid Air since the mid-70s, when I lived in a hippy squat where growing your own and listening to John Martyn (and Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Joni Mitchell, etc etc etc) was more important than finding something to eat in the rusty old fridge. Which was just as well, as I recall, as we never ran out of anything but food. Those were also the days when it would have been unthinkable to try and make love to your (or someone else's) old lady without some music blaring away in the background. Again, John Martyn and Solid Air was just the job. I admit, the effect was somewhat spoiled, briefly, when I actually met John a few years later while working as an impossibly young and impressionable PR for Rory Gallagher. For while his music was as beautiful as starlight, in person he was every inch the gruff Glaswegian booze-hound. The only drunk I met I was more frightened of was Frankie Miller. But Frankie didn't have a tenth of John's talent. Anyway, I said I wouldn't blather on, so I won't. Who knew, though, that one day I would reach 50, find myself clutching at my insides trying not to make a mess on the floor, and it would be John's music that came to my rescue. God bless him.

Day Four of the Bog Wars and victory still not in sight. I thought I'd conquered the demons when I woke this morning but no chance. I feel better than I did but you can still feel shit and be better than I was on Fri/Sat. This morning wasn't so bad. I even went out for a walk through the woods with wife and dog. The sun was out so thought it would do me good. Blow the cobwebs up someone else's arse. It half-worked. But by the time I'd eaten a half-plate of pasta the old rumbly-tummy was back to being more rumbly than is poilite in a pig. As a result, this afternoon has been particularly bad. Not least as I arranged to sit in a meeting with some people who for some bizarre reason didn't want to hear about my troubles. They probably thought I kept running to the bogs to take drugs or something. Or meet groupies. Like you do.

Anyway, it occurs to me that you may not possibly want to hear much more of this. How do you think I feel then? Or, worse still, long-and-ever-suffering wife? She wants me to go to the doctor's. Code for: fuck off and annoy someone else about this. Which is where you come in, almost as ever-suffering blog-reader. Some v.brief other news then: it looks like I'm finally going to be able to update my website in the next few weeks so you will have more to look at than a book I self-published three years ago and what remains of this blog. Oh, yes, all sorts of wild and crazy plans afoot to keep you enteratined and, uh, browsing, as the I believe the kidz say. That is, if I ever get off the toilet...

No blog since last Thursday as that was the last day I wasn't sick. I mean, super sick. Arse, mouth, all the bad places, my lip flapping open. All of which I can deal with actually, it's the rest of the time that really hurts. Whatever superbug invaded my stomach last week it feels like it moved the family in too. This is the first time, in fact, I've managed to get into my office. Wife has been (fairly) good about it. Being left on her own at the weekend to deal with the squiddlies is hardly new for her but having me writhing around on the bed or on the floor downstairs or propped up against a wall in the kitchen seems to have... added to the situation. So sympathy has not been in huge supply. At least I feel a little better today. Still spouting bad things from all the wrong places, still heaving over the abyss every time I try and stand. But definitely not feeling as bad as before.

Off back to bed now. For those of you reading this on the Sunday night it's being written, though, you can hear me before the spell overtook me jabbering away on the Classic Rock show right now on Rock Radio - www.rockradio.co.uk Go to the Scotland page as it won't be available across the whole network until April, and there I will be. Pre-sick. Pre-bed-ridden. Sounding almost human. Almost.

The body clock has started working to its own schedule. Woke up at 2.30-ish this morning and could NOT get back to sleep. By 3.30 I was downstairs drinking tea and squinting at the TV. By 4.00 I was in my office writing bits and pieces for the Classic Rock show which I was recording in London later that afternoon. As I build the show myself there's more to talk about than on the old Planet Rock shows, which means I need to actually have something to say, which means I actually need to do a bit of research, which is good, what it's all about, in fact, as long as you wear your learning lightly. Just not at bastard four in the morning. I did eventually get back to bed just as wife and kids were getting up but sleep was still something I couldn't quite manage. So if I sound, um, relaxed on the show this Sunday, you'll know why...

Well, saw Metallica at the O2, and how strange it was. Having seen them so many times in the way back of beyond, but not having had the pleasure, as they say, for some years, the whole thing hit home on a number of levels. Of course, they were tremendous. They always were and will be. Some have it, some only think they do. Metallica have it, hence the enormous and sustained success these past - what? - three decades. Indeed, they have now outstripped all the groups they once loooked up to, like Iron Maiden and Motorhead, left behind those very few that almost overtook them at different close-call moments, like Guns N' Roses and Nirvana, and now find themselevs in a land beyond even Led Zeppelin. Certainly in terms of longevity, sustained creativity and success. And yet...

There is something bizarre still about pondering them from a VIP box in the gods, and it's not entirely the box's fault. I couldn't help noticing, for instance, how the applause never quite erupted. As if the hordes of mental cases - and the place was full of them - were so wrung out by the sheer exhuberance of the battering-ram music there was nothing left between times. It was also somewhat... not sure of the right word, but not entirely right, let's say... about them playing in the round. Go to You Tube and check out vintage 1988 clips of Def Leppard playing in the round in America and you'll see a group that never stopped buzzing about the four corners of the stage, looking not quite choreographed but working extremely hard at appearing to effortlessly float about the stage. I saw many shows on that US tour and you came away from them feeling you had witnessed the band in exactly the right setting. Leppard back then were simply born in the round, could only be fully appreciated in that context almost. With Metallica at the O2, they also did a good job of working the four sides of the square but it was much more laboured by comparison. They are older of course and not nearly so fizzy as Leppard circa-88, but the fact that they all still insist in dressing entirely in black also lent the occasion a monochrome, somewhat less than 3D ambience. I mean, don't get me wrong, Metalliheads, they were hot. Scolding at times. But I think I'd rather have seen them on a big stage at one end of the room, where Rob Trujillo's crab-crawl would have made more sense, Kirk's nonchalance would have been better appreciated and James and Lars could have settled into one target to attack.

All of which will come across as nit-picking to those that successfully lost their minds to the moment. But there you go. My mind was lost years ago to something else. Which reminds me, I keep meaning to mention Being Human, the show about the everyday lives of a house-sharing ghost, werewolf and vampire. The series has just ended so I'm late with this but... Is it me or was this the best thing BBC3 has done in a long time, possibly ever? I have instructed wife to immerse herself in the technological info she needs to try and download the series for me soonest. Because it needs watching again, that's all there is to it. Meanwhile, however, can anyone tell me why I have a memory fast fading of what I assume was a pilot episode broadcast about a year ago? Or why I keep thinking the Mitchell-vampire character was played by someone else in it? Of course, it might be the lack of fresh blood in my veins that is steering me wrong here. Or the closeness of the moon. Or perhaps the screaming of the kids. But someone out there will know and tell me I'm sure.

A family weekend staggering around Oxford with wife and kids. On Saturday the main event was Oxford Castle. The boy was too young to take the 101 steps up the tower so wife and girls did that while the boys wandered round on the half-tour on our own checking out the spooky crypts and dungeons. Boy took special pleasure in pulling the lever for the trapdoor that hung the prisoners. As he would. Several pounds, balloons, weird toys, drinks, pees, moans, groans, screams and laughter later they let us out again. Somehow I still had enough energy when we got back to cook a roast dinner. Passed out after that though. Till about 3a.m. when I was awakened by yet another movie-length, minutely detailed dream. Been coming thick and fast lately. It's the detail that gets me, so minute, like I'm writing the story as I direct and star in the bloody things. Wake up dead too early the next day with the duvet wrapped round my arms and legs like badly tied rope, panting for breath.

Gluttons for punishment, Sunday we went back to Oxford. Obviously not having spent enough of what little money we have left the day before we found a way to finish daddy's wallet off big time with some 'special trainers' for wife. The kind that guarantee her help with her chronic back problem, not to mention tightening those all-important (ask any woman) tummy, leg and arse muscles. And only £155 a pair. Bargain. Been hearing all about them ever since.

Was collapsed in an amrchair by 8pm when I suddenly remembered the new Classic Rock radio show - hosted by your one and only best pal - was about to start on Rock Radio. You can find it on FM in Scotland, the Northeast or Manchester for now, or online at www.rockradio.co.uk. Look for any mention of me and/or Classic Rock and there it is. Worth it, too, if I do say so myself. I used to enjoy doing the Planet Rock shows at the weekend but there was no opportunity to pick hardly any of the tracks yourself and so you ended playing the same songs week in, week out, rapidly running out of anything new to say except that was and this is. With this new show I build the thing myself in conjunction with the mag and the producer and, hey presto, we have a really good show with great music you won't hear every single week and a presenter that actually has something to say. A bit like... er, good radio, you know?

Gotta go now. I'm actually off to a gig tonight. Strange but true. But then it is Metallica and as I haven't seen them play live for a few years now I'm actually looking forward to it. A band I was close to for about 10 years, the last 10 have seen us doing same-but-different things. Having re-established contact with Lars since the Death Magnetic album, though, they have been back in my thoughts again a great deal of late. One of the best live bands in the world (they always were, right from the start) it makes a change for me to actually be looking forward to going to a gig. Machine Head are also on the bill. I've never seen them before but I have been speaking with their singer Robb Flynn a fair bit lately and their album The Blackening is so good even my kids like it. Well, mainly the boy. Which figures. Anyway, I'm off...