Star Blog

Another virtuous day. Spent the first part of it working on material for a new collection of my journalism that comes out next year. I don't really enjoy reading the old stuff. It is what it is, and it brings back a lot of sometimes funny, occasionally awful memories, but it is in every sense from another time and so many different places it's no wonder I never want to go anywhere now, or enjoy the simplicity of my own good company over almost anybody else, let alone any rock brats, however apparently rehabilitated.

When that and the second giant cuppa cappa finally did my head in, I cooked wife and kids a late lunch from yesterday's roast beef left-overs, then we all went out to the local Focus to look at heated towel rails and bathroom tiles. Beat that for a bad muthafuckintime, Axl Rose! For an encore, I came home and treated the nextdoor neighbours to the sexy sight of me mowing the back lawn in my vest and sunglasses. Well, the sun was out and I was feeling frisky. To top it off, I then emptied a lot of crap out of my office into two huge boxes which I hid in the garage (on top of other boxes full of crap). Found three unopened copies of Mojo, one of Word, one of the Times Literary Supplement and one Sunday Times Culture Section (my favourite part of the paper) from November 2008. Oh, and some unpaid bills (those fuckers get everywhere, don't they?).

The big treat was saved for tonight, though, when wife and I settled down to an Indian from Asda and a DVD of Slumdog Millionaire. The only thing missing was Kingfisher Beer, the perfect accompaniment to a good Chicken Tikka. Had to make do with apple juice and mineral water instead. Fuck, yeah, fuckers!

Now I'm off to bed because tomorrow starts early with the arrival of various bods doing various things, from fixing our en suite bathroom to sorting me out a new scanner and printer. Then in the afternoon I'm off for more acupuncture. As you do when you're as fucked by 50 years on this planet as I plainly am. All this while still shuffling around pieces for the book collection and listening to Paul and Linda Mac on Spotify singing about Uncle Albert, god bless their smoky little socks. Living the dream, I am, mate. Truly.

Live from 2.00pm today at www.rockradio.co.uk

Funny old week. According to Shelly Von Strunckel in her astrology column in the Sunday Times this was going to be a stinker of a seven days for me. In fact, it's turned out to be not bad at all. Not because anything majorly great has happened, I just got a lot done, one way or another. This may not be entirely coincidental with the fact that I haven't had a drink all week and have been jumping up and down again on the running machine. Not drinking can be boring, but so can drinking, even when it's just a glass of red every night - key words 'every night'. Anything you find yourself doing unthinkingly every day or night quickly becomes boring, turns into a rut. Before you know it, you're looking at death every time you take a sideways glance into the mirror. Now I sound like I've conquered something, or got some sort of something worked out. No. Just made it to Friday bedtime without leaping up on the roof and letting off a few rounds into the faceless, tormenting crowd. Good enough, trust me. That and sitting here listening to Sandy Denny singing Who Knows Where The Time Goes while leafing through Dave Lewis' sweet book about Zeppelin at Knebworth. Would love to do a book on Fairport Convention one of these old days myself, if only some enlightened kindly publisher would throw money to the wind and let me. Would love to own a Jag too. But now I'm showing my middle-age crisis...

It was the 70s and the world was still powered by cobweb-encrusted 60-watt bulbs that made yellows look brownish and whites' all yellowy. You didn't have curtains, you had ragged bits of hessian drawing-pinned to the unpainted pelmet. There was telly but it only had three channels and the picture was always crap and it all ended at midnight anyway with the national anthem. The pubs closed at 10.30pm except for Fridays and Saturdays when they stayed open till 11.00pm. And you wonder why so many of us - the 70s young - smoked dope and snorted sulphate.

Anyway, there were about 12 of us living in the big hippy house. That is, 12 rent payers, but about 20 in all, including old ladies, boyfriends and friends of friends. You never quite knew who everyone was, people would just come and go. Australians, South Africans, Americans and Poles, just knock on the door sometimes, say "I know Pete" or whatever and walk in and stay a few weeks. But mainly it was just us, the English, Irish and whatevers. The rent was £25-a-month but I still had trouble finding it sometimes. We grew pot plants in the garden, huge things that stood six-feet high. It was a heat wave that summer and you could just reach over, grab a few leaves, crumble them into the ciggy papers and light up. Sweet as...

She was maybe 22 - old, you know. I was just 18, but old, also, for my age, everyone said so. Or just that I looked old, whatever. She was a beauty. Eye-catching. Red-gold hair and classical Greek face, even though she wasn't Greek. What I didn't know or understand until years later was that she was already past her best. Way past it. Later, I saw photographs of her when she was 17 - stunning, take your breath away beauty queen. She had always thought herself ugly, though. Girls do, but this one really thought it. It turned into anorexia and that was it, she was fucked forever.

But I didn't know that then, I just thought she was, you know, weird. Everyone was weird back then, the interesting ones. Everyone had something wrong with them. It was all we talked about. She really did have something wrong with her though. I eventually twigged. After about four or five months of sitting at her feet in her dingy room at the house, smoking and drinking tiny glasses of wine. She was crazy for Cat Stevens and Neil Diamond and Chicago, none of whom meant much to to me but I acted like I dug them too. She only had about six albums and she would play them continually, all night till morning, talking in a hoarse whisper, how she hated the sound of burned toast being scraped, how her last boyfriend had really hurt her, how she didn't think it was worth having sex with someone you really cared for because it just really messed things up, didn't I agree? Yes, I said, screaming no in my mind.

I so wanted to be with her but she was older and genuinely fucked up and anyway she probably didn't even really fancy me. The closest I ever got to anything with her was when she would give me a bum massage. It would be 3.00a.m. and she would suddenly look at you and ask, all earnest like, so as I wouldn't get the wrong (right) idea. "Would you like a bum massage?" the way someone might ask if you'd like something to eat after a long journey.

"Yes," I would say enthusatically as though it was a brilliant idea. "That would be great," knowing she gave everyone these bum massages, that they were her speciality. Bum massages and anorexia. And Cat Stevens and wine in tiny little glasses, smoking roll-ups, the way very pretty hippy girls would back then, with minute bits of hash that someone had once given them and that they'd completely forgotten about until just now mixed in sometimes, not that you could really ever tell.

In the end I grew fed up and stopped hanging out with her. I'd found my kicks elsewhere by then, I didn't need to put up with her shit anymore. I still liked her though and still think of her often now, all these years and lifetimes and little and big deaths later. I picture her in her 50s, still freaking around, not eating, worrying about it, her looks and her youth squandered so long ago, a walking tragedy like all of us but maybe even more obvious, no children, I bet, no man, either, still, unless it's another cruel boyfriend, probably been a few of those along the way.

She never knew, or if she did wouldn't have really registered anyway, but in a quite direct way she was partly responsible for me becoming a rock writer. But that's another unfinished story.

A day off. Or what passes for one around these parts. That is, a day spent with The Family. Out and About - i.e. dog-walking and shopping. Well, the first give mum and dad some much-needed fresh air and the second means the cupboards are no longer bare of essentials like, uh, food and drink. Then we came home and the kids all jumped screaming into the paddling pool while wife and I pretended to look at the Sunday papers for all over 42 seconds.

Nevertheless, we feel like we've hit some sort of groove. That is, I notice we care less about the familial rubble of the house. We still spend most of our time clearing up after the kids and dogs and ourselves, and not succeeding, obviously, but we are starting to beat each other up less about it. A hot sun in the sky helps, too, of course. As does avoiding the astrology column of the Sunday Times which reckons I'm in for "an intensely difficult" week this week. Wow. Cos most of my weeks are usually such a breeze.

Meanwhile... been looking at this 3-day novel writing competition they hold every year out of Toronto. Thought I might give it a bash. Hey, if I can write a biography of John Peel in two weeks where the quotes and facts are supposed to be at least half-correct, surely I can write a load of gobbledegook where I'm making it all up as I go along in three days... right?

That's what I was thinking anyway until I looked at the past winners. Good god, did these people really write their books in just three days? But they have plots and characters and, you know, quite interesting stories. No one mentioned anything like that. Maybe I should go for it anyway though. Show them just how good a novel can be with none of that stuff in it. Take that, fuckers! Yeah!

Or maybe I'll just win the lottery instead.

No blog yesterday, too busy doing all those things I'm now too busy to try and list here. Mainly what used to be called admin. That is, not writing, just all the other stuff that goes into it. Emailing. Phoning. Bill paying. Moaning. Knocked it on the head mid-afternoon though. I needed air, even if it was filled with rain. Took wife and kids (and dogs) out to the clumps instead, walked up a hill, up and then down again. Tried to imagine I was some lucky millionaire, taking a breather, digging the scenery, which in way I suppose I was (minus the millions except in the metaphorical sense).

A beautiful day outside today, too. No rain, either. As least it looks that way from this side of my office window. Been trying to finish a story on Hawkwind. My time as their PR, back in 1979, when I was young and so impressionable I soaked-up puddles wherever I walked, then let it all pour out of me onto the sodden floor as soon as I got anywhere near indoors. Tough job cos wife and kids have refused to go out and leave me to it, insisting on something called a chill-out day at home, whatever that means.

Anyway, all done now. Just got to read through the proofs of the Quo DVD notes and that's me for another day. Tomorrow and maybe the next day really will be days off, though. That's the cunning plan right now anyway. It's the last week of the school summer holidays and I want to spend some of it actually having something of a summer holiday, having buggered up the official one somewhat.

Weird time of year, this, too. Summer still clinging on, the dread word 'Christmas' just around the corner. I've got to get down to serious work on the Metallica book now too. I'm looking at returning to the same cottage I wrote the Zeppelin book in. Except they say they want more money for it this time. What about the world recession, I say? Surely you mean less money? No reply so far. Their loss if they don't bite though. There's a lot of empty cottages for rent out there right now. Not that I'm particularly looking forward to it. Last time round there was a certain novelty factor in finding myself alone with nothing to fear except fear itself. This time around, having been there, done it and grown weary and bored long before it was over, I'm not exactly hungering after it. Gotta be done, though. God knows there's no way to write a book like that here. And besides, I'm starting to get the itch. That weird tickle at the back of the mind you get when it's time at last to sit your arse down and get started and your body and mind knows it, even as you try and shy away from it (through fear, weakness, idleness, mainly fear).

Quo first though...

It's amazing what a night's kip can do for you. And so it was that I walked blinking from the shadow of the tower of doom and into the half-light of a new day. Well, not so much a new day as pretty much the same old day but somehow... brighter. Warmer. Certainly, more relaxed. The fact that the rebooted Mott story seems to have gone down a treat obviously helped too. And the fact that I was out of the house today, mainly in the car to and from London, but you know what they say about a change of scene. And the fact that the show was pain-free, maybe even (modest pause) good. And the nasal spray the doctor recommeneded over the phone yesterday that has helped this weird 'tickly throat' thing that has been driving me mad every time I lay my head horizontal. Plus the acupuncture kicking in and fixing the cricked neck I've had (didn't I mention that?) for the last two weeks, plus all the other usual benefits of the skillfully applied needles. All that and possibly the sun in someone's anus, and the fairies at the bottom of the garden. Whatever, it all amounted to a Not Bad Day.

Now I'm off to quaff a glass of red wine, cook haddock and chips and peas for me and my beloved. And worry about tomorrow...

Another bad one. I didn't even get to sleep at all this time, just sat there propped up on some pillows, breathing in the darkness. Had acupuncture too yesterday, so thought I'd be OK. No dice. Too much mercury swilling around the over-bothered brain.

Maureen Rice mailed this morning, telling me that reading yesterday's blog gave her "a visceral reminder of the regular grimness of freelance life." Well, yes, it is so often like that. But there was more to yesterday's sad splurge than that. There is also tiredness, mortal tiredness of the washed-out soul, the uncontrollably watering eye, the saliva that comes up not down the throat at night whenever you lie your head down.

Then there was today. Awful start. Still fretting over Mott, but this time unable to do much about it except guzzle coffee as coke substitue trying to awaken the old cells that you need to do this kind of work and failing. Just body ache, toe curl and needless sweat. Somehow, though, unable to just quit as I know I can't lie down, I tap-tap-tapped away until finaly... finally... that cunt was done.

Of course, I'm half-waiting for it to come right back any moment, the editor's unimpressed scrawl attached. But that's fairly standard. No sun without moon. We all must wipe our arses whenever we're lucky enough to shit. Me, I'm still sitting here a fan blowing by my side because of course the holiday weather we prayed for in Dorset has finally come now we're not there. And if this sounds down, you should see my tongue, longer than the two dogs' who also sit nearby, looking at me, wondering what the fuck, Bert Jansch's Needle Of Death sawing away in the background on Spotify.

Tomorrow it's off to London and the Classic Rock radio show, my first for a month. Be good to get the fuck out of Dodge for a day. Just hope I can get some kip tonight. Some kip and some eats and some time in the armchair, staring into the space where the TV blares, ignoring the rest. For a bit. Then bed and that book by it, Herzog by Bellow. About a crazy man living alone with the rats and the cobwebs, lucky pup.

Bad night. Woke up at 2.00am convinced I'd written entirely the wrong story on Mott The Hoople for Classic Rock. Began as just a niggle at the back of the back, but by 2.30a.m. I was downstairs reading the damn thing through again, and then I knew for sure. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Shiiiiit. Something that couldn't be fixed with a rewrite either. This needed brand new info, maybe even new quotes. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Sat there staring at the late night/early morning TV wondering was I losing it? Had I ever had it in the first place? And why couldn't I sleep? Couldn't answer that third one til gone 5.00a.m. at which point I managed to sleep until nearly midday, which meant all our plans for today were now fucked too.

Anyway... got up, got on the blower, sent emails, tried to fix it. Hours later into evening, as I write, it's still not done and probably wont be now til the end of the week (I need those quotes, fuckers!) but there you go. Just when you think you're slurping from the slippery silvery tit of love you find you've taken it up the arse again from Satan's fourth-in-line assistant to the tea boy.

On top of everything else, wife has gone 'funny' on me. Moods. Looks. Shrugs. Blah. All my fault, probably, whatever it is, if she only knew. So... sitting here listening to Johnny Cash, the American: IV album. Not actually one of his best, despite the hoopla, but still a goody if you're having a day like today and just another of those fucking nights to come.

I wear those crown of thorns upon my liers chair, sings Johnny, and you just know what the poor old cunt means.

I was up early this morning - 6.00am and ready to rock. Same thing yesterday. Work to do, see, and no time to do it in the per se day. That's my thing now. The early bird catching the worm while it still lets me. Most of my time on the planet it was the opposite, up late o'clock, bed even later. Three days to write a bitch article. A week for a cover story. Smoke smoking from my eyes. Now my motto is: get that cunt done. Quick, quick. Make it sweet where you can but basically get it down. This was always Ross's advice to me too. "Just do it," he would bark as I sat there in some lost hotel room, bashing away at the keys of a borrowed typewriter while he went out for sushi with whatever record company PR he'd corralled into paying the bill. Advice I hated because I didn't know how to "just do it", couldn't imagine just "bashing it out." Now it's all I do and I'm proud to have got here. Well, proud like a horse is of its swishing tail and big twitching ears. Like it's something that just grew out of me, took some years, now it's here that's all there is to it. Still... 6.00am, up and ready to work. I mean, come on, that's gold medal stuff.

Tell you what else it does: makes that glass of red wine taste pretty fucking good in the early evening too. Pretty, pretty, pretty fucking good. That and the thought of something good to read when you finally make it to bed. It's never that simple of course - as I'm trying to write this, wife has come in and shown me some huge rash on youngest daughter's back. "What do you think it is?" she demands, all worry-lines and raised voice. "I don't know," I say, trying to be reasonable, trying to remind her such a thing exists and you can only do what you can do. "Give her a cool shower, put some Calomine on, give her some Nurofen for kids and put her to bed. Tomorrow we'll call the doctor," I advise. "What do you think it is, though?" she demands. "I DON'T KNOW," I say less reasonably. "Give her a cool shower, put some Calomine on and..."

In the background, Gillian Welch on Spotify, crooning away about the devil having a hold on her. Not just you, Gilly babe...

Nothing like a good long holiday. Kick back, eat too much, drink too much, read a book or three and sleep too much. Or just sit outside chillaxing in the hot English summer sun.

And that is exactly what I've just had: nothing like a good long holiday. Instead, I spent half of it working, the other half thinking about work, and the other half (there are many halves to life, as you discover as you get older and older) running around performing slave duties to the kids. All this during the most intense rain storms on public record, or something (we stopped paying attention to the weather forecasts after the second day, thanks for absolutely nothing). Oh, and we somehow acquired a new dog. That makes three kids, two dogs, one wife and no life other than the one you are designated on an impromptu, second-by-second basis from the moment your sore eyes are forced awake to the moment they finally close again, dizzy and demented, as you pass out.

Please don't ANYBODY ask if we had a nice holiday. Of course we had a nice fucking holiday. Once. In India. In 1996. We still have the photos. Me skinny and young-ish-looking. Wife even skinnier and authentically young-being. No signs of any other personages, tall or short, male or female, canine or otherwise, in view. And plenty of sun. PLENTY. Since then, downhill all the way. And no, I didn't get the Channel Four 'thing'. "If it's any consolation," said Wayne, the casting chief, "Tim the director thought you were by far the best of any journalist or pop star we got in." Jesus, how crap must they have been?

Sitting here staring out the window at the vengeful rain, wondering if I can be arsed to try and condense the last few days down into one seamlessly splendiferous blog entry, and deciding... naw. There's just to much to tell. Yup, I saw the Motts. Lovely bunch of old geezers, should be a heck of a run of gigs in October, if we all live so long. Especially enjoyed yacking to 'Unter, who turned 70 this summer, but then he was born old. Ralphs, meanwhile, still has the bearing of a much younger dude, and probably always did. Another good man to chinwag to. Wouldn't like to say anymore about the others at this stage, though. Except that Watts didn't turn up to the interview while 'Buff' and 'Fanny' reminded me of Cleggy and the 'funny' one in Last Of The Summer Wine. Sort of. Bless them. I think.

But that was at the start of this week and by now what seems like several eternities ago. Since then I have been working with the Mighty Quo on a new DVD project. Unlike the Mighty Mott, Quo are one 70s band who shrewdly timed their own comeback while they still had it all to gain, and gain and gain and gain, if you'll pardon the pun. I love the Quo. Specially Francis. Ask him a question and just sit back while he gives you a million different answers to a load of questions you wouldn't even think of asking.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I found myself turning up at a casting studio in London today, where I was 'invited' (summoned) to audition for some sort of viral - is that the word? - ad thingy-cum-cool-new-programme that Channel Four are involved in. The director "loved" my work, apparently, and "really wanted" to talk to me. So, I went in, read through the page of script they gave me three times while acting the goat to a roomful of solemnly staring agency types, then 15 minutes later found myself pounding down the street again to the train station. "Thanks Mick, that was great." Not even a "Don't call us" just the door and then the street.

Interesting experience, though. Place was full of models (female, yummy, and all giving you the eye just in case you happen to be someone important) and Old Chaps with gorgeous white hair and deep, bell-like voices. Ah yes, it's an actor's life for me. Probably. Not.

Meanwhile, back to the rain. Wife is expecting me to drive back tonight but after a run of 5.00am starts and midnight finishes, I'm feeling... well, like I need a holiday. (Code for: some wine and a night dozing in front of the telly.) Will I get one though? Will I f...

So anyway there I was, thoroughly enjoying myself plonking around Dorset in the Biblical rain with wife and kids when suddenly the jolly old Berry began flash-flash-flashing. "Don't look at it," commanded wife. Too late. I was already clicking and scrolling down. It was Scott at Classic Rock asking if I'd be interested in... what did it say? I had to rub my eyes. Oh... writing a story. Blimey. Not being able to remember the last time I'd gotten an email like that - or rather remembering only too well (last JANUARY) - what could I do but say yes. Naturally, I waited till wife wasn't looking first though. Not because she isn't supportive, but because this involved a bit of, well, buggering off for a few days and leaving her and the kids to it.

Actually, I musn't make too much of this, as wife was actually very good about the whole thing. Very good indeed, considering. But then she was proably not-so secretly thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of me for a few days. Suggesting I also get a bit of acupuncture in while I was at it, her final words to me as I jumped in the car the very next day were: "Tell Vanessa the children and I have sent you to her because you're such a stress monster you're spoiling things for us. Tell ehr to stick a needle between your eyes..."

Awright, babe, will do. Then I set off for South Wales. That's right, up through the rolling misty hills of the magic valleys. Why? Didn't I say yet? I was off to interview Mott The Hoople, that's why. Or what's left of the old buggers anyway. I was quite excited, actually, being a) an old bugger myself, and b) also once having been once... what do ya call it? That's right, I remember now... a fan. Not a word you see written down often here, eh?