Star Blog

Wide awake and wandering around the house at 5 this morning. It always get like this when the tax and VAT bastards are on at me. I just can't figure it. I'm working harder than ever I have in my entire life and yet I've never been in so much debt. Yes, the wife and kids take most of it and throw it away on whatever the hell it happens to be they can't live without today. And yes, sometimes I feel I deserve a Chinese takeaway or a nice bottle of red. But Christ on the cross, must I be persecuted for it by these never-lived-in-the-real-world wankers that work for the tax office?

By the time I left to drive to London for the Classic Rock show this morning I was already exhausted. That's when I discovered my email was down and would be for the rest of the day. Surely that isn't a cloud I see in the sky? Right there next to the shit smeared windscreen wipers?

The show went well though, even if I do say so myself and I do oh I do. Sian Llewellyn was this week's guest and she picked The Black Spiders and The Beatles to play. I'm not saying she's weird about insects but I will just mention she has never knowingly left the house not wearing black. I was also supposed to be seeing Ross Halfin today but he cried off because he's got to go to LA tomorrow. Obviously. Instead I had a surprise meeting with another old friend of Ross's - Malcolm Dome. Back in the day, me, Malcolm and Ross were the three doughnuts. Well, there were many doughnuts back then but we were definitely three of them. Funny thing, Malcolm hasn't really changed a bit. Which made me wonder if I'd changed much. Older, obviously. But underneath? I mean, I feel like I have. Like, the only time I ever found myself walking around at 5 in the morning was when I'd forgotten to go to bed, not when I'd forgotten how to go to sleep. But who knows what other doughnuts think?

After that I saw my youngest brother Danny, who made me laugh with stories about my other two brothers, one of whom is now into politics, and the other is into trains. We are all, it seems, living the dream. That is, assuming we can get any sleep...

My boy is poorly which means wife and I haven't been getting much sleep. Up at 3 this morning, not alseep again, or what passes for asleep, until about 5, then up again at 7. Living the dream, mate, we are. Consequently, spent the day moving around like a ghost from room to room, moaning softly. Somehow got stuff done though. Only a little way to go now finishing up on the new collection of old stuff, getting ready to disembark the planet this weekend and make my way back to my vanilla prison for the start of the serious stuff on Metallica. Then tonight, sitting here writing and putting together the Classic Rock radio show for this week. We record on Wednesdays now so everything suddenly feels more rushed than usual. Should be a good show, though. There's a lot of good new stuff out there right now. Black Crowes (v.good), new Skynyrd (same), Cheap Trick (ditto), Megadeth, even the new Porcupine Tree is plentiful, if you can get what's left of your head round it which of course my head being extra large I can. And now bed. Please. Boy and forces of darkness allowing.

A standing start to the week. All the wrong people returning my calls, none of the right ones. Or not until too late. One of those days where I had a string of things - smallish, biggish - that I had to do but none of which got done. The main event somehow becoming a) getting my ears syringed (enter your own appropriate heavy metal joke here, or music critic one or... sorry, what did you say?) and b) sorting out the pigstye that my office has become again. Meaning clearing bills - awful, angst-ridden business - and worse still, trying to resolve the unresolvable, which brings me back to all the right people not returning calls or emails or texts or just yelps for help. Worse than that, as I write this the office doesn't even look any better and now the brain's gone.

Shame cos I was gonna tell you this great story about the time one Xmas when me and Slash and Duff got drunk and taped an interview for Capital Radio, where I was doing a Saturday night show. The producer laughed when he later played back the tape, called it the most "surreal" thing he had ever heard then promised we would both be a long time in the ground before the station would broadcast it.

Except I'm too flat now to bother. Maybe tomorrow then...

No blogsky for a couple days. Pardon et moi but, you know, I just could not be fucked. Friday I was at Francis Rossi's house, checking out his flash new car and listening to some flash new sounds in his recording studio at the end of his garden. As ever with Francis, we discussed life, death and the meaning of women-in-stockings - almost anything, in fact, except music. By the time we eventually got round to that the day was almost over. Almost, but not quite. Got an email driving on my way home telling me what my next quarterly VAT bill is. It's a wonder I didn't crash - deliberately, taking out four lanes of miserable M25 traffic jam with me. Then Martin my new financial advisor phoned to say he had - cor strike a light - made a basic error on some rather important forms he is filling in for me but - heh heh heh - not to worry cos it should be all right. 'Should' is absolutely not the word you want to hear in connection with things being alright driving home on a Friday night.

Then there was yesterday. My 11th wedding anniversary. We celebrated of course. Champagne breakfast. Lunch at the Savoy. Afternoon spent wafting round Harrods buying the most expensive knciknacks. In the evening, there was dinner and a show, then back to our hotel suite for a night of mad passionate love. Yeah and if you believe any of that...

As for today. Does the word 'gardening' turn you on? No. Let's leave it there then shall we...

What we in the trade call a long day. Most of it spent with my new financial advisor, who has been advising me to make financial claims again various credit card and mortgage people for the dodgy deals they encouraged me to sign up for in the past. In some cases, the very distant past. In practical terms, this has meant a great deal of what those in other trades call paper work - one of my least favourite subjects. Especially when it's to do with money. Anyway, after a two-hour name-signing session scrawling my X on endless serious-looking bits of papers the job is done. For now. Next problem, this keyboard I am struggling to type on - it is not working. Oh goddddddddddddddd...

The late nights and early mornings, the endless child welfare and wife hair care, the ups and a downs and crapolas of all my years and minutes squeezed together like zits... it all finally caught up with me today and I am over-powered with tiredness. Sat here trying to write some new Intros and Outros to the collection of stories book and all I can manage is to gaze at rocksbackpages.com reading old articles by guys way better than me, trying to keep my eyes open long enough to make something of this day. No luck, though. Very weird, too, reading Peter Makowski's blogs on the backpages website. They are all about music, mainly, which is interesting, but never as interesting as reading between the lines, which of course is what all the best rock journalism is about. More stories about the bad old days please Pete, you and Giovanni Dadomo hiding in toilets with big bags of speed waiting to see Willy The Devil DeVille. Yummy.

Meanwhile, it's off with my head to the bed please, masters of the universe, and I don't mean later...

Had to go to London this morning for a meeting with international publishing magnate Chris Ingham. We sat in The Hub - the cafteria at Classic Rock and Metal Hammer - drinking smoothies and making plans to rule the world. Then I had to run to catch the train back home again because today was the day I had vowed to the metal gods I would finish sending pieces of the jigsaw to Orion for this new book of my collected works. It's been fun and weird - and weirdly fun and sad too - going through all the old Kerrang stuff from the 80s, plus all the RAW stuff from the 90s. Was I ever really that - hey, man - crazy? Apparently so. Did I really travel to so many far flung places in the world in search of god knows what, the perfect riff, the most gorgeous groupie, the heaviest dutiest cocktail of you know what if not who? Sure seems like it, dudes. But now I've had enough. I need to get serious with the real deal, which is the Metallica book and I'm starting to feel it in what's left of the unbroken parts of my old bones.

Spoke to Ross on the phone tonight. He's off to LA in the morning - obviously - but we're gonna try and get together for a bite to eat next week. I'm hoping Orion will make him an offer he doesn't have them executed over for some nice pix for the new-old story collection. Well, he did organise most of those trips. In fact, for several years he was organising my whole life, and what a life it was. Stop me now before I get all sentimental and start weeping over pictures of the two of us drinking champagne while sitting by the pool at the Sunset Marquis. You think I'm joking? Not even a little bit...

A poem I found on an old computer disc from August 1993


My Road


It's certainly not the
safest road to live on,
but I knew that
before I
moved here,
or thought
I did.

Nor does it contain the
swiftest route to
SOMEWHERE land,
and is definitely
not recommended for
those enervated personages
in a hurry to
GO PLACES.

You have to be
Buddha-like around here
to survive,
a spider sitting
watchful
in his web,
old and knowing,
a sky waiting for
the world to
awaken and unfold
beneath it,
the way a good gardener
waits for the
confined earth to
reveal itself to
him,
slowly
painfully,
choked by weeds,
cold days and
warm,
the black unblinking
eyes of giant
winged things
impressed upon
its terrified soul,
honey suckers,
aroma stealers,
everyone's a
fucking leaf-burner
these days,
have ya
noticed?

But patience is a
vice few can
afford to indulge
these days,
and there
is always
something of
the fool,
the born eejit,
about anyone who
tries to fully
understand
anything,
isn't there?

To actually attempt to
live it
though,
is the work of
the biggest,
most conceited
damn fools of
all,
at least
that's what I
imagine they say when
our foolish backs
are turned.

So, foolishly,
conceitedly, as
aggravating an
eejit as was
born this second,
I walk my
road,
up and down,
watching,
wondering,
acting,
not acting,
mostly just
trying hard
not to let
it all come
down too hard
or too fast
on top
of me,
aware always
that this might
not be my
road
at all,
just a path
for the blind,
built for them
by those who
will insist they
still see
something,
anything,
out there in
the endzone mist,
eyes raining smoglight
as my blood-red
poses bloom then
fade away,
another death on
the couch,
another false
move paid for
in
kind.

Money, there is
some
of course
though never enough,
as nobody needs
reminding.

Indeed, this is not
a road you can simply
fork out for,
cash in the
claw, no questions
asked.

What it really costs
it's hard to
count.

As a young fuck I looked
forward to the future in
awe of the
possibilities.

Now, I look
forward to the
future the way I
look back on the
lost past,
not with the
hope of
things to
come,
but with the dread
of things I hope
will never come
again.

AIDS, cancer,
car crash,
strictly for
beginners,
all of it.

The real killers are
soul-suck,
brain-wipe,
pocket-scoop,
heart-noose,
and the
friendless
end we
allow ourselves
and our families
to move towards,
eyes averted,
blood chilled,
thought
corked,
finally
and
forever,
a labeless
bottle no-one
wants to
be the first
to open.

Back here,
on my road,
in my house,
my atomic bomb-site,
built with my own
three hands,
I'm less bothered
than you think.

But it's always
best
to call ahead
first
before coming
round.

You know
that.

One of those days yesterday. Another one of them today. Drove back and forth to London one-handed yesterday. When I wasn't gabbing on the phone I was emailing or replying to texts. This may be Against The Law and Dangerous To Others but on my planet there's no way round it, not if you want to keep living on it. As a result, despite setting off early, I still got to the studio late. Didn't matter, the studio was broken so the show started late anyway in a last-minute substitute studio. Didn't matter, once we finally got going I was so good we were all done and dusted in about 30 minutes. A new CR Show recording record. Sometimes things just go like that. Usually when you're expecting it not to. And vice-versa, of course.

Speaking of which. Had to write a 'news' story for the Sunday Express when I got home. Long story, the short version of which is I have made a new mate there who I helped on a Thin Lizzy story. My reward, the chance to maybe do some 'stuff' of my own - specifically, a news piece about the reformed Mott The Hoople who I interviewed recently for the current cover story of Classic Rock. Which pleases me as there's nothing quite like the 'real thing' of doing stuff for your actual newspapers. Anyways, I got home about 7pm, sat and dutifully did the story until about 8.30pm, which came out OK, I thought, good not great, world keeps turning, but at least it got done and sent in plenty of time, as pre-arranged. Woke up this morning wondering... you know... shit or sugar... you know?

Answer: shit. The editor had decided, once he'd seen it, that it wasn't news at all and therefore not fit to print. Oh well. This sort of thing happens all the time with your actual newspapers. No biggie. Just a bit... of... a... drag.

No time to worry about it though as I was off for acupuncture. I know some of you out there think it's all hocus-pocus but then some of you out there probably think your GP is a jolly fine fellow with only your best interests at heart. The fact is, this stuff works in ways far beyond the ken of anyone who hasn't studied this 6,000-year-old medicine. My eyes were first opened 18 years ago when I woke up one morning with a golf ball behind my ear. You can imagine my GP's reaction. I walked out with a script for antibiotics and the promsie of a Biopsy if they didn't work.

Fortunately I knew somebody who knew somebody who had just returned from studying medicine in China and they turned me onto Master Lui. After walking around with a molehill rapidly growing into a mountain on the side of my neck for two weeks I very sceptically had my first session of acupuncture. When I awoke the next morning the golf ball was now the size of a pea. Two more sessions and it was gone completely. I wept. Inwardly. It was a miracle. It still is.

There is more of this story but that's for another time. Meanwhile, it's back to work, still trying to get old features into chapters for this collection of 'stuff' I've got coming out next year. Life keeps getting in the way of getting this damn thing done but the time has long since passed and it's now or don't bother. Here comes and there goes the weekend - again - all in one short but panting breath. Hopefully.

Had lunch today with Francis Rossi and Quo's manager Simon Porter. All very jolly. An Italian place by the river, Simon's usual haunt. They both turned up looking very smart in expensive threads. I turned up in clean jeans and an ironed shirt. "You've lost weight," said Francis. "Very nice of you to notice," I said. "I've lost weight too," he said, patting the back of his head where his ponytail used to be.

He does look thin though. He was never fat anyway but these days he looks even more trim. Takes care of himself, you see, gym every day, good diet, doesn't drink ever (unlike me). He still managed to eat two more courses than me and Simon, fitting in a pasta dish between the starter and main course and finishing off with a very sweet looking pastry while we sipped our coffees, looking on enviously.

We talked of this and that, the future, the past, his new car, his new dreams, his old fears. He can be very funny when he wants to be. Would make a good after dinner speaker, he's got so many stories. If he could be bothered. It all depends on his mood, which is ever changing, being, as he says, a Gemini who suffers from "that Gemini thing."

Drove home and got straight back into excavating more stories from my own past for my next best-of book. Found some good ones, plus some I don't remember doing, like with Rick Rubin, and a part two of a Lars Ulrich interview that I'd completely forgotten I'd done. Well, it was 18 years ago. You can't be expected to remember every last superstar you broke bread with in your Hollywood daze, right babe?

Then wife came in to administer my ear-drops. Four per ear. Or half a bottle each the way she does it. I can literally feel the impacted wax loosening like a ruptured volcano getting ready to blow, as I write. Treated myself to a glass of red over dinner, my first for weeks. Felt good. Tried watching TV but it all just washed over me. Not because of the wine, just because. Now this, Bill Bruford's Some Other Time busying away in the background on Radio 3. And then, in a minute, bed. If I hurry...

Back on the treadmill, in every sense. Sorted out four new chapters for the new collection book and sent them in the morning, sorted out this week's Classic Rock show and sent that in the afternoon. Between times made my now regular visit to some form of medicine man. In this case, a nurse at the local doctor's surgery. Woke up with bells ringing in my ear this morning. She told me I have tinnitus but that she can't be sure what's caused it because both my ears are so jammed with wax it will take a week of ear-drops to loosen it up enough for them to syringe them clean again. At which point they can tell me if it was a) just the wax, b) a viral infection, or c) something much worse. Meanwhile I should make sure I have plenty of 'background noise' to keep me distracted from the bells of St. Nick. No problem there then.

I swear to god if I was car I'd have flogged me for a new one ages ago. If I was a dog, it would have been one of the vet's 'kind' injections. As it is, I am just a man. A broken down man. Engine kaput. Lights almost out. Sputtering down the road, mistaking red lights for green and trying not to run anybody over more than once. Not even the regular oil changes or new tyres I keep buying seem to be working anymore. Maybe it's just as well the accelerator has been stuck to the floor for so long now it no longer springs back up. At least the wheels still spin even as the passenger seats give out. Vroom vroom.

My big ambition today as I fell out of bed and straight onto a wandering child covered in dog hairs, was to get back on the running machine at some point. Painful joints be damned, am I not a man of stupendous stamina and endurance? But you know how it is. In spite of my renowned reserves of inner strength, it's hard to move with any sort of purpose when you've got the world resting on your thankfully broad shoulders. So instead I braved the storms and put my health to one side to concentrate on the much more difficult and important task of writing some reviews for Classic Rock. Actually some good gear came my way this month, makes a change from the usual dross. As a result, so far today I have found myself listening to a great deal of music, bless my soul.

Between times, of course, things have been much the same. Emails. More emails. And then, just when you thought it was safe to scratch your arse with no-one looking, more emails. No one uses phones anymore, unless it's urgent or you can't get to email.

Also been peering in my diary wondering if I can fit in a lunch with Maureen Rice before she gives up her expense account to become a full-time writer again. I hope she hasn't left her highly paid job as one of the world's elite editors yet as a nice long 80s-style lunch would be just the thing right now. Haven't been drinking lately but by god I'm starting to fancy a glass of the good stuff again. Not on my own though. The kind of imbibing I'm thinking of needs good company to thrive on and Maureen's certainly that. Plus I want to put the fear of god into her about the new life of grime awaiting her as Just Another Freelancer. Knowing her though she'll already have several book deals lined up and a job presenting something arty on Radio 4. Not that I'm jealous, obviously. As long as it comes with a nice expense account...

Woke up with my eye-floaters still doing their crazy edge-of-the-sun thing. I'm starting to get used to it, though. Was a time when a young man would have paid good green to have this amount of fireworks going off in his head.

Other than that, a pretty drab day though. Wife and squiddlies went to visit Nanna and Granddad in order to let me get some work done. Could barely get out of the chair though. Seriously. Not just a mental thing, an actual physical impossibility. Too many early-morning-late-night combos. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have something to do each day (and night). And so would my bank manager. As for the tax and VAT cunts, they fucking insist on it. But lately, like the past 10 years, it's been ridiculous. And only getting worse as time goes by.

Meanwhile... Live from 2pm UK time today - the Classic Rock Magazine radio show, at http://www.rock.radio.co.uk/

S'fuckin'good. So much so even I listen to it on a Sunday afternoon when the rest of the world allows and I can get my floater-filled arse out of the chair of pain...

It was only a week ago that a kindly lady photographing my eyes warned me that if I should ever see flashing lights in my eyes I should get my arse down to an optician's pronto. "Don't waste a second," she had said, looking concerned, "Just drop everything and get there as soon as you can."

So when I woke up this morning and there were dark and silver arrows firing across my vision and my left eye seemed to have a foggy orb smeared across it every time I blinked - you could actually see the outline of its curved edge like a sun coming over the horizon of a planet - I did what any right thinking guy would and promptly shat myself. This is it, I thought grimly, a tumour. I reached up and touched my eyelid - sensitive, painful. I ran my fingers lightly upwards to my forehead - definite pain. I mewled in fear and begged wife to run and get me some strong aspirin. And a cup of tea. (I wasn't out of bed yet.)

"Don't worry," she said, "It'll be all right, you'll see."

Yeah, yeah. She is nearly 20 years younger than me and still believes things really will be all right in the end. I just think of graveyards and hospitals. Of having half your head cut away and children running from you frightened in the street. I think of living the nightmare over and again for ever and ever and ever. Fucking tumours, man, there's one waiting for you too right now, you'll see...

As soon as it got to 8.30 I called the local Specsavers. "We're booked right up till Wednesday," the Saturday girl on the end of the line told me. "I explained in more detail what the situation was and she said, "Hold the line a second..." Another woman, older, more qualified-sounding, who explained she was the actual optician, came on the line. "I think you should come along this morning and we'll fit you in as emergency," she said, not a flicker of light in her voice. I replaced the phone and got ready for the worst, shaving and showering but unable to shit, my bowels were wound so tight.

So anyways... three hours later I was in the dark room, two women opticians - one a pretty Candian student I was old enough to be the diseased and rapidly decaying grandfather of - aiming their lights and their machines into my eyes. "Hmmm," said the Young One. "Yes, there it is. Can you see it moving?" said the Older One.

"What? What?"

"Don't worry, Mr Wall," I'll explain in a moment. On my way to the hospital in an ambulance no doubt.

In the end, though, it was "nothing." They said. Something to do with the jelly in my eye flopping off in lumps and bits because "that's what happens as we get older and our eyes contract," they smiled sweetly. "Especially when we're as short-sighted as you Mr Wall."

'Us'? 'We'? So that was it. I was just getting older. And besides I'm just a blind old cunt anyway. So get used to it, granddad.

"Will it go though?" I tried not to wimper.

"Yes," said Older One. "Eventually. Perhaps. Though you will be left with a lot of floaters."

"For how long?"

She smiled.

"Weeks? Months? Years?"

She smiled. "Maybe. Maybe longer."

Then they sent me on my way, staggering half-blind down the road, getting older and full of more floaters by the second. I put on my extra-dark glasses and pretended to know which fucking way I was going...

Got the new issue of Classic Rock today. Sat down and read the cover story on Mott The Hoople - written by me. Was taken by surprise. It was good. But after spending most of my work-reading time lately roaming through articles I wrote over 20 years ago, it came as a jolt to see something I'd written just... now. Like looking up from an old family album and catching your reflection in the mirror. I prefer the writer you read in the magazines now, but it still comes as a shock to see how responsible he's become, how 'proper'. It would be beyond sad I suppose if things hadn't evolved that way, thank god. But my youthful writing persona has never seemed - or been - so far away. Funny how the editors look so much younger these days, doncha think?

Spoke to Mott guitarist Mick Ralphs on the phone tonight. Not about Mott, but his other band, Bad Company. I like Mick, very easy going. We got to talking about Bad Co's bassist, Boz Burrell, what a bummer it was when Boz keeled over and said goodnight Vienna a few years back. He was only 60. Too young to die, that's for sure. "He was playing the bass, showing someone a jazz chord, and his poor heart just gave out," said Mick. "There are a lot worse ways to go," I replied. "Yes," agreed Mick, "a lot." Two voices of experience, realising there wasn't much more to say. So we didn't.

Long day in the hot hard city, but it was all good, except for the legs and feet, which are killing me from overdoing it on the treadmill. No, not the work-thing, the actual treadmill you actually run on, or in my case, saunter on. Walking around like Bendy Leg Bill all day, one leg facing home, one leg facing away, teeth gritted against the continual pain, martyr that you know I am.

Not that those nice people from BBC noticed, of course. Two hours I spent in the chair answering their thoroughly researched questions. The producer, Steve O'Hagan, possessed that uncanny ability all top BBC people do to make you feel deliciously at home and at the same time work bloody hard for your bread and water. None of your Sky TV Pop Stars Behaving Badly that-will-do malarkey with the Beeb. No cute MTV shine. No teeth and tits. Just lots of hard info, delivered with a knowing smile and a wink and the occasional rude word. You have to be on top of your game and stay there fairly intensely but it's worth it in the end when you see the finished product. Balls to doing away with the license fee, the day the BBC dies is the end of civilisation as it was meant to be, trust me.

Back to commercial realities in the afternoon, though, recording this week's Classic Rock radio show for Rock FM. It was my last show with producer Russ Collington, a sad occasion as Russ is one of those characters the expression larger-than-life was invented for, but in a good way. Knows his metal, too. There aren't enough radio producers like that, not even working at the dedicated rock stations.

All this and still home in time for tea. Tea, that is, and, out of the blue, several heavy-duty phone calls overlapping into nightfall. Work, rest and play, as they used to say in that TV advert - without the rest. Or much play. But, again, that's a good thing, in my line, where it's always feast or famine. That's what I've been telling myself these past 30 years anyway.

Tomorrow it's back to the book. But not before I take our Springer Spaniel bitch to be spayed. I have to be at the vet's at 8 in the morning and it has to be me who takes her cos wife knows she'll cry. And cry and cry. She used to do that for me but that was before I was well and truly knackered...

Distinct lack of blogitude this past week, for which my apologies to those of you who rely on their regular fix of this stuff. It's just that... well... you know how it is. One minute you're imparting pearls of wisdom, the next you catch yourself muttering away to yourself in the corner like the madman you always knew you were. These past few days, trying to do the blog would have felt very much like the latter. Or certainly more so than it usual. Too much going on, you see. But nothing I can really extrapolate on to amusing or otherwise effect.

Actually, that's not exactly right, either. I think I just needed a little break. The big thing was my daughter's 9th birthday, which somehow took up Friday evening, all of Saturday and most of Sunday too. Friends - those few we have left that we actually enjoy seeing - family - including one of my very own, for a change, brother Danny - and a swirling crowd of nine-year-old girls who all know better than you old man, and that's only half the picture.

Getting ready now for tomorrow. In the morning I'm filming a thing for BBC2 on - get this - Dad Rock, a subject for which the producer, Steve, seems to feel I am eminently qualified to speak on. I take this as a compliment, of course. Then in the afternoon it's off to record this week's Classic Rock radio show. Somehow in the middle of this I am supposed to have the final components of my next book - a compilation of journo stuff from the dim and distant, or as I call it, My Part in the Rock Wars and it's Downfall - at the same time as getting - technical term - my shit together to start work on my real next book, which is going to be a Zep-style biography of Metallica. By the way, if any of you out there feel you have something interesting to say about the band, or an insightful story or memory or whatever, do feel free to email me about it - mick@mickwall.com (I think).

Meanwhile... the sun is out today and my hat is off. I feel the call of the hills... and dogs... and etcs.

Another day spent trawling through old articles wot I wrote aeons ago. Weird seeing the moment when the early played-for-crazy-drug-hoots Kerrang! stuff began to turn into the I'm-A-Proper-Writer-Me stuff that eventually caused my downfall on the mag - from star turn to self-absorbed pain in just two graceless years. Good stories though, the writing definitely got better as the ego inflated and the self became much (much) more serious. By the time I ended up helping shore RAW up in the mid-90s I evolved into the full-on investigative rock journo, writing deathless prose about The Death Of Grunge and The Untold Story Of Seattle, god help me. It was also around then I first shaved my head bald. Just to prove I didn't give a shit no more. Which only went to show how much of a shit I still gave. God, I hope I never get so serious again. But then I'll never be 33 (and 1/3) again, the mid-thirties being a horrible time for a man-boy-man-shit. I'm so much nicer now. Ask my dogs...

A day of two halves. Before and After acupuncture.

The first half began at 6.30a.m. drinking tea with wife while kids and dogs slept, trying to get ourselves together for what we knew would be A Busy Morning. Builders, computer guy, house alarm guy, window cleaner, all pitching up before midday. By which time wife and kids were on their way to lunch with visiting relatives from the snowy north and I was still perched in front of the laptop pretending this really was a work day and not just a flash-fire of falling trees and smoking sky.

Many, many cups of builders' tea later, I began the second half of the day, driving to Vanessa the acupuncturist's place in Wallingford via the rubbish dump in Steventon to unload bags of, er, rubbish. Was still staring at the Blackberry, mentally composing story-book notes, thinking ahead to the CR show this week and a few hundred other most vital bits and pieces when Vanessa dug the first needle into my head. After that, just the sweet scent of the Moxa candles...

Drove home the pretty way. That is, the same way I'd gone, but definitely prettier, then waited patiently for dinner while kids gabbed about their lunch and wife tried to drag my head back to the really important stuff. It didn't work and as soon as I finished eating - a Chinese takeaway, appropriately enough - I just had time to listen to the new Black Crowes single I Ain't Hiding, which Scott Rowley kindly sent me an MP3 of - v.cool, check it out flares-wearers - before going to bed, via a quick go at... this. Hopefully, extra time there will be none.