Star Blog

Took a long time to get to work today. It's that time of the year when the kids have a million different end of school year activities going on, all of which seem to require mum and dad to indulge in them too. Yesterday evening there was the annual sports day. A nice gig for our kids as they go to one of those picture-postcard village schools where the races take place in green and pleasant fields under zillion-year-old trees, and they serve the adults warm beer and wine and cancerously toasted burgers and hot dogs. Our girls both won their egg-and-spoon races, and one won another - the running with a tray with objects on it race, whatever it's called.

This morning there was more. Eldest girl playing cello in assembly, along with a couple dozen like-minded uniformed souls and teachers - and us. Was good, too. Way better than we had hoped. I actually heard a couple of tunes being sawed away at. Got out just in time to wave youngest girl off as she left for the annual teddy bear's picnic they take her age-group on. Then it was straight to the acupuncturist with wife. Her turn today. By the time that was finished and we had picked the boy up from his morning pre-school it was lunchtime, which I skipped in order to - slap on back please - run on the treadmill. Well, jog. And sweat. Like a pig. Two pigs actually. Felt good afterwards though, like a train narrowly averting a crash at a level-crossing.

After that I ate soup and (wheat-free) bread and (dairy-free) spread and finally got to work. Making plans for my next book. Tell you about it another time, but I'm neck-deep in research right now, usually my favourite part, but this time round it's taking longer than normal and it's been making me antsy. Had to break off after a couple of hours to put this week's Classic Rock radio show together. Did it to a backdrop of happy and occasionally not-so happy screams from the garden where bikini-clad wife, wet-suit-clad kids and dog-suit-clad dog were jumping in and out of the paddling pool, annoying the neighbours.

The show took me longer to get together than of late as I made more of an effort this week. Since Download, when we did it all live, I've been so busy I've left a lot of the graft to my producer Russ. But there is so much going on out there right now, new release-wise, tours, festivals, news and so on, I felt beholden to put my shoulder back into it this week. The result is a damn good show. Or might be if I can stop my brain melting in the studio long enough tomorrow to live up to it.

Tomorrow, by the way, I've just been told, will be the hottest so far this heat-waving week. Oh lucky, lucky me. And us.

Wife feeling a lot better, she says, so an almost back-to-normal day. Woke up, drank my dairy-free tea, ate my wheat-and-dairy-free cereal, had my wheat-and-dairy-free shit and took wife and dog for a little walk through the woods. It was so hot, though, that even the dog could only make it part of the way before begging to be taking home again. On the way back, picked up a dairy-free cuppa cappa from Costa, came back and drank it while taking a shower and waiting to start sweating again. Didn't have to wait long.

Fortunately, I bought a fan recentlly that was going cheap in a sale and so by the time I'd brushed the cobwebs off my laptop and sat down to some work the room was suitably breezy. Worked my way through proof-reading the new updated chapter for the mass market paperback edition of the Zep book, then sorted out a hot little feature for Metal Hammer and the start of another unputdownable War Story for Classic Rock. By which time I was hungry again. Time for a wheat-free ham and salad sandwich, with mayonaise, eggs not being dairy, which I hadn't realised until someone pointed out the bleeding obvious - cows don't lay eggs.

Then got back in my office and sorted out some stuff that had to be mailed, to America and Scotland, respectively. Then got into the car to drive to the post offcie and... nearly passed out at the wheel. Man, I was tired. Capital T. Not cos of my busy wheat-and-dairy-free day, I don't think. Just... tired. Vanessa, my acupuncturist, told me yesterday that my body was like a car being driven down the fast lane of the motorway, but the engine had run out of gas some miles back, and what I'd been doing for weeks now was pulling into a filling station but only long enough to stick five quid's worth of petrol in the tank, before hitting the fast lane of the highway again. "I guess I need an early night," I said. "You need about 10 early nights in a row," she said. Mmm, yeah, that and a million quid's worth of gas. Or something. "Stick another pin in, please, mistress," I pleaded. "It might be a long journey..."

Had my second session of acupuncture today with the wonderful Vanessa, my new guru. Not only is she doing what seven different doctors and consultants have been utterly unable so far to do - curing my wife of her bad back - she has set to work on my problems too. We have specific targets - my piles, my tiredness and insomnia, my lack of energy and overweight, my... well, you get the picture. Rather a lot of specific targets. But she also appears to be at work on helping fix my past lives too. We talk the whole hour I'm there, which is sort of surreal when you find yourself lying there with a needle sticking right between your eyes, as well as other interesting places, but also weirdly down to earth, as in no bullshit, just straight to the important stuff.

Found myself straying back to 1976 with her today, the year my old man kicked me out the first time and I ended up living in a house full of vengeful hippies. I can't remember the last time I even thought seriously about that time and place, let alone talked about it openly to someone who seems to know exactly what I'm on about. To be able to do this would be like unscrewing a previously thought unjammable pressure valve for me, but to do it while actually receiving physical aid is so up-there wonderful I am at a loss as to how to put it into appropriate words. Jacko should have tried Vanessa, he'd still be around today.

Came home and found I had the energy to make dinner, eat it with wife and kids out in the garden, then play ball with the kids on the grass afterwards. "It's so nice to see you enjoying yourself with the children," said wife, lolling in a deckchair. It was pretty nice to see myself doing it too, all unprompted and natural like. Right, gotta go and polish my halo now. See if I can sweet-talk wife into playing some more night games...

One of those oh-dear sorts of days. We'd had friends over the night before for a spot of outdoor eating and drinking, none of which was excessive. It just went on so late. The sun didn't go down until gone 10pm, and even then it didn't get really dark until the thunder and lightning flickered into life. So we came in. And carried on talking way past the point of where I had anything new to say. Actually it was the week preceeding it that really knackered me. Just one of those running-on-empty weeks where you act the part more than feel it. Anyway, as a result today was super slooooow. Or would have been if the kids weren't exploding around us so fast all the time.

Took a drive out to Challows where wife tried to sucker me into buying a leather three-piece suite but I was just awake enough not to fall for it. Not while my boy is still using furniture to ride the range with and fight robots. Came home and fixed us a roast chicken dinner instead. Then made the mistake of not going to bed early like wife and finding myself reading about Michael Jackson, poor fuck. Ended up staring at the stars out the window at 3.00am. Too tired to sleep. Too slow to know what the fuck. Tomorrow would be better. Probably.

Farewell then Jacko, though we never really knew you at all, except for those things we really didn't want to know in the first place. Gotta say, amazing dancer, great singer, cool songwriter, one of the best pop stars ever, in fact. But, christ, what a mess. "But how could he just die?" cry the loony fans. Well... if it wasn't the combo of prescription drugs it might have been the 'Jesus Juice' drink problem. Or possibly the stress of having to do 50 shows when the poor twat was barely capable of walking across a room unaided. Or all that 'elective surgery' finally eating into his reserves of energy. Or a deliberate - or semi-deliberate - OD in the face of the cancer spreading through his body. Or just... being fucked, you know? Me and Michael were the same age, so I know of what I speak. Or maybe it was that kicking Quincy Jones ALLEGEDLY gave him in the studio when they were recording Billie Jean back in whenever it was. Quincy, 'excited' by all the 'snow' he had been playing with ALLEGEDLY got so sick of Jacko squeaking and eeking through take after take he finally lost it and attacked the poor mutha. As for those heartbroken lunatics across the globe talking about this being like the day Kennedy was assassinated... COME ON! Who really remembers that? Not any Michael Jackson fans, that's for sure. They can't even remember how many times he was almost outed as a child molester, let alone the fact that he hired other people to fuck his hired 'wife' to have his 'hired' blonde kids. Actually, let's stop it right there because if we get into the really freaky stuff we'll be here all day, and who really has the time for all that? As good as Elvis, though? Only in death, baby, only in death...

Drove through the infernal heat to London and back today, to record the Classic Rock radio show. Got there so early for once I actually had time to eat a non-wheat, non-dairy sandwich and drink some Apple Juice while gassing on the phone to wife. Show went well, I thought. Afterwards, was supposed to meet up with Russell the Radio 4 producer for a drink but he never replied to my are-we-still-on-today email. I was secretly glad. Not because I wouldn't like to partake of the magic waters with him, it was just so damn hot today the thought of schlepping on the tube up to the remote part of north London his office is in was enough to make what's left of my enterprising spirit wilt horribly.

Got home early, just in time to endure the joys of semi-crippled wife trying to bath the baby killers. Ah, the oh so familiar cries of battle, could hear them swelling from a mile away. So good to see things getting slowly slowly slowly back to what passes for normal on our planet. Now I must go before the blood starts to run down the stairs...

Had my annual check-up at the doc's today. A good feeling, for once. She actually started whooping when she weighed me. Turns out that in the past 12 months I have lost 10.5 kilos, or about 23 pounds in old money. I could still do with losing another 23 but as the doc put it: "In a man of your age, Mr Wall, this is remarkable. Well done!" You should have seen her face though when she took my blood pressure. "Good lord," she said. I thought something bad had happened. "No, she said, it's just that it's so low. It's like you're about to fall over." I looked at her. "In a bad way?" I asked. "No," she said, "I just mean... it's so low, it's... weird."

The only thing I can think of is the combined effects of the de-stressing acunpuncture I had on Monday and the fact that I've been so run off my feet with wife being ill these past couple of months I have almost reached a level of transcendental don't-give-a-fuck-no-more-ness. Doesn't stop me fretting about nonsense, but somehow it's like the volume has just been turned down a bit. Quite a bit, actually.

Anyway, I'm not so cool that I didn't have a mini-freak out and spend the afternoon wrestling with the crap that has built up like a giant poisonous vine in my office, wrapping its evil tentacles around everything. Finally gave it the death blow today and sorted it out at last. Found bills I hadn't paid, which was nice. A couple of receipts for payment I had forgotten about, which really was nice. And the suitcase I took with me to the Download still full of all the crap I somehow thought I would need - a DAB radio anyone? - and of course didn't. Plus weeks and months of other shit I took an executive decision to simply throw in the bin. What I call right thinking.

Tonight wife and I have been watching the first couple of Eps of Season 5 of Entourage on DVD. Don't ask me how wife got hold of this as it's not available on Amazon here or in the US until September but she did, and... it's great. Much grittier than any they've done, I think, since perhaps the first series, maybe ever. I never watch the thing when it's on TV as it's one of those series like The Wire or Curb Your Enthusiasm - or any of the good ones, come to think of it - that only really works best when you have the DVD box. Can't wait til we've seen them all and we can start the Second Viewing, which is always better than the first, though nothing quite beats the first, obviously.

Which sounds like babble and is the cue for me and my exceedingly low blood-pressure to go to bed.

For it is said that on this day I was born, son of the bad man, first-born of good woman, a bastard from a long line of bastards. Literally. Ah, yes... 51 today. What's it to ya? Now wife wants me to take the rest of the day off. Fat chance. I haven't had a day off since I was about 31, and back then every day was a day off to me, even when it wasn't. Beer can by side of typewriter, something good to smoke in ashtray, a little table in the corner of the bedroom and my brains spattered all over it.

Now things are different. Besides, I seem to have had a few days off recently, hence no blog for this past week. Been too busy doing things in the garden, making the top of my head reddy-brown. Don't laugh. It's good to find some balance. Been indoors what feels and is an age, was in dire need of the outdoors again. Inspired by two solid days of walking around sniffing the air at Download, I've been making the most of the weather, as we say in England when the sun is finally out for a few days, that queer (other) bastard.

Anyway, a day off... Just as soon as I skim the surface of the rubbish tip that has grown in my office during my brief but heartfelt absence. Oh, and I had acupuncture yesterday. Wife's early birthday present. Felt goooooooooood. Though hazy too. Drugs got nothing on the real thing, baby. The human body and mind, in commotion, beats all. My new guru has also put me on a non-wheat, non-dairy diet. This will sort out my weight problems, my piles and possibly even parts of my brain, she tells me. Well, happy birthday me then.

How to keep a stuttering career going while being a fulltime man-shaped Yummy Mummy but without drugs or drink or any feeling left in your right buttock, pt 94...

Had a weird moment driving the kids to school this morning when my 3-year-old boy began screaming for something. I got the girls to translate and it turned out to be a song he wanted me to put on the CD player called SHOT TO THE HEART. Are you getting it yet? Yes, You Give Love A Bad Name. A song I first heard while being driven to a Bon Jovi interview in New York (or maybe Nooo Joisey?) in 1986. That is, 23 years ago. Jesus Christ! The kids were lucky my head stopped spinning long enough to park the car at the school gates. Who would have guessed I would live so long to see the day. Almost as weird as the day the girls - at a similar age - demanded I play Rocking All Over The World by Status Quo. I mean, I didn't even know we had this stuff in the car. Apparently their granddad puts it there for them and they love it. Absolutely love it. Quo and Bon Jovi and Hannah Montana. (Me, I'm more of a High School Musical guy but you know...)

Came home after that and fell into a trance while driving wife to the acupuncturists. She's offered to buy me a session there too for my birthday next week. "What for specifically?" I asked idly. "Oh," she said, "the stress." Yeah, fair enough, I thought. "And your other problems," she said. "Your bad heart, your bad blood sugar. Your umbilical henria..." OK, OK, I thought, no need to make a shopping list. "... your piles. Your weight problem. Your..."

STOP! OK, I GET IT!!

"Only if you really want to, though," she said.

I'm still thinking about it. Along with the radio show I'm recording in London tomorrow. The new War Story I should have written today for Classic Rock but haven't found the time to do yet. The new tax bill that came in last week. The new VAT bill due in next month. The fact that I am halfway through the week and still not found the time to get back on the sodding running machine. The fact that the dog is still in season and therefore not allowed out yet which means picking up her poop with scoops I just ran out of but didn't discover until it was too late. And what might be good on TV later, maybe, if I can get the needles in (or maybe out?) for long enough...

Took a day off. That is, spent the day taking kids to and from school, running around the shops trying to refill the disastrously empty cupboards at home, mowing the knee-length lawn, cooking a roast dinner (they don't eat around here when I'm not here to cook), stabbing at the Blackberry when there was nothing else going on, avoiding the phone, and doing another dozen things so banal I can no longer remember what they were yet so time-consuming that when I finally stopped it was the middle of the night and even the dog had gone to bed bored. One good thing. I seem to have made a ton of new friends at Download, surprised as I was by the surprisngly large number of very nice emails I got today from people I gave my business card to at various junctures. I must try this going out and talking to people thing a little more often, perhaps. If wife gets better one day and I can ever escape the home routine long enough again...

Well, the long, hot Download weekend came and went and... it was great, actually. Probably the most enjoyable festival experience I've ever had, in fact. Sitting here on the Monday night after the weekend I'm far too tired to write in detail about it but the main things I enjoyed were: A) the crowd, like a carnival, not just drunk male headbangers as in days of old, but men and women, boys and girls, of all shapes and sizes, colours and clothing opportunities. Even the security people had a watchful but mellow countenance. If this is what the future looks like, I want to hang around a bit longer. B) The people I met from Rock Radio, who were the official festival broadcasters, mainly young, as in a lot younger than me, but one or two of the Old Guard in the mix, too, like the great Tom Russell. I did two live shows from the backstage area on Sat and Sun for them, on a special FM signal set up specially for the 80,000 people at the festival and the those listening on the internet, and pre-recorded my usual Classic Rock show on-site for broadcast on the regular network on Sunday and it was brilliant fun, sitting in the shade with my hungover producer Russ. C) The people I ran into that I haven't seen for years, in some cases what feels and is like several lifetimes. It really brought home (again) how important and useful and actually interesting it is to put your own face out and about. Was taken aback at how many tiems I was introduced as "The legendary..." Or young pimple-faced musicians told me what "an honour" it was to meet me. After striding the length and breadth of this planet rock for several decades I became a virtual hermit for most of these past 10 years, the girl in the sweet factory choking every time she smells chocolate fumes. Now I'm up for a big bite of the choccy-covered cherry again, yum yum. D) The weather. God must love this music because the sun shone for three solid days, despite constant weatherman predictions of rain. Either that or we've converted the old bastard. E) And yes, the bands... faves this weekend including Thunder, Steel Panther, ZZ Top, Def Leppard, Anvil, Stone Gods, and many others I'd never heard of or seen or heard before, some of whom I liked, nearly all of whom actually. Nattering backstage to Luke and Bennie from Thunder, Phil and Joe from Leppard, Lips and Rob from Anvil, Danny from Stone Gods, KK from Judas Priest, and several others I'm too tired to add to this list, left me with a warm glow, inside and out. Hiding as I was behind sun hat and shades and years of diffidence, I was surprised and flattered so many still recognised me and were so welcoming.

Then today, because you can never have too much of a good thing, I sort of combined all those things in one by going to still sunny London to interview Steve Vai. Back in the day, me and Steve had a good thing going, around the time of his Passion And Warfare album, but because of you know what we haven't actually seen each other for over 15 years. We are both older, of course, are both dads now and no longer give a fuck about a lot of what we once thought important, but not much else has changed. We did something for Classic Rock, then something for the radio, then something for a podcast, being multi-platform as we all must be these days, those of us that hope to eat well, and we stared at each other and saw the years flash by, both of us also now wearing fashionable glasses.

So... happy blogs can be so boring. But are a rarity here, so thought I would share that with you. More to say on all this as my head clears over the next few days. Hopefully. The Mick Wall website should be going live with its updated look and content any day now too, maybe even in time for my birthday next week. More reasons to light and blow some candles out...

Travel light, they say. Ok... right after I take the kids to school, carry wife to acupuncture, get the food in for the weekend, finish that DVD review I had to do, send those emails you HAVE to send, find time to run, get clean clothes somewhere in the vicinity of an iron, sort the dog out, eat something, pack, grab a bigga cuppa cappa, remember to takedirections, phone thru to check the reservation, passes, arses, and attendent crap... then leave. In a minute. That is, at about 9pm. ETA... oh, some time near midnight... maybe. Download, baby, king of the rockers, and me. Better pray I make it back in pieces that fit...

Sunglasses kind of day. Hope it keeps up as I'm supposed to be going to the Download festival this weekend. Not because I wanted to, you understand. I was just mentally counting how many rock festivals I've been to over the years and I got to 15 and stopped. That's about 12 too many already. One more I don't need. But there it is. The wheel keeps turning, I keep holding on, and suddenly it's Whitesnake, ZZ Top and Def Leppard time again. All of which, I'm actually looking forward to in a time-lord kind of way. It's been a while since I ponced about backstage with any of those guys. It's just the rest I can't stand. The haggling for passes. The stress over hotels and parking. The people you bump into you either thought or hoped were dead and the ones who ignore you that you thought were friends. I'm supposed to be doing a show on Rock Radio live from the site on Saturday and Sunday, and here I am the night before I'm supposed to go and I don't even have my hotel reservation confirmed yet, or passes or asses or... nothing. Leaving it all up to the suits of RR and so far they haven't remembered to send anything down the wire. So maybe I wont be going. Then wait and see, that will be my fault somehow. Or maybe not. Maybe this is just pre-gig nerves and actually the weekend will be a total pain-free blast. May be...

Actually got more than five minutes in a row work done today. Weird as wife is feeling worse again. She's back for more acupuncture on Friday but is then down for an MRI scan on Saturday and the thought is freaking her out. Two hours in the senses-deprivation tank. No fun, my baby. Meanwhile I'm doing my best to behave like a man who actually has eight hours in the day to devote to money-making. In an artistic way, natch. For as long as I can anyway. After that I'll just take the money, thanks. Stopping now though. I spent the last two evenings running like a bastard on the treadmill. First time for about six weeks. Nearly killed me the first night but I slept like a (mildly disturbed) baby. Second night I ran like the wind and couldn't sleep at all (thank you Running God). Tonight I'm saying, fuck that. Gimme a glass of red and a plate of Indian, pretty please. Up the workers...

Realised as I sat down to write this, wondering what I've been up to lately, I don't live the days so much at the moment, as graze them, going from one weird scene to another, chop chop. The last couple of days that has included though not in total... walking the dog, who is in season, so a bit like being a bodyguard; taking kids to and from school, which is similar but harder work; taking wife for brief foray into the outside world via the medium of the car; shopping and more shopping, cooking and more cooking, washing and wishing and etc. Also, working on the hoof, squeezing reviews in, emails, phone calls, doing them one at a time while doing something else while thinking of something else again. Today that also meant mailing out packages, accounts stuff, bills, school forms (can't remember what for) and putting up with unexpected visits from well-meaning others who wouldn't dream of just turning up at your place of work but because you work from home think nothing of walking right in anytime they like, cheers. Then there is telly-watching, radio-listening, child-talking-non-stop-fun-to-be-had-by-all-but-not-necessarily-you-right-this-second. And so on. And now this. Then bed. Maybe even sleep. At some point. Some good news though. Wife is definitely feeling better after her acupuncture, still far from cured, but at least looking forward. And my older, smarter sister Maureen mailed me to suggest lunch at some point hopefully soon, and to let me know I am far from the only lunatic with more madness than he can handle in his life. Or hers. So not too bad at all, really. Just taking it one sip at a time, and trying not to choke. Secret thereof...

Live today from 2pm UK time, the Classic Rock Radio show, at...

www.rockradio.co.uk/scotland

or

www.rockradio.co.uk/manchester

Why wouldn't you?

A daddy day but a better one than of late. Wife had acupuncture on Friday and thank god it seems to have worked the miracle we've been praying for. The efficacy of acupuncture is not news to me. I had a lengthy course of it at a Traditional Chinese Medicine centre in Ealing 17 years ago which cured me of what the doctors thought was cancer. (A golf ball on the side of my neck which disappeared literally overnight after my first session with the guru and his needles.) But wife can be a bit of a baby when it coems to this sort of thing and I feared the worst. Praise be, though, it all came out the opposite of how I expected it to. Place in Wallingford, far out middle-aged gal in white coat and good smile and what looks like a garden shed smelling of... garden things and incense. She had the magic touch, gave wife the good word. And now she has taken up her mat and is walking again. Well, not quite walking, more staggering with style. Moving around still in pain but with the fear and not-knowing removed, her face back to normal, her energy returned.

Anyway... a daddy day today then,. taking my girls to stage school in the morning then for a haircut in the afternoon. Two living dolls, driving me crazy with questions and too many other things. But all good in the end. Later I tried to get some work done but found myself nodding off at the keyboard. Thought, fuck it, and loaded up the car with eight bags of mown grass that have been rotting away stinking up the garage waiting to be dumped for way too long but got their just deserts today, me sipping a big cuppa cappa from Costa as I drove to the dump. Like I say, a proper daddy day.

Later than that I took the boy with me to the supermarket to buy dinner. Couldn't find anything that worked right so ended up trying a new Chinese takeaway instead - again in wallingford, what is it about that far out place? - which turned out to be the best we've had since Christ walked the Oxfordshire earth. Even opened up a bottle of red, which I have gotten out of the habit of lately. Had one glass and woke up hours later in front of the telly, something about TS Elliot or maybe Island Records or somesuch blaring away. Dragged my dying body up to bed where I couldn't sleep but could at least dream, shivering in the sudden cold.

Finally comes the day, when suddenly the waters break, the darkness splits, and suddenly... not suddenly, but just out of the vaguely blue comes a summer rain, heavy but not cold, inescapable but no longer something needing to be escaped from. A day and a night when suddenly, it all changes. The world turns, grinds, slithers, crawls, inches along until suddenly, it's bearable again. Almost. Good but not the same. And you find yourself sitting there listening to World Gone Wrong by Bob on Spotify, the rain pounding against the window, the air warm and close, the taste of red wine welcome again, the wife, her back still broken but her spirit suddenly revived, children at last asleep, and nothing works any better, nothing is still really any good, it just isn't so bad after all. All better in the morning. Kissing it better. Doing the ironing, the pen in your back, the sound of a million cunts fading from view, just me and Bob and the rain and the summer night. Suddenly. The world gone wrong but the right way around again at last.

To London for the weekly Classic Rock radio show recording. Things were going well until Russ the producer passed on some of the obtuse comments from one of the Other Producers there. Really good advice like can I mention the words 'Rock Radio' more often, like in, um, EVERY link (as opposed to every other damn link as I do at the moment). Of course! Why didn't I think of that? We'll double our listenership! I expect that's why all the greats of broadcasting used to do that. Like when John Peel always but always used to mention you were listening to Radio One on all his shows. Indeed, when he died I distinctly remember that being the one thing every national newspaper that carried his picture on page one made a point of mentioning (and with the exception of the arse-wiping Daily Star every single newspaper in this countey ran a pic of John on their front page the day after his death). Which reminds me, before we get onto the next paragraph, can I just remind you... You're reading the Mick Wall Blog on www.mickwall.com. And don't forget to try the veal. It's got antlers up its arse.

Meanwhile, the rest of the day was taken up with what has recently become my normal duties. That is, looking after the kids and animals while wife, when not flat-out on the floor, staggers around doubled-up like Old Man Steptoe. Her mum and dad were here to help while I was in London today, which was good, bless 'em. Still waiting for the hospital to get back about that MRI, though, which they had marked down as a 'Priority' on Monday. If you're reading this in America and thinking about Godfairy Obama's recommendation about some sort of National Health Service built along similar lines to ours in the UK, take my advice - don't do it. Not unless you fancy a non-stop diet of painkillers, obviously.

Listening right now to Time Waits For No One on Spotify. Hard to believe all these days and years and lifetimes that have slipped by in the since time, but the Stones really were very, very good once upon a long ago. Really, very, very, very. Yup, even better than Crazy Susan Boyle. Get an old person to tell you about it.

Yesterday was a long one. Began at 6.00a.m. with me falling down the stairs to my office to try and finish the updated Zeppelin chapter. This so should have been done weeks ago. This so is what's going on right now though, what with every day mainly dveoted to wife's back and the repercussions thereof. Anyway, in between dressing, feeding and getting rthe kids to school, it finally got done. Done enough to spellcheck and press 'send' anyway. I'm praying Claire my trusty copy-editor will be able to do the rest, i.e. tart it up and ethnic-cleanse it of too many mistakes, enough to make it usuable anyway.

Ironically, one of the reasons I was in such a desperate hurry was that I was off to London for lunch with my gentleman publisher Malcolm and my equally gentlemany agent Robert. Topos the venue, of course, being the most suitable Old School basement eaterie in Soho that still allows me through the door. And it was a strictly Old School lunch and all. One of the reasons I love Malcolm and Robert so is that, like me, they come from a world before the internet. Not that they haven't kept up. haven't we all, god help us. Just that they still remember how things SHOULD be done, and only need the occasional visit from the likes of me to remind them.

After that I had to jump on the hotter-than-hell tube up to Old Street and the production offices of Somethin Else, where I took part in a Radio 4 programme going out one Saturday morning later this year about the traumatic experiences of the man that was the naked blonde boy on the cover of the Houses Of The Holy album. This was such a strange discussion that I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, except to say it was right up my poorly-lit street and I very much look forward to hearing what the madmen that are making the programme... um, make of it.

Then home, not to bed, just yet, but to wipe wife's tears from her eyes. She had been left on her own for a few hours accidentally - badly made plans that backfired - and was now nearly dead from the pain and effort and getting the kids fed and in bed on her own. If there is a god I must have left him still sipping Grappa in Topos...

Back to the hospital today, usual Wall Family Ward, different doctor, of course, it being against the law to see the same one twice, or have the one you do see know anything about what's been going on, even in the last 10 minutes. Better outcome today, though, at least notionally. This one says wife has a slipped disc. Whereas only one of the previous six we have seen in the past three weeks (no exaggeration) have said that before. This one actually offered her an MRI scan, had the results from her last MRI two years ago there on-screen (something none of the previous six had managed or apparently thought of doing) and promised it would all be done "within the week." Should she need an operation after that, he would sort that smartish too. In the meantime, keep taking the drugs. No mention of any for daddy, which seems a bit fucking mean but that's the NHS for you, can't expect miracles, lad, etc.

In the meantime... I am now so worn down by the whole mummy-by-day-daddy-by-night thing that I have found the solution - just don't sleep at all. Simple, dimples! If only I had thought of it before I could have saved myself a lot of grief. Which reminds me, I have to go now. It's after 8.00pm and time to turn back into daddy and go to work. Hoorah! All this and listening to the newly released, revamped to no proper purpose Stones album, It's Only Rock And Roll from '74. What you notice is that, apart from Time Waits For No One (a masterpiece) and Dance Little Sister (crap but class crap) there is nothing much going on there at all, yet it is still a MILLION times better and much more classic Stones-sounding than anything they did after Rockin' Ronnie Wood joined. I say this as someone who loved Ronnie in the Faces and quite fancied him in the Stones too, actually. Then you listen to Mick Taylor doing his sweet thang and it hits you. This was them at their best, no nostalgic 60s crap argument allowed.

Just thought I'd mention it, like...

Between the crack-ups I've been trying to write an updated chapter for the paperback version of the Zeppelin book which comes out in the UK later this year. It's strange having to go back to this so soon after the original came out. My fingers ache and my wrists literally go to sleep just trying to type the words 'Led' and 'Zeppelin'. And yet, the story just goes on and on, even when the band aren't doing anything or likely to for a long while. I know what I need to say, it's trying to say it without my mouth becoming disfigured, like a stroke victim trying to call for help. Anyway, that has to be delivered tomorrow and so far I've managed a solitary paragraph so I better get cracking. The in-laws are looking after broken-down wife and never-stop kids today so I have to make the most of it. Can't tell you how much I'd rather just being lying in a deckchair in the garden, though, staring at the clouds.

Meanwhile... the latest episode of the world-conquering Classic Rock Magazine Radio show goes out live today at 2.00pm UK time. Do yourself a favour and go find it at...

www.rockradio.co.uk/scotland/

or...

www.rockradio.co.uk/manchester/

Right, so where were we? Wife's back. Oh yeah...

Look, you don't wanna hear about that and I can't get my head round how to tell it here. So...

I was just thinking. It's hot here today. The kind of heat that makes you nostalgic for things that haven't happened yet. Especially when you're young and it still feels like it's all before you. The older you get, the more that changes, of course. You still get the feelings of weird twisted-up nostalgia, only now it's usually for things you know will never come again. And I don't mean mid-life crisis boo-hoos either. I mean like the real thing, baby.

Like... 1983. Coming out of a long - long - white and brown cloud, finding myself falling - falling - into a sudden blue sky. Sinking right to the bottom of the pool and staying there, short legs crossed, thin arms folded, my big blue pretty eyes wide open and seeing absolutely nothing. In the middle of it all I found myself one day lying on my back on Chiswick Green, the warm green grass my bed, the crazy babe with the big red hair and short, short skirt lying next to me, an empty bottle of cider next to us, me in some kind of blind fool's heaven, her in her own approximation of doubled-up hell. And I remember lying there remembering how, over 20 years before, I had run as a child across this same stretch of park and tripped and fallen into dog shit, skidded right into it, both hands, all down my arms and legs my mother going fucking nuts like it was all my fault, the thought of the horrible walk home, the looks of strangers tormenting her, and so her tormenting me. And I went to say something about it, to share the memory, but as I did so some tiny glimmer of understanding made me realise I would be wasting my time. That this queen of the scene I had somehow temporarily wound up with was utterly uninterested. That whatever trip I was now on it was all my own, and probably would be for however long we all had left to endure it. And now, sitting here more than 25 years after THAT, I feel myself skidding towards yet more dog shit, only this time the babe next to me is not crazy - not in that way - and probably does care but really wouldn't know what the fuck I'm on about anyway. And then I remember I shouldn't be sitting here thinking any of this, I should be working. And I understand at last what my mother was always moaning about as she dragged me down the street, my shitty arms and legs and shitty trip all still awaiting me. Us.

Been listening to a lot of James Taylor lately too. Does that have something to do with it?

Not especially.

No time for idle chat. Wife still disabled. Life still hobbling behind. A short list then of the tiny things that somehow manage to go on in-between...

Listening to: old Billy Joe Shaver, new Bob Dylan, weird things overheard on the radio as I drive like a madman from A to B and back again.

Reading: Pulp by Charles Bukowski (again), the Times Literary Supplement, as found on the floor, new Classic Rock (v.good Metallica piece, amongst other things), new Tight But Loose (1969 and all that), new scribble on wall done by 3-year-old boy.

Liking: that bit between sleep and wakefulness when life seems bearable. Coffee. Always.

Disliking: emails I don't have time to respond to properly. Bills I can't pay. Blogs: the whole thing seems insufferably bullshitty right now...

As you may have noticed, there have been no blog entries for a few days now. That is because my wife has done her back in good and proper and so I have been wearing the apron, as they say. And the wig and slippers too. This has not been easy. Work has all but gone out the window, and as I write this I am already being called away to deal with yet more screechings and wailings from one of the babberoos. Or possibly wife. Doctors, we have had them coming out of our arseholes. Hospitals, they are naming wards after us. Drugs, I have never seen so many, all handed over by the crazy looking gremlin-guy who works behind the pharmacy counter at Tescos. Where was he when I needed him 25 years ago? Anyway, just thought I'd reassure those that may care, as well as those that most definitely do not, that I haven't fallen off the back end of the world. Well, I have, but not forever. Please god, not forfuckingever...

Live today from 2.00pm UK time, the Classic Rock Magazine show.

www.rockradio.co.uk/manchester

www.rockradio.co.uk/scotland

Wife's back has gone again big time which means my front has gone with it. Trying to work but with her mostly lying on the floor - the only place where the pain gives an inch - it means I have to look after the babberoos. This is OK - for a couple of days. But it is Wednesday and I have reached my own pain threshold. That is, I'm running out of ways of figuring out how to deal with it all and get enough work done. How do you do it, ladies? I mean, seriously, HOW?!? One of the yummy mummy's at school this morning made a joke about how well I was coping and said I should stick a card in the school office window advertising my services as a domestic help. Yeah, funny, ha, yeah...

Tired, tired, tired today. It all catches up with you in the end. Sometimes it doesn't wait as long as that. Today I could hardly bring myself to wonder why. Definitely no thoughts of running machines, that's for sure. Couldn't even get myself into my office much before noon and then only to gaze at the screen with my tongue hanging out like an old soldier dying of thirst as he slides slowly down a sand dune. I mean, I gave it a go, transcribing an interview. Managed about 12 minutes the whole afternoon. Mind you, wife's back has gone again so I had to help her too, which also ate into the time. Her back and my brain. Both gone. Again. Meanwhile, the world continues skidding around us, spinning at impossible speed and not even any Mad Men to try and stay awake for on the telly tonight. In the end, we gave up. The girls' had a friend over from school for tea. We bought in. From the chip shop. Kids' caviar. No adult equivalent anywhere in sight for us though. None that I can think of anyway. Seems you get to a certain stage nothing works anymore. Not on a night like today anyway.

Mercury is retrograde, I read in the paper, which means, basically, that everything you try and do will be fucked for the rest of the week, perhaps longer. That is, you push it one way it will come back another. You hope for this you will end up with that. And very little of it turning out better than you thought. Very little indeed. Now you may think this is all horseshit, and I might tend to agree with you, but not today, mutha. Things keep bouncing back at me and none of it in a good way. I'd hardly gotten down the stairs this morning than I got an email on the Blackberry telling me a meeting that's been in the diary for weeks has suddenly been cancelled. Don't ask, but I'd been pinning some high hopes on its outcome. Now we're not even having the damn thing. Then I got a phone call from my agent Robert. I always like to hear from Robert, whatever the signs in the sky say, but even here the conversation was more wait-and-see than don't-worry-it'll-be-all-right-baby. Then wife and I were putting a package together I had to send to Paris, books and things, only to discover after we'd sealed it up we'd left half the things we needed to put in there out. Fuck's sake. Rip it up and start again. Then we made the mistake of actually daring to put our feet outside the door and I swear I nearly tripped over my own toes and went headfirst into the gutter. Some might say I already did that years ago and have been struggling to get back up again ever since and some might be right and can go fuck themselves for their trouble, but I could really do without it right now. I'm so far outside the loop that not even having a drink would fix me right now and I haven't had a sip for weeks. Not even the running machine appears to be helping at the moment. I have been jumping on it regularly again for the last 9 or 10 weeks, including yesterday when it nearly killed me. And today, guess what, I feel like shit. I know, I know, there's always somebody worse off than you. Maybe I'll go and read his blog...

Live today from 2.00pm UK time, until 5.00pm, the Classic Rock Magazine Show with your host, oh so wonderful me.

www.rockradio.co.uk/scotland

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Go get some.

Had two legends of rock on the phone today. The first, Ross Halfin, was in fine form, almost shouting down the phone at one point as he treated me to his, um, colourful opinions of a certain Famous Rock Group who shall remain nameless. Not that anything he said was incorrect, of course. I just couldn't stand the grief we would both get if I published it here. I'd love to tell you more about the rest of our conversation but, actually, thinking about it, pretty much everything else was tainted by what you might call robust opinion-making too. From both of us. Halfway through I noticed people walking by my office window looking in at me with strange expressions on their faces and realised I had all the windows open and that the whole street could probably hear me. If they'd been able to hear Ross too there might have been real trouble.

Then, later, I had that nice Mr Coverdale on the phone again. Fortunately, I'd closed the windows by then so the rest of the street couldn't hear me baying like a donkey with laughter. Again, I'd love to let you in on what we were gassing about but a) I want to save it for the feature in Classic Rock I'm writing, and b) my lawyers just aren't good enough to save me from the overwhelming bucket of shit that would come flying my way if I did.

Off now to hang out with the family. Another good reason to keep the windows closed, you might think, except it's too late for that, at least where our neighbours are concerned. They've seen the blood and hair on the front lawn too many times already, gotten used to the screams late at night. I can only hope wife keeps her promise about getting them all too bed early - they've had a few late nights this week - and that the couch will soon be mine all mine. Not that I hold out much hope.