Star Blog

Sorry kidz, no more blogging for a few days as this week is The Week It Must All End. Well, before the editing, lawyers, and the rest of the awful oar-sticking-in that always goes on after a book is finally - finally - delivered. So-called normal service will resume just as soon as I'm able to open the lid on my basket again... OK?

Found myself, for various reasons, going through a pile of old mags and papers from the late 60s, early-70s this morning. It might be nostalgia, though I doubt it, but what a better world it was back then for the music press. These days the only mags that do really well are the ones devoted to banging on about how great the bands from those days were. At the time, though, most critics worth a damn spent most of their time telling us what a load of rusty tin pots these so-called wondrous idols really were. Zeppelin? Not even as good as Cream or the Who, apparently. The Who? Nowhere near as good as the Stones and Hendrix, it says here. Jagger and Jimi? Not fit to wipe Lennon and McCartney's loveable backsides, obviously. While everyone knew that neither of those two came close to matching Bob Dylan for lyrics that, like, really meant something, man.

Now whether you agree with any of this or not it's still more refreshing to read stuff like this than the arse-licking gobshite you get now. Hence the dreadful fawning over the Zeppelin O2 show last year from people that wouldn't have been seen dead listening to Houses Of The Holy when it first came out (and have probably still not heard of it now) or the disgusting drooling over the very nice but not that good Paul Weller album currently by people that, again, would be extremely hard pushed to name even one of his previous solo albums, let alone which of them was actually worth more than a desultory ten-pint fuck.

I also like looking at the adverts for the new 'cutting edge' TEAC tape-recorders, the interviews with various gurus, Meher Baba my arse, Pete, what the fuck were you on? (No, wait, I remember now...), and of course the endless references to politics, drugs, and sex which back then went hand-in-hand with most Important Interviews. Pre-Heat days, you might call them. Or pre-Internet, pre-MTV, pre-mobile phones, pre-now, in other words. And no, not such a great place to live always. I certainly don't miss the lack of showers, central heating and TV channels. But if you want to read some real rock journalism as opposed to the illiterate, cowardly cocksucking that goes on now as yet another load of old tosh from the past is eulogised and resold on box-set and DVD, then Rolling Stone, Melody Maker, NME, Street Life, Trouser Press, Creem and - going right back - Friends and International Times were absolutely the places to do it. Why doesn't someone start a mag like that now? It doesn't have to be so earnest. It could just be... you know... honest.

Hey, did I mention I turned 50 this week...?

The old jazzers - the generation I dig, Miles, Coltrane, Ornette, those guys - always said you couldn't even begin to think about improvising like a pro until you knew how to play the damn instrument really properly first. In other words, you can't expect to run really fast before you know how to walk tall first. It's the same with writing. Or it is for me. Lately, after more than 30 years, 20 odd books, the devil only knows how many millions of words in magazine and newspaper articles, and then just the shit you do to amuse yourself here and there down the increasingly rocky road - unpublished poems, short stories, even those five chapters of the novel you never finished (yet), or just ideas to your agent you spent weeks and months on but he never got back to you about - I have learned to improvise. For example, been doing it all day today. Not writing, but flying. Fingers moving so fast they're just a blur. Like Charlie Parker in a hurry - and for those of you unlucky enough not to know, Charlie was FUCKING quick. Me, too, now. Maybe even faster. Course, it means a lot of red ribbon will need to be cut before I can send the whole cake off. But that's all right. The important thing at this worryingly late and weird stage of the funny old game is to get the fucking cake done first.

Meanwhile... I've caught my daughter's chicken pox. Never had it before, thought I'd wait till I was 50 and just days away from trying to finish the most important book of my career first. Improvising, see? Like the doctor that prescribed the anti-virals which are keeping the worst of it at bay. "We only give these to cancer or AIDS patients, usually," she said. I didn't know whether to be pleased or not that she gave them to me too but they do seem to be helping.

Now... I've gotta go. Got a long solo coming up and I don't wanna think about it too hard first...

In case you've missed the international TV news bulletins, it is my 50th birthday today. Naturally, the phone, email and front door have not stopped going all day as gifts, cards and messages of goodwill arrive from all over the world.

Axl Rose: Happy Birthday old friend. Love ya!

Jimmy Page: GOOD LUCK WITH THE BOOK!

Ozzy and Sharon: Happy Fucking Birthday You Old Cunt!

The Queen: My husband and I congratulate you on reaching this great age...

Actually, I binned that last one. But it was nice of so many others to message in. And then there were my three brothers and spinster aunt. They all sent their usual birthday surprises. Well, not so much surprises, actually, as they always send the same thing to me as they send my children on their birthdays: fuck all. All that is, except for my youngest brother Danny, who is a prince and NEVER forgets his nieces and nephew, bless him, though sadly even he seems to have forgotten his big bros big number.

Never mind. I'm used to it. And check out this one from Jon Bon Jovi: "I never usually acknowledge anyone from my big haired past but hey, like, you know, country music is great, isn't it?"

Yes, it is Jon. Not that you'd know.

Also, REAL THANKS for those MySpace friends - realer than reality - who really did send greetings. You are all mad, virtual, and often undressed, and I thank you all.

Just sitting here now waiting for my very good friend Ross to call. He won't forget me, I'm sure...

Long weird day. Didn't work at all last night, even though I was supposd to. Wife made the fatal error of being kind and leaving me to eat my dinner alone and in peace while watching the football - the first game I've actually seen of the Euro 08 comp - Croatia vs. Turkey. But it was so boring and I was so tired I fell asleep. And didn't wake for another thousand years. Or three hours, to be more precise. At which point the towel was well and truly thrown in and I went to bed.

So today... big work, no messin' allowed. All that. Wife even took kiddliewinks round to nanna and grandad's to get out of my way. And it worked. Been here for nearly eight hours straight now (one sandwich and various drink and toilet breaks aside) and though the brain has well and truly gone now another chapter IS DONE. That's got to be worth a life, hasn't it?

Got an email in the middle of it all from Nigel who owns the cottage telling me the place is empty again and would I like to come back? The only reason I left was they had a prior booking starting in June which was supposed to have lasted a year. But now things have... changed. Oh Nige, if only I'd know a month ago. As it is it's too late to turn back now. I'm stuck here like quicksand, praying for a lifeline but expecting only a mouthful of sand.

Finally ran out of steam today. Just couldn't manage to get in through the office out door, if you get me. Was up by 8.00am and back in bed by 11.00am. Not sleeping just dreaming. Dragged my body back out of the sack a couple of hours later, ate something, then sat there staring at the wall. Not unhappy, just blank. And aching. How does it work that sitting at a laptop for long (long) periods can make you ache from head to toe?

Anyway, back in here now. Just in time for the return of the kids from school. It's all right, I'm used to that again. Not used to having to try so hard to do the simplest thing though. One good sitting today and I'll have another chapter done. One good sitting a day for the next three and I'll have another, and so on. All the leg work on the final chapters is done, dots on the page, just need to join them together. But now my own legs have gone. "Have a day off," says wife but there aren't any days to have off left. I've said it before, but this is where the drugs used to come in handy. Fucking handy, actually. Not that I'd ever go back. That would be like drinking from a baby's bottle again. Not a good image to project for a so-called grown man.

So. Kettle on then, I suppose...

Have now officially and unofficially Cancelled Everything until the book is done, or as done as any book is until the editors/lawyers/sales-wizards have had their evil ways with it. Living in permanent midnight. Even worked right through bathtime for the kids last night which if you have small kids you will know is like working right through the London blitz in world war two, or perhaps an Iron Maiden concert circa 1985. It's my 50th birthday on Monday but not even that matters anymore. Not to me anyway and never mind all that significant landmark bullshit, if wife goes insane and tries to throw a secret party for me or anything uncalled for like that there will be blood on the bedroom floor, trust me. Now I have to go. Or rather, not to go, just stay here, doing You Know What. Don't try and follow me...

These late nights have meant I'm listening to a lot of music again. I mean, there's always music on somewhere round here usually but it's only when I'm on my own sweating at the desk that it starts to really seep into what's left of my so-called soul. Between 11.00pm and 1.00am most nights that means Late Junction on Radio 3. I wish more stations would do shows like this - weird, slow, slower, slower still, late-nite shadows full of stuff you've never heard before but just sounds right at that time of night. Years ago Radio 1 did a chill-out zone at about 4.00am every Saturday night/Sunday morning, fronted by Weird Annie Nightingale, which was also good but who the fuck needs it at that time? 11.00pm to 1.00am, puuurrrfect...

The day time is different obviously. Lately I've found myself back at good old Planet Rock. Now they've pulled the rabbit out of the hat and saved the day by finding a sweet Sugar Daddy to help keep them afloat they've been absolutely steaming. Or maybe it's my imagination but the energy coming off there is fair crackling right now. The world really wouldn't be as round without them now.

Early evening is more about my own CD collection. On my desk right now that means the first Crosby Stills & Nash album - gotta love 'Guinnevere', man, like 'Jar Of Flies'-era Alice In Chains but better sung, and played, and written and... dug. Looking down to my right I also see Miles Davis' 'Sketches Of Spain' (so far out he really didn't come back), Zeppelin's 'Presence' (the best worst album they ever did, stunning in a gun in the mouth sort of way), the first Spirit album, Joni's 'Blue' and the Flying Burrito Bros 'Gilded Palace Of Sin' and... lots of other shit. The main thing is mood music right now. I need the mood - and the vibe and the luck and the right kind of air in the room - to be with me as I rush to finish the Mighty Zep on time.

Jimmy Page whiplashed the band through 'Prescence' in three weeks, once they'd written the songs. That's what I hang on to as I try and finish this bastard before my birthday, which is this coming Monday. I won't make that deadline but I'm gonna try and make this all end later that week. And all without the benefit of drugs or any other vital stimulus besides coffee, juice, red wine, noisy kids and the occasional grope from the wife. Get me, the old fuck with the future all up his arse. He thinks...

Father's Day. Woke up in my son's bed wondering why, then groggily remembered. He'd been asleep in my bed with his mum when I'd finally staggered up the stairs at about 2.00a.m. All part of my night owl shift trying to finish the Zep book. If it means sleeping on your saddlebag, so be it, I don't care. A man's gotta do, blah-de-bleeding-blah. Came down stairs to some cool homemade Best Daddy In The World cards from the kids and one expensive shop-bought one from their mum. Sweet as.

Then as I was trying not to spill my tea it started. The fights and arguments and mental torture of a normal Sunday morning here at Wall Castle. I used to think having girls was better than boys cos the boy has destroyed half the house and what he hasn't destroyed yet he wants to climb on top of and jump off, the higher and more terrifying for his parents the better. But I've changed my mind. The boy may be a lunatic but at least he doesn't squeal and bitch and moan and turn on the waterworks at the slightest thing.

"Daddy!"

Sip tea, try to ignore it.

"DADDY!"

"Yes?"

"She took my [insert toy/book/comb/piece of toast/whatever]!"

"Only cos she hit me!"

"Cos she hit me first!"

"Only cos she turned off Spongebob..."

"Cos she stole my drink!"

"Cos she wouldn't shut up!"

"Cos she..."

Now seriously spilling tea: "SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE I KILL BOTH OF YOU WITH ONE MIGHTY BLOW FROM MY BROADSWORD YOU WITCHES!!!"

At least, that's what I would like to say. Instead I find myself affecting this would-be calm, strangulated voice that tries to be reasonable even as my poor tired wrong-bed blood boils.

"Come on now girls, it's daddy's day and we don't want to spoil it by fighting, do we?"

"I hate you!"

"I hate YOU!"

"I HATE you MORE!!!"

"I HATE you MORE times TEN!!!"

"I HATE you MORE times A HUNDRED MILLION!!!!!"

"I HATE....."

By which point I find myself tottering back up the stairs under the pretense of needing a quick visit to the toilet. With the Sunday newspaper. And another unspilled (as yet) cup of tea. But wife sees me and issues a curse - unrepeatable even here, but a warning about not spending all day in there, as if I would (anymore).

And so begins another wonderful working day for the best daddy in the world...

This being back home malarky is starting to wear thin. Oh, I love it all right, in terms of spending time with the wife and kids, even just sitting there looking at four walls that belong to me and not someone else. But in terms of getting any work done... Christ on the cross, now I remember why I left here for the cottage in the first place. I really could have used another month there. Except the cottage is gone. There is no extra month. Only this.

Thinking seriously about becoming a night worker, sleeping all day (with ear plugs in) and toiling through the darkness. That's how I used to do it in the Old Days. Except without the ear plugs. Back then I'd be so fucked from working round the clock I didn't need any help sleeping, I just closed the lid of my coffin and out went all the lights inside my head. Now I practically need someone to inject me in the eyeball with heroin to ensure a half-decent doze for 20 minutes. Unless it's the middle of the afternoon, of course. And then I can sleep standing up. Or sitting at the laptop. Or could while I was at the cottage anyway.

It's the kids, mainly. It's not their fault. Screaming and crying and laughing and crying and shouting and crying and making things go BOOM! at the most unexpected moments then repeating the process endlessly before crying again, it's what they do, right? Or in the case of my boy, just keeping coming into my office to check on me, followed by his mother, also screaming and making things go BOOM!

I wasn't joking about the ear plugs, by the way. I actually sent wife out to buy me some today. And she did, throwing them down on my desk like I no longer have any reason now to complain. "Just put your fucking ear plugs in." She doesn't actually say that. But I know she's thinking it...

And the day started so well...

Finished a couple of pieces on Iron Maiden for the Planet Rock website that I've been working on for the past few days. Should have been doing the book but I'm skint and I like Planet Rock and want to offer encouragement, especially now that they've managed to escape being shutdown by GCap by finding a friendly rock-loving multimillionaire to buy them. I predict great things.

Anyway, did that then took wife and boy out to Millet's Farm, which is a great place to go on a hot sunny day, especially during school time when the kids-to-parents ratio is low. Boy loved feeding the goats and ducks and sheep and whatnot. Even mummy and daddy found time for a nibble. Then got chatting in the swings-and-roundabouts area to a nice Californian woman with two boys of her own, one our lad's age and one a bit older. She's here on holiday and it was really nice to talk to someone with two monsters to contend with as opposed to our one.

Then we hit the much too expensive farm shop and bought some much too expensive minted lamb chops for din-dins. All very lovey-dovey sing-song. Drove home holding hands as boy slept in back. Perhaps there is a God?

Got home and began clearing my office of the debris from the move back from the cottage at the weekend. Emptied nine bags of Zeppelin books and magazines (and CDs and DVDs and print-outs of weird shit I can no longer remember why I thought I might need). Put it all on its own special shelves in the garage. Came back in and realised that only leaves another four huge boxes and about six bags full of god knows what to go. Then - finally - came back in with a big mug of coffee and sat down to Do Some Work (on the Book). A small but not insignificant smile on my ugly old face.

Then my Blackberry started flashing. An email from my accountant's office. Could I sign and send something back confirming some fictitious and unfeasibly large amount of money I'm apparently supposed to be paying them each month. You fucking what? Anyway... I don't want to get into it all again here as my blood pressure has only just started to settle again and things like that matter at this getting later by the minute stage of the game. But in a nutshell: my accountant is someone I have known for over 20 years. He has always been A Good Guy, even when I was a Bad Guy. He has Never Let Me Down. One of these days I'd like to put a statue up to him. Really.

That is, until recently. Every time I hear from him lately (like the last six months) it's bad news. Weird invoices I have no idea why I'm being sent. Letters from companies threatening me with court actions if I don't send them cheques I didn't know I owed, late payments of tax and etc. And then when I do want to hear from him he never calls me back anymore. Never.

So I have issued new 'instructions' to my accountant's office. Which if he doesn't call me back this time will mean new instructions to a new accountant as well. All very unsatisfactory as we say in the accountancy world. And all such a wind-up I can't work now because my brain is still boiling over. The moral: just when you think it's safe to give a shit...

I hadn't realised until just now that it had been a whole week since I'd last blogged. But that tells you about the week I've had. Been sending chapters of the Zep book off to the publishers. Not because it's finished, just that it's so far behind schedule that they're resigned to taking it off me piece by piece, in the hope that by the time they've read what I've done I'll have finished the rest. It may even work out that way, too. The problem is this has meant actually reading the chapters back, one by one. Very weird, very time-consuming, very scary, very exciting (sometimes) and just very... you know. Especially the early ones, as they were done over six months ago. Yet are somehow meant to seamlessly relate to everything else written more recently. Which they do, mostly. Or do better now I've had a week of bashing them around.

The question is: is it any good? The answer no longer lies with me. It's all now in the lap of the editor, a fine chap named Ian. I just hope he's more God than Hammer, when it comes to Passing Judgement. I don't want to end up in the Dead Sea. Not after all this time and effort. And love and hate. And fucking of the head and heart. You know what I mean.

Went to see my doctor this morning for an ongoing road report, re the old Farmer Giles and other misspent youth-related ailments. Told her I would rather eat Satan's own arse for breakfast than go through the hell of any more of this 'banding' business, where they drag out the debris and tie a bloody great big rubber band round it, then send you hobbling off to wait for the offending dead meat to "drop off." All that happened last time was that I couldn't walk, or sit, or... you know... ANYTHING... for a week. And still no dropping off, as far as I could tell. Certainly no improvement. She smiled weakly (of course, it's a she, the torture wouldn't be complete without it being a she) and told me she would advise an operation, which "isn't pleasant" but will sort the problem out "for good." That's OK then...

As for this ongoing stomach pain and unease, she now diagnoses an umbilical hernia, which may also "require surgery" or might just be something I "have to get used to." I sat there listening to this with one of those fixed smiles on my face strictly for the doctor's benefit. She is an awfully nice woman, as it goes, and I wouldn't want her to think any of this, like, bothers me, obviously. We chatted for a bit after that. Turns out she and her family are holidaying this year in the same spot me as me and mine are planning to. "Perhaps we'll run into each other," she said chirpily. "Bring your scalpel with you," I said, "Just in case..."

Meanwhile, seeing as so many of you have emailed in asking, here's that gay boy on Mullholland Drive link to Youtube. If this doesn't work, type in Hard N Heavy / White Lion and it's the third one down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCZrATBFJmE

Have entered the dead zone where you only work at night. It happened because I made the fatal error of spending a couple of days at home, discovered I liked it, and have now trapped myself into spending the daylight hours with wife and squiddlies (it's half-term from school week) leaving only the long dark night to... do... my... thing.

Fuck it, who cares? I'm into the home straight, always a short dark tunnel where the rules get torn up and it's every luncatic for his- or her-self. Will the book benefit? Ask me again later...

Meanwhile, was fliicking through Youtube looking at old Zep clips - hello BP and the Starship, circa '73, JPJ with what looks like a bunch of flowers up his sleeve, Robert reading a book (upside down) - and found one of me talking to Mike Tramp, then of White Lion, and Phil Soussan, then of Ozzy's band, while standing on Mullholland Drive dressed as Rob Halford - except I've got REALLY LONG HAIR. And I'm skinny. And talk with a fake American accent (sort of). Showed it to wife and she nearly shit she laughed so much. "You look so gay!" she screamed.

Ah, posterity, who knew you'd turn out to such a whore...

Actually got a lot of work done yesterday while I was at home. A lot of work plus I cooked breakfast (ham, eggs) and dinner (spag bol) for everybody and played with the kids and talked to wife (well, listened) and generally crept around like a guy in a white hat. Of course, all that meant I didn't get out the door once all day and ended up collapsing in the so-called marital bed at about 1.30a.m. but so what? A good day, no matter how hard I try and be picky about it. Sort of made me optimistic about being able to finish the book when I return full-time at the end of next week. Remind me of that when I start climbing the walls again.

As for today, it was back to my padded cell under the trees. Looking around after being away a couple of days I realise just how very, very lucky I was to find it and afford it (just about, fingers crossed and keep whistling). No, I wouldn't want to live here longer than about two days. But in terms of getting some work done it's been a god send. In fact, I realise suddenly, I'm gonna miss it when I go. Not so much the place, just the time, the event, the adventure. Even if most of it was just sitting in the utility room, all my books and recordings and CDs and videos and crap on the washing machine, surrounded by boxes of mags, newspapers, internet print-outs, yet more (hundreds) books and what-the-fucks, then sleeping through about three or four bad nightmares for most of the winter nights, waking up screaming one time, crying another, not sleeping at all for a large part of it.

Man, what a scene. What a time. Like I say, I feel very lucky. And very fucked. All at once. Good as it gets in this game, trust me. Or not, as the case may be...

Finished the latest chapter of the Zep book on Saturday night and decided to make a late orbital re-entry to the homestead. Why not, it's the Bank Holiday and everybody else is kicking back, right, so...

Actually, the plan was only to spend Sunday with the family but then Monday rolled around and I decided what the hell and here I am - still - working from home for the first time since January. It really brings it home to me why I rented the cottage in the first place. Three kids aged seven and under, one of them a boy intent on detroying the world... it's not exactly the British Library in terms of noise-levels. And it's pouring with rain today so no chance of wife taking them outdoors.

Still, it's good to be back. The old Vanilla Prison is becoming increasingly claustrophobic. It's only a small bungalow anyway so it's not like there's much room in the cage to pace up and down. Two weeks from now I'll be home full-time anyway, so maybe I should look on this like one of those little visits outside they give long-term prisoners to help them get used to the big bad world again and its shocking freedoms. Or in my case, the sound of world war three breaking out at 6.00a.m. every day.

Decided the not-exercising thing was becoming quickly counter-productive - sitting in a chair at a desk 24/7, a recipe for living death - so went swimming yesterday and came home and jumped on the treadmill today. Feel much better, as in all I want to do now is sleep. But then I have been 'out' all evening. Don't ask. Family stuff. There's just no getting away from it sometimes. No matter how hard you try.

Spoke to Dr. Peter Makowski on the phone earlier though. Just back from LA with Ross Halfin. Told me some funny stories about A Famous Rock Band you won't be reading in Classic Rock any time soon. I'd love to say more but really it's down to the Doc. I've been trying to get him to write a book full of such stories for about 10 years now but he never gets round to it. Damn shame. Cos if he ever did it would be like the Da Vinci Code of rock journalism.

Ross should do one, too. Though it might be said he's doing it already in very small installments via his blog - still one of the best reads on the net, apart from the lies about me and all his other 'best' friends of course.

Anyway, enough talk about writing books. It's bringing on my sweats. Gonna try for an Early Night for once and see if it leads to an Early Morning and some Good Work. Let's face it, I'll try anything at this point...

Spent the morning with wife and two smallest squids at the Wall Family wing of the JR hospital in Oxford. Youngest daughter is having more tests and may need an operation. We hope not obviously but at least we feel like we're getting something done at last. (This has been ongoing for years.)

Came home via MacDonalds. Wife and I hate MacDonalds but the kids love it as a good-girl (boy)treat. Had one of their chicken McDuff sarnies. Yeeuugghhh. Like eating your own cock only not as much fun (probably).

Now getting ready to run back to the Vanilla Prison to continue the Great Work. Stopping off at the supermarket first to buy some dinner for tonight. Oh all right, red wine. I will have earned it by then. We all will.

Only two weeks to go in the cottage and everything bar the dreaded work has gone out the window as I try and make the most of what little time I've got left there. I'm not even exercising anymore, just getting down to work as soon as possible. I don't even go out to buy a newspaper or a bottle of red wine. I even found myself ignoring my natural mid-afternoon impulse today to fall face-first down on the bed and zed out till I felt better.

Two more weeks of this and I'll be well and truly knackered. Still, I am getting a lot of stuff done, the only thing sustaining me the fantasy of actually finishing the bastard thing. When I'm not working I sit there imagining that all I need to do is throw myself at the laptop for a few more days and the whole thing will be done.

I told wife on the phone last night, "A chapter a day! That's what I'm aiming for!"

She sounded worried. "Are you sure?" she said. "The last time you tried that [with the John Peel book] you ended up in hospital."

"Piece of piss!" I cried.

She said she'd call ahead and book me a bed at the JR.

She knows it's all talk, though. My chapter-a-day days are well and truly over. Chapter-a-week and I need an oxygen mask and a stretcher to get me up again the next morning. Still, you've got to tell yourself something, haven't you? Like when I was working as a dishwasher in a burger joint all those years ago. I used to pretend it was one great big fat giant git eating all the food out there, not hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of faceless bastards sent from hell specifically to fuck me. Happy days...

Eldest daughter came for a sleepover at the cottage last night. Mum and siblings were going to a special High School Musical night at school but eldest has SATS coming up next week so used the opportunity to come to the cottage and revise while the old man sat in the other room working on his own exams.

That lasted about half an hour. Then I made dinner - steak and chips (Irish caviar) - and we settled down to eat it at the coffee table while watching Dr Who on TV. My idea of Saturday night heaven these days. Actually, even in the far off days when I still went out on a Saturday night my secret idea of heaven was staying at home in front of the telly, or radio, or whatever. I just always liked the idea of staying in more than going out.

Daughter is one cool kitten though. Straight after Dr Who she went back to her SATS practise papers. The school has her down officially as a 'gifted child'. It doesn't mean she will always be but for now she's pretty amazing, good at everything. "I really like reading and writing," she said at one point. I sat there thinking, well, you know, me too. Then half an hour later: "I really like Maths." Jesus, I thought, where did that come from? Not me or her mother, that's for sure. Nor her two-pigs-plus-a-goat-equals-a-slap-on-the-arse grandparents. Kid's just bright as a shiny new star in the ever-darkening sky.

I told wife about it this morning when I took her home. "I hope she doesn't forget all this one day and grow up like me," I said. "Don't worry," said wife, "She won't." Er, good...

Spent the last two days diligently (brain-achingly) going through all my remaining material on the Zep book, sifting through what's left to find out what I've still got and try and figure out what goes where and when (which chapter etc) - and how many chapters that actually leaves me to write. About four, by the looks of it, followed by intro, epilogue and some other odds and sods. This is good on the one hand because it puts the whole thing much more within reach, kind of like drawing the finishing line for me. This is also not good because it makes me realise just HOW MUCH there is still to do.

Nevertheless, can't help feeling strangely excited. Not because it's a work of genius (I mean obviously, but...), more like that feeling mountaineers get the closer to the summit they climb, inch by inch. Dizzy with joy and sick with fear they might fall off at any minute. Like I've got one hand on the flag and the other on my rapidly shrinking testicles. A familiar feeling to any man on the verge of a breakthrough / breakdown / same damn thing...

My wife came round the cottage yesterday to take some snaps of me on her digital camera for the jacket of the Zep book as the publishers are strangely unconvinced by the nine-year-old shot of me that you can see elsewhere on this site (come on, you didn't really believe that 2006 caption, didja?). She also rather cleverly brought some pairs of cheap and trashy sunglasses from Woolies that cost about £3 each. The sort of thing that looks horrible in real life but somehow stands out on TV or in pictures.

After some awful twatting around trying to make me look good (not even Ross Halfin could manage that at this late stage of the game) she threw in the towel and went for the gay gangster look instead - that is, leather jacket, no shirt, dark invisible man glasses. Voila! It worked. I now look like something out of a Fassbinder (Fassbender?) movie. Just the job. If I can work out how (don't hold your breath) I will also put one or two up here - or my likely on my MySpace page. A nice treat for all you sexy ladies (and boys) out there...

Wife finally figured out why the neighbours have been acting so weird lately - they think we've split up! Cos I've obviously moved out, you know, been gone for months now in fact. God knows why they think I keep returning a couple of times every week - probably because of the kids. Either way, it's an interesting lesson in human nature. When we first moved in a couple of years ago they were all over us, offering to babysit (like we'd let 'em, we don't even trust our own families to do that), water the plants when we were away, take in the mail if we weren't around and god knows what else. Then the first sign of trouble - or so they think - and they start avoiding eye contact, terrified I suppose that wife might break down and start sobbing for their help, or maybe that I will run amok in the streets. (Actually, I still might do that...)

Anyway, they're all in for a big treat soon as I'll be back in another few weeks. What will they think then? That we've reconciled? That wife has given me One More Chance? That the Bastard Is Back? The book - did I mention I was writing a book? - isn't finished yet (hahahaha, yeah) but it is - whisper it - nearly finished. And besides, the lease on the vanilla prison is about to run out, so home it will be very soon. I'm looking forward to it. Not having to finish the last couple of chapters at home (I foresee wife spending increasing amounts of time running errands AWAY FROM THE HOUSE and several late nights for me when the kids are asleep AT LAST. But at least I'm on the home stretch now).

Not I'm getting too excited. Having been around this block so many times half the streets are named after me, I know that as soon as one damn thing gets settled another gets right up and into your arse. And that's if you're lucky. But still, you know what they say, summer's coming...

Then sometimes it really is just about the music.

In the past, for me, that might mean anything from Miles Davis to Bob Dylan to Mozart to Thin Lizzy and Zep...

Never liked punk, though that was what I got my start writing about. Loved the Sex Pistols obviously, but they would have been good any era. The Clash I couldn't and still can't stand. The epitome of every gobshite no-hit garage wankers I met and interviewed between 1977-79, mainly middle class tossers going out of their way to sound like hoody chav cunts, I've always been turned off by ignorance.

Never cared too much for heavy metal either, though applauded the outsider-ness of it through 83 to 91, especially the Irons, the Lepps, Tallica , Guns etcetera. Rarely if ever played it when I wasn't writing about it though.

Then in the dim and distant, the dawn of my teens, there was Bowie (apart from Low, never play it now), Rod and the Faces, T.Rex, and the blonde bird with the St. Christopher dangling from her waist to the V of her hotpants in Middle Of The Road (chripy chirpy... oh god...).

Right now it might mean Julie Fowlis, Gimmer Nicholson, June Tabor, Bach, Ravi Shankar, (early) Joni Mitchell, CS&N, that weird dog-leg in the road where Calif-or-nia meets Ca-le-do-nia, oh yay...

Never having been given the chance to really write about the stuff I actually love, maybe I was lucky. You rarely stay in love with what you have to work with, year in, year out. Like, I loved jazz before I became a full-time rock writer, forgot about it during those 'crazy' years, then immediately found myself listening to it again when it was suddenly all over.

Those that do work with the stuff they love I sort of envy, for obvious reasons, and sort of despise because it's all those poor cunts know, so steeped in their own shit they don't even realise there are whole other nearly always better worlds out there.

Yeah, me, the lucky one. Which is why I get phone calls like the one today from the very nice-sounding lady from Rock Radio in Manchester asking me if I'd go on their breakfast show on Monday to talk about the new Iron Maiden album. Blimey, do they have a new album out?

And then there's the decidedly non-rock'n'roll stuff...

Being so heavily in debt you can't afford a honeymoon for your new wife.

Being so bored and frustrated with your job you pick fights with strangers on the train. Every day.

Getting so old you groan out loud everytime you have to stoop to tie your shoe.

Getting so old actually you don't fancy a shag, no.

Working too hard to look after your young family while feeling like an abject failure.

Sitting there writing something with one hand because your chin is resting on the other hand, your eyes barely open, mind completely blank, beyond bored, then listening to someone tell you how good it is.

Realising your time is nearly up and shrugging, "And?"

Standing there in the dark, watching your children sleep, the tears rolling down your face.

Remembering your mother, dead at 48, younger than you are now.

Seeing a picture of someone even younger, some old crone in the paper, looking older than you'd want to at 60, and thinking, shit...

Not that all of these things have happened to me lately.

Just some of them.

Now and again.

Er, you wanted some rock'n'roll stories...

I once vomited all over one of Wishbone Ash. Well, I was young. And drunk. And stoned.

I once got off with a very attractive young air hostess mid-flight on my way to Los Angeles. Friends, they said it couldn't be done. It could.

Axl and Slash once gave me a gold record for the GN'R Lies album. It still hangs on the wall opposite me.

Jimmy Page once gave me a framed cartoon from the LA Times taking the micky out of the release of the In Through The Outdoor album. He wrote on the back, 'From one monster of rock to another...'

I once did a catherine wheel with Phil Lynott. You know, where you put a BIG long spiral of coke on a mirror and you start at one end and he starts at the other and you don't stop until your heads bump in the middle. Fun, yeah...

I once woke up after sleeping for 48 hours straight and answered the phone to Bryan Adams, calling for his phone interview, and who I told off for ringing me a day early. He hadn't, I had just somehow skipped a day.

I once slept with a Playboy model. In fact, I did a few times. But she had a boyfriend and you know...

I once used to think this stuff mattered.

It doesn't.

Much.

Went wild and crazy with freedom and decided to extend my day off to (most of) today. Let rip doing heavy rock shit like clearing out the garage IN THE RAIN, then taking SEVEN SACKS OF SHIT full of old toys to the British Heart Foundation shop in the highstreet and getting TWISTED on pure squeezed orange juice. FUCK Scott Weiland, if I was in Velvet Revolver they'd be cowering under the beds they never sleep in. And you know why? The KIDS. That's right, I do it all for the fucking kids, man, and don't you EVER let me forget it...

A day off. Yay. Well, finally finished another chapter of the book yesterday - longest, hardest chapter so far, don't ask me why, but I always knew it would be - and so celebrated today by officially saying Sod It. Went swimming instead with wife. With the girls at school and the boy at pre-school, it meant we actually got a couple of hours on our own. We swam 18 lengths together - four more than we managed last week, so we're feeling smug as well as fit. Then afterwards drove to Cholsey to the Best Butcher's In Oxfordshire and bought a much too big piece of prime beef for dinner. Which I cooked to resounding cheers from one and all, including the cat.

I suspect this is all sounding rather too smug and dull, and I should bloody well hope so. I feel I'm owed a bit of smug and dull right now. Of course, it's back to work tomorrow, blank page one of the next chapter, which is mentally and emotionally about as far from smug and dull as I am able to travel. Right now, writing this though, I intend to make the most of it. I'm not begging you to care...

Was just on my way back to the cottage this morning when posty arrived with the new issue of Tight But Loose, the dedicated Led Zeppelin magazine that Dave Lewis has been doing for about 20 years now (longer probably). The problem with these sorts of ventures is that they are invariably light on criticism and heavy on applause. But that's the nature of the beast. Where they really score is on the wonderful detail. It's no surprise to me that John Paul Jones once said Dave knows more about Zep's story than he does.

The latest issue has Bonham on the cover, as it would have been Bonzo's 60th birthday this year. Good god! Or rather, Old God! There's also a nice piece on the people behind the scenes who put together the extraordinary back projections for the O2 show - one of the best things about the gig, I thought. Anyway, if you want to check it out, you can do so at http://www.tblweb.com/. If you're partial to a bit of Zep, definitely worth a gander.

Speaking of which... off now to try and write something of my own about The Great Saga. First, though, to the supermarket to load up on tea, coffee, juices, water... all that good stuff I need to keep me going on the book. Or as Johnny Cash once whispered to Bono, "Sure do miss the drugs..."

Worked out Tuesday, went swimming Wednesday, worked out today (Thursday)... I'd like to say I'm turning into a body fascist but I still have my huge gut and I appear to have now entirely lost the ability to sleep - or at least, not without instantly being plunged into movie-length nightmares. Last night was typical. Slept for approximately two and a half hours, in which I was with a gang of vaguely threatening people I didn't know but who I was involved with in jumping from world to world, not just simple alien worlds but this world - only different. Oh, and we could fly. Or rather, jump from scene to scene, a massive green sunlit field one moment, a dark tunnelled metroplis after dark the next, then back up into the sky (like jumping onto a couch) the next.

Found myself wide awake and sitting up straight on the edge of the bed looking at my Blackberry which said 4.23 a.m. Funny thing is, I don't feel mad. I don't even feel that tired. Well, I do, but no more than usual. What with the weather being so beautiful and all (I include the rain, I love the rain, especially when it's followed by intense sun - and then more rain) I even feel quite up in a summer's-coming-I-really-am-fucking-mental sort of way.

The Zeppelin book? Yeah, that's coming too. Feel quite good about it at the moment actually cos I've really been putting in the hours. I still won't be finished on time but if you put in the hours there's not much else you can do except fret about it and I did all my serious fretting on the other 20 books I wrote before this. Good old me. Mad old me. Old, old, old me...

People ask: haven't you finished that book yet? What's taking so long? They imagine me, no doubt, sitting there churning out pages all day long and can't understand why after all this time I don't have enough yet to write those magic words 'The End'.

If only... It's not just the research, interviewing, transcribing, editing, organising, reading (of other people's books and articles on the same subject), emailing, phoning, copying, scanning, talking about and just plain thinking. Often it's just down to the fact that you can't remember how to write. Some days I get up, work out, shower, eat, prim and prime myself so that by the time I get to the laptop I'm so ready to rock my fingers are already dancing, my head full of great thoughts on How To Proceed.

Then I sit there and turn the damn thing on and that's when it happens. Tiredness. Yawning, Inertia. Staring into space. Like the whole pain of existence descends suddenly, a blanket thrown over the budgie cage. And that's it, I'm off for a lie down. Or, worse, I struggle on, clock-watching, wondering when I will be able to excuse myself for a... cup of tea, coffee, glass of juice, wine, water... lunch, dinner, TV, piss, shit, shave, whatever. Anything and everything except the ability to actually place one word next to another, that makes any sort of sense.

This is why so many so-called creative types take drugs. Drugs are such a big help in these circumstances. That is, to begin with - say, the first ten years. After that, even they don't work. You find yourself stuck where you were ten years before, churning out the same stoned spiel. Good but...

Which leaves me here. 30 years in and still no idea how the fucking deed is actually done. People write in: I want to be a writer, what tips can you offer me. I write back: I don't know if there are any. Other than general madness and arrogance and misplaced ambition and a yearning not to leave the house for days and weeks and eventually years at a time. But if you do find any tips that don't involve drugs, pass them on. Please. Cos I got the monkey up my crack...