It’s been a long time.

So, I want to get rid of the fat bits and I finally got round to buying a bike. That would certainly get me fit and off my lazy arse in the way the mini trampoline and the dull sit ups and no cheese or crisps and Coca Cola diet failed to do. The bike arrived in a big cardboard box. It was ready built apart from a few easy bits of assembly, which took me two days. Then it wouldn’t stop raining. Would I ever get out on my new bicycle? Would I ever get my body back to its skinny 1990’s “Is Jim on heroin?” best?

There was a gap in the wet weather and I seized my day. I live at the top of a hill. In every direction from my house it is either very uphill or very downhill. I must have ridden about five minutes uphill before I was shaking and I was coughing and trying not to vomit. I was shocked at just how out of shape I am. It would seem that months on end of sitting in a dull room typing not all that much really into a computer doesn’t make you into Lance Armstrong.

I left the safety of my house and risked certain knife crime death the other day to film a forty-seven minute interview for Cherry Red TV. I also sung a couple of songs. It should be up on their site in about a week. I’ll let you know.

On the tube home I was already regretting half the things I said in the interview. I was in a fairly candid mood. And in the glimpses I caught of myself on the TV monitor I looked like an old fat bellied tramp.

I’ve watched these films recently. They were all good.
In order of goodness:

Joe Strummer – The Future is Unwritten
Atonement
Notes on A Scandal
Once
Notes on A Scandal
Eastern Promises
Sweeney Todd
I Am Legend
Control
Into The Wild

I saw the absolutely incredibly good Laura Marling in a church in Piccadilly.
I played a successful Glastonbury set. I got sunburned.
I read ‘Snuff’ by Chuck Palahniuk, which is filthy and outrageous and quite brilliant.
I’m currently reading ‘Atonement’.

Listening to Adam Green and Carole King.

I might self publish my novel.

I’ve been busy working on something I’m not going to talk about in case it dies on its arse before seeing the light of day. I only mention it because I wouldn’t want people to think I was wasting my life away doing sod all.

I’d like to write some new songs but they aren’t there at the moment. Give ‘em time.

I have a meeting with Gordon Brown about knife crime and what to do about it. How about this for starters:

Number 1: He brings the troops home. The money saved will help pay for my other ideas and will also set a good example to the youth. Bombing innocent people out of house and home to get your hands on their petrol is a bad example.

And then in no particular order we can plough all the money saved into opening and rebuilding all the facilities for sports and education etc that Thatcher and then Blair closed down during their time in power.

If we need something to shut down to keep a nice balance between opening and closing things. We can shut down all those shops that sell ‘sporting’ knives and swords and replica guns on the high streets. Again, they set a bad example. I know that if you want a knife you just have to go into the kitchen but glamorising the blade in the shop window can’t be helping.

Of course, if people are going to commit these horrific acts of needless violence then they should be locked up. And if there aren’t enough prisons, build another one. It isn’t rocket science. Once again, the money saved in Iraq and Afghanistan will help. Hey and think of the employment created with all the prison building.

I’m not really meeting Gordon Brown but just in case I get asked, it’s best to have some kind of a plan so I don’t look like a doughnut.

Mmmmm doughnuts.

I'm back from my first proper holiday for fumfty years or so. I went to Los Angeles to spend a few days with my good friends Marc and Emma and another few days with my other good fiends Cerise and Mark. As Marc is also my manager, naturally he'd come up with a packed itinerary for my stay. I got to do all the things I should have done on my various other trips to LA with Carter but didn't do. Back in them Carter days I spent most of my time sat in a hotel room watching CNN or by a pool with a hangover. So it was brilliant to go bowling (which I was good at for the first time in my life, possibly due to the fact that I was wearing my Joe 90 glasses – yes, like my hero Elvis Costello I am now a specky – I've never got so many strikes and spares in all my life). Also perhaps due to my four eyes superpowers I won a third-life-size Spiderman for Emma at Universal Studios by throwing a ball into a hole. Also on our itinerary was the cinema for the new Indiana Jones film, educational trips to the Griffith Observatory and the Getty Centre. We also went on a bus tour of the stars Hollywood homes and saw where the Fresh Prince lived and where the Osbournes apparently didn't:they used to film there and then go home afterwards, TV is fake.

We then hired bikes to cycle up and down the beaches of LA on Memorial Day.
Here are me and Marc on the beach

I saw the bloke from the Eels whose book I'd just read, I didn't speak to him. Just before we got to LA Marc and Emma had very nearly ran Britney Spears over.

The show on the ceiling of the Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater at the Griffith Observatory was narrated by Troy McClure from the Simpsons and he also introduced the Indiana Jones movie, drove us around Hollywood in his minibus and took us on a tour of Universal Studios before it burned down. I love that about America, the showbiz. It makes a trip to Madam Tussaud's or the pictures in Croydon seem just that little bit shit.

Our days with Mark (with a k) and Cerise were lovely too. They live in the hills of Los Feliz. Great views, hummingbirds, palm trees and skunks. I didn't know till I went there that the animal skunk smelled the same as the weapons grade dope skunk. Hence the name. Parts of Los Feliz smelled like South London. Mark and Cerise are in the movie business and who knows, maybe I am too.

We flew back to London in time for me to play a few songs at the Brixton Windmill. It was weird because I had a touch of jetlag and because I'd only just got back I felt like a bit of a foreigner. Great gig though. I sung a few songs with the Abdoujaps too.

The BBC ain't half getting on my nerves these days. The latest thing they like to do is to make two versions of the same programme (the Culture Show, Jools Holland, Have I Got News For You etc). One long version and one half hour version. They show the 30 minute programme first, so you watch that one, then they tell you to catch more stuff on the full length version a couple of days later. So you have to watch the same stuff you've already watched to see the extra bits. Why not just put the full length one on and forget about the shorter version?

My mum is something of a Doctor Dolittle. In her garden she has various birds, a squirrel, a fox and now a small family of rats. It's like Farthing Wood in my mum's garden. The thing is that some nosy neighbour has seen the rats and now the council are going to come round and kill them. What really is it that makes rats so evil in the minds of humans?

They're in the garden not the house. They look pretty clean to me. Let the rats be I say. People are the same with foxes and hens with flu. Bloody murdering humans.

Back to knife crime watch. More soon.

Without fail as soon as the sun comes out proper, so do the noisy neighbours. No, this isn’t nimbyism. They aren’t in my back yard they’re in theirs. They’ve been building something in their garden for a number of years now. Never quite get it finished. It’s like a really shitty slow episode of Ground Force. I wonder what it will turn out to be if they ever complete the work and Titchmarsh and the ginger woman with no bra come out from behind the fence with a bottle of champagne.

Every year as soon as it gets a bit sunny, just as Robin Williams might have advised them to do, they seize the day. Sawing and grinding. Shouting and ‘a hammering. The radio is on fucking loud too. I can mainly hear the bass. I think it’s some sort of 80s station with occasional nineties filler. I just heard what I think was the Eurythmics and also the Sugababes. It’s what Nelson Mandela’s Hyde Park birthday party will sound like.

I had thought of tuning my radio in to whatever it is they’re listening to, to see if one cancels out the other. Instead I went to Sainsburys. I don’t really need anything in Sainsburys. I want to sit in the garden and read my Will Self book. My shopping list demonstrates this quite well: tangy sandwich pickle, tomato ketchup, 4 potatoes, 3 onions and some Sainsbury’s own cola. The £1.29 cola price tag also illustrates my tightness.

It’s my first day off for a while. I’ve been writing something and haven’t left the house for weeks. To most people, sitting in front of a computer thinking up stuff in between surfing the net, checking email and watching The Sweeney every other day on ITV 3 or 4 is a day off. Some would say that every day of my life is a day off.

I’m going to LA soon to see my friend and manager. He has a strict and full itinerary of fun events planned. Indian Jones, Universal Studios, bowling etc. I wonder what will have happened to London by the time I get back. How long will the Boris Johnson effect take to affect. I personally think the old white haired idiot seems like a nice enough sort of bloke. I doubt he’s evil and probably is pretty genuine about most of what he says. I just wouldn’t have necessarily put him in charge of such an enormous amount of cash and responsibility

I met Ken Livingstone many years ago and although I wasn’t that impressed with how he wasn’t that impressed with meeting me, I do think if somebody has to do it then he’s probably the best man for the job of London Mayor. If it was a laugh we were after why didn’t we give the chain and mace* to Pete Doherty.

I need a day off from all these days off.

*I know the London Mayor doesn't have a chain or mace.
It was just a silly fact free gag.

THE START OF SUMMER

1. Les (Fruitbat) sent me this bit of audio from a Radio One interview we did as Carter sometime in 1992. It was at the big press junket in Brussels to mark the release of our LP ‘1992 The Love Album’. In the interview we both seemed pretty angry about something, or indeed, about everything. That kind of thing is quite uncomfortable to listen to now. It’s the same when I read old interviews in the NME or wherever. Not that I do that very often you understand. Although I did read a few things when I was writing my really quite superb ‘Goodnight Jim Bob’ autobiography

2. Isn’t it daft the way they’ve used ‘Blister in The Sun’ by the Violent Femmes in that lager advert and the band – I presume it’s them – have had to re-sing the words to remove any suggestion of – I don’t know what, drugs I presume. The lines that before were ‘When I’m walking I strut my stuff and I’m so strung out / I’m high as a kite, I just might stop to check you out’ have been altered slightly to ‘When I’m walking I strut my stuff and I’m so hung out / I fly like a kite, I just might stop to check you out’. Daft.

3. I’m currently working on something that I can’t talk about in case I jinx it. Like I did with my ‘novel’. Unpublished for such a long time now that it can’t be any good.

4. My unpublished novel is brilliant by the way.

5. My manager Marc seems to be having a blast in LA He’d only been there for a week when he was at a pool party with An Oscar winning actress

6. We’ve used way too much gas in our house this past quarter.

7. My nephew is playing rugby for England under 16s.

8. Mrs Bob has gone to Devon. I suspect that she and Fruitbat (in OZ), Marc (in LA), Mr Spoons (also Oz) are really in a safe house in the Cotswolds planning a big surprise party for me.

9. Go buy Chris T-T’s new LP 'CAPITAL'
It’s really good. I sing on a few songs, but don’t let that put you off.

10. I’ve bought
this:

this:

this:

this:

And this:

And this:

Oh and this:

So now you know what my next album will sound like.

More soon.

I don’t know. Picking that Andy Abrahams with his song that wouldn’t have made it onto a Lemar album over Michele Gayle’s obvious Eurovision winning tune. Makes me want to emigrate.

I tend to get involved in stuff I’m not allowed to talk about. Not like I’m a spy or have signed some secrecy act, official or otherwise. There’s no scandal either, it’s just that I get involved in things that or may not happen and I don’t want to appear as a Barry bullshitter or a failure when they invariably don’t come to fruition. Sorry for the vagueness, that’s the problem you see. I’m working on a couple of things that may never see the light of day, so rather than curse them by bigging them up or cause disappointment (to myself in particular) like I did when I rambled on about my novel that still isn’t published. What I’m trying to say is that I am busy, I’m not just sitting around watching TV and eating chocolate. Well I am doing a fair amount of that too. But anyway.

Falling into a similar category is whether or not Carter ever play again. We’ve had some offers and requests, particularly from people who missed out on the last two Carter reunion shows to do more gigs. So we sent out an email to the Carter email list asking for advice and opinions. Mostly the feedback was yes we should do some more Carter gigs. There were some negative responses and some quite aggressively so, like we’d suggested a comeback for Hitler.

Rehearsed with the band who’ll be playing with me for the 100 Club gigs in April. It sounded brilliant. Absolutely so.

Played three really enjoyable gigs in Portsmouth, Manchester and Wolverhampton. My manager goes to Los Angeles for a year in March and these would be the last Team Jim Bob outings for a while. I’ll miss the Marks and Spencer sandwiches, the in car podcasting, the nob gags, the arguments about football, Dr Who assistants and the excessive use of the name Barry. Two of the gigs were sold out which as I may have said in the past are my two favourite words. Coincidentally the two least favourite words of those who think we might be reforming Hitler.

I’ve been listening to the wonderfully intense Laura Marling and have finally finished reading the epic ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’.

I’ve been researching, or should that be growing my family tree. Pruning the many branches that have emerged from its trunk, watering and hugging it. I feel like a private detective. Every time I match a date with a name. Each cross reference a little victory, as I head towards cracking the case. I’m concentrating on one side of my mum’s family because that’s the bit that has turned out to be the most immediately interesting. I’ve always liked that programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ although I never really understood why they got so emotional about it all until I got stuck into my own ancestry. I feel like I know these dead people. I’ve begun to bore people by telling them all about it. Including you now.

We’re having another go with my Humpty Dumpty LP. Re releasing it. This time it’s been promised some reviews, fingers crossed they aren’t too harsh. I’m not good with criticism. I have low enough self-esteem as it is and don’t really need any assistance.

I’ve got to put a band together for my April 100 Club gigs. I know surprisingly few musicians really. All my friends are leaving the country. Marc is going to LA and so is Chris T-T. Les, Richy and Mr Spoons are going to Australia. My missus is off to Devon. March is going to be a lonely month.

I’ve had a new year clearout. I had to buy a new printer/scanner/copier and to make a space for it, it was finally time to chuck the old Carter photocopier out. The one we were given as part of our deal with Chrysalis Records in 1991. It doesn’t work and just takes a up a big chunk of space. It’s on the floor now, maybe I’ll get it to the rubbish dump soon, along with the TV that doesn’t work that’s been sat on the floor for about six months and the two Adat recorders that don’t work and whose only purpose is to bang and cut my shins and knees as I squeeze past them every now and again.

It’s raining.

Still no publishing deal for my nov. A couple of near misses. I suppose it’s getting beyond silly now. Like it doesn’t exist and I just keep banging on about it. In spite of the low rewards I might even start another book. To be honest I sort of have already. At least when I do sign that big fuck off JK Rowling type book deal I’ll be ready with my follow up bestseller.

I’m currently reading 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’
by Michael Chabon. I’m listening to The Rolling Stones
and Townes Van Zandt . I’m watching ‘Citizen Smith’: a series of BBC 4 documentaries with Michael Smith who wrote Giro Playboy/ .

Still raining. I actually quite like the rain.

Team Jim Bob Cultural review 2007

It’s that time of year again. The Team Jim Bob Top Tens of the cultural year. I struggled myself with a few of the categories – for example, top ten gigs of the year. I only went to about three that I wasn’t playing at myself. My selection is yet more evidence of the fact that I need to get out more. Maybe next year. My staying in wasn’t exactly jam-packed either. Most of the records I bought this year were by Bob Dylan or were CD versions of vinyl I already owned: like Wire and Cockney Rebel. I really need to stay in more. Maybe next year. Jim Bob xxx

JIM BOB

BOOKS
What Is the What – Dave Eggers
Apathy and Other Small Victories – Paul Neilan
My Booky Wook – Russell Brand
Rant – Chuck Palahniuk
Piercing – Ryu Murakami
Douglas Coupland – The Gum Thief
Shorty Loves Wing Wong – Michael Smith
A Man without a Country – Kurt Vonnegut

FILMS
The Science of Sleep
Perfume
Half Nelson
Blades of Glory
Hot Fuzz
28 Weeks Later
Prestige
Blood Diamond
Last King of Scotland
Casino Royale (Annual Team JB cinema trip)

ALBUMS
Neon Bible – Arcade Fire
Cassadaga – Bright Eyes
Arctic monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare
Art brut – It’s a bit complicated
Rufus Wainwright – Release the stars

GIGS
Arcade Fire at Brixton Academy
Bright Eyes (three times)

TV
Flight of the Conchords
I.T. Crowd
Saxondale
Peep Show
Heroes
Lead Balloon
Recovery
NCIS
The State Within
CSI

OTHER STUFF
Slava’s Snow Show at Wimbledon Theatre
Russell Brand’s radio show on 2
Russell Howard and Jon Richardson’s radio show on 6

________________________________________________


MARC

Top 10 albums of the year
1. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
2. Jim Bob - A Humpty Dumpty Thing
3. Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
4. Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks
5. Abdoujaparov - Cycle Riot History Ganf
6. Jake Shillingford - Written Large
7. Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
8. The Enemy - We'll Live And Die In These Towns
9. Interpol - Our Love To Admire
10. Babyshambles - Shotters Nation

Top 10 tracks of the year
1. Arcade Fire - Intervention
2. Jim Bob - Cartoon Dad
3. Mouthwash - Kate Nash
4. Bright Eyes - Make A Plan To Love Me
5. Indelicates - Sixteen
6. The Rakes - Suspicious Eyes
7. Abdoujaparov - Snoozy Girl
8. Manic Street Preachers - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
9. British Sea Power - Atom
10. Sultans of Ping - Kick That Dirty Job

Top 10 gigs of the year
1. Carter USM - Brixton Academy
2. Carter USM - Glasgow Barrowlands
3. Arcade Fire - Brixton Academy
4. Bright Eyes - Shepherds Bush Empire
5. Abdoujaparov - Water Rats
6. Sex Pistols - Brixton Academy
7. Bright Eyes - Glastonbury Festival
8. Arcade Fire - Alexander Palace
9. My Life Story - Shepherds Bush Empire
10. Spice Girls - O2

Top 10 tv programmes of the year
1. Doctor Who
2. Strictly Come Dancing
3. Dragons Den
4. Sarah Jane Adentures
5. Lost
6. Heroes
7. Saxondale
8. Property Ladder
9. Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares
10. The IT Crowd

Hero of the year: Arsene Wenger
Idiot of the year: David Cameron
Book of the year: Douglas Coupland - The Gum Thief
Film Of The Year: 28 Weeks Later
________________________________________________

MR SPOONS

Favourite Album: Little Man Tate

Favourite Song: Orson's cover of 'Push the button' has been most played on the old iPod, hon.mention to Chris T-T's song about Xmas Turkeys too.

Favourite Gigs: Poly'spree at Astoria, Mick Thomas at Dingwalls (mainly for explaining the story behind 'For a short time'), Laura Imbruglia at some dive in Camden, Chris T-T at 93 feet East (all 20 minutes of it)

Worst gig: Sex Pistols by a cuntry mile

TV Shows: Doctor Who, Prison Break, Studio 60, Lost, Sarah Jane

Hero of the Year: Clinton Morrison (on achieving 100 goals for Palace)

Idiot of the Year: Steve MacLaren

Book of the Year: Shocking year on the Dr Who/travel writing front, so I'm reluctantly going for 'Piano in the Pyrenees - Tony Hawks': mildly entertaining froth

Film of the Year: Casino Royale - the only one I saw this year at the cinema (Marc & Jim don't let me include ones I see on aeroplanes)

"For the avoidance of doubt, my list excludes all Carter-related stuff, or it would be an even more dull list than it current is - Love & a Beery Xmas, Spoons

It’s been a weird month this post Carter reunion show month. I think the Americans call it a curveball. A ball pitched at me with a snap from God’s wrist that made it spin and twist and – according to my laptop’s dictionary – ‘drop suddenly and deceptively veer away from home plate’. I’m not totally sure what this home plate is. Is it what you eat your dinner off when you’re not in a restaurant? I played a bit of softball (‘a modified form of baseball played on a smaller field with a larger ball, seven rather than nine innings, and underarm pitching.’ According to my laptop dictionary.) I played softball at school a few times. It’s a most inappropriate name for the sport, as I was once hit full in the face by a so called ‘soft ball’ and a lump about the same size as the ball immediately appeared on the side of my head and nearly killed me.

Anyway, I digress. I always have done. Sometimes I feel like Eddie Izzard shooting off at tangents and often not finishing sentences. You see, I’m digressing again. Where was I?

God’s curveball. His Shane Warne The Lord’s wrist spinner. Bowled at his very own cricket ground perhaps God’s googly. I just Googled google. 191,00 hits, including this scary picture of Kate Nash

The whole Carter reunion thing left me feeling weird for a while. First there had to be a bit of a down after such a couple of big ups. That lasted a few days, then I went on holiday to Devon and stayed in a converted cowshed in the grounds of a big posh house where they filmed The Hounds of The Baskervilles with Peter Cushing. The gardens there were amazing. So vast you could get lost in them. I visited my friends and family in Devon and Cornwall, walked on windy beaches and did a bit of charity shop shopping. Isn’t the price of stuff in charity shops ridiculous these days? I felt good. I came back to London to prepare myself for my solo ‘Christmas Office Parties’ tour. I bought a Christmas tree, some cheap decorations form Woolworths’ new ‘worth it’ range of no frills goods. And I sat and waited for my new album to show up. It took a while. There were problems with the printing and some more with the delivery. It did get a bit depressing and the big bang I kind of imagined for my new record was closer to a whimper – ‘a feeble or anticlimactic tone or ending’ my computer dictionary says.

The tour’s nearly over now. There were ups and downs. Ronan Keating’s rollercoaster. You’ve just gotta ride it. That curveball I mentioned has a lot to do with my own insecurity and the constant need to change what it is I’m doing. I have no staying power. I don’t know whether I want to be Barry White or Bob Dylan. I was a bit worried at the start of these dates how people would react to me playing the Carter songs on an acoustic guitar now that they’d heard them how they were supposed to sound. I decided to play less Carter songs and that occasionally made me feel like I was going down badly when it was simply that the audience were listening to the new songs. Must get more chutzpah.

My favourite things people have said to me on this tour is that I’m the London Bob Dylan and also the English Bob Dylan. Two completely different people said those things. At different gigs. I’d have to say that I always think of myself as more Scottish than English, like the indie Rod Stewart as I wrote in my fabulous book still available and just reprinted. And also I don’t want to come across all Londonist, so I’ve decided to drop the English and the London bits and from now on I’m going to refer to myself as simply ‘Bob Dylan’. It was Bob Dylan who said this, ‘A lot of people can't stand touring but to me it's like breathing. I do it because I'm driven to do it.’

I suppose I agree with Bob. I'm kind of driven to do it myself.
In a big black shiny new car by Mr Spoons.

Today was a wonderful day – Fantastic
No of course I’m being sarcastic
I spent most of it in pain
Taking my own name in vain
It’s not easy being all knowing and all seeing
If everything around you disgusts or dumfounds you
I’m losing my patience with a few of my creations
The idiots in the village that I made in my image
They’re a big disappointment, they kill for enjoyment
I feel like shaking the almighty Etch-a-Sketch

My name is God this is my blog
Ten million hits no more secrets
And today was a wonderful day – Stupendous
No, I lied again, it was horrendous
I don’t understand, It’s nothing at all like I planned

All I see are perverts, murderers, goat killing Devil worshippers
Holocaust excusers, dog collared child abusers
Small men in big hats, genocidal maniacs
I hope they’ve brought their rain macs
I’ll send them hurricanes, whirlpools,
Hailstones like cricket balls
Twisters and turners, flatteners and burners
My power and my glory, my filth and my fury
For ever and ever and ever

My name is God and this is my blog
Ten million hits, no more secrets
And today was a wonderful day

A child’s first step
The sun as it set
The moon on the water
The kindness of a stranger
The songs and the jokes
The space between the notes
Today was a wonderful day

What a bonkers week it’s been.

There I was, sitting in a green room in a transport museum in Coventry talking to Jason Donavon about the early nineteen nineties while I was being filmed by Channel 4 pretending to watch the Pigeon Detectives perform on TV. It was the night before Brixton. The second of the great comeback Carter concerts. On the drive up to the Midlands we had a phone call asking me to present an award on behalf of Shelter to the Best Newcomer at the UK Festival Awards a week later – when and where I’d be sitting on a table about six feet away from Michael Eavis and with that Pete from Big Brother bloke who can’t help swearing. The Daily Mirror gossip columnists were on the phone, desperately (and unsuccessfully) trying to get onto the full Brixton Academy guest list: Russell Brand had just been added to the list (I don’t think he showed up), along with Neil Tennant (who apparently did). It was like I’d won a be an indie pop star for a week competition.

What can I really say that hasn’t already be said about that Brixton gig?
The way everyone I’ve ever known in my entire musical life was at the aftershow party, that was nice. So many old friends who’d flown over from LA and Israel, Greece, Australia, USA, France, Germany, Poland, Austria, Sweden, all points on the Carter compass, just for the gig.

I liked it when Les came on for the encores dressed as ‘Fruitbat’, in his shorts and cycle cap and had his first beer for seven months served up on a silver tray.

I liked my king’s costume that looked like it had been made in the dark by that Pete from Big Brother bloke who can’t help swearing.

And seeing the Tom from Tom and Jerry glove puppet in the front row just like he would have been in 1991.

I’m glad we could go away for so long and return to play two of our best ever shows, without it being embarrassing or sad, although we did make quite a few big men cry – including Jon Beast.

Oh and we – or rather, you – broke the Brixton Academy bar record.

xx

There was a moment. Some time on Saturday afternoon. The reunited Crazy Carter Crew were hard at work, the video wall and the lights were burning bright and white across the sticky floor of the Glasgow Barrowlands Ballroom. I went for a walk around the venue, my feet sticking to the sticky floor. I had my ipod up loud and I was listening to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ by Bob Dylan and I felt like I was king of the world. It was a good feeling. I felt as totally at peace with myself and things as I have for a while.

I’d been worrying about the first of the two Carter reunion shows. I thought I might be too old and plump to strut what was left of my stuff for almost two hours – longer gigs than we ever used to do – I had a sore throat, I was on my fifth or sixth cold since we’d started rehearsing a few months earlier. I was paranoid that I’d step onto the stage and nothing more than a squeak would come out of my mouth.

I’d promised myself and others that I wouldn’t sit up all night on the tourbus to Glasgow, drinking and talking – to save my voice for the gig – and I pretty much stayed true to my word. I went to my moving bus bed before 1.30 am and was up and in search of a coffee by 8am. Not being in any way Ray Mears, I like familiarity when I travel. I haven’t got an adventurous bone in my body and far from seeking out a local dive where only the most local of local goes for breakfast. To drink coffee made from garden snails and driftwood. Imagine my delight when I saw the lights of Marks and Spencers and their Café Revive cappuccino and almond croissants.

The gig itself was full of old faces from the past – including Jon Fat Beast who I hadn’t seen for I don’t know how long. I know it was loud. People are saying it was the loudest gig they’ve ever been to, which in spite of the fact that I wouldn’t want to be so directly responsible for mass deafness it does make me feel somehow pleased with myself.

I made it through the gig and into the next day without too much stress or nervous breakdowns. I didn’t collapse in tears, which I have done in the past after such high profile and important Carter occasions. I expect I will bawl my eyes out at Brixton Academy. There’s going to be so many people I haven’t seen for ages. Too many people to talk to in a short space of time. I should make more effort to see my friends at other times instead of packing all my socialising into aftershow parties once every fifteen years.

Today is Humpty Dumpty Day.

I’ve noticed that to excuse rude and obnoxious behaviour from the likes of Simon Cowell and all those TV chef bullies and ‘celebrity’ ‘experts’ and judges on cookery and ballroom dancing talent shows, you just have to call the bullying ‘pantomime’
As somebody with a small amount of panto experience I can’t see what’s so pantomime about it. Being told you're a fat and ugly loser with no talent, often by a kettle calling pot or being booed and spat at outside an Elstree television studio by the kind of people who usually spend their days banging on the sides of prison vans and setting fire to the houses of pediatricians. I presume soon this excuse for being a shit will be applied to more serious situations. Such as, “the war in Iraq is all pantomime.” That’s something to look forward to. Remember where you heard the misguided paranoia first.

Why did they have to move the coffee kiosk and its barista from platforms 3 and 4 of East Croydon station to Platforms 1 and 2? I was just getting used to the barista dude recognising me and starting to fluff up my milk before I actually got to order my cappuccino. At first it made me feel uncomfortable. I hated the idea of having ‘a usual’. I don’t want to ever be predictable. The same thing happened recently when we were on a pub crawl for Mr Spoons’ stag night and the barman of our most local local queried why there were so many of us and why weren’t we drinking our usual Becks.

I’ve often said that I’d like to retire from the music biz and live in a small village, where I’d frequent the village pub and although everyone else in the pub was posh and a bit stuck up they’d accept me as the village’s rock star and eccentric. This happened for a short while in the village where my mum lives but she doesn’t go to the pub anymore so it was a short lived experience. Anyway, in spite of not really wanting the East Croydon barista to know what I was going to order before I ordered it, that cappuccino he poured had become my favourite cappuccino
He was particularly skilled at frothing the milk and shaking the chocolate on top – which he no longer needed to ask me whether I wanted or not. And then they moved him across the railway tracks and replaced his little coffee hut with a different one. I know I could go across to platforms and 1 and 2 and get my frothy coffee from my old friend. But then he’d think I was weird or I was stalking him. Bloody hell, some people, you show a bit of brand loyalty and they accuse you of sexual assault.

I went to see Slava’s Snowshow
It’s the second time I’ve seen it. The first time I saw the show it was the major inspiration behind Jim’s Super Stereoworld.

I went to my manager’s wedding. I was an usher and got to dress like Hugh Grant. I read something nice in the church and duet-ed with the groom on the Smiths’ song ‘Panic’ at the lavish wedding reception.

It’s probably getting annoying now but I’ve finished the fumftieth rewrite of my novel, which is now quite brilliant and hopefully finally good enough for publishing and winning me the Booker Prize.

Carter rehearsals still going well. Not long till the gigs now.
It will no doubt feel weird once they’re over.

And relax.

And here's roughly what I'd like to do to

Marco Pierre White

Les and me did a Carter interview with Andrew Collins for Word magazine, with proper photographs in Crystal Palace park and everything. Comes out in October.

Watched the DVDs Stranger Than Fiction, Starter For Ten, The Last King of Scotland and The Science of Sleep which as with his other film Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind you have to watch the how it was made DVD extra to fully appreciate what a total genius director Michel Gondry is.

Read the books Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan
and What is The What? By Dave Eggers Both wonderful books in very different ways. What is The What? is as life affirming as people say it is.

I sang on three Chris T-T songs for his new record. I haven’t been asked to appear on many other people’s records before. This may be the start of me becoming the indie pop Timbaland or Dr. Dre

Went to my second ever stag party. It was in Bournemouth, the Prague of Southern England. There seemed to be a hell of a lot of stag and hen parties in town, I’d hate to live there, it must get annoying. I like to think that our particular gang of lads was something of an indie stag. We didn’t have beer bottle costumes and the groom wasn’t wearing only a hula skirt and L-plates tied to his ding dong. This latest booze up follows the recent stag and nuptials of my uber roadie Mr Spoons. It’s now the turn of my manager Marcus T Tandy Ollington to look back nervously over his shoulder in a church/blessed hotel function room. I’m an usher at Marc's wedding in a couple of weeks. I think that means I either have to take my shirt off and wear a funny hat or get to carry a special little red torch and sell ice creams during the interval

Hats off to Anita Roddick An important person during the early years of my vegetarianism and animal rights enthusiasm.

This is roughly what I'd like to do to Calvin Harris

A
Yesterday we began our rehearsals for the winter Carter gigs. The idea is to rehearse once a week to get back into making the songs feel natural and remove a bit of the panic attack and nervous breakdown at the gigs. The session went well, a few technical problems but that was to be expected. Rehearsing locally too, which makes the whole thing more of a pleasure. Also, rehearsal studios like music shops can sometimes be run by miserable, offish types but we seem to have stumbled upon a so far so friendly and not too miserable studio. Let’s hope we don’t upset them by blowing up their PA system.

B
The sun is out which makes a pleasant change after all the floods. I even sat in the garden a couple of times last week. Mainly because the neighbours seem to have gone away so I don’t have to listen to their relentless shouting. Can’t remember the last time I sat in the garden without headphones on. It’s nice to hear the birdies whistling.

C
I wish my new LP was out. This will probably be the longest it’s taken me from writing via recording to actual release of an album. The terror is that I won’t like it when it does eventually come out. My most recent memory is of a great record though.

D
I’ve started, much to the annoyance of my long-suffering family, another ‘book’. If I ever finish writing it, expect to read it while you’re watching the closing ceremony for the London Olympic Games.

E
I’m still an unpublished fiction author by the way. Had some more rejection letters though. I now don’t bother reading my post: I just measure it.

F
My mood at the moment is impatient. What does the smiley-type face thing look like for that emotion? Waiting for the Carter gigs. Waiting to release my new LP. Waiting for press meetings. Sleeve designs. Videos. Waiting to get published. Waiting for lots of other stuff and on other people.

G
I think I might go and sit in the garden.

H I J K L M N O P

I was at East Croydon railway station this morning, when a couple of rozzers with one of those drug sniffer dogs came over and gave me a bit of a sniff (the dog not one of the coppers). Naturally I was drug free, although I was slightly concerned nevertheless that the dog might pick up the scent of skunk or something similar in my clothing. Like that thing about all US dollar bills having traces of cocaine in them, perhaps it was the same for anyone living in Lambeth. I might have picked up spliff whiff from just walking to the bus stop this morning. Anyway, the dog gave me a bit of nose around and then moved on to the next person. I’d got away with it. On the way home, through what will in the future become known as the Great Flood of Croydon and Thornton Heath, I thought that they should let one of those dogs loose in the Houses of Parliament and see what happens. Seems everyone in there all had a bang on a spliff at some point or other. I might fashion this idea into a short story.

Because I’m an author don’t you know. An unpublished author at the moment admittedly. But not for lack of trying. You may have heard or read about this bloke David Lassman, who sent beginnings of Jane Austen books, with changed names to various leading publishers and agents, only to get all but one of them rejected as unsuitable for publishing. The article said,

‘Mr Lassman expected to be branded a fraud. But he was surprised when publishers and agents failed to spot they had been sent the work of Austen. Bloomsbury, publisher of the Harry Potter books, for instance, suggested the chapters had been read "with interest" but were not "suited to our list".

I’ve had that exact rejection letter from Bloomsbury myself. It arrived in the post in an envelope with my address on, written in my own handwriting, on the day before I read about the Lassman scam. Still, to be fair to Bloomsbury, it is Harry Potter season again and as the specky wizard’s publishers they must be too rushed off their feet to have time to read anything else. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a lot of press and TV, radio etc about the new Potter book. You honestly wouldn’t know the thing was out.

Rejection letters from publishers do make you question your own worth, so it’s good to know that it’s nothing personal and that they probably haven’t read what you’ve written at all. Just taken it out of one envelope, made a note of your name and put it into another envelope (the stamped addressed envelope you sent them with your manuscript) and dropped it in the out tray. I won’t give up my day job just yet.

Talking of which, yesterday we began filming a video for ‘Battling The Bottle’ from my new LP. The vid stars me (naturally) and also the method acting of Mr Spoons. Spoons was up at 4 this morning, filming mores stuff for the video in Leigh-on-Sea (home of the master butcher of). I’m looking forward to seeing the finished results soon. For a clue to the video’s theme, check this out

You can also see some of Mr Spoons’ other work pop promo work here

Oscar!

LIVE!

For the second Saturday afternoon in a row I’m sat indoors on a sunny day watching a pop concert at Wembley Stadium. This week it’s just while I’m waiting for the Tour De France to start on ITV4. I’ve got Freeview now, so I can watch the French cycling more often than in previous years, when I could only video the once a weekly highlights show on ITV1 at two in the morning.

Last week’s Diana concert at Wembley was pretty rubbish but somehow less annoying than this Live Earth one. At least at the Diana show the acts didn’t have to lie about why they were there. I find it hard to believe that the Pussycat Dolls for example are really that committed to forcing the governments of the world towards policy change. Every now and again some comedian will come on to be interviewed by Jonathan Ross and they’ll joke about how they couldn’t really give much of a shit about climate change. Jonathan Ross clearly doesn’t care either.

Genesis weren’t much of a pub band to kick the whole thing off either, surely Hayseed Dixie or a Quo covers band would have been better. And is Johnny Borrell from Razorlight going to be the new Bono one day? I think so, look at him down on his knees in his cap sleeve t-shirt, half way up that Wembley Bono-walkway.

I was reading various interviews in the Radio Times with some of the acts appearing. Most of them when asked about their least environmentally friendly habit they said it was flying. But at the same time didn’t seem too keen to change that. Beyond planting a tree, or paying some company to plant one for them.

Chris Moyles wants to know if we’re up for saving the planet. How could I possibly refuse Chris Moyles?

Oh Christ, Snow Patrol are onstage now. When’s the cycling?

Joss Stone was talking this morning about how we should all plant a tree and how it’s easy. It only takes five minutes she said. Just dig a hole and plant the tree.

Spinal Tap are playing later. They may be the least ironic band playing.

I wonder what next week’s Wembley concert will be for?

Me

Okay, I bought the Wellington boots – I won’t call them Wellies, I’ve got to retain some punk rock dignity for God’s sake – anyway, I bought the Wellingtons. Shiny black and one pound ninety-nine. Slightly jack-bootish looking I suppose. My manager’s boots were pink, to balance the whole fascists in touch with their feminine side of things thing. No, I don’t know what that means either.

Other stuff:

It was raining a lot. You may have heard. To get across quite how much it rained, at one point Team Jim Bob found themelves sheltering from it in the ambient trance tent.

At 1 in the afternoon on Friday I played three songs in the rain in front of the Shelter Wall of Shame

For my gig on the Friday night, I was terrified that with the Arctic Monkeys, Bjork, Fatty Slim and Hot Chip all performing elsewhere at the same time as me, I’d be making my Glastonbury comeback in front of two men and a dog. And they don’t let dogs in. So it was a pleasant surprise to find a big and enthusiastic crowd in the Brixton Academy sized Leftfield tent. All singing along and making me feel special. I had to cut a couple of songs from the set because of time troubles and the differing American clock system but I think I got away with it.

Every time we walked anywhere near the Pyramid Stage I felt compelled to point out to anybody who might be listening that I once headlined it.

Didn’t see a lot of other bands but, Neds and Cud were good. The Beat were excellent. I met Rankin Roger’s son once, when I was recording that Ian Dury Y2K song with Fuzz Townshend and Rankin Junior popped round Fuzz’s house. Saw little snippets of Modest Mouse, The Fratellis and caught a bit of the View. Namely the bit where they played the worst cover version of any song ever in the world ever. And it’s one I’ve ruined myself. (Squeeze’s ‘Up The Junction’) (in a ska style).

The sun came out for Bright Eyes’ wonderful set. Conor Bright Eyes was wearing a white suit (including shoes), I presume some roadies had to carry him to the stage. He’s only small I suppose. Maybe next year I’ll leave the Wellington boots at home and get Mr Spoons to carry me around all weekend. Yes, that’s when I play next year. I’ve been sort of asked back already. Which is partly why I won’t be telling you a few amusing stories about Joss Stone. That and the libel laws.

I’m playing Glastonbury Festival at the weekend and it feels a bit like I’m about to begin my tour of duty in the Vietnam War, or as they call it in Vietnam – the American War. People keep giving me advice. Passing on their knowledge and survival tips. Their experience from their time in the field. They want to tell me their horror stories and share what they've learned from them.

I want to laugh it all off and say, ‘it’s just a gig’. 'How bad can it possibly get?' But I keep quiet because otherwise I’ll only end up with egg on my face, or trench foot, or I’ll drown in a Somerset sludge torrent. I’ll take all the advice, fill my rucksack with lots of socks and some empty carrier bags, for my dirty clothes and to slip over my feet when it pisses down with rain. I won’t wear Wellington boots though. I’m not five years old or a member of the Countryside Alliance – or what Chris T-T calls them for short – Instead I’ll have to make do with my Doc Martens. I might wear the steel toecap pair though. I’ve only worn them the once before. Mainly because they’re a bit heavy and it can be tiring walking in them. I wore them the other day on stage at the Islington Academy gig I did for the Shelter charity supporting Cud. I was wary of stamping my feet in case I broke the stage, drowned out the sound of my guitar, or made my beer catapult into the air and kill someone in the audience. The other fear about wearing steel toecap boots is that I might not be able to resist the urge to kick people. That’s what they were made for I believe.

On Friday I went to the wedding of Mr and Mrs Spoons. Mr Spoons is my über roadie Neil. He drives me to gigs and tunes my guitar. He knows his way around the streets and roads of Britain better than any sat nav. Neil is my TomTom. My NeilNeil. He also does this website and cooks food when I record albums. He’s a Jack of all trades and a master of a fair few of them too. Turns out he’s great at weddings too. I haven’t heard so much laughter at a wedding before, and not just during the speeches or when Neil was body popping around the dancefloor or doing his Gary Numan impression, but also in the ceremony itself. Often a stuffy, nerve filled part of the whole wedding thing. A lovely day. On Thursday Spoons will be putting up a tent in what I hope is more of a dusty than muddy field. I bet he’s brilliant at that too. I bet he turns out to be like Ray Mears.

Anyway. See you on the other side. Hope I don’t end up hooked on smack, wearing a headband, playing Russian Roulette, having completely forgotten who I, Robert De Niro or Mr Spoons are.

I feel a bit between things at the moment. I’ve finished re-re-re-re writing my novel and I’ve sent a few copies to various people for them to ignore for a while. I’ve pretty much completed my new album and I’m just waiting for a free day on the studio’s calendar so I can remix that one last song. I’ve got a few festival appearances lined up for the summer, and then of course there are those Carter shows later in the year to look forward to. But in the meantime, I keep making lists of stuff I need to do without actually doing any of it. All the boring things I have to do like my accounts and tidying up the house.

It was good to take a break from my break with a gig in a library. I played at Wimbledon Library last year, reading from my Carter book and playing a few songs to an intimate crowd in an upstairs room. This time I was in Richmond Library. In the actual library itself. The Pyramid Stage. It was the first solo gig I’d ever done without a single member of Team Jim Bob there with me. Usually both, and at least always one of either Marc or Mr Spoons have been at every solo show so far. With Marc in Ireland and Spoons in Berlin I felt a bit lost beforehand. I don’t know how solo artists and stand up comedians go on tours on their own. It must be so lonely. Aside from playing some tunes I was also reading from my ‘mini novel’ and just to ad a bit more stress and pressure I decided to have a go at live harmonica for the first time.

I thought the gig went really well. Reading aloud for an audience isn’t quite as easy as you might imagine. It’s hard not to get tongue tied (I played that song) or be taken over by your paranoia that everyone is just wishing you’d shut up and play Sheriff Fatman. As it turned out, the audience were appreciative and laughed in most of the right places. I was home by ten. And still sober, having only had a couple of plastic cups of wine form the box on the library counter.

I must do my accounts today.

He’s going and they’re back . Ten years ago I remember sitting up all night watching the general election on a tour bus, parked outside a Stoke venue after a Carter gig. Even though I’d voted Liberal because I didn’t like Tony Blair, it still felt good to watch the government I hated squirming. Now I don’t honestly know how I feel. Blair’s resigned. Gordon Brown, texture like sun, will probably be the next prime minister. Then what happens? David Cameron? It’s all become so depressingly predictable. Like the Eurovision Song Contest. I doubt the United Kingdom will ever win that again. Not even if Morrissey does sing our entry. It would be good to have a song in the competition though, that we could all feel disgusted and put upon as a nation when it doesn’t get many points from the Eastern Europeans, the Balkans and Scandinavians. Incidentally, a weird thing happened while I was watching Scooch perform their song. I don’t know if it was their Union Jack visuals or the Easy Jet clothes, or perhaps because I’d just sat through an hour and a half of Euro pop, but I suddenly got this awful headache when Scooch were on. And these shapes and colours appeared in front of my eyes, like I’d looked straight at the sun. I honestly thought I was going blind. The shapes and colours cleared after about fifteen minutes but I’ve still got the headache today.

I’ve been off the chocolate. Haven’t hardly eaten any branded stuff other than Fair Trade chocolate, which is too expensive and too hard to get hold of to eat all that often. It’s good – or rather, bad – for my expanding waistline as well as my conscience. And it’s all because of Daniel Bedingfield. oops sorry I saw him on TV a few weeks back talking about how the manufacture of most chocolate involves child slavery. From that Bedingfiled moment on I’ve hardly eaten any. And we used to get through a fair bit in our house. I in particular have always considered it my duty to try out all new brands of chocolate and in particular the mongrel bars like orange Kit Kats and white chocolate flakes. It’s been a bit of a nightmare recently, having to resist the lure of the new Aero Bubbles or Mars Planets, which they’re really pushing (like heroin for me) on the telly at the moment.

It’s usually around this point that someone will point out why Fair Trade is such a misguided concept but we can’t all be perfect. I don’t eat meat, haven’t done for twenty five years but I do own a pair of leather monkey boots and some cherry red Doc Martens too. We all draw our line where we choose to draw it.

I’ve said it many times before but my next album is the dogs naughty bits. It’s taken me longer than anything I’ve ever done before to complete. And it’s still not quite done. But I’m really looking forward to people hearing it and hopefully liking it. The wait between now and the album’s release will probably be a fairly long one. Until the winter I think.

My next gig is in Richmond Library. I’m playing some songs and reading something fictional. Most likely a bit from this story I’ve written. I had a practice read today and kept getting tongue tied. I don’t know how authors ever make it all the way through the recording of an audio book. It would take me about a year.

I’m also writing some sleevenotes for a Carter anthology that EMI will be releasing to coincide with the October and November shows. We prefer to be involved, rather than it coming out unexpectedly stuck to the front of the Mail on Sunday

Mmm Aeros.

I seem to have made a mockery of Andy Warhol's quarter of an hour fame theory by getting a bonus ten minutes. Somehow I'm not the same person I was the day before we announced the Carter reunion show. My girlfriend's sister asked me what it was like to be famous again. There was a nice piece in Time Out that mentioned Carter without the usual snide bracketed insult. I went to Athens for a solo acoustic gig and a big Greek promoter showed up. He was hoping to get a Carter show booked in Athens. When I got home there was another Carter gig offer amongst my emails, I expect more to follow. I feel guilty for turning them down. When I was drunk in Athens, for a brief cocktail and adrenalin fueled moment I started to imagine getting on a big bus and going to Barcelona and Zagreb, to Berlin and Vienna and all those exotic places where Carter were well received.

I was reading the Sunday papers today and when I saw the ads for gigs by Devo and other names from the past, I was almost disappointed that the Carter gig had sold out so fast. We'd saved a load of cash by canceling all the intended advertising that we didn't need anymore. But then I thought that, aside from us and the audience, the world might never know we'd got back together at all. I suppose I thought I might have been able to use the oxygen of publicity to breathe life into my solo career and get me and my new album onto Jools Holland and the Mercury Music Prize podium. And maybe even get a book publishing deal too. But now nobody is going to believe me. Maybe we should take out a big ad in The Observer with the words SOLD OUT slapped across it.

I'm a natural worrier. I worry that after this is all over and everything goes back to normal, will it? Will it go back to normal? Were people coming to my solo gigs because they knew that one day I might do the Carter songs properly? Has the thrill of the chase now gone? What happens next? I know the logical thing to do is to play my summer festivals, finish recording my album, and look forward to a great winter and one maybe two legendary Carter gigs. I should just try and enjoy the ride. And make sure I get off the ride before it reaches the latter pages of my Carter autobiography. And as anyone who's read it knows, make sure I say no to any offers of a gig in Croydon.

So, the secret is out
Carter are doing a gig at Brixton Academy on November 2nd. I can now stop telling everybody.

Keeping secrets has never been one of my strengths. I like a bit of a gossip. I like to be the first to tell people things they don’t know. I talk behind people’s backs. I’m prone to exaggeration. I should work behind the bar of a Rovers Return style pub or read the news on the BBC.

Other people in my family aren’t so good at keeping secrets either. When I was in Devon the other week, I nipped into the pub where my nephew Ryan works. While I was there I told him about the strong likelihood of the Carter gig happening and asked him to not tell anyone about it. The next day I went back to the pub and my nephew introduced me to a bloke at the bar who used to be a Carter fan. I said hello and the bloke at the bar said something like, ‘I saw Carter play a few times in Exeter. Ryan told me you’re doing a reunion gig in London in November.’

Now the gig has been officially announced I can concentrate on worrying about how successful it will be. Pretty much as soon as we agreed to play those four Carter songs for Wiz at the Islington Academy in March, my bad gig dreams – as featured in my split your sides Carter book – began. Since then I’ve continued to dream that I’m about to go onstage without any trousers. Or I’ll already be onstage and I can’t remember any of the words to the songs that we’re performing out of tune. Oh, and loads of other strange gig and pre-gig disasters.

This month’s recommendations from me.

I’ve been continuing with the Michael Palinesque recording sessions for my new album. Today I’m in South London doing a spot of singing, competing with my neighbours shouting and banging. At least it’s raining today so they can’t get out their power tools. Tomorrow I’m back down at the big studio in Hampshire doing backing vocals and glockenspiels and all that kind of caper.

I’ve also just back from Cornwall, where I was recording a couple of tracks with the Zebs Choir. We were recording at the Zebs Music Project with Kev and Tim – formerly of the Family Cat – engineering and organising and making me feel welcome.

12 teenagers showed up in Truro on the Sunday to sing and clap and bang stuff. The results are fantastic. The recordings won’t be released for a while, so in the meantime I recommend you go to this link and buy a copy of the Zebs compilation album. It’s only a five spot plus postage and will help support a project that is much needed in these youth hating times.

On the way to Cornwall I went to see my sister in Devon. Much of my time there was spent with my young nephew, practicing Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ for an audition he had coming up for a part in a musical. I’ll let you know if gets it.

These four days spent with the young, talented and enthusiastic has had a positive effect on my cynical old fart’s mind.

I just wanted to tell someone, hope that's okay.

When I was on the Roundtable singles review radio programme recently, I stated that my dream gig would be Bright Eyes having a wee on a tin roof while Arcade Fire had a pooh next to them/him. This week my dream gig came true. I suppose it was more of a dream two day festival, as I saw Arcade Fire take their pooh at the Brixton Academy on the Thursday and Bright Eyes weeing on a tin roof the day after. Two gigs in one week is a big step-up in my normal yearly gig intake, which usually consists of some Abdoujaparov and idou gigs and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds if they’re on that year.

Arcade Fire,
the first leg of my gig binge was amazing. There were elements to the whole band and audience atmos that reminded me of old Carter gigs. Something of the Nuremberg rally about it (in the nicest possible way), with everyone singing along to the woohs and oohs with their hands aloft etc. The noise that the band make is pretty incredible, there were moments when I had goosebumps running up and down my spine and then the band would move up another notch in intensity, as though they’d discovered another more major than the last one key and I’d get goosebumps on my goosebumps.

Day two was Bright Eyes, I’m his number one fan, someone should hit me with the pig. Conor Oberst is a weird performer, he looks a bit like a lost child at times. I have the feeling I wouldn’t want to meet him in case I didn’t like him. The difference between the gig and the Arcade Fire one was the way the audience – with the exception of the people at the bar at the back of the venue – were completely silent during the songs, listening to the lyrics perhaps. Brilliant lyrics by the way. There was no clapping or singing along during the songs. It was like we were there to listen. The new album is going to be stuck in my CD player for a long time I suspect.

The latest line up band reminded me of Stillwater from the film Almost Famous, The only bad points of the evening were the couple in front of me who spent most of the night looking at their mobile phones. Surely it would have been cheaper and easier to stay at home and put a record on and look at their phones in comfort. Second gripe would be the way Koko put on a club as early as possible after the gig, so that as everyone is leaving the Bright Eyes gig the NME clubbers were coming in at the same time. Causing a gridlock on the tight staircases and stupid tunnels, that surely was against some sort of Camden Council byelaw. I thought of cattle as I squeezed my way out of the venue. And don’t even get me started on the bus ride(s) home. If London’s buses actually went to where they’re supposed to go to maybe we wouldn’t all take our cars everywhere.

I must go and lie down now, I think I've overdone it.

So. Firstly, I’ve been in what I like to refer to as the big recording studio. I’m recording various parts of my new album in different locations. Some stuff at home, some in Truro with fifteen teenagers and a couple of ex members of the Family Cat, and last week we put down some drums. Bass and guitars, some trumpet, trombone, saxophone, flute, Chris T-T piano and some fine Mr Spoons home cooking in the big studio. It was a pretty full on session. Not a lot of time to lounge around and think about things, just had to knuckle down to the job. We go back later in the month to hopefully finish the recording. It’s unclear what it’ll all end up sounding like but my first impressions are that it’s going to be an extraordinary record. Once again I expect to win the Mercury Music Prize and get that long overdue Ivor Novello.

Last night it was the 4 For Wiz gig at the Islington Academy. Me and Les had misled people to believe that we’d be playing an acoustic set. That was the original plan, but one thing led to another and we decided to go for the full on Carter experience – for four songs anyway. We didn’t tell anyone though as we didn’t want to take away from what the night was about by making it into a Carter reunion gig. I really enjoyed the evening. Backstage it was like Live Aid. Very bizarre. For old times sake I managed to get drunk enough after the gig to fall over, just like I used to do in those early nineteen nineties.

At least eleven thousand charity quids were raised from the gig and more to come from merchandise and stuff, good work.

Today started badly when I awoke to find we were completely out of Alker Seltzer.

Hello friends of Jim (to be renamed Snoop Bob after you hear some of his insane new tunes). Hope you're well and looking forward to the islington academy thing.

So. We're taping the new JB opus 'Egg' in a live-in studio in the wilds of Hampshire. It used to be one of those huge brick oast-houses, so the drum sound is immense but so are the spiders.

This record is well dark, much bleaker than 'School', though as I type this James is saying "well, what the fuck do you know, it's a pop album."

So far we've done all the drums and bass and some piano. After the drum session the drummer ate three portions of trifle and Mr Spoons had to drive him to the station with a sickbag in his lap.

Today was brass section day, with the 3 players from the 'School' orchestra down, so we've spent the afternoon arranging funky stabs and editing psychedelic sax solos over slow jazz-rock. Seriously, you won't believe this record - it's even got flute wobbles on it.

Mr Spoons is celebrity chef for the week. Currently he's wearing an apron covered in blood, after trying to finger out low-fat custard from a tin and ripping himself open on the edge. He's been cooking his nuts off - even made paneer cheese from scratch last night by doing something disgusting to a bucket of milk, then hanging the results in a nappy overnight. It tasted yummy in the curry. He also made an outstanding butternut squash soup for lunch. I agree with Splinkery about marrying him.

I've struggled a bit with the piano playing and my thumb hurts like I hit it with a hammer. Luckily it's not ruined anything yet - and you can tell these recordings are going well because Jim just takes the piss out of everyone, instead of sulking in the corner when I play wrong notes. It's a real piano, which is mint.

Also we got up early this morning to have a go on the drums before the session, which I don't think Neil was that pleased about.

Nice one, take care of yourselves.
Chris xx

I’ve been recording various bits and pieces for my next album. Mostly in my home studio, the inappropriately grandly titled Stereoworld. I also spent a day with Jon Clayton in his studio in Brixton, recording some of the more acoustic songs and some lovely cello. Next week I go into the place where we recorded the ‘School’ album. It’s in the countryside, and it’ll be good to get out of London. I would say that it will also be good to get away from all the guns. But when we were recording ‘School’ I heard more gunfire than I have in darkest, scariest Lambeth. I think it was probably some kind of pigeon shoot-em-up, hopefully only the clay kind.

I’ve spent longer getting this LP together than I have on most of my other solo albums. Mainly because I couldn’t get the time in the studio. I’ve had to be more patient. Consequently the songs and their arrangements have changed a fair bit since I wrote some of them, and hopefully I’ll end up with a better finished album as a result. I want to make it like it’s the last one I ever will make. Not because it is, but because it should sound like that don’t you think.

To stretch the multi studio approach I should be going down to Cornwall to record some stuff with the Zebs Choir. The Zebs Choir appear at the end of a great compilation album ‘The Sound Of Young Cornwall’, put together by the Zebs youth project in Truro. I discovered them through an old friend of mine Kev Downing. He was the drummer with the Family Cat and him and Tim (Fam Cat guitarist) run the project. Read more about it here and buy the album. A lot of my music friends seem to have ended up working with kids and music. Carter’s manager Adrian does so in Devon and James from EMF works with kids in Bradford. Putting something back, while I still bang away selfishly on my own career struggle.

One of the fantastic things about this next studio session is that Mr Spoons will come down, like he did last time, to cook. Spoons loves cooking, almost as much as he loves Crystal Palace football club and Dr Who. This time he’s even sent me a menu in advance, check this out:

(For 6)
Mon Lunch: Assorted toasties
Mon Dinner: Arrabiata Pasta, with salad & garlic bread etc. & Pud (probably a Trifle)

(For 8)
Tue Lunch: Butternut squash or Broccoli Soup + Crusty bread
Tues Eve: Curry night + Sticky Toffee pud.

(for 6)
Weds Lunch: Thai-spiced Vegetable Broth with noodles.
(Weds Eve: Eating out)

(for 6)
Thurs Lunch: Chickpea Curry & wraps
Thurs eve?: Vege Sausage & Mash with Yorkies & Rosemary scented onion gravy + Cake for pud.

When all this food is eaten and we leave the studio, I’ll be playing some Carter songs with Fruitbat at the Islington Academy along with Neds Atomic Dustbin and members of Senseless Things, Therapy etc at a tribute gig for Wiz from Mega City Four, who sadly passed away last year. It should be an interesting backstage scene, all us old early nineties bands and artists meeting up to check out each other’s hair loss and weight gain.

Christmas has come early for 160 thousand turkeys.
Let’s cull Bernard Matthews.

I’ve been staying in a lot. It’s the new going out apparently. My excuse is that I’m an artist. Writing and recording and growing various different beards, which I have to keep shaving off when it’s time to go out: to the pub or up to Manchester to play at the opening night of a comedy club, in aid of Love Music Hate Racism. On the way there, as has now become tradition, Team Jim Bob went to the Odeon that’s inside the ginoormous Trafford Centre. We – literally – tossed a coin between going to see ‘Venus’ or ‘Casino Royale’. Bond won, as he always will. I enjoyed the film, quite long and very loud. The gig that followed was a weird one. Mainly because I had to go on quite late, and after a load of comedians. Not for the first time in my career I think I might have quipped. All in a good cause.

Talking of which.
I got a phone call from Carter’s old agent asking if we’d play a few songs at a tribute gig for the lovely Wiz from the equally lovely Mega City Four after he sadly passed away at the end of last year. We said yes of course. I’d like to think it’s a better reason to get back together rather than just doing it for the money. A bit like Pink Floyd at Live Aid maybe. Three or four songs for a noble cause and no money and then back to the day job. I realise that this may be the opening of the flood gates that lets in all the offers for one off Carter gigs. Let’s just hope nobody offers too much moolah or I might be tempted, being a bit skint at the moment. The gig’s on March 4th and it’s already sold out by the way.

Trying to make sense of what my new LP will sound like. I have a few novel ideas that may take shape. Expect something somewhere between my ‘Angelstrike!’ and ‘School’ albums.

When I was a kid I used to hang out at the ice rink in Streatham. A boy who was probably about the same age I was at that hanging out time was shot dead there on Saturday. I find myself pining for the days of a good kicking, instead of this shooting people dead crap.

C'est la vie

I have to break away from all the hullabaloo and heated debate over whether or not Big Brother has descended into a bullying and racism fest in order to write a short blog. I don’t know why, I’ve got nothing to say really. My life can be so lacking in event that having to write about it is frightening. I’m wasting my time on earth and it’s quite disturbing to try to think of stuff I’ve done that might be worth a mention and finding nothing. Maybe my work is done. My fifteen minutes are up. I’ve achieved something Google-able in the past and I shouldn’t expect more. Who do I think I am? Oliver Twist?

Back to that Big Brother nonsense. Blair is answering questions about it in Parliament. They’re discussing it on the radio and on the BBC2 lunchtime politics show. In India people are burning effigies of the Big Brother producer. I wonder who makes those effigies. These are the kind of ridiculous events that can lead to wars. Like filming Saddam Hussein on a mobile phone. Imagine that in the future history lessons. ‘Question five: How did World War III begin? Was it something to do with a mobile phone picture sir?’

I started recording the more acoustic songs for my new LP. I was in the Brixton studio of Jon Clayton, who played cello on the ‘School’ album. He’s a sweet and quiet sort of bloke. I couldn’t imagine Jon throwing a TV out of hotel window or injecting smack into his eyeball. My kind of musician. I took some biscuits and Jon supplied the coffee.

I’ve also been re-writing (again) my ‘novel’. It’s changed quite a bit. I sincerely hope I won’t be talking about this in a year’s time. Or if I am, I hope I will have removed the inverted commas from around the word ‘novel’.

Went to see Dick Whittington for the third time. It was the best I’d seen it. They’d tightened the production up a fair bit and added some new gags. Roger Lloyd Pack, who’s had a bit of criticism for his performance was absolutely superb. I went with my sister and her small children. That added to the experience: seeing it with kids and watching their reactions to everything. Once again, in spite of all the great songs in the show, I came away from it with the ‘Bogie & Pooh’ song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

It looks like the Barry Barbican will be putting on another panto next year. With a bit of luck they might ask me to write some tunes again.

No Brit Award nomination again.
Although I suppose this time I’m in there in name at least.

December 22nd. Team Jim Bob’s first proper DJ job.
Me, Marc and Mr Spoons drove through a right old pea-souper-and-no-mistaking-guv to DJ at the Little Man Tate/Sheffield Boardwalk Christmas party. I hadn’t really thought it through. What it might be like to DJ from onstage in front of a sold out venue audience who were all ready to see Little Man Tate. Rather than endure 55 minutes of two men in trilbys and another in a silver policeman’s helmet, trying to appear young and hip with their Fratellis and Girls Aloud records. What do you do to look exciting when all you’re really doing is putting on CDs? There weren’t enough nobs to pretend to twiddle, in the way that Fatboy Slim does. Mr Spoons had a telephone instead of headphones, which was good for that DJ look and I think we got away with it. We played lots of new indie hits and a few oldies (Nirvana) for the mums and dads. I waved my hands in the air like I just didn’t care, Marc pretended to look for the next CD to play in Mr Spoon’s CD box. Spoons meanwhile, did all the work. As he always does. It was a great night, I managed to get fairly drunk somehow and a nice way to end the year. A sort of Team Jim Bob office party. I wish we’d taken my photo-copier.

So, 2006. An interesting year, what with the Dick Whittington business, turning down Celebrity Big Brother (yes) and all the other stuff. Next year I’ll record a new album and have that one more shot at the Barry big time. I need to finish re-re-rewriting my ‘novel’ that I haven’t managed to get published yet and just maybe do some of that exercise I keep promising my fat gut.

Happy Christmas.
Now let’s watch telly.

JIM BOB’S FAVOURITES OF 2006

Books:

The Book of Dave – Will Self
Haunted – Chuck Palahniuk
Ludmila’s Broken English – DBC Pierre
J Pod – Douglas Coupland
The Secret Life of a Teenage Punk Rocker – Andy Blade

Albums:
Orphans – Tom Waits
Jarvis – Jarvis Cocker
The Life Pursuit – Belle And Sebastian
Born In The UK – Badly Drawn Boy
American V: A Hundred Highways – Johnny Cash
Noise Floor – Bright Eyes
Motion Sickness – Bright Eyes
Gang of Losers – The Dears
Alright, Still… – Lily Allen
The Freedom Spark – Larrikin Love

TV:
Lead Balloon
Saxondale
Family Guy
Arrested Development
That Mitchell & Webb Look
QI
The State Within
NCIS
Man to Man with Dean Learner
Jam & Jerusalem

Radio:
Andrew Collins and Richard Herring on BBC 6 Music
Russell Brand on BBC 6 Music

Films:
Children of Men (the only film I saw at the cinema)
A Cock & Bull Story
The Constant Gardener

Gigs/shows:
The Dears at Koko
Morrissey at The London Palladium
Chuck Palahniuk at the Purcell Rooms
Dick Whittington & His Cat at The Barbican Centre

Personal Highlight:
Being asked to write songs for Dick Whittington & His Cat at The Barbican and getting to meet and work with the critically acclaimed and successful





MR SPOON’S FAVOURITES OF 2006

Albums
Artic Monkeys (Not sure if it was this year, tho' due to the download scenario)
Jarvis (lush)
PSB's - Fundamental (fun)
With a heavy heart I am omitting my boy Numan from this list, whilst I did like his album a lot, I find I haven't really played it much, although live is a different story...

Books
Another barren year on the book front from me I'm afraid, so London Orbital by Iain Sniclair, although i have no idea whether that came out this year... I also have the new Dick Francis in my Xmas stocking, which I daresay will get devoured soon after Xmas. I quite like the Vesuius Club too.

Films
Again, being a cultural philistine I haven't watched many of the latest films, so by default the TJB Day out: Children of Men must win this being the only 2006 film I can remember seeing. Oh and the Johnny Cash one wasn't bad, but I think that was last year...

Gigs
Now here I can write with more authority, it's probably been one of my favourite years ever for gigs. If I had such a thing, there would probably be three or four entrants in my all time top 10 giglist:

Head honchos: Gary Numan (x2 Mar & Dec), Morrissey (outstanding despite my expectations), Jarvis, Depeche Mode (Wembley), Artics (Berlin), PSB's

Special mentions: Little Man Tate (Aug), Depeche Mode (Dusseldorf), Chris T-T & David Rovics (shame about the rest of the bill)

Bloody sure I've missed some here that I'll be kicking myself about.

TV
Doctor Who, The State Within, Studio 60 on Sunset Strip, last series of the West Wing, Lost (only for series 3 though, series 2 was largely cack) Prison Break. And the amount of time I spent watching the Cooking Channel is frightening. Can't decide whether I really like Heroes or not - was shocked/pleased to hear that EcclesCakes has a part in it soon though!

Others
Best Footie Match: Karlsruhe 4 Hansa Rostock 4 (nov)
Best televised Footie match: Manure 0 Arsenal 1 (Adenbaayooooor!)
Best UK ground visited: Ashburton Grove
Best foreign ground visited: (A real toughie this one due to World Cup...): Will have to go with Gelsenkirchen/Schalke (spit)
Personal highlight: Being in the LMT video




MARC’S FAVOURITES OF 2006

Albums
1. Pet Shop Boys - Fundamental
2. Morrissey - Ringleader Of The Tormentors
3. The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth
4. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
5. The Killers - Sam's Town

Honourable Mentions - Jarvis Jocker: Jarvis, Pet Shop Boys: Concrete

Books (this is what I read, rather than what came out)
1. The Closed Circle - Jonathan Coe
2. George Orwell - 1984
3. Ryu Murakami - In The Miso Soup
4. Chuck Paluniak - Haunted
5. Charles Dickens - Hard Times

Honourable Mention - Strategic Marketing Decisions - Lowe and Doyle (this must have been good as I read it twenty times)

Films
1. The Prestige
2. X-Men 3
3. Match Point
4. Saw 2
5. A Cock n' Bull Story

Gigs
1. Morrissey @ Wembley Arena
2. A-ha @ Shepherds Bush Empire
3. Pet Shop Boys @ Tower Of London
4. Morrissey @ London Palladium
5. Girls Aloud @ V Festival

Honourable Mentions: Keane, The Strokes, Primal Scream, Babyshambles and The Dears.

TV
1. Doctor Who
2. Lost
3. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares
4. Saxondale
5. Extras

Honourable Mentions: Torchwood, The Biggest Loser UK, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Big Brother, Britain's Next Top Model, Question Time, Tonight With Jonathan Ross, Jimmy Hill's Sunday Supplement, Location Location Location, Property Ladder

Last night I went to see Dick Whittington & His Cat for the first time. It’s a superb show. With its outrageously lavish stage sets. Its great cast, script, daft jokes, double entendres, costumes, dance numbers and of course the songs. It was the first I got to hear what had happened to the two songs I wrote for it since I’d recorded my simple demos back whenever that was. I was nervous, waiting for my tunes, like I was waiting for my children to appear on stage. And Tom Waits would tell you that in a way that’s exactly what I was doing.

Sarah Travis has done an amazing job orchestrating them into brilliant over the top show tunes. It was pretty surreal, sat there listening to them being performed in such a way in that big theatre to a load of screaming kids and parents. I can’t adequately convey what it felt like, so I won't. Almost dreamlike.

There was champagne in the interval and a big old party in a pub in the heart of the city afterwards. Got a bit pissed drinking all the free stuff, we even got a taxi home. For at least one night this was for me – what my manager Marc and I refer to as Barry Big time. You should go and see it. I’m going again.

It’s Christmas. I read this in the Radio Times from Sir Cliff Richard, talking about his new seasonal single. It made me laugh:

“This new one is called 21st Century Christmas. I love it because the lyrics talk about ‘The satellite tracking Santa/We text our Christmas lists and leave our mobile numbers just to help out old St Nick.’ Then the chorus comes back with, ‘But still tonight we’ll thank Bethlehem.’ So you still have the essence of Christmas, but also the fun of contemporary living.”

Toodaloo.

I’m not going to harp on about how with another birthday I’m feeling old. The last time I did that Les wrote a song for me/about me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Hologram and as nice as it is for people to write songs for you or about you, I think he’s probably got better things to write about than me, so I won’t mention my fear of old age and death any further.

I’ve written and recorded demos for 11 new songs and when I’ve finished two more, probably on my birthday when I should be eating cake and getting bumped, I’ll try and get some real musicians together to record properly what I hope will be my greatest album ever. Not sure what to call the LP, I’ve got a few ideas and working titles. Some of the songs seemed to be related to the same theme and I have toyed with the idea of calling the album ‘Work’, making it the centre piece of a trilogy, ‘School’, ‘Work’ and ‘Death’. One of the downsides of such an art wanky move would be that I’d dig myself (appropriately) into a hole with what my next record would be. And then when it came to making it I might be in a real positive mood and want to write a load of songs about life instead of death. Watch this space.

As mentioned before, my song ‘The Lord Mayor’s Show’, written for the Dick Whittington & His Cat panto was used as musical accompaniment on the Barbican Centre’s float in last week’s Lord Mayor’s Show. I had planned on going along to see and hear it but decided to get up late and watch it on telly instead. The BBC decided to cut to a short film about plumbers at the exact point the Barbican float floated by the cameras and so I never got to see it or hear my demo tape on the TV, which was a bit of a disappointment. The first time I’ll probably get to hear what has become of my 2 Dick Whitters songs in the hands of professionals and actors will be when I go to see the panto in a couple of weeks time. I can’t begin to stress how exciting this is for me.

God I’m old.

Until we all live in our own individual pods, headphones on and visors down, I suppose the people standing or sitting around me will always be a part of my cultural experience. My memory of what a great film ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ was will be forever tainted by the family at the back of the Odeon in Streatham who talked all the way through it and rustled about with their Sainsbury’s shopping bags. If I close my eyes and think about Bright Eyes’ fantastic gig at Somerset House, I can always see it through a sea of mobile camera phones and girls waving their arms in the air like that thin bird from the Corrs. When I went to see Jarvis Cocker last night in Brighton, I couldn’t just come home and say what a brilliant gig it was. How hilarious his onstage banter was and the genius of the new songs. I’d have to also talk about the nob jockeys stood in front of me and Mr Spoons, shouting a combination of “Jaaarviis” and worse, “Common Peeeopoolll!” in between every song and during the quiet bits of actual songs. I saw The Dears the other week. They were amazing too, although I might also have to tell you about how difficult it was to find a place to stand where somebody wasn’t recording or photographing shitty quality clips on their bastard phones. All that and the endless firework ‘displays’ that are October, November and no doubt December. What a miserable old twat I am.

My demo recording of ‘The Lord Mayor’s Show’, one of my
Dick Whittington songs, is being played on the Barbican’s float in the Lord Mayor’s Show on Saturday. I might go and have a listen. Back at that Barbican website, by the way, you can read about my, and other members of the cast and crew’s first ever pantomime experiences.

Tomorrow I must start recording new album demos proper. I’ve written about 12 songs and have a rough gist of what kind of record it’s going to be. I expect, as I always do, to win the Mercury Music Prize. Maybe I should actually enter it this time, shall we have a whip round?

Returning from the Isle of Man, feeling a bit weird and slightly down. I’d just played my last gig for the foreseeable future. Looking at the ‘LIVE’ page on my website and seeing nothing is like unwrapping a new pocket diary from Woolworths on Christmas Day. We decided that maybe people had had enough of me singing for a while and I should spend a bit of time writing and recording a new album and trying to get that unpublished book published (it’s been a year since I ‘finished’ it and still no takers from publishers or literary agents, mind you that bloke from Bog Brother who can’t help swearing has signed a million quid book deal for his biography, so it’s not all doom and gloom in the publishing world). Hey, wouldn’t it be good if his book was written exactly as it’s dictated to his ghostwriter. “And then I was in this crusty circus band in Brighton fuck off! wankers! And then I auditioned for bollocks titfish! whist;le etc”. I sent another few sample chapters to an agent in the post this morning, I chose Recorded Delivery – not as safe as Special Delivery but at least I’ll be able to track and trace to see if the package reaches its intended hands. The man behind the counter in the post office of the shop that actually features in the book I’m posting asks me the Recorded Delivery question that’s supposed to make you paranoid and supersize your package to Special D, “Is there anything valuable inside?” And I say no. Nothing valuable. Just a few years of my life, some sleepless nights, reams of wasted paper and gallons of printer ink. Nothing valuable at all. Just my imagination (running away with me), all those nights out when I couldn’t concentrate because I had my stories on my mind, sneaking off to the toilet to scribble ideas on bus tickets and then waste more of my time trying to decipher what it was I wrote down in the dark at the Brixton Academy when I was supposed to be enjoying Beck. No, nothing valuable at all. In fact could you write instructions for the postman to do his best to lose my parcel, drop it in a puddle, hide it behind a radiator, or throw it away in the street with all his red elastic bands.

Spent a couple of days in Devon. Went to see my nephew appearing in a play at the Plymouth Drum Theatre. It was his first ever stage appearance, so quite a big way to begin: In a proper theatre with real grown up actors and a set etc. He was of course totally brilliant.

I should be recording demos. My computer monitor that I use in this process has broken and I need to sort a new one out so I can’t use it as an excuse to not get the hell on with it for God’s sake. I’m now going to stop writing this blog to weirdly go back to my latest new song, which is called ‘God’s Blog’, everyone’s doing them you know.

If my Cub Scout years taught me nothing else (other than that ugly stuff in Carter’s Baden Powell song) they made me aware of the importance of being prepared. Hence, knowing I had to get up at five in the morning to drive to Liverpool for a ferry ride across a rough Irish Sea to the Isle of Man I had my Kwells sea sickness pills ready and waiting. I lined my stomach with a couple of Weetabix that’s two Weetabix and had an emergency sandwich packed in my bag for the pre-boat car journey. So when the Sea Cat set off for Douglas in a gale force seven storm I managed to survive the two and a half hellish hours of being chucked about on the waves without chucking up myself. Unlike many of the other passengers, including Mr Spoons who had a horrific time, 180 minutes retching and roaring into a paper bag, horrendous. And Marcus T Manager who went to the toilet half way through the trip and never returned: instead choosing to spend the rest of the journey on the floor by the amusements arcade being sick. The contents of the closed gift shop kept falling crashing to the floor and the onboard TV sets that showed a picture of the vessel with the words ‘Welcome aboard Sea Cat’ led one German dude to point out to his friend, “Welcome aboard Sea Cat? More like Welcome Aboard Sea Sick.” Who says Germans have no sense of humour.

This was the inauspicious start to Team Jim Bob and Chris T-T’s two days of gigs and fun in the Isle of Man. This was my first time on the island and I was made to feel incredibly welcome. Lots of meals out – usually accompanied by about sixteen people, it seems to be a very community conscious place, nothing like my unfriendly hometown – I felt like the Queen.

The first gig was sold out, I’ve said it before many times but they are my two favourite words when combined together, I love playing sell out gigs, it takes away at least 80% of what makes me anxious about the whole process of being a performer. A great gig, perhaps too much audience talking and I wished I’d been more in control there but otherwise… Afterwards there was a small party and a good night’s sleep, with a pre-bedtime drunken promise from our host Gypo of ‘enough cheese and toast with various sauces to fill that big rug on the floor there for breakfast’. We did indeed get the spicy cheese on toast, maybe not quite as big as the sitting room carpet but we’re all entitled to boast a bit when we’re hammered.

Spent the Satur-day in Peel. A lovely little seaside town where I was thrilled to see Isle of Man man Norman Wisdom walking along the seafront. Remembering the episode of Father Ted where Ted says to Richard Wilson “I don’t beleeeve it” I resisted the temptation to shout Mister Grimsdaaaale! and do a funny walk with my cap on sideways. Went for a superb ice cream that made me feel sick and then had a pint in a pub with a pumpkin and walked along some steam train railway tracks to the second of the two gigs, this time at the Bay Hotel in Port Erin – I got you a postcard. I was doing a short set supporting Chris not-named-after-the-motorbike-races T-T and I had a blast. I love supporting and don’t do it nearly enough. There’s a lot less pressure and more time to get drunk. Yes, ignoring all I’d learnt in the Cubs I drank Baileys and gin and beer and some shots of something blue that could have been washing up liquid or Esso Blue paraffin for all I knew and stayed up till I could hear the birds whistling my name ouch . Simple schoolboy errors for getting up at six for another what would surely be rough sea journey full of puke and tears back to the English mainland. But hey, we came back home on the slow boat, which was the smoothest boat ride I’ve ever been on. Nobody so much as belched. Three cheers for us, hip, hip… For all the things I’ve forgotten, look out for Marc’s War & Peace length blog on the subject or ask me about it next time you see me.

That's the question Do I miss whiplash? The ache and the stiffness I woke up with the day after the second of two gigs at the Barfly in London, the one where I played a half hour punk set with a six piece supergroup we’re calling The Abdou Girls. All that headbanging on stage – particularly during the long instrumental wig out at the end of Angelstrike! – it’s given me an incredibly stiff neck. I’m just not used to such rocking out anymore.

The second part of this Best Of tour began in Sheffield. Marc wasn’t there again, just me and Mr Spoons and Spoons having to do the work of two. A weird gig, less people than last time I’d played there – well, less people to see me that is. There was a big queue pretty early on, all about 16 to 18 years old and there for the two support acts. I sat backstage while Spoons was on the merch stall out front and I could hear a lot of screaming and cheering for the first dude on stage. It sounded like Westlife might be doing a surprise gig. Taking a peek I could see a large crowd of enthusiastic young folks who I knew and feared would leave the building pretty much as soon as I set foot onstage. I felt very old. Came onstage incidentally to the Little Man Tate single ‘House Party At Boothy’s’. The ‘Tate have been using ‘Sheriff Fatso’ as their intro tape for a while and I thought it would be a funny thing to return the gesture. Don’t know whether anybody noticed.

Marc was back for Birmingham. We got stuck in a gridlock in the centre of the city for two hours when loads of main roads were closed after a series of knife attacks. The policeman outside the gig when we eventually got there told us it was a terrorist attack but he was just showing off and it turned out to be the start of a midweek orgy of teenage gang violence that would include two kids being shot in the queue at Brixton McDonalds. Are things spiralling out of control? The Birmingham gig was great, one of the best of the tour. I started to rethink my retirement.

Which brings us to the two London shows. For the first one – partially because I’m always too stressed to eat before London gigs and partially because I found gin and tonic in a tin in Sainsbury’s for £1.39 – I was a bit tipsy and I really enjoyed myself. On the way home Mr Spoons’ popemobile was hit by a truck on Waterloo Bridge and if the lorry driver hadn’t fallen asleep I think Spoons might have beaten him to death with his Yorkie bar.

I’d asked Les (Fruitbat) if he’d put together a band based around Abdoujaparov to play some of my punkier numbers at the final gig of the tour. The supergroup, who we called The Abdou Girls, as they were a mix of Abdoujaparov (Les, Richy Crockford) and the Subliminal Girls
(Arran J Lovechild, Jim Rhesus, Jimmy 2 Shoes and Danny Le Pelley) managed to make a fantastic racket and as I say, I got into it and that’s why I’ve got this stiff neck. That’s another band formed and split for people to ask if they’ll ever reform again.

Today I went to a press launch for Dick Whittington & His Cat at the Barbican, where I was filmed for ‘The Culture Show’ (look out for it on a Saturday night BBC2 soon) and got to meet the cast and crew, including the lovely Roger Lloyd Pack , with whom I posed for quite a few press pics, look out for those too. And Miles Jupp whose first live music experience was when he won tickets for the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in 1991. I was talking to the musical director and arranger Sarah Travis about what she’s going to do with my songs and I’m looking forward to hearing them develop into something special. It’s all very exciting. Still don’t know who’ll be singing one of my songs, I’ve been imagining various famous people who it might be. More news soon. Need to get some sea-sickness pills for the Isle of Man trip.

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

In Cambridge we had chips from the Chinese opposite the venue in Cambridge. We sat in the back of the Popemobile to eat them because we wanted to get away from the argument that was about to begin inside the gig over the rubbish PA system that five separate people would unscrew, solder and screw back together again through the course of the day. The promoter for the gig Steve is a lovely bloke and shows that when promoters do what is suggested they might do by their job title, the gig will invariably be a lot more successful and well attended. I don’t know why more promoters don’t have a go at this system, they’d make more money themselves and be a lot happier than some of them seem to be. So in spite of the rubbish PA, Steve’s enthusiastic promoting – including booking 2 quality support acts – helped make for a great gig. My first attempt at solo electric guitar wasn’t too embarrassing either and I managed to slot in a few new songs, including my soon-to-be-one-day novelty hit ‘the Wheels On The Bus’.

The next day was a day off. Not because we were already exhausted one date in to the tour but because Mr Spoons (roadie, driver, tour guide, webmaster, tough looking bubble machine operator, loud snorer, etc, etc) who will be suffering with chronic toothache all week had a Crystal Palace game to go to in Norwich. Instead of going home me and Marc (manager, comedian, moonwalker, mature student, etc, etc) went along to the game with Spoons. Palace won with a goal in the last minute and then we went to the rub a dub dub followed by a very nice Italian meal, with wine and dessert, the whole bit. Afterwards we retired to our empty hotel bar and the games machine which had about thirty different triv and TV related quiz games on it. Naturally we chose the Q Magazine quiz and pissed ourselves laughing to be greeted by a big picture of me and Fruitbat under the heading ‘Where Are They Now?’. As we played the game the picture would keep returning, until it started to annoy me and we moved onto ‘Deal Or No Deal’ with the voice and face of old tidy beard Noel Edmonds.

Before the Portsmouth gig we had a speedy Thai meal. The gig was superb, as it was last time. Lots of banter between act and audience. Almost a stand up comedy performance with music, like Richard Digance or Sid Little

Marc had to return to London due to forseen circumstances, leaving me and Mr Spoons on our own to deal with the turning up as late as he possibly can promoter/soundman. The Bristol gig is a free to get in gig and I get paid with money put in to a jug by the audience. Last time we went there we got one free drink each. This time they’d cut it back to one free drink for the performers only, not for Mr Spoons who does all the real work. With hindsight I wish I’d told them to shove their free drink up their tight arse, but I’m so soft these days you could call me a pillow and so I said nothing. I’d actually prefer no free drink rather than one. One is somehow more insulting. Especially when you consider the amount of money they make off the bar on what’s probably one of their fuller nights and how they don’t have to pay me because that money also comes from the punters. When bands go to Germany or Holland for the first time they often come back talking about how well they’d been treated and about all the free beer and food etc and how England is rubbish in the way it treats their bands. This is why. We didn’t have our usual after the Bristol show pizza at the restaurant up the road, mainly because I was too drunk to sit in a chair. Mr Spoons had though bought me my favourite sandwich. Which is the Veggie Delight from Subway

The Leeds gig was always going to be difficult. The venue had been changed and it had been impossible to buy advance tickets for the new venue where the – I refer you back to my first point about promoters – practically secret gig was taking place. Still, it was an alright gig, I was perhaps bullied into playing too many Carter hits but not the end of the world and we had Japanese noodles in an authentic looking place up a back street.

Glasgow 13th Note means vege burgers. We used to get these for free but those days seem to have gone. On the way to the gig we nipped into XFM Scotland to record an interview and three songs for broadcast the following Sunday. When we got the call to come in we were told they’d played a track of the Best Of album that morning and we said I bet it was The Only Living Boy In New Cross, which it was. I played acoustic versions of Touchy Feely, Back To School and New Cross for the Sunday show. Come Sunday they only had time to play one of the songs. Eeni meeni minie New Cross again. I often think the last 14 years have been a dream. It’s as though they never happened.

We’ve developed car trouble. The popemobile is having difficulty starting. We returned to a little pizza place in Worcester that we’d eaten at before, it was nice but I shouldn’t have had the Irish coffee as I returned to the Marr’s Bar in Worcester feeling bloated. Let’s be James blunt here, the gig was empty. I don’t know why. In spite of wanting to go home or to be swallowed up by the earth of Worcester the audience were up for making the very best of things and it was probably the most enthusiastic crowd (how many people do you need for a crowd?) of the tour. That night there were some nob jockeys at the hotel who’d obviously never stayed in a hotel before and so stayed up all night banging doors, running up and down the corridor, breaking things and eventually punching the receptionist and being arrested. We had not a single wink of sleep between us and got a refund.

To pass some time, instead of sitting around the venue or a Little Chef we went to the pictures. We saw the film Children Of Men, it was superb and as a sign of how rock and roll we are we paid for normal tickets and sat in the Premier seats. The last gig of the first half of the tour and we’re back at the Dog & Partridge in Bolton. It was as packed as any venue has ever been and made up for the empty Worcester gig. Drove home at night because Mr Spoon’s teeth are killing him and he needs emergency dental action. Back on the chips.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Center Parcs
I know some people have the fear of the parcs. They think it’s a big sci-fi-cold-war- nightmare domed building where everyone is forced to play badminton and live together and share sweat. They’re wrong. I wouldn’t go to such a place repeatedly like I do. Center Parcs for me is usually a big old Morrison family and friends trip but a few members of the group were unavailable for holidaying this year – my cousin James for example was on his sell out tour playing blue eyed soul to estate agents (no offence estate agent dudes) – so Mr Spoons joined us and along with Marc (us Tandy) it became a Team Jim Bob / big old Morrison family and friends trip instead.

After three days of ten pin bowling, adventure swimming and adventure golf, boating, line dancing (for the ladies), restauranting, boozing etc, my muscles are aching today. It’s only really with a couple of non injured fingers that I can manage to type my way through the pain with, and even they hurt somewhat from being stuffed into the holes of a large heavy bowling ball.

For a more detailed account of our wet and wild weekend, check out Marc’s myspace blog which I expect will appear shortly on the subject. When I say ‘shortly’ I of course mean ‘longly’. Is that a word? It is now.

‘Dick Whittington and His Cat’, for which I wrote a couple of songs is taking shape cast and crew wise. Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger from Only Fools & Horses) has been announced as Sarah the Cook. News here: http://www.jim-bob.co.uk/news.shtml

and more here (including a rat squashing game):

I’ve been in the recording studio with Cable Street Spy Club ‘helping’ them with their first single. I really enjoyed the experience and was a bit envious of that gang thing you get with being in a band that maybe you don’t when you’re a solo performer.

Touring begins in a few days, I must rehearse. 8 potential new songs to perform.

Do you like the new look of the website? Grey is the new black.

I was walking from the train station to my mum’s the other day and my path was blocked for a moment by some people cleaning up after their two dogs. There were what appeared to be three generations of people with the dogs. The grandmother was picking up the dogshit with her carrier bag gloved hand, while the mother was saying how annoying it was that the dog crapped in one place then moved a foot to the right and
dropped another steaming turd. “Why can’t he do them in one place?” She said. Later, on my way back to the station, as I walked past the same spot I saw that a horse had recently deposited an enormous hill of horseshit at the side of the road. I wondered why the horse’s rider or perhaps her mother hadn’t stopped to pick up the pooh, maybe with a larger carrier bag turned inside out over her hand. Maybe one from Dixons, big enough for a ghetto blaster or a Primark bargain coat sized carrier. And then I remembered that Dixons had shut down and had become Curry’s Digital.

Still writing songs. I might do some rudimentary demo recordings soon, to see what I’ve got. I’ve written seven songs so far, I’ll try and give most of them a go on tour. It’s a different way of doing things for me. I’ve tended recently to have recorded my songs before performing them.

I’m going to try some different stuff on tour, still mostly me and an acoustic guitar, singing songs but maybe a few other things thrown in to give me something to fuck up. Dangerous is the new safe.

I was watching Reading Festival on the telly – that can’t be right – and Edith Bowman was interviewing Franz Ferdinand about how they went to Reading as teenagers. When asked what bands they went to see, Alex Kapranos said (one band I didn’t catch the name of) and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.

Listening to the new Dears album at the moment.

On the ‘Straw Donkey’ Carter video collection me, Les and Wez played ourselves in the future – 2035 I think it was – for the between song links. We had grey hair and bad backs (Les really did have the bad back) and in the case of me and Wez, we’d mysteriously developed comic posh English accents in our old age. Last week me and Les returned to the scene of the Donkey links to film an interview about Carter for a forthcoming Carter live in Germany DVD. I said to Les that it might be amusing to film it in the same place, especially as the room’s décor hadn’t changed in the past ten years. Les pointed out that as the Straw Donkey film had taken place in 2035 and hadn’t technically happened yet we might be somehow messing with the space time wotsit. Anyhow, it was our first ‘Carter’ interview for a decade and possibly our last until at least 29 more years. Sci fi!

I played a gig on a boat on the Thames. Everyone was dressed as pirates
It was a stormy day. The tide was high and the moored v