HELLO 2012

Christmas was nice enough, a bit sleepy perhaps, but a nice chance to spend time with family and friends, drink and be merry and all that. It was merry - it was nice, I was just a bit knackered by the end of the year. Spent New Years Eve in Gamlingay, it was a lovely party hosted by some lovely people, but the hangover pretty much denied me the first two days of the year, I'm getting too old for this.

So, 2012. Yeah, let's have this. I've got a new haircut - I'm all short hair and clean shaven-ness now, to be honest I feel like David Mitchell without the intelligence or success, but I feel good about the year ahead. I'm exercising every day, I'm working hard to get my posture in shape, I'm eating less pizza, this new me for the new year probably won't last but I can feel the benefits already.

The year has started brightly, Flaming June have gone and won a FATEA award for our EP from last year, 'Nerves Of Steel', and generally all of my musical projects feel in really positive shape. Alongside Flaming June, Eureka Stockade are working on new material and we'll be recording soon, Trevor Jones Band are working hard to book some nice shows and to generally take things up a gear, and - one which I'm particularly excited about at the moment, Aidy, Dave and I are re-branding as The British IBM and we start recording the debut album at the always excellent Half Ton Studios later this month. Was out with Aidy last night and his visions for this are really clear, it's a real positive move forward, it's all very positive. The Laura Tapp album is out soon too, just waiting to nail one final track (the genius that is my old chum Alister Bunclark has been roped in to play piano on it), and The Prisoner Of Mars has released his latest album - easily his best yet - and I'm selfishly happy with my conga contributions on it.

With the writing, things feel equally exciting. I can't really go too much into detail right now, but I'm surrounded by some lovely people who don't mock these slightly over-ambitious ideas of mine but instead back them completely. In short though it looks like we'll be doing TWO Edinburgh Fringe shows this year - had an inspiring meeting with Izzy on Friday night about this and it CAN be done, we just need to work our backsides off to sort the funding. There will also be a little YouTube series (an equally inspiring meeting with Michelle Golder today about this), everything seems to be falling into place nicely. In short, I've got 2 Fringe shows, a 4 minute short film, 6 short episodes for YouTube, a full murder mystery show (for the fundraiser), and another stage show (for the Young Minds charity) to write within the next...well, as soon as possible really. I'm also working pretty intensively for a new music website which launches next month - I've had my journalistic cap on all week and will do for the next week too to get these articles done in time, all roughly on schedule to hit our target, I think. Yet it doesn't feel like I've taken on too much - I'm refreshed, I'm going for this.

Yep.

Currently listening to: Slow Club - Paradise, Madness - Divine Madness, Ed Harcourt - Lustre, Randy Newman - Harps & Angels
Currently watching: Football, lots of it
Currently reading: Just finished reading Rob Brydon - Small Man In A Book, after a brief break to read a book on Only Fools & Horses by Graham McCann. Not sure what I'll read next - probably 'Eleven' by Mark Watson