Started this morning, that’s as far as I’m going to comment on that. It’s been very cold. Spent the bulk of the day tracing a missing texture on a loading screen. Did get one unusual email though, from Sony. Asking if I would be interested in doing a technical post-mortem of our latest game. Standing in front of people talking balls for half and hour…yeah I can do that, it’s like my YouTube audience, except maybe this time someone may pay some attention. Talked to a good friend at work, he apparently has some ‘gear’ he wants to get shot of, so that may solve my various audio i/o problems with Ableton. Went to the gym and did Combat. Sarah didn’t go as she’s now suffering from ‘McFlurry arse’, as it will now be known.

So woke up actually with a bit of a headache. Actually just to clarify, a courier arrived at about 8:30, I told Jamie to get his arse out of bed, but he apparently had a ‘headache’. So I answered the door. I’m sure it was the Jeager Bombs. Anyway, had breakfast and coffee and then had another one, I was raring to go by 1PM. I had a door to paint, well a second coat, probably did’t take longer than an hour, but it’s all finished now. The weather today was appalling, I mean to such an extent that I let the dogs out, they had a crap and normally Sasha would come back in and jump up are her lead, this time she came back in and ran upstairs, curled up into a ball and went back to sleep. So I decided to spend the day twatting about with some music. Jamie had some video to shoot, so I set it all up for him and vanished upstairs. I learnt some new tunes, including another Gary Numan track. It was actually great fun just playing around with the mini USB keyboard on the iMac playing around with some notes. Managed to come up with a few tunes just by ear. Anyway, uploaded the ‘Are friends electric’ video to YouTube and I thought it was the ultimate compliment when it did a ‘rights match’ and said that if I wanted to monitise the video, I would have to share the royalties with the author ‘Gary Numan’. It was a nice day, sometimes life is just about enjoying it, and today was one of those days.

So eventually I got up after breakfast. My stomach is still all over the place, and to be honest I seem to be shitting out McFlurry’s. Add a bit of ice and it would be sorted. Spent the bulk of the rest of the day trying to film me playing ‘Are friends electric’, in on take, without fucking up. Two hours and batteries later I finally managed it. Then there was lots of pissing about trying to get it all saved out etc. Anyway, walked the dogs, then we disappeared to buy some model paint. I did a home check for two Jack Russel’s. Then I got shit showered and shaved as we were going to my nephews eighteenth birthday party. We caught the bus, and considering it’s contents probably caught a few other things as well. Found the place eventually. Got inside. All the adults were at the bar and all the kids were at one table. It looked like a meeting of the chess club. The adults were getting blatted. The kids kept going outside to smoke questionable substances. My guts were still rumbling like hell. I stuck to gassy lager, which probably wasn’t a great idea. They did all liven up at about eleven o’clock. One thing though, none of them were particularly cute. You’d expect a nice blond twink stunner, but no, just a bunch of normal kids who all shared the same haircut. There was one I’d share the time of day with, but very ginger, don’t think I could get past that. You look back at your youth though and think ‘Oh I had such a great time, it was fab and we got really wasted every night’. Then you see the reality, you were just like them, felt slightly out of place in a room full of old farts, with insecurities and spots. We just didn’t have smart phones. Saying that it was the adults tonight who were taking all the selfies. Then the clock struck midnight, my mother turned back into a pumpkin. The kids all went out, were they heading into town to a club to get wasted? No, they were heading to McDonalds. We tidied up. I’d done four pints and a Jeager bomb. I’m ready for bed and a bit of telly. My late night adventures to McDonalds are over, I’ll leave that to the youth.

Stomach returning back to normal. Head now fine. Took a couple of immodium as I was getting bored almost shitting myself all the time. Work was exceedingly dull. We both took dogs out and called in the vets for flea stuff. Did more work. Didn’t go to gym as the last thing I wanted to do was work on a stomach that had a bit of a mind of its own. So finally sat down with the laptop and set it up properly on the mixer with Ableton. I’m somewhat disappointed that I just cannot get a sound I like the sound of yet for the lead part. Now after about three sample packs and lots of plug-ins I’m almost there. So, did a couple of takes on that, it’s coming along nicely. Will probably attempt to film it tomorrow and do an upload. Now going to have a shower then attempt to eat pizza.

Oh yes, while sat on the bed with Jamie, we were doing high-fives with Dillon, when he suddenly decided he wanted to twat me full on in the head. Cheers dog, you do have a pretty good punch.

So today my head is certainly better even if my stomach isn’t. My ass is still all over the place. Managed to do almost a full day of work, in between squirting out god knows what out of my ass. Got board about eight PM and had a shower, then went to bed and watched a bit of telly. Gave up on that and finished editing my backing track on Ableton. Managed two cheese sandwiches for tea, the first solid thing I’ve had really in a couple of days. I’ve lost a load of weight, I think it liquidised and vanished out of my ass. I really fancy a can of larger, that’ll do something to my insides, kill or cure.

Didn’t sleep at all last night after shivering permanently. Got up at 6:15 and took Sasha to daycare. Went back to bed with an awful headache. Started work at 11, did about half an hour then had to lie down. Cleaners arrived. I did a little bit more. Eventually picked up Sasha again and then cam back and went straight to bed again. Don’t know if I’ve caught a bit of a chill, but still have no energy and a hell of a headache. Been sat in bed watching ‘Cucumber’, just don’t have the energy to even wash. Hopefully a good nights sleep will cure it.

So started vaguely on time, well 10, that’s on time to me. Was planning on working all the way through but one of the artists pissed me off with his continual whining, thinking that everything he does is oh so bloody important. I fixed his problem, but didn’t tell him about it, so he could spend all day having a bloody paddy. So walked Sasha, even though it wasn’t my day. Finished just before seven. Dressed up in lots of lycra, then ran just under eight miles. Came back, washed, then sat in bed for ages trying to get the drum track in Ableton to match the one in GarageBand. Almost got there, it’s a bit of a labour of love though. Now completely knackered, watching the Royal Variety Performance, which I recorded in December, good to see I’m up to date with telly. Apparently Dirty Den has issued Angie with a divorce…

Started far too late. Took me quite a while to get into it. On a different coffee bean this week, not a big fan. Still, it was bugs, bugs, bugs again. None were particularly exciting. I did manage to squeeze in an extra on the bloody grass though. Sent an email to Heliflight regarding the upcoming Robinson safety course at the end of March. I’m now signed up for it. I get to enjoy two days of rather harrowing video footage of dead people who fucked up, and how to avoid a starring role in any future videos. You get a certificate at the end of it, to show that you are in fact stupid enough to fly one of these things. Still, it’ll be educational.

Went to Combat, called in Sarah’s on the way home to drop off my nephews birthday present. That’s the first time he’s had it on time in eighteen years. He’s an adult now, so that’s the last time I’ll remember it anyway. Early night I think, fancy a bum.

Okay, is it because I’m an old fart? Am I past it? It was something I seriously considered for a long time. Did I want to try again something that I did (far too much, I’ll add) in my twenties? So, so tempted. But the truth is I think, not that I am an old fart, but I don’t want to try and reinvent the past. I can dine out until the day I die on anecdotes from my youth, reminisce until the cows come home and recall stories of how great it all was. I will suffer of course from ‘mother’ syndrome and everything will be greatly embellished beyond belief. But I’m quite happy with that, it was great then, in my mind, perhaps.

Can you relive your youth? Take the ultimate juxtaposition, 80’s revivals. Then you had some chiseled jawed youth with pale skin that hadn’t seen sunlight since birth, dressed in a paper doily, singing with great angst about the fact that his bird was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. Now you are standing in a field, with thirty thousand people who have all simultaneously hit the menopause, staring at the same guy, who’s face now has more creases than one of Jamie’s shirts, with the texture of an old leather boot. He’s gone through three divorces, a stint in rehab and probably gender reassignment surgery, but still his bird is a waitress in a cocktail bar. You haven’t revisited your youth, you’ve just brought it with you, everyone has sadly aged together, but you’re all in a bit of denial. There’s nothing wrong with this of course, I’ve been to several of these things, but you need to take it for what it is, ‘Relax don’t do it’, these days means don’t get off the couch if you really can’t be arsed.

Then you look at the other side of the coin, people who have moved on with time. I went to a Gary Numan concert last year. There’s a man who’s still knocking out new material, with his beer gut and hair transplant. His audience consisted of people very much in the present, no one was under thirty, most were not under about twenty stone. Everyone stood there politely and clapped after each number while gently cuddling their pint of real ale. Security didn’t have to worry about drugs, they were more concerned that the drinks machine had run out of hot chocolate and a riot may ensue. The only stench in the air was ‘Old Hoborn’, the only thing you would find in anyones pocket was a damp return bus ticket home. No one relived their youth, they were all to glad to have made it to the present.

Now that song, ‘Are friends electric’, one that I can now play. If I think back to where I first heard it. I was seven, it was 1979. I was in a holiday park in Cornwall. I have such memories of that holiday. My recall of it is astonishing. Silly things. My sister and I drank from cat shaped bottles one night when we were out cruising antique shops in bloody Turo. I fancied the girl, who was the daughter of the woman who came to refill the coffee machine. We were friends with a family there, the boys name was Paul. The disco used to kick off each evening at 7:30PM. They moved the air hockey machine to the corner, put two sheets of plywood on it and a chair, then they placed a projector on top of that. It would produce a circular line pattern on the rear door. On the ceiling was projected animals, on the floor was projected dots. The first song used to be ‘Do the hucklebuck’, which two twins used to dance to. This was always followed by ‘Are friends electric’. I’d often wondered about visiting that holiday park again. But it just wouldn’t be the same. It would be full of chavs and people from Surrey moaning, ‘Oh, it wasn’t like this 35 years ago’. And I could honestly say, ‘No, it wasn’t’.

Today actually marks the anniversary of coming off antidepressants. Anyway, I’m sure you had a least half the fun without me being there. They say if you remember the sixties you weren’t there. I remember my twenties, a) because I was there, and b) because it was mostly shit. Maybe I’ll relive my twenties when I’m sixty? (If I ever get there). At the moment I have enough issues with living in the present without trying to live in the past as well.

So started this morning with breakfast, coffee and reading the paper. Then I ended up spending about two hours doing the base line for ‘Are friends electric’ in Garage Band. Mainly as Ableton was just determined to annoy me. Then spent another two hours trying to get the USB mixer to work. I guess I’m asking a bit much really. I want the DAW to output to the mixer, mix with the synth and then input back to the Mac. Plus I want to monitor it in the headphones. I kind of got it to work in the end using some extra patch cables and feeding it back via another channel. I think the better way to do it would be to just output the whole thing to the mixer using Ableton and record back in there. I can then play it back through Ableton straight to a wav file. Anyway. Walked into town, got Jamie a card and something overpriced from Superdry. Did the accounts. Then we went out to the ‘Swan Hotel’, which is just a shame it’s not really walking distance. Had a very poncy dinner. Nice place, not a chav in sight. I had the trout, and for eighteen quid, that was pretty much all you got on the plate. Oh apart from ‘textures of beetroot’, which basically meant two squares of the stuff. Then oddly it seemed to come accompanied by it’s own dessert, there was some weird pink stuff and a raspberry sauce. There was a common theme to the meal though, it had to contain beetroot and raspberry sauce. Still, we signed up to the VIP card, you get a tenner off when you spend two hundred quid. We’re halfway there already, and I only ordered a large bottle of still water.