Darren and Kylie

Dear all,

 

Well it’s been eventful since my last entry. The new youtube video is uploading as we speak so hopefully should be with us very shortly. A little note – apologies for the current disappearance of the youtube video on my homepage. There’s been a right to-do over the guy’s youtube channel and it’s been taken down but the people who accidentally got it taken down are trying to sort it out so hopefully it will return very soon.

 

So what’s been happening then? Well first up was a trip to Church Stretton for a marvellous evening with my grandparents and lovely cousins. I have a feeling I’ve told you about my grandmother’s cooking before – it was as sensual as ever. Great to see the family and nice not to bloody drive somewhere and trains even behaved themselves for me. Good heavens. Anyway, I returned to Stafford for a singularly shite gig on the Friday but never mind, every year has one. Fortunately it was more than made up for by the ever-wonderful Railway in Norton Bridge which produced one of its most stirling nights ever. Dancing galore and silly nonsense all night long it was marvellous. I believe videos are circling of it somewhere so I’ll try and track it down if I can.

 

Next up Walsh and Pound played one of the most civilised gigs in our history, as we played Cambridge Summer Recitals festival in a church in Fulbourn. A really lovely and surprisingly vocal audience made it a great night so many thanks to all who came out to see us. Next up was a trip to Brighton for a spot of session work which I can’t tell you too much about yet unfortunately, but stay tuned (a stupid expression as you’re not listening to the radio, sorry) and I shall reveal all.

 

My paragraphs are very short today. Ah well I’ve pressed enter now and frankly cannot be bothered to go back. Where was I? Ah yes next up was a trip to London to play in a mental health hospital party for patients. It was a lovely night and included one of the most amazing moments of my musical life. A patient with a broken voice came up to me and thanked me for the music and said that he was going to be there for some time and this sort of thing greatly aided his recovery. It was an amazing moment and I feel very fortunate to be doing a job that makes a difference to people. The journey to the gig was an experience and a half though. I suspect those reading this last sentence are probably thinking at least one of the following: ‘oh no the miserable old git isn’t back to whinging about trains is he’ and ‘what the hell do you expect going to London during olympic time’. Well I take both these points on board, but can one seriously expect a journey of 25 minutes (Waterloo to Ladbroke Grove) to take an hour and twenty minutes? And just to back up my theory that travel disasters are designed to happen to me, there were only two lines I could have got at first which were Bakerloo or Jubilee. Have a guess which two lines encountered failed signalling equipment and were therefore rogered…

 

Anyway that was fun. Tomorrow it’s Warwick Folk Festival with the Pound before a triple bill of solo gigs in the Northeast starting off with a free gig on the concourse of the Sage Gateshead on Sunday afternoon followed by two solo gigs in Durham in Crook Hall and then the Gala Theatre headlining the Polite Room. I look forward to all of them and always relish a trip back to Toon of course. Many congratulations by the way to my dear old friend Amy Mackelden, half of the Copy Room my spoken word/music duo for she marries tomorrow.

 

Now then, one of the glories of travelling by train is the people observing or to put another label on it: earwigging. I was waiting at Winchester station for I had been visiting my wonderful girlfriend and was awaiting my journey to London when I couldn’t help but overhear Kylie and Darren having a fairly blazing row. I have to say Kylie fought a good fight and I was largely convinced she was the not guilty party when suddenly this was confirmed in spectacular style. Kylie came up with the not unreasonable argument of ‘you’re the one who had six affairs’ to which Darren’s response was ‘I know but…’. I’m right with you Kylie.