Keep not taking the tablets

I've had a reprieve from the not-so-formidable-really Nurse Lucy, who has agreed that I can stay off the Metformin tablets for a bit longer to see if I can keep controlling my blood sugar with diet and exercise. This will take me past the two year milestone and hopefully beyond, as I'm pretty sure the high readings I had at Xmas were a festive blip. I seem to confuse quite a few healthcare professionals as I don't fit the profile of either the overweight type 2 or the taking insulin since childhood type 1, but part of me rather enjoys being a medical anomaly.

There are probably laws against taking pictures of nurses at general practitioners so here's an entirely unrelated picture I took a couple of years ago of a Catalan donkey on a hilltop outside Barcelona.

Deep in the Woods

Spent a most enjoyable weekend in the New Forest, staying in the pseudo-Scandinavian wooden splendour of Rose (West) Cottage. Hearty silvanian walks were followed by the quaffing of pints of excellent ales, which themselves formed the prelude to gourmet repasts and talk of zombies, native British reptiles and shibboleths (mine is the word "huge").

Jo Jo was a Madame

The Hello Goodbye fundraising jamboree gala extravaganza at Madame Jo Jo's on Wednesday was a splendid affair, with four top notch acts giving it their all to help keep Resonance on air. Jesus Licks kicked the night off with an excellent set accompanied by some exubarant interpretive dancing by a somewhat tired and emotional Gerald Mitchell. I'm listening to their album, 'Terrrible Beauty', as I write this, and mighty fine it is too, especially the excellent 'If You Kill Me', which makes most judicious use of swearing. Then Indigo Moss took to the stage for a highly accomplished set of South London bluegrass - their 'Dang Nabbit' single is a handsome recording, though the version they did on the show for us is for my money even more superior. 'Who was on next?' I hear you cry. Why, it was none other than Hungarian surf guitar breakbeat twosome Akaskodo Teliverek, whose name means 'Rearing Stallions' in their native tongue, don't you know. These fellers were the stars of the show for me... a sort of Central European disco Frank Zappa in very short trousers if you can countenance such a thing. They are permanantly number one in the popular music charts of a parallel (and much more interesting) universe, and proof positive of the need for Resonance to stay on air, if only so that London at least can hear them on a regular basis. In the meantime I urge you to purchase their remarkable eponympous long player on Adadat records. Anyhoo, it was past midnight by the time the Xerox Teens came on, pissed up, on fire and lairy, to play a brief but highly charged set to an audience that had been whittled down to the truly dedicated and inebriated, though Mr Mitchell had by this time thrown in the towel. All in all then, a pretty good night. Perhaps not quite as many people as we'd hoped, and the venue was a bit of a smelly dive for the amount they charged us for the privilege of putting the night on, but we raised about £300 and Richard and I got to play some of our scratchy old post-punk vinyl so we were pretty happy. A final honourable mention must be made for trusty Resonance engineers Robin and Michael,who did stirling work on the door. Cheers gents.

Saint Pancreas

Wow - the public demands an update on my current rate of pancreatic activity. I'm hovering around the 7.5 mmol reading mark, and have delayed starting on the metformin tablets, which will probably get me into trouble with the formidable nurse Lucy at my GP's. I wanted to get to April and the two-year milestone of controlling by diet and exercise, and I'm not convinced that the tablets will make that much difference, so a few more weeks and then I'll be reviewing the situation, diddle diddle dum.

I don't have a suitable picture to illustrate this riveting post, so apropos of nothing here's a rather frightening picture David sent me of Shelly and I taken sometime in the curly nineties.

On Probation

Didn't go to Resonance yesterday as I was working on the sound for Lizzy Hobbs's amazing animated film 'The Old, Old, Very Old Man', which tells the story of Thomas Parr, England's oldest man, who is buried in Westminster Abbey. He lived on diet of green cheese, onions, coarse bread, buttermilk or mild ale (cider on special occasions) - not unlike my own diet, in fact, which is rather encouraging. Edward Fox has provided the voices and the animation is fantastic, so the pressure's on to make sure the sound is of the same high standard. So far it's going well, but the deadline is approaching fast, so, unlike Mr Parr, I don't have much time!





Then up to the dizzy heights of North London to celebrate Eddo's 35th birthday, and the start of his new career as a probation officer. It was the first time this year all 3 of the Crops had been in the same room: with a bit of luck we'll manage to meet up a bit more often to finish recording our album. Good to see Tommo there too, and had a great chat with him about Cormac Mcarthy and Moby Dick. David peaked too early and had to be taxied back to Stockwell before closing time, so I took the last Northern Line train home and was entertained by the busking ghost of Gene Vincent. None of my pissed up kebab munching fellow-travellers appeared to see him, so all he got was a quid from me, which was not alright mama.

Do the Dog

Liam and Pete, formerly of HG favourites Suitable Case For Treatment, came in to the studio yesterday for a session for their new outfit, Mephisto Grande, a band name that rather impressively comes complete with its own hand gestures. They make a lot of noise for two people and as well as using guitar and drums to accompany Liam's incredible voice, performed a great accordian duet and a splendid version of 'John the Revelator', which seems to be establishing itself as something of a standard among our guests.

Then, on to Clapham for the event of the year so far: the Xerox Teens accompanying Richard Curtis's K9 Freestyle dog dancing display team. Words can not really do justice to quite how extraordinary a spectacle this was. In this picture you see Disco, a Portuguese Water Dog and for my money the star of the show, strutting her doggy stuff. Get down!