That post a couple of days ago was rather (ahem) bad tempered so let’s change the subject.

I was chatting to someone I don’t know very well and inevitably the deafness came up as a topic. When I said I had played in bands when I was younger he assumed that was the cause of my deafness. Quite reasonable. People do.

But as you know that’s not the whole story for me. One early summer night in 1970 a few of us went to a pub called the Royal Standard at Westcombe Park near Greenwich. It was a music place, lots of kids like us but with the added novelty of phones on the tables. If you saw someone you liked, you could just pick up the phone and call their table number – great idea even now. I was with a particular girl – that’s how I know the date (first girlfriend! blush). But anyway the phone was going the whole time. And I was baffled because I tried to answer it but over the music and racket in the background I couldn’t hear anything – nothing at all. I remember thinking it wasn’t working but seeing my friends using it left me puzzled to say the least. In fact, obviously, I have never forgotten it. That was before I had really started playing in bands on a regular basis, so the writing was already on the wall if only I could have read it.

It was still a great night though (drifts off into nostalgic daze….)

Well I knew when I started this that it wasn’t going to be easy but I’m a bit stuck now to be honest. While I work out what to do about the live project I’ve decided I’m going to put out some more music soon – but probably I’m just going to give it away to people I like. Use the new contact form on the right to let me know you want to be included – the ‘contact me’ email address is spammed to death – nothing reaches me from there anymore.

I confess it’s been a rough couple of months – and not much fun, but there you are – it was my choice to step up for this. A big lesson though – got to be a bit more careful about what I spend my time on in future.