Happy birthday to Cloudland Blue - A Diary...

Today is this diary's 1st birthday...

Here’s what I've done over the last 12 months - all documented on this site (how rivetting!):-

In the last twelve months I...
Worked on music
Went out for meals
Spent time filling the Jukebox
Went to Classical Concerts
Watched TV
Played Football
Made lists
Went to Rock Concerts
Went on foreign holidays
Bought CDs
Had car trouble
Had takeaways
Went to Jazz Concerts
Went to friends for dinner
Had friends round for dinner
Underwent podiatry
Went out drinking and carousing
Suffered hangovers
Went out for breakfast
Went shopping
Visited my mum
Visited my sisters
Was visited by my mum and sisters
Performed music
Took photographs
Created artworks
Became a slave to Meg the Black Cat
Held sometimes controversial opinions
Saved a bird
Forgot things
Created CDs
Wrote a song (just the one mind you)
Recorded some poetry gigs
Released several albums and singles
Went to funerals
Bought stuff on e-bay
Watched football
Went digital, camera-wise
Went to London (twice)
Had the computer totally twatted
Got the computer fixed
Developed new, as yet unsolved, problems on the computer
Was plagued by self doubt
Did karaoke
Discovered I was a fat-faced baby
Met rock stars
Often referred to myself in the third person
Put my nephew’s head in my mother-in-law’s washing machine
Went up north
Ceased to be a vegetarian
Bought books, mostly ones with pictures in them
Read other people’s blogs
Bought a new washing machine
Went to comedy gigs
Visited art galleries
Went to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo
Caught colds
Went to birthday parties
Took (prescribed) drugs
Went to Newcastle Races
Went to the ballet
Shared a table in a pub with a well known actor
Created photo collages
Travelled a lot by bus
Sorted photographs
Discovered pop music’s not as bad as it seems
Started a photo blog
Started an artwork blog
Started an album of the year blog
Started an album of the month blog
Started various projects that remain unfinished
Stated I’d do things but didn’t do them
Procrastinated
Went to the opera
Spent at least £2 per week on the lottery and won the grand total of £10 back
Found out an old schoolfriend won £8M on the lottery
Was visited by old friend Jorg from Germany
Went to a wine tasting and got very, very drunk
Bought an acoustic bass guitar
Bought a Loop Station
Went to Glasgow several times
Saw Queen of the South play (just the once though)
Broke my ankle
Waited quite a lot in hospital
Fell over whilst on crutches
Went to a Xmas Party whilst on crutches and got very, very drunk
Visited both families over Christmas
Compiled lists of my Albums of the Year
Experienced much pain
Reactivated Highlight of the Day
Had my head slashed by a fluffy cat
Received exotic fruit from the man who accidentally broke my ankle
Almost grew a beard
Didn’t get much sleep
Tidied out a cupboard
Rearranged the spare bedroom (at least twice)
Hated all reality TV
Had a reunion with old friends under sad circumstances
Received one parking ticket
Had an idea for a new Open Mic night
Became increasingly drawn to the year 1973
Put all my jazz CDs into a section of their own
Was injured for 101 days out of 365 – that’s 27.67% of the year

...and today I start the second year and here’s what I did...

Firstly, I spent a couple of hours creating backing tracks for a possible “full band” performance of “Deeperdown”...

Then I wrote a new lyric, followed by a run through the hour-long live set...

After breakfast, I reprogrammed the new Radio CD – last night I obeyed the instruction manual by switching it off at the plug – this wiped all the previous programming...

I realised I’d missed QoS beating Clyde 2-1 but instead analysed the form in the Bell’s 1st Division over the last five games...

While QoS are 2nd bottom of the league, based on everyone’s last five results, they’re second top, having taken 11 points from a possible fifteen...

We watched a video’d episode of “Law & Order Criminal Intent”..

Then, inspired by its theme tune, I wrote a chord sequence for the new lyric and worked on the song for a while...

In the afternoon, I went to see Jamie at his house and picked up a second Cakewalk bundle from him for me to remix. Whilst there, we played through a couple of his songs including his latest, which, as usual for Jamie’s stuff, is really rather good. I played bass...

We also listened to a few of his favourite tracks including Ian McNab, Alex Lloyd, Grandaddy, I Am Kloot and Athlete...

I took Jamie and his son, Conrad, to the nearby Park Bar so they could watch the second half of the Hearts v Livingston (at Livingston) game today (like Anne, they are Hearts season ticket holders)...

Back home, I re-wrote the chorus chord sequence for the new song and recorded various demo versions, fast, slow, 3/4 time, 4/4 time etc...

I refined the lyrics while Anne ran up and down the stairs keeping me informed of the footie score – final score was Livingston 2 Hearts 3..

I continued working on the song and played it to Anne – she suggested it needed a bridge, so wrote that...

Then a break for a lovely tea – home made Chicken Rogan Josh from Anne whilst we watched today’s “Enterprise”, the last ever, on video...

I nipped to the shops for Bread & Milk then came back for more work on the song...

I decided the lyric was just too dark and so re-wrote most of it – did one last recording for today of which Anne declared the singing “hellish” and the song itself “too fast” – so I saved all my work and will approach it again tomorrow...

The song is called “I Still Write You Letters (I Just Don’t Send Them Anymore)”...

Watched another episode of “Criminal Intent” – what a great programme it is, though I must confess, it is not as great perhaps as the new BBC1 series “Planet Earth” which, rather disappointingly, doesn’t have Duran Duran playing its theme music...

The photography was just breathtakingly beautiful...

Updated the diary, watched “Match of the Day 2”, tidied up and went to bed with my headphones on...

Highlight of the Day : Writing a new song, only my second since October 2004...