THE DEEP POOL - JULY 2006

(sorry this is a few days late - I was away for a few days).

Early this morning a violent thunderstorm broke out after a week of sultry heat and sun - the first peal of thunder was so loud that i instinctively ducked as i washed my new German-style coffee pot (the French one broke) by the sink. My smallest white dog, the 'terrier-like' Basil was so alarmed that he hid under the sofa which he normally pretends he can't get under. He stayed there until i tempted him out with a ripe gooseberry. We have bushes and bushes of them, and Basil has discovered that there is no greater treat than being thrown a ripe gooseberry which he can chase and then eat, unlike the small cooking apples falling from the big apple tree, which he chases, picks up, then puts down in disgust and walks off, like a Katie Melua fan in an Amsterdam sex shop.

I was back in the city of Bath last weekend doing more recording with the peacable gypsy banjo player Leon Hunt for my next studio album. Sadly my preferred train to Bath was cancelled, so i had to go a long way round to get there via Reading. I mention this only because it meant that i could not get my usual view of Madonna's house from the train. Long term Pool readers may remember my last sighting of Madonna from this railway line. However, on the journey home, the Bath/Portsmouth train via Salisbury was running again, and to the delight of everyone aboard, there was a sighting of Madge as we trundled past her house, the train driver slowing down deliberately, tacitly aknowledging this unofficial sightseeing opportunity. This time, she was sitting naked on the bonnet of a red Ferrari, shaving her legs with exaggerated care, presumably so she didn't cut herself, eyes half-closed in deep concentration, tongue out, drooling slightly. In the doorway of her mansion stood Sting (a close neighbour) playing a lute (ancient British stringed instrument) whilst singing 'Don't go breaking my heart'...

My heart flipped over in a yearning sort of way, as i fleetingly wished i could be part of the rich pop star scene, maybe helping Madonna with her leg shaving and recommending a country pub to which we could all go for a pint of strong cider and a laugh at the locals, who would be gathering like coos hingin' oo'er a dyke ('Lallans' for 'cows looking over a wall'). But no - Sting scratched his arse, the train picked up speed, i accidentally dropped my tray of 'California-style' sushi on the floor to the great amusement of everyone on board, and i was returned to my crumbling little world of chronic career anxiety, and worry about the blighted damson tree in the garden.

While in Bath, England were beaten by Portugal in the World Cup. I watched this in a sports bar in my hotel with a bunch of English folk of all persuasions, and a sizeable contingent of young affluent backpackers from all parts of the world. Bath is a 'world heritage' city and is firmly on the trail of such teenagers, taking a year out to see the world before buying it. It's been unnerving being in England during the World Cup, which the English have appeared to genuinely believe they had a chance of winning, when to the rest of us, their campaign has been a slo-mo car crash and all that had been missing was the crrrrunnnnch of fatal impact.

When the moment came and England were out, the backpackers discussed this amongst themselves in a tone of dispassionate amused analysis - i was tense on their behalf - they didn't seem to appreciate the churning depth of stunned disillusionment all around them - i felt it would be wise if they at least feigned total heartbreak - 'sure i'm from New Zealand, but hey, we all wanted England to win...' Luckily the ugly potential of the scene was dispelled when an England supporter set off all the fire alarms and the entire bar and hotel had to go and stand outside for half an hour in the sort of heat you normally associate with having a major ouzo hangover mid-afternoon in Athens in August.

Myself and Michael Cosgrave had a tough but fun short tour of Germany in mid-June, the highlight of which was having lunch in the old city quarter in Dresden with Thomas our beloved tour manager. A fantastically beautiful city, the royal seat of Saxony, we sat in a restaurant in one of the squares near the cathedral, toying with milkshakes and cappucino as Thomas told us about a visit he and his wife made to meet an elder of an American Indian tribe in the USA. This led us into a long measured conversation about the nature of wisdom and what's worth knowing. I talked about two books by the recently deceased Canadian author Jane Jacobs - Dark Age Ahead and The Death And Life Of American Cities - she says that a culture has entered a dark age when it forgets that it has forgotten. She talks about the rise of 'plausible denial' in corporate and public life, how a company (like Enron) when it enters into wrongdoing first constructs a way of plausibly denying that they intended to do wrong, and she says that the energy that this takes is the same amount of energy you would need to make the same amount of money if you ran the business honestly in the first place. Forgetting you've fogotten - her chapters on fundamentalism in city roadbuilding programmes as an example of this in Dark Age Ahead are magnificent.

Tragically for us, we then had to drive to Shonefeld airport at Berlin to take an EasyJet flight back to Gatwick in the UK. Their charges for overweight baggage are stupendous and always apply to us, carrying as we do, Michael's keyboard and attendant stuff. The way the staff deal with ripping you off for such huge amounts is to be accusatory, as if you're doing something very wrong.

'Do you KNOW how overweight this is? - you must go over there and PAY, THEN i will give you your boarding pass'.

German Wings on the other hand - now what a lovely airline this is. When Michael put his keyboard down to be weighed on the journey out to Hamburg, the man looked and said 'hmm, it's a little overweight, but go in peace, brother'.

News of my interest in airline sickbags, how i collect them and even go to airline sickbag conventions (next one - the big one - Helsinki this August) has been spreading like sick in a bag, and at a small festival in the rural community of Affalter on this last German tour, i was presented onstage with some unusual Egyptian airline sickbags, plus my very own customised 'Leven Airlines' sickbags. I was very touched - although the Leven Airline sickbags have no 'swap' value, their existence will make a great small story in the sickbag trade magazine 'Bleurgh!'. (Interesting regular column in this mag entitled 'Who's Been Sick?' detailing celebrities who have taken ill on flights recently - in the June issue there was a sad story about Madonna being violently ill after eating too many Pringles on an Easyjet flight to Palma, Majorca. Apparently when she recovered she accused the airline of serving 'out-of-date' Pringles, this, she averred, being the cause of her unwellness. It was pointed out to her that their was no such thing as out-of-date Pringles - 'once made they last forever and should generate no side effects or nausea as long as you don't stuff your face on an overheated flight whilst drinking too much warm Red Bull' a Pringles spokeperson said.

It's nearly time to enter the 'centre of the cyclone' as we in the trade call the crucial week of performance when making an album. How you think it's going to sound changes at this point for better or for worse - sometimes both. Most interesting are the 'what happens next?' moments in track-building, when you suddenly notice that you have no plan beyond a certain point for how to finish a track, the studio goes quiet, the engineer looks at you, and you have to dig deep right there and then.

'A professional musician is someone who doesn't leave his balls in the kitchen drawer when he leaves home' my old musical colleague James Hallawell was fond of saying - a queasy expression but you sort of know what he means. Bass player Kevin Foster comes to stay this weekend, and we will spend Saturday setting the deep end of the tracks into their defining colours. Kevin has a special appreciation of an overstrength cider that is made in the street i live in. It's called 'Fruitwise' and i shall have a bottle of it on a shelf behind me so that every time Kevin looks up for guidance during routining, he can see the bottle saying to him 'not long now son - just a few wee things not quite happenin' yet!'

Then we will drive together to Bryn Derwen in Snowdonia, by way of Kidderminster and Much Wenlock, stopping on the way for a glass of white wine before swooping down to Bethesda and our kind friends at the studio who make us feel wanted and happy to be alive without even trying.
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