I've not been updating the blog of late. I've been busy or distracted. I'm going to give it a bit of a shot - the last week needs writing up. I've been busy writing emails and allowing other distractions to get in my way. There's an article on the go, and the summer season threatens to steal time like a mo'fo' (or mo'fu').

Anyway, today should come first in the story telling. I don't know why I point out the difference between on-the-day-written blog entries and non-ones. Perhaps it's that time adds a level of blur to the non-timely entries... which is exactly why I should write them on the day. But I've strayed from the point.

Today was good until just now when I returned home from a gig to find an expensive car parked slap bang across my drive. I left this note:

For all I know, the drug dealer who drives this car will respond by torching my house. Still, the insurance money will enable me to move back to Newcastle, so either way is a good result.

Back to the good parts about today. I went to the office, did some planning, felt optimistic about stuff panning out. Then I nipped home, put some laundry in, grabbed my post-office delivery card, zoomed to the post-office to collect it and then went to my afternoon's office - a different office to the one I started the day at.

The postal delivery included my business cards, for which I have no specific use, and my postcards, for which I also have no particular use. I shall send postcards. It will be good.

This afternoon's plan didn't really hatch as expected. However, I got some nice quiet time with a problem I've been pushing around the plate, rather than devouring. This proved to be a good thing. I got some results and I'm pleased I did. I also had various contacts with various friends and I may even be organising me some form of non-sexual massage too, which will be a treat.

I drove off to my gig this evening. I'd contemplated inviting a friend along to it, but decided not to. That was rather a bad move as it turned out. Having said that, it wasn't a dreadful move to do the gig in its own right, rather than add friendship to the mix, but you sometimes want objective witnesses to some gigs. Luckily, I'd decided to take my recording device to the gig, so I can find out what happened. More on that in a moment.

In the car on the way to the gig there was time to toss some ideas around my head for a song I'm in the process of writing for the show I'm helping with in Edinburgh. I also had time to stop for a strong coffee and change trousers. In fact, the coffee was so strong that I felt a wave rush over me. I named this the Espressogasm and chuckled to myself.

At the gig I did the usual sound-check and pre-gig talking bollocks. It was nice to chat with the compere, whom I've not had a proper conversation with prior to this evening. As chats go, it was in the category of "you know, I wish I had more conversations like this and I wish I could be this intelligent when I'm on stage". Still, you do what you do in life.

It came time for me to hit the stage at some point and so I did. An early bit of banter with the audience bought me the room, really, and the highlight was when I spotted a couple in the front row talking. I asked them what they were talking about. The man said they were trying to decide whether to have beans or mince for tea the following night. I told them that I could resolve that problem and had the audience cheer for their favourite. Problem solved. I can't express how totally surreal that was to do, and how much it made me chuckle, but it did.

People were very nice about my set, and I did about 30 minutes on the stage - a bit over for a 20 minute spot, but it was going well, and there were plenty of distractions drawing it out, so I just did what felt right. I hung around after my set was done to watch the rest of the show. I've seen the headliner loads of times before, but it's always an education to watch him in action and I had a great time doing so.

After the show, one particular lady was quite insistent on chatting outside. I think that was because she didn't want to throw up. She did the rather embarrassing bit of comparing each of the acts she'd seen to declare who was the funniest. I wouldn't want to know either way - whether she thought I was the best, middle or worst. It's just not quite what it's about, comedy.

Anyway, she soon "boyfriended" me, mentioning her farmer of a boyfriend and how she wanted to get home right away for the shagging. She accompanied this particular phrase with a gesture which, to my eyes, looked more like remonstrating with someone whose lapels you've just grabbed. But what do I know of modern sexual relationships. As she bemoaned the absence of her friends to take her home, I said something like "I'd offer you a lift but that would be weird". She then said that it wouldn't and decided to take me up on the theoretical offer I'd just made.

We walked past the compere and her boyfriend, and I had to illustrate in a few glances, gestures and words, that I knew I was taking a girl away from the gig, but that I also knew that she was their friend, that she had a boyfriend, and that I was an honourable gentlemen, most likely to drop her off and then drive away. You have to be careful, I suppose. Not only should you treat the person with respect, but you really need to ensure they get to the door. If I'd dropped her off at the end of her street and then, for some reason outside of my control, she'd gone missing, the evidence would rather point to me as the culprit.

Why did I take a stranger a couple of miles home when I had my own home to go to? Well, it's like this. She was, theoretically, on a promise. Or at least, there was a chance that, of the two of us, if anyone was going to get some action tonight, it was going to be her. Now, although I don't personally benefit in any direct way, if I can be responsible for a lady achieving some form of personal enjoyment at the end of an evening, then I think that's a job well done. She may well attribute her warm fuzzy and slightly sore feelings to her boyfriend tomorrow morning, but if it wasn't for me doing my pre-foreplay-taxi-routine, then none of that would have happened.

That's me. Uniting the world in the spirit of joy.

And then threatening to vandalise someone's car.

You need both sides to be a rounded individual.