Well, tonight is a ludicrous challenge. I have two gigs. I'm opening in Northampton and closing in Bicester. The timing seems to be down to about 3 minutes. I'm going to have to plead with the compere of the first night to put me on no later than 10 minutes after we start the gig... then I'm going to have to grab the money and run to the car. Parking will be an issue.

Why do I do this?

I do it because it's possible. It's simply within the modern man's capability to drive 90 minutes to one place, then 40 minutes to another, then another couple of hours home within an evening, performing for 40 or 50 minutes along the way.

It's not just possible, it's fun. And it can even be made to look easy... though probably not by me.

So, I'll head off on my miniature voyage-cum-odyssey tonight and have an adventure, then return home to my domestic bliss with a smile on my face. Because I'm doing what I love doing.

Hopefully, sometime in the midst of this, the holiday which we booked over lunchtime (I say "we", I mean my girlfriend) will suddenly spring into life on the internet and will result in an email confirming that everything is hunky, dory and tickety with lashings of boo. Then there'll be a calm to enjoy after the storminess of blasting around the place...

...blasting around the place in a nasty little Ford Fiesta that smells of both secondary AND tertiary smoke. The rule I use is this: if I can't smell myself fart, then the car is too smelly.