Flying Visit[or]

You know, there’s nothing like having two weeks off work to make you realise how attractive life on the dole is. Even though I have been as busy as a beaver as it has been a time full of breakages and repairs (replacement thermostat in shower, exhaust fell off car while visiting father in Brighton, the neck on my double bass had to be ‘shot’ due to string buzz) not to mention decorating the attic so that it is now a place of comfort and cleanliness rather than a grubby room full of boxes with a PC in the corner, it is still infinitely preferable to going to work each day. Tomorrow will be a grind, putting the suit back on, feigning interest in things which bore me to tears, and being pleasant to pompous and patronising higher management who I'd rather piss on than take tea with. Still, bite your lip and get on with it, along with 99% of the rest of humanity

The highlight of my time off was a flying visit from my former Ship of Fools guitar chum Marco, who had an overnight stop whilst visiting the UK on business. After several hours in the pub, accompanied by the Wing-Commander, we retired to my Watford abode wherein Chinese was ordered, Scotch was opened and guitars un-cased for ninety minutes of jamming. I’ll confess that not having played with him for over a decade, it was a complete treat for me as he remains a phenomenal musician. Even on an acoustic, he attacks the instrument with gusto, conjuring strange chords which I certainly couldn’t fathom by looking at, and improvising with remarkable flare and ingenuity. Often when playing with other people, you can second-guess what chords they are going to move to but with him he always avoids the obvious and thus you find yourself chasing after him, hoping to pick something which will fall within the same scale or mode. Thus a grand time was had by the pair of us as we noodled away, only twice attempting songs which we knew (Neil Young’s ‘Needle and the Damage Done’ and our own former Ship of Fools set stalwart ‘Reptile’). And yes, I did break out the double bass for a spell. Eee… it were smashing.