Badly drawn boy

Steady rain, and a better day working on my projects and some stuff for my French clients. The Atlantis poems beginning to adhere to one another, and may in fact be one large poem. Also found a new tonal approach for the Echoes story which feels much better.

Matt came by at teatime and we went to see if we could have a look at the Nightingale theatre, just around the corner from me, where we may possibly stage the as yet unwritten Doppelganger piece. But we couldn't get into the theatre as it turns out the pub below and the theatre have nothing to do with one another.

Call from Catriona in Guernsey about next May's Guernsey Literary Festival. I am being flown over, which makes me feel big and clever, and will be doing Skeleton based work with children on the morning of Friday the 13th, which is rather good, and then two or three poetry readings with Richard.

In other news Salty returned home at 4.00am after a couple of days away with a large hunger on him. Mum and Mas much relieved. Mum still experiencing post-operative pain though and is seeing a specialist on Friday.

My new French client Alexandra has sorted out my backlog of unpaid billing, and today I was finally able to invoice them. A large relief, but also rather peeving.

In the evening off to see Lorraine and eat a nice roast meal with her and Betty and Betty's friend Kaleigh. Then off to see Badly Drawn Boy with Lorraine, who was performing in the Duke of York picture house just down the road.

Boy was this a strange night. Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, who has a genius for pop melody and whose fantastic album Hour of the Bewliderbeast remains a firm favourite was having a spectacularly bad night, full of self loathing. He started late, announced he was drunk, stopped playing three tracks halfway, and walked off stage once, and gave vent to rants about the press, and about how he feels like walking away from it all, and how at 41 he doesn't need all this shit anymore... etc.

As a lesson in how to alienate your audience this was spot on, and several diehard fans went away feeling short changed and vaguely affronted. Those who remained gave him a standing ovation as he shambled off for the second or third time. Between all this, there was some lovely new material, and he is in great voice and playing beautifully.

Below Badly Drawn Boy... having a bad day at the office.


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