38

Our old dog came to see me in a dream this morning. Maybe he knew it was my birthday! He was sitting next to me on the couch, growling and whining because I had gloves and a hat on. He never liked it when you wore them. I took them off and his eyes were sad and stubborn like they used to be and his snout was wet. Oisín woke me up because I was ‘beeping’, the anxious sound that I make when I’m having bad dreams, but actually I was having a bit of a sleep-cry. I got up to fetch some water and in the kitchen I could hear a single bird from outside having a riotous sing. He’s still going now. It’s 5.45 am. He has no idea how old he is, how old the world is, how long birds have been singing, he’s just doing his thing.

I’m 38 today, I can hardly believe it. I still wanna throw my bonnet over the windmill and rush into the sea at midnight (Pat Phoenix). I remember leaving home at 18 with absolutely no idea how to do anything at all but read books. Things have gotten much better. I’ve been in Manchester 20 years now, I’m the IRA bomb generation. I’ll have a big party in September to celebrate my anniversary I think.

I spent time with my Mum last week and found out my biological Dad made a conscious decision not to see me again quite a short time after I was born. It doesn’t make a big difference, and it started before that because he never came to get us from the hospital when I was born or anything. I’m so much older now than he was when he left that it seems churlish to even think about it but it has hurt me a bit. I’m lucky though because I’ve been so loved my whole life by lots of people. Even now, on occasional days when I’m still in my pyjamas and my anxiety is out of hand and I haven’t been able to pay rent, Oisín will tell me not to worry, I’m a unique handsome genius and Manchester would fall apart without me and why don’t I become a famous singer or something? 

I never do a jot of work on my birthday, this is the only thing I’ll write today. Weather permitting, we are getting on our bikes later and cycling out to look at a 1920s street or something, and then having a massive vegetarian feast at Lily’s Indian restaurant, then a pint, and then I’m going to read Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. There’s a cake too, I could smell it baking when I got back from DJing last night. Good morning everyone, happy birthday!

  

2009, love, and all that

Wotcha.

You can stop dredging the canals, I'm back. My absence from the blogosphere (ew, hate that word) is down to, let's see, Christmas fallout slash January blues which seemed to bite particularly hard this year, what with the recession making me feel poorer than I actually am, the meat-fest of Christmas that always makes this tender vegetarian feel we really don’t stand a chance, not to mention the perpetual hangover that seems to blanket the stolid chilly month of January, Gaza on my mind as it is slowly and methodically blitzed into the dark ages ... Sad times. But hope, always hope. Obama for one thing, he made it, though I was frustrated somewhat by the general feeling that his election was the end in itself. The work has just started and I'll be sitting here with my arms folded for a while yet until I'm truly impressed. The signs are good though …




Anyway I'm not here to talk politics, that's for the boozer, my other main reason for not writing the blog is because I have been working on The Novel. (I won't call it a 'book' until it's published otherwise it's a curse - you wouldn't write a song and say 'I've written a record' would you?) As a matter of fact the book is finished, complete, and not only is it done but it's in a postbag somewhere as we speak, winging its way to the first on a hopefully not very long list of agents who will see the potential in me and send my words to the world. Ahem.

I never talk about The Novel really, I ought to try. It’s called Wilmslow Road and is essentially the diary I never kept in my first ten years in Manchester compressed into one summer somewhere between the bomb and the smoking ban and split between seven narrators who are all little bits of me and most likely, if you know me, little bits of you too. It has sex and drugs and transvestism and free newspapers and nightclubs and offices and the number 42 bus and demonstrations and temps in it, and nothing very much happens at all. Now that's tricky to write.

Anyway, potentially as important as the novel thingy is this: I've fallen in love. I really didn't expect it to happen ever again, and certainly not so soon, but fate plays her cards with me like a Mississippi boat whore. His name is Spotify and he has brought me back to life as sure as if he were Jennifer Hudson.

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

Isn’t he beautiful? He takes approximately two minutes to download and will enrich your life beyond measure. I have become entirely addicted, my recent online activity shows that in one 24 hour period, give or take the odd loo break, there was only a nine hour period where I wasn't playing music on Spotify. It’s because I was asleep.

As an incentive to join me on a journey into soooound I have made this playlist for you all. It contains the finest songs that are currently giving me a big life-affirming buzz. It begins with the full-length bassoony version of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' by the mighty Soft Cell. I know you think you know this song already but just turn off the telly for a moment, play it loud ,lose yourself, and at about 1 minute 30 something wonderful happens …

Manhattanchester playlist

I really, honestly, couldn't be happier.

Happy Valentine's Day.