S*T*U*F*F* Reloaded

Foy Vance was on iChat today… up popped a little blue speech bubble “by the way, post will ya? its been too long”. To which I replied, “I have nothing to say… with so much happening in the world that makes me want to cry or jump for joy, I don’t know where I am anymore.” And he just said “Perfect. Now expand”.

So here goes.

I’m sitting in the kitchen, semi-comatose after a monstrous feast in Chinatown with my in-laws. The extractor fan is humming away, as Di’s mum is brewing “hung-dao tong-sui” - a bizarre sweet soup that my son just adores. He was so excited on hearing that it was being made that he could hardly sleep. Chinatown was beautiful - thousands of red lanterns hanging over Gerrard Street and a great buzz about the place made the winter air come alive. Upstairs in the Golden Dragon it was absolutely manic and wonderful. I always love the trek home afterwards - down through Leciester Square to Charing Cross station, over the Thames with that magnificent view of the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, St Pauls on the other side. It feels like London, and I’m just that wide-eyed tourist kid from Northern Ireland all over again.

Like I said to Foy, there has so much beauty and horror in the media recently its just hard to keep breathing. From the Belgian creche where, in an unthinkable act of inhuman behaviour a crazed 20-year-old killed toddlers, to the Californian hospital where eight new lives began at once, from the chimpanzee leaving the White House to the man entering it, there seems no end to the chaos that makes up this thing we call “life”. Deep in forests elsewhere, cermonies happen and hunted food gets eaten, and none of this means anything. I am back in the dream, waking, walking.

I have no idea if my resolutions for this year mean anything either - in a nutshell… less wine, more music. Its kicked off well - Jules Maxwell and I have just commenced our production work for a new Burning Codes record, which is very exciting. I am hoping to finish two albums this year, although one is a one-off piece for a friend and is unlikely to see the light of day unless he chooses to release the bootleg.

I have to press “publish” on this now or it will languish again in the “drafts” folder…