Lovely evening at Radbourne Folk Club last night again with the Invisible Folk Club Band Jonathan Bickley Phil Beavis Milo Richard Downs. yea fun. We played 5 songs at Redbourn folk club as a 4 piece. It was good fun… But on the drive back 25 minute delay due to road works on the M1. Didn’t have my google maps on so I didn’t see the jam until it was too late…



I have repaired my car mirror now which fell of earlier in the week. All fitted including electric demist bits. Go me. Only £15 for bits as opposed to £150 replacement unit. Mild Hurrah.

News of the weirds

Almost everybody I have known that were in favour of Brexit are saying they are voting Reform. Weirdly I have had to block a lot of trans people who have turned out to be some of the worst offenders ranting about ‘illegal’s’ a phrase imported from the US. I come from working class roots (until 10 years old a family of 5 living in 2 rooms with no bathroom In Brixton) and have no formal education and over my life time have mostly scraped by. Until I was 61 I lived in London. Locally I knew nobody that voted for Brexit.

On the night of the referendum I was playing a gig in a small bar in the south of France with a mixed audience of local French and a few exe pats. The reaction from the French as results came in was that England was in the grip of some form of mass insanity. At a gig two days later in Pub in London we greeted with drunks braying about how they had ‘Won’. A very depressing evening and they could not explain to me what they had won? Having played music in pubs around the UK that’s my personal experience.I should point out that Brexit decimated the music industry as small acts like myself could no longer easily tour in Europe. Even the farmers shot themselves in the foot. Everybody in the UK got a pamphlet which outlined what leaving would mean in terms of the economy and much more. They chose to ignore it. Many were people who never voted in elections. Also the referendum was advisory, so frankly parliament should not have enacted it as it was and has been contrary to the greater good.

Yes, a lot of younger people are finding that moneys too tight to mention and it is mostly about housing. Also a lot of jobs have gone forever and more will be very soon. The next job cull is in admin and customer service all of which can be done about 90% with AI…

Here’s a track from a few years back that I recorded that I rather like.

I had a bad night couldn’t get to sleep until 04.30. That’s not happened for years. A combination of anxiety, arthritis playing up and feeling very depressed about a lot of things that are completely outside of my control. Some of the things bothering me are primarily down to my own shortcomings but everybody can’t do everything.

Generally I look at my the posts on my socials most mornings before I get out of bed. Recently I have often been moved to tears by both the good and the bad. I can’t say I have a faith though I feel that perhaps there is more to the world than we see day to day and maybe something beyond that binds us. Most people will still hold out a hand to help I would hope though perhaps many don’t through fear which is also understandable of course.

Got my pedometer today. seem seems to work quite well. What I am interested in is how many steps I take on a day when I am at home. It looks so far like quite a few. I shall see what it adds up to in a week.

Music wise a thought: My voice has always been weird so any more quirky aspects are usually an improvement and I only have a reliable octave and half. I sing but I sure ain’t no singer at times. But I can make it work in the context of what I do though.

I went to Morrisons and the left wing mirror glass fell out on the way back 😂 Got to love old cars. A new one has been ordered…

Time traveling again. In 2008 I left my day job. I had a fair few adventures since then but it was a leap into the unknown definitely. Was it worth it? They say the journey is often more important than the destination sometimes. So was it a good journey, mostly yes I would say. In one sense that particular journey did have an end which was predictable but still very unexpected and it derailed me, then whilst trying to rebuild and arise phoenix like the covid lockdowns caused everything to stop and it felt like a combination of groundhog day and being trapped behind glass able to see the world but not being of it somehow.

Fast forward to now. I am still here and I didn’t starve after all, but the outlook is not so great in some respects. In 2025 I lost a lot of confidence in my abilities and my various projects have spluttered, backfired and ground to a halt in many cases. And what they don’t tell you comes with package is the increasing isolation that seems to be part and parcel of aging. I have acquaintances, people I have met through music and some of them I sporadically work with still.
The people I knew longest and who were closest have died. There are now maybe a couple of people I can still tell my troubles to if needed and maybe others that I don’t want to burden with my problems and sour my relationships potentially. January’s not a good time for me and this year has hit hard in the sense that I feel as if everything is just stuck like a fly crawling in pine resin. It thinks it can fly away but even at maximum revs its just not taking off. Being a fly and not possessing I presume a vast intellect, it just repeats the same action until it dies of exhaustion…
Without social media just about keeping up the illusion that I am actually not living in virtual reality as a brain in jar in vast warehouse/bunker somewhere I think I would start cracking up by now. Still you have to laugh 😂

À votre santé, que la route s’élève à votre rencontre…

I wrote this on my blog in 2008….

“I did my last day at the office on Friday and had the obligatory leaving drink and presentation which was embarrassing but I was also quite touched as I had not really expected it. A lot of folks turned up and I do feel a tinge of regret as I was there along time and if I had no ambition to do anything else maybe I could have kept on, but I think I would have been barking mad before very much longer. Also I had got used to a fairly maverick way of doing things and me and the corporate culture have got very far apart now. In a sense it allows me to complete the re-invention of self that’s been coming for a long time.. Everyone was very nice but many were shocked as I had been working there 13 years and they had assumed that I would be there until I retired I suspect. I told them what I was expecting to do in future and everyone was very positive.

the brain cells were already well fried by that point and tempting as that might sound the job was just getting too much for me in the end. I was so stressed that I was forgetting how to do things which was quite scary. I am sort of in freefall at the moment and I will be trying to make a living from the music side of things for the next year, but if it doesn’t work out then I will be back in IT in some respect or maybe just filling shelves between gigs. I have a portfolio of other practical skills that should get me through one way or the other.

I now feel a lot more relaxed and I am going to take a calculated risk on a new career (though its not really a new career as its something I have been involved with for a long time) and also will take some time to study and improve my skills a bit. I am giving myself about a year to see if I can support myself as a musician. I don’t know how realistic that is but I am going to give it a try I don’t need a huge income just enough to pay the bills and I hope that is realistic… “
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