Last night we were in Minneapolis, a seven hour drive from where we were the night before which was Chicago. Halfway through the set I renamed Minneapolis Maximumapolis in honour of the small but totally enthusiastic audience. I said totally - totally is the new annoying word. The other day when I was in a shoe shop with Amy, a woman approached a sales assistant and asked if she worked there. 'Oh yes, I totally do' came the reply. Very comforting, a full time committment, not just 'Well, now and again when I feel like it but as I'm here what the fuck do you want?' Totally.
I can't wait for this piece of linguistic idiocy to cross the Atlantic and hit the UK where we'll pronounce it with the middle T intact - not toedully but ToeTally which will be totally stupid.
When I first came to America back in 1978 and '79, Have A Nice Day was in vogue - not in New York where they were totally rude, this idiom swept in from the west coast so the further west you went the more you heard it. Have a nice day. It's become such a part of the American language that it ceases to mean anything so it's been augmented by a couple of generations of tip seeking waitresses - 'You guys have a great day' - 'Have a wonderful day', 'Have an awesome day', 'Have a totally awesome day', 'Have a three orgasms before lunch kind of day'...

This weekend we're covering the Apolisses - we've got to drive from Minneapolis to Indianapolis where we've been promised live onstage gogo dancers. It's a ten hour drive. We're going to have a wonderful day. It's going to be totally awesome.

I don’t want to hear that stuff - a band should always strive to give the impression that they arrived in a space craft. Unless they’re a blues band, and then I want to know that they arrived in a Bedford van having spent the night in a lay-by, sleeping in ex-army sleeping bags on top of the amplifiers. The only band I've ever witnessed transgressing rule number three was a Brighton band called The Electric Soft Parade. Their frontman said yeah cheers so often I lost count. The Electric Soft Parade weren't very good. The Dykeenies were but the singer said cheers after the first three numbers so I gave up. Actually that’s not quite true - I was getting cold and I had to go and get organised for my cameo appearance.

I don't know what to say about The Proclaimers shows without sounding corny, trite or bland. Someone who isn't reading this carefully might leave under the impression that I'm using those adjectives to describe The Proclaimers but I'm not - they could never be any of those. So I have to resort to fabulous, fantastic, they went out with a bang etc...
I've probably said it all already anyway. Erika Nockalls played the violin on Sunshine On Leith wearing a green satin frock. I played my green Microfret guitar on Whole Wide World. So there was a bit of colour co-ordination - a matching his 'n' hers Eric section.
Anyway, they were talking about getting together to record a new album beginning next March. I can hardly wait.

There's loads more to talk about but if I start on that I'll get bogged down in it so I think I'll stop now and put this on the site without finishing it off...