We're making a concerted effort to actually be prepared for the next lot of touring - there's a tour poster in the offing, we're trying to rehearse every day, and we're even trying to make sure all our equipment works properly. We've decided to address the problem of automation as in the beatbox and various samples. At the moment we use an Akai S20 sampler which I thought was almost up to the minute even though I knew it wasn't - I just didn't want to acknowledge the passing of time. When we went to paly in California last December I found out that it wasn't when I tried to get hold of a US power supply for it. Of course it runs on some supply like eleven and a half volts DC and as everyone knows (or I thought they did) using the wrong supply will fry the unit. I was laughed out of something like ten different music shops, warehouses and esoteric equipment hire places, given curious and pitying looks and told that the thing was very nearly an antique, very nearly meaning that the thing is a worthless piece of junk for the moment but give it ten years and you'll get a fortune for it on Ebay.
The agent who booked the shows insisted that he could find the right power supply. I thought he was a little gung ho about it (where the fuck does gung ho come from?) but I was beaten down so I let him take it off in a shabby plastic bag to some nether region of outer limits LA. He came back two hours later looking very pleased with himself and before I could stop him he'd plug the power supply into the Akai and turned on the power and fried the machine. He could hardly understand it - it was the nearest they had to the correct voltage...
We had to do the gigs without it which meant an emergency revision of the set list and when we got home it cost the best part of a hundred euros to get it repaired.
I really don't want to go through all all that again. The Akai S20 isn't the most easy thing to use - it's a bit limited and you can only switch it off by hand, you can't use a foot switch. So I've got very good at finishing songs with bizarre open chords and single open strings while I lunge at the off button.
We're trying for computer automation which means that we can be like everyone else and take a laptop onstage with us. To do this I'm having to learn the latest version of Cubase which bears no resemblance to the Cubase I've been using for the past six years. My refusal again to acknowledge the passing of time. Actually I've been too busy recording to learn a new programme and I was working on the if it ain't broke don't fix it whatnot. But now I've got time to do it I'm quite enjoying it.
I'm always slightly fearful though that I'm going to turn into an aging new age hippy. I'm beginning to notice being fifty four - to start with there seems to be twice as much of me as there was when I was twenty two (slight exaggeration but you get the idea), and never a day goes by without me complaining about some ache or pain or how much better the world was before they modernised it. The latest Cubase is very different to the old VST5 and I've had to make an effort to go along with it, and not keep insisting that it was better as it was. It's been quite rewarding so far - I've found significant improvements.
To further check the onset of middle-age I went out running this morning - haven't done that for a while but I used to work out at the gym until we left England. There aren't many gyms here, the nearest is twenty miles away. The alternative is an evening once a week in the salle des fetes when they get the fitness equipment out and villagers exercise together in bulging leotards. I don't want to have anything to do with that.
Running around the village football pitch wasn't at all bad though they could do with mowing it. I don't know why I'm talking about this because when Amy told some friends they could hardly contain their guffawing. I don't know why - I though I cut rather a dignified figure flying through the dandelions, not at all ridiculous. And anyway there was no one around to see me.

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...