I suppose most people have a lazy day on Boxing Day or is it for the family you didn’t visit on Christmas Day, whichever it is, this year it’s different in the whole world. Here, we are still thinking about yesterday as it was eventful, whereas the most exciting thing that happened here today was the electricity went, three times. I think it was too many heaters plugged in in the kitchen or the woman downstairs was using her crimping iron. I remember once doing a gig with the ex-band, I think in Queensland, where every time anyone used the hand dryer in the toilets the PA cut out. Haha, sophisticated.

Covid is making this a very long weekend as the shops are shut at 1 PM on Saturdays and not open on Sundays, so we’ve been planning on how we can honour the MOAT pledges after the Christmas week, rehearsing for online concerts, the Q&A video session, the mystery boxes and the illustrated lyrics that came in late in the campaign. We have a bit of a busy week next week with scary immigration appointments, scary plumbers and sessioneers who are not so scary, certainly not as scary as plumbers.

On the subject of sessioneers, Dare has been sending mixes to Ahad and to me for our perusal and comments and is about 5 songs in of 13, so that is keeping us occupied as we endeavour to finish that album. It’s not so easy to judge mixes out of the archive, away from my great stereo system, here I just have little computer speakers and headphones. Having said that so many people seem to listen to music on tinny equipment, maybe it’s more appropriate but having said that, perhaps people who might listen to something I am involved with might have better gear.

I was messaging my mate Jay Aston today, he’s “marooned” there in London but can you imagine how many people have been stuck this Christmas? Think of those poor truck drivers on the English/French border at Dover – oh my god, they didn’t even have toilets. When I think of that lovely day we had yesterday I feel very lucky to be here.

So I sat around today half-watching some football and wondering about getting Logic Pro for my computer. So if anybody out there knows about it as in do I need a huge memory, what about RAM, file storage, the problems of early hurdles, please let me know. As I’ve been doing writing with sessioneers, it seems to be the only option. With Space Summit Jed, I’ve been writing things when we skype, he records them on his phone, learns them and plays them into his Logic before embarking on finishing, revealing the song. It would be much easier if I could just record it and send it to him as a file. With Noelle, I send her phone memos through WhatsApp and with Tony, well it would be easier if he sends me ideas and wants me to sing if I could do a proper demo. So we’ll see.

One thing I’ve been worrying about that hasn’t been a problem for Olivia and I at the archive is noise, if it’s so quiet here and I can hear people talking downstairs does it mean we won’t be able to play and sing without getting a knock on the door? That’s the problem with moving into a flat, dealing with a noisy neighbour or being a noisy neighbour. I was hoping that the only reason I could hear them downstairs was because there’s an old deaf lady below us and they are talking really loud so she hears them and perhaps they are only here for Christmas and family celebrations. We’ll see.

Music today was me attempting AC/DC’s new album Power Up (2020), but really, most of the songs are the same tempo, it’s so formulaic and that old spirit most certainly left them a long time ago. All the songs are credited to Malcolm and Angus though so they are looking back but does it mean no Malcolm no songs at all? Despite how they are perceived as a good old down to business R ‘n’ R band, in the early days they were also extremely creative, that’s missing and fun without creativity just isn’t as good. You need a creative way to recycle the same ideas and they haven’t done that for a very long time. You can get a lot of great songs out of the same chords, look at Twist And Shout, Wild Thing and Louie Louie! Look at Rebel Rebel and Blockbuster! And now it’s not just Bon but also Malcolm is missing despite the return of Phil Rudd, Cliff and Brian with nephew Stevie and Angus, really for me I haven’t found anything in them since Back In Black, that’s a long time to wait and I keep on trying but it’s the same with The Stones, what happens? I guess success smooths the corners. In the wake of McCartney’s new album I watched an interview where he said he doesn’t really know what kind of song he’s going to write, you might not like anything by him but at least the songs are kinda different from each other, with AC/DC nearly every song seems to be a rewrite of the song before it, chords, style, tempo, the one-trick pony syndrome. I also listened to the White Album today and into the Esher Demos – there was a time when variation, being eclectic, was the goal, or perhaps freedom to write anything, any style – as long as it was good. But what is good? Who knows. Power Up went to No.1 in 21 countries and if they tour again they will sell out stadiums in every country in the world. In their world, they’re happy, the fans are happy, everyone’s happy.