TO WHERE I AM NOW

It’s official, we have a cat, Hawaii arrived today with his toys, his toilet, his blankets, and his food and he has spent the whole evening exploring, hiding, exploring more and has now found a box which we lined with one of his blankets and he is happily luxuriating whilst simultaneously wondering where the hell he is. Maybe he thinks he’s been kidnapped? But then his owner brought him here and we’re just being nice to him so he’s probably ruled that out. He looks like he has some Siamese in him but he was originally a stray so who knows. But he does remind me of my childhood cat which was a Siamese called Lee Chang, I think the name came with the cat. I suppose it’s going to be a bit of time before he is jumping on our laps but not our laptops (he’s already been pawing over a message on Olivia’s laptop). If you’d had told me five years ago that I’d be married to a German girl and live in Portugal with her and a cat I would have larfed.

Semi-disaster today, I cleverly packed my swim bag last night and as I arrived at the pool my phone rang, it was Olivia to tell me I’d left my swimmers and goggles and swim hat in the bathroom. Genius! It was too far to go back but luckily, I did have my new diamond-encrusted, gold-lined, platinum-laced runners with me. I don’t know why I bring them when I’m just going to swim, but I do – and now I realise that I bring them in case something like this happens or if there’s a shark in the pool or the reception staff have been taken over by aliens and I need a quick getaway. So I went up to the gym and got on the bike and used some machines for an hour, perfect. A change that broke the ice of using the gym. But afterwards on leaving, it was pouring with rain and I didn’t have the umbrella that they gave me on Wednesday, I could hardly ask for another one. So I got back home drenched as Hawaii was due, he shouldn’t see me like this! Luckily he was late.

I had a sesh with Fred in Minneapolis today and we talked a lot about vintage gear and how great it is to get it on to modern recordings in a world of plug-ins and millions of available simulated sounds. It’s not a criticism of the modern way, it’s just that having quality original sounds is hard to beat – the sound of wood rather than the sound of numbers. I was also talking to my old New York flatmate Jonny Cragg (Jonny was the drummer in Spacehog). He lives in Seattle now and we were catching up. He’s a Leeds supporter so there are hours of conversation there for a start.

Ronnie got knocked out of the Snooker World Championships today 13-12, tragic, but great for Anthony McGill who beat him. England’s European Championship group was announced, Croatia again, the Czech Republic, and Scotland, how do these things happen? I imagine some great exercise would be to get out there and play some sport instead of just watching it. We need a ball and a park with flat ground.

Last but not least there was an article in the paper the other day saying that if you only get six hours of sleep in middle age then you are 30% more likely to get Alzheimer’s, no problem there then.

Music today has been Pink Floyd’s Animals (1977) of course but I also listened to Atom Heart Mother (1970) and, believe it or not, The Final Cut (1983). I watched the accompanying video EP but it was just really dodgy so I didn’t post it. Haha. Great if you like that kind of thing but phew, it’s tough to get through.