On the way back from the pool/gym about halfway to home, there is a disused building on an intersection. Seeing these old buildings in the city in decay is so sad, especially if you have a vision about what to do with them. Still, we wait for the Portuguese consulate to approve the moving of the archive for the storage in Wells in Somerset to Porto. But the other reason I mention this building today is that, hanging over one of the graffitied walls was a rather disconsolate looking tree, spiky, and black, dead fingers reaching out. But today it had buds, leaves were starting to sprout out of those black bones, life was coming back. The ruined building looked on and dreamed of being useful again.

It’s March so that means that the clocks are soon going forwards for us. In America, it’s happening two weeks earlier. A referendum in Europe resulted in most people wanting to do away with the time change. I personally like it, because it interrupts the norm, shakes things up, breaks the mould and although it causes little difficulties, it’s welcome as it brings with it an hour of light. It helps us night owls because we have more chance to see the blue sky.

I lost 4 kilos, 9lbs in the first 30 days of my attempt to lose weight. I didn’t drink 60 tins of coca-cola, not imbibing 12,000 calories and I didn’t eat 60 Portuguese cakes. That’s four weeks of five days a week alternating pool and gym, swimming on average 70 lengths and spending one and a half hours in the gym, switching between cardio machines and strength building machines. There’s still a long way to go, it’s a real commitment but you have to embrace it and try your best to stay alive by leading a healthy life, diet, exercise and brain massage, haha, that happens with the music.

In the Marquês park today teenagers on the bench, heads buried into each other, workmen taking a smoking break. Whenever I’m walking if there’s someone ahead of me smoking, I either cross over the road or stop and wait till they’ve got a good distance ahead of me. Cigarette smoke is acrid, I do everything to escape it. I can’t believe that I spent years sucking it in and damaging my lungs. One of the most foolish things I’ve ever done – don’t ask me for a list.

Liverpool – Inter Milan Champions League tonight at Anfield. Whenever I see a game on the television, it reminds me of the game I went to in 2019 (against Brighton) when I was in Liverpool working on The Wild Swans albums. I was surprised at how cramped the seats were. People on either side of you pressed against you. The person behind you has their knees in your back as you have your knees in the back of the person in front of you. But after the game, which they won, they played Pink Floyd’s Fearless from Meddle (1971) through the PA system which features the Liverpool fans, I stayed as the stadium emptied to listen. The last time I was there was 1974.

On International Women’s Day, music has been Mary Timony’s debut album Mountains (2000). I’m a fan, I have all her solo records and her Ex Hex albums, her CDs released with Helium plus a Wild Flag CD, although there are various collaborations still to find. It’s hard to describe but I call her arty eccentric indie, depending on which group or project you listen to. I’ve written about her second solo album The Golden Dove (2002) before (one of my favourites). Ex Hex is a three-piece power pop band that I saw in Stockholm. Helium I discovered from 120 minutes on MTV in the nineties. The first song I ever heard was called Pirate Prude, how could I resist. Timony has a degree in English Literature and sings, plays guitar, keys and viola.

Music Of The Daze