Spent a couple of days in Frankfurt last week: radio interview and a visit to the Munch exhibition. One hundred and sixty-four pictures. A feast. Mostly oils, with some sketches, water-colours and many of his own photographs. They are, of course, early and mostly self-portraits. For a guy who suffered most of his life with depression and associated ailments, he lived to the very stately age of eighty years. The show doesn’t have The Scream (any one of three copies), but I’ve seen that up-close at least twice. First time, later that evening it was stolen. They dropped in through the roof, as I recall. Went back a year later (both times at The Munch Museum in Oslo) and there it was, back in situ. I’d heard nothing of it being discovered, so asked an attendant. “He painted it three times. We brought another up from the vaults…” he told me. Then that one was filched, along with his other masterpiece, Madonna. I believe both have been found and placed back in their spots in Oslo, albeit behind some serious protection. At dinner with Lydia and Werner, Birgit and Gerald, a recorder was pushed towards me by Lydia, a print music journalist and radio presenter. She had mentioned that next morning she would be interviewing Morten Harket, lately of Aha. I raved quietly about their latest (last?) single, Foot Of The Mountain. I told her I used to (two years ago, maybe?) pull over when it came on my car radio, whack up the volume to at least eleven, sit back and enjoy. I told Morten this, via Lydia’s recorder. She played it to him next day and he responded on the same machine. He was kind and suggested we could work together on song-writing. I will have nothing to lose. And I shall get in touch soon. Sounded like a very decent man.

Bognor was fine. One hour, as per contract, generally the hit singles, plus some more esoteric yet stirring stuff, too - just what the crowd expected and wanted really. Everyone’s a winner. There were around 3,000 people in the vast hall and we touched a good percentage, though not all, I think.

Some were there to bop to “Tie A Yellow Ribbon”, re-enacted by four old pros (no idea if any of the originals were in the line-up) who each held a radio mic and sang and moved to a backing track on a machine. I didn’t stay to watch, but that’s the story. My old mate Rick Driscoll popped down a day early to see us. His modern take on Kenny were on Sunday’s bill. That’s Kenny made up of Rick on vocals and guitar and a bass player, working to backing tracks on a laptop, as described by Rick himself. But we Headlined, on between 8 and 9pm, and I was home just after midnight.

Sunday morning. Woke to find several inches of snow. Frozen ponds. But even that won’t spoil my mood. The response from our website users to the Priority Sale of Birmingham Symphony Hall tickets has been a real charge, giving me and those involved a rush of excitement. I hope most got the seats they fancied, but it’s not a perfect world, so I imagine some had to settle for less. But that is a wonderful hall, with hardly a bad seat in the place. We have a sizeable budget for national advertising, but at this rate we might just save most of it! Think we’ll wait a few weeks – it isn’t even actually officially on sale yet – and see the figures then. Might be able to run a couple of ads with “Sold Out” splashed diagonally across them! All vanity to one side, I really will want the nation to know!

Saw The Artist. Silent, yes, but with swathes of sympathetic lush music, and perfectly acted. It will lighten any dark mood. It is a deeply moving piece of work. The French still can do it when they stay within their comfort zone. Bought tickets on-line (Cambridge Arts Picturehouse) and it made me feel officially elderly – saved £1 for being “Over 60 (retired)”. Well, I never…! When is the Bus Pass due?

Mastermind was some experience. But Jaws - a whale? What possessed my mind at that moment?  Nothing, that’s what! Truth is, though, the inter-round interview John Humphreys  conducted with each contestant, while running for only an edited minute, actually lasted around five minutes in the “Live” recording. All the time, I was thinking “Can we get on with the General Knowledge? Can we get on? Can we? Please, John, I don’t  want to talk about myself, I am on a roll, keen to get on.“ But the producers would have seen the chat as a chance to plug the “celebrity” and they would have a good point, of course. Nevertheless, Simon Day and I certainly felt the edge going off, and because of all that, I blurted out “whale” for “shark” and may have some trouble living it down, if the wind-up-Steve messages from friends are anything to go by. Never cared about coming first. You compete only against yourself in a quiz like that. Just cared that I didn’t look too stupid. Fee for charity was £2,750, so two fine organisations did well, and that’s ultimately the main thing. Mine was split evenly between The Cancer & Polio Research Fund and The Mines Advisory Group, for whom I’m an Ambassador, and jolly proud of it too. Some terrific moments occurred on the UK tour: met the delightful Cheri from California, with her friend Kathy. Had fun introducing Cheri to the audience at The Stables, Wavendon. You never know how a person will react when you single them out. Thankfully, Cheri was good, and we had a hug and 450 people cheered her.  I like fun between songs, sometimes. I have to hope the audience has a sense of fun, too, and catches the glint in my eye, and the smile as I tease.  The Dutch couple who came to (I think) all the Belgian dates – I know them well, and any joshing between us in public is well-intentioned and they do have that sense of fun, and knew I was kidding when I asked something like (allegedly…I don’t actually remember) “when do you go to work?” Met them outside my hotel in Poperinge later in the Summer, and we laughed about it. They are not the type to take themselves too seriously. But that guy in Bilston – self-importance the like of which I’ve never witnessed at a show. Right in front of me, iPad machine alight, tapping away or else scribbling onto a paper pad, all this while leaning on the stage. Three songs in, it was clear he meant to remain in situ, in that self-promoting stance, for the duration. No chance. He could make his notes from further back, out of my sight. It was rude and it was a serious distraction, not only to me, but to several people around him. As for his pitiful stab on Facebook, rather than misrepresenting me, he ought to be sending grovelling apologies. No professional would ever act that way. I have never minded one bit the taking of snaps. I’m flattered anyone cares enough, to be honest. I don’t mind one bit if a YouTube film gets uploaded after being surreptitiously made from out-of-sight. But those dazzling white squares they aim at me – impossible to concentrate with that happening. Believe me, if you own a Blackberry (I have been told they are the culprits), take it into a dark room, start filming and aim at your own face. No singer can do their job properly with that distraction. I don’t rant. Not my style at all. I just like to ask, please don’t aim that light at my face in the dark while I’m concentrating.

Just home from Norway.
Just read the Daily Express Saturday magazine piece on me and where I am now.
Just come-to.
Must’ve fainted.
Or something.

Recorded Celebrity Mastermind. Researching and studying for that has been a lot like learning a stage role, like the Beckett a few years ago. Once committed, I can’t help myself. I don’t care a lot about winning, coming first, but I care a great deal that I can believe deep down that I did my best. It was torture, frankly. I was much more nervous about it than I’ve ever been about any show of my own. Up to the last minute, after make-up and the director’s pep talk, I was still cramming from my notes. My subject, T. S. Eliot and Four Quartets, was broad and deep enough. I visited Burnt Norton, the Jacobean Manor house near Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds and the title of the first of the four poems, where Eliot had gone surreptitiously in 1934, and where, in its formal garden, he found magic and inspiration that would inform him for the rest of his life. I, too, found a little magic, but nobody was home, and no soul approached me while I ambled for twenty minutes or so among the rose bushes and fruit trees. I was technically trespassing, so didn’t stay long. I made plenty of noise with big car on gravel! Still, nobody came out to question me. I wanted them to: I could have explained it all and maybe get clearance for a private tour of the gardens, set among 2,000 acres of farmland. On the way home, I was passing within a handful of miles of Little Gidding, the title of another of the quartets. There I found a 17th Century chapel, where Eliot had knelt (“You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid”) in the ‘thirties.  It, too, is a special place, tranquil and over-brimming with mystery. I sat alone in that tiny place of worship and took a few deep breaths. Seldom have I felt calmer, and it was there and then that I realised I could do that quiz without making myself look foolish and dim.

Suffolk/Essex border, September 11th: set a log fire.
First of the autumn.
Three hour power cut.
It happens.
We don’t get concerned.
Fire, cosy. Power back by 8.30pm.
Country life.

Strange, had  never been to Chichester until we played open-air in July, then I was back a few weeks ago. Mrs Harley and I stayed in a harbour-side country house hotel for three nights; took in the Festival’s “Singin’ In The Rain” on the middle night. Went with high hopes – it had received 5-star reviews everywhere you looked. We give it 4. Sometimes the leads forgot to be American. Spent an inspiring few hours exploring the Roman Palace at Fishbourne.  The countryside surrounding Chichester is calming, not wild like further west; the city itself a southern Cambridge, we thought, without the great halls of learning. The cathedral is splendid, of course. Outside, I sat to take in the magnificence of it all, then my stomach turned, slowly and achingly, and my top lip snarled in silent disbelief at the sight of a guy climbing down a ladder  from the top of the steeple. I have awful acrophobia – it’s my one big phobia, heights. The fear manifests in a wish to fly. I want to dive and cross the roads to reach the roof of that building over there, without touching the ground. Like a bird. I know I am human and it won’t work, so I dread being close to balconies higher than, say, the fifth floor. Watching him, Spiderman personified, brought out suddenly a groan from the back of my voice; then his mate appeared. There were two of them, twenty feet apart, descending almost vertically. “That’s the perfect job for you,” Mrs Harley mocked. I heard “aaarrgghhh” emitting from me, involuntarily. And yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off them.  On the tower, still a hundred feet up, there seemed to be four or five men in the team of steeplejacks. They were casually breaking into their packed lunches, apparently. All just part of a normal working day. “Well, I don’t suppose they could stand on stage in front of huge crowds and perform like you do, “ Mrs H spoke consolingly. I wasn’t sure. From where I sat, they were Supermen.

Uplifting: in rehearsals, we get little idea of how things will play out in public. Cocooned in a near-airless space, stopping every hour or so while one or another volunteer brews tea and coffee, taking maybe 40 minutes for a light lunch brought in from a sandwich shop in town, we go over and over parts and arrangements until a semblance of near-perfection is reached, and this time recently we were attempting this with almost 30 songs in total (many familiar, of course). It went well, and there was a satisfaction among the players in the knowledge that several old titles had been either revived or introduced.  Then I was alone. Alone to collect them all together, the titles, and create a running-order for a Live audience.
Leamington Spa Assembly Hall is a cracking good rock venue. Good acoustics, standing on the ground, a lot of history, and backstage (downstairs), there is a sense of other-worldliness. The owner, Chris Alexander, has installed his private collection of fairground memorabilia. There’s a dodgem car, a rocking horse, and a 1960s 20’ chromium caravan. Rumour has it that it was made (fitted out, anyway) for Tammy Wynette, and who could argue? Once the lights and sound picked up my 12-string rhythm, the reception was a gratifying  kick-start for us. Ritz was always in danger of shocking some, and I have opened with up-tempo tracks mostly for many years. But my gut feeling was that a little drama from lights-down would start us all off on a mystery tour for the evening. I know now for certain that those Human Menagerie and Psychomodo album titles will be wonderful to play, backed by orchestra and choir, and I’m determined to press on with that idea. It may mean no other UK rock band shows all next year, so the tickets (2,700 if we get the Royal Festival Hall) can sell. Will probably happen in November or December, and no other band shows before it…it’ll be hard for me. But that’s a price I will have to pay – believe me, to forgo the Live experience in my home country for 12 months will be a stress. But business is business, and the costs will be astronomical, so the tickets must shift. Pride, too, will factor in all this. I want to play to a sold-out hall, and we already know a figure pushing 150 is likely to be coming from the Continent, maybe more. At Leamington, spent time with my cousin Jackie’s husband, dear Tony.  He talked excitedly about the set. Cheered me with his (the first) reaction to my slipping into The Beatles song, You Won’t See Me, out of the end of Mr Raffles, but before the refrain. “I may come back to that,” I remember saying, and when I did, the Having A Party line took on a sort of mayhem I can’t remember witnessing before.  Uplifting.