Wow. Unbelievable...

Since my last blog the greatest (some might say only) issue to face humanity has been whether we would get any tickets to see Kate Bush at her residency at the Apollo later this year.

You have to approach these things with trepidation. Many of my generation had *that* poster on their walls (if you are too young to remember 1979, ask your father) and I grew up in the period that spans Kate's first five albums, So it's a major part of my early teens - from the genuine (although I am sure expressed differently) WTF at "Wuthering Heights" to seeing the "Cloudbusting" short with Donald Sutherland as a support to "Back to the Future" on an early, and I suspect spectacularly unsuccessful, date. (I was more interested in the fact that Challenger had been lost that day - she wasn't).

So having missed Kate's previous live shows, on the reasonable grounds that I was 11 and lived 300 miles away, I have to see these ones, don't I? "Oh, but", says Nagging Voice Of Gloom, "she must be 55 now. Ain't going to be doing that much of the Wuthering Heights cartwheels now, is she?"

Maybe so, NVOG, but there are some things that you have to do.  Last year's Stones in Hyde Park may have shown that Mick Jagger has kept himself in trim, but he wasn't the be-tunic'd poet of 1969. And the Stones are pretty much a tribute band to themselves nowadays. Last decent track/album? Fuck knows frankly because most people listen to the cheap Greatest Hits CDs.

Kate Bush has always been a show-person. OK, one who doesn't tour, but she understands the need for persona and reinvention - in the same way as Madonna has done for the last thirty years. Those of us who remember her last flirtation with the charts - King of the Mountain from Aerial - on which she does a pretty good Elvis impression. (Evens at the moment on whether Rolf Harris will be reprising his role on some of the bits from that album.) So whatever she is, and isn't, she is going to be interesting.

And so with trepidation I entered the buying frenzy on Friday, and emerged successful. Two tickets. Row J of the stalls. Central. I am excited already and there is still five and a half months to go.

Apologies to those expecting a blog that was either political as I promised, or not solely about Kate Bush. Normal service will be resumed in due course - though not necessarily until October ;-)

Oh Well

The dog ate it. I was ill. The wi-fi was down.

None of those are true. I must admit I thought it had been two weeks since I wrote a blog. It's been four. That is really slack. And I don't have a great excuse, I just haven't got around to it. Sorry!

What have I missed? Well, some of you may have missed my Voxcetera concert which played to a packed St Sepulchre in London last week. It was fabulous to do, and I think those attending enjoyed it too. For the first time we really took ownership of some tricky Britten and, having now heard a recording, made it sound really good. Plus of course there are those spine-tingling moments - like the way the D minor fortissimo chord towards the end of the Esenvalds piece just hung in the air and never seemed to die away.

Back to earth with a bump, I watched "Mr Toad and the Sell-Out" on BBC last night (aka the Lib Dem and UKIP debate). Clegg is Mister Political Expediency - and has been so often that he's probably retained the trophy by now. But Farage - dear God help us. In the same way as creationism got clever by evolving (maybe a bad choice of word there) into intelligent design, UKIP is just a more respectable "we hate Jonny-foreigner" party isn't it.

Watching the debate over a grotty internet link and Twitter makes one smugly complacent that no-one's falling for that old shit again. But I fear that's not the case. UKIP is generally picking up support across the spectrum, from those who are disenchanted with the political class and with, generally "Them". It's Farage's affable pub-bore facade that makes him so credible with so many. They are going to do well in the Euro elections - it's not a question of whether they beat the Lib Dems for 3rd place. I'm afraid they will do a lot better than that. That is just so embarrassing. Farage is a French M. Le Ros-bif  caricature. And Stew Lee's brilliant dissection of UKIP a couple of weeks ago doesn't counter it - UKIP voter's aren't watching stuff like that.

In case you hadn't noticed, alongside getting fit, my 'don't get political' and 'don't get sweary' New Year's resolutions have gone by the board. If you keep coming back to the blog for its gentle humour and flights of fancy, you may be disappointed (though I've not written for four weeks, so on reflection probably no more than you have been already).

Anyway, back to work... more soon