Danger with a 'Q'

I've just trodden barefoot on a letter 'Q' from Scrabble. Agony. I have done five and a half hours of housework and there's still more to do before a person comes round to look at the house. That's why I'm blogging. I am nearly faint with exhaustion!
It was amazing last night- I had a cold and I was feeling very blue and sloppy and I sloped off round to Tom's with my tail between my legs, not feeling like singing at all and knowing I had to re-do the vocals on at least two of my songs. I did three really good vocals, almost first- takes, and only didn't manage the fourth 'cos I had a fit of coughing that wouldn't go away, but I've worked out how to make that song sound good and it had seemed like an insoluble puzzle. A scrabble of gravel.
I feel so proud of this next album- probably people will think the songs are too peculiar, but they say exactly what I want them to say and they sound exactly the way I want them to sound- all the musicians I invited to play on it have played brilliantly well- Gina Birch, Paul Davey, Allan Bradbury, Martin Stephenson, Elle Osborne and Count Dubulah, and this time around I've done my own throwing-away of unsuitable tracks.
Maybe I should put them on an E.P. entitled 'Unsuitable Tracks'.

I had lunch with Dave Laing yesterday, who supervised my PHD with great patience and who wrote a very good book on punk called 'One Chord Wonders'. I tried to buy a copy from Amazon the other day but it's price second-hand (it's out of print) was £266! We always gossip academic gossip which is huge fun, and he always tells me lots of interesting stuff about music, as he's an expert on folk and also reggae. It was his birthday: he's a Capricorn, like me. So is Ari, and so were the people who did PR for The Chefs and Helen and the Horns, Smeg from King Kurt and........
David Bowie.
Hmmm. You can't win 'em all.