Can we just go back to the start?

Anyone who watched Cold Feet first time around will remember three couples, six friends, living in faltering relationships and generally not making a great advertisement for marriage - falling in and out of love - sometimes with each other, sometimes not. I was the same age as these people back in the nineties and found the whole thing mesmerising. And having a soft spot for Helen Baxendale I always thought Rachel could have done better than Adam. As it turned out, it was all immaterial. Life really is too short.

Sometimes all we want to do in life is stand up and say: 'Can we just go back to the start?'

Tonight's set list (little black book)

* What Are You Waiting For?
* (The Sun Always Shines On) Camberwick Green
* Leeds, 1972
* Help!
* I Won't Let It Happen Again
* You're The One
* Walk A Mile In These Shoes
* Chip Off The Old Block
* One Day
* No Fool Like An Old Fool

A few scribbled words, tonight, from my little black book:

'Another great night at Woodlands - fabulous food and great wine (as always). After cooking up yet another storm, Jenny Rose came out of the kitchen and mixed with the punters. We got talking to a delightful couple from Ashby-De-La-Zouch. Swapped stories and laughs over what can only be described as the most eclectic whisky collection this side of the A1. Surprised how well my new songs went down, especially a couple of the really new ones. Old Fool may get another run out sooner than I thought. We promised the De La Zouchians a hearty breakfast and a long walk tomorrow - followed by a few beers. It's what Saturdays are for, after all.'

Groove is in the House

After a somewhat tiring weekend, including a full on Saturday that started with copious amounts of tea at six in the morning and ended 24 hours later with yet more tea (only this time washed down with whiskey), it was good to settle down on Sunday with our brand new winter project: the first season of House, starring Hugh Laurie as the prickly medical curmudgeon with a black bag full of one-liners, may well have been made over ten years ago, but the Medds only latched onto it yesterday.

Three episodes in and we're hooked. God bless Netflix.

The soundtrack, c/o Massive Attack, is quite groovy too.

You on my mind in my sleep

I can't honestly tell you how many cassette, minidisc and CD compilations Steve and I have exchanged since we first met in 1993. All I do remember is that the majority of them were given/received on a Friday. And the reason I know that is because Thursday was Home Taping Night - a tradition born out of two friends with a passion for music and, let's face it, too much time on their hands. This was long before iTunes, playlists and Spotify; recording in real time and planning what eclectic mix would genuinely please/excite/shock the other. Or just make them say 'Bloody Hell! I bloody love this.' Out loud. Which is probably what I must have said in 2000 when this was first thrust into my hands. It resonated then (for all sorts of reasons) and it resonates now.

Steve's coming up soon. On a Friday, I think.

Richard Ashcroft: You On My Mind In My Sleep

'Ray boils at a different temperature'

Ray & Dave. 'Ray boils at a different temperature.'

Ray Davies and Dave Davies: the two patron saints of Muswell Hill. Any story about The Kinks could only ever be about the love hate relationship the two siblings from north London have had with each other for nigh on three score years and ten.

Setting it to music was always going to be a doddle (countless hit singles and albums on both sides of the Atlantic); hanging a story around it, maybe not so.

But Sunny Afternoon, which we caught last Saturday (the 2:30 matinee - I love matinees) at the Harold Pinter Theatre, pulled the whole working class oiks come good parable together quite brilliantly. A rags to glad rags story, you could say, and a sheer joy from start to finish. It played out, in a weird way, like a sort of Austin Powers meets Return to the Forbidden Planet. And the two young actors playing the battling brothers, Danny Horn and Oliver Hoare, were superb.

From power chords (You Really Got Me) to barbershop (a beautiful a cappella version of Days), via Waterloo Sunset (of course), much of it to a backdrop of dolly birds and hot pants (well, it was the sixties) this show, as they say, had it all. I feel a return visit coming on.

Booking till April 2016. 

For C