31 today. A good age to be. 30 was a slightly daunting birthday, but now I’m affirmed in being a grumpy old git by watching the tv series ‘grumpy old men’. The basic idea is that lots of famous not so old guys like Will Self, Rick Wakeman, Tony Hawkes and Arthur Smith complain about everything that’s crap in the world, from speed bumps to tossers who talk too loudly on their mobile phones. And I find myself agreeing with them 9 times out of 10. So being 31 is fine by me – bring on middle age!
Presents, you ask? Lots of books, very fine books like ‘Mastering Music’ by Barry Greene and Thinking In Jazz by whoever it was who wrote it (it’s next door and I can’t be bothered to go and get it). Also got the new Peter Gabriel double best-of ‘Hits’, which is just brilliant. As I’ve said before, I’m in awe of people who produce awesome best ofs, as a testemony to a fantastic career – Paul Simon, The Cure, The Smiths, Prefab Sprout, Bruce Cockburn – all got best ofs that reveal a remarkable hit-rate when it comes to writing near-perfect music.
And what have I spent the last two days doing? Sorting out my bleedin’ tax for ’02-’03, that’s what! It’s a huge task, given that I’ve got boxes of receipts that need logging and have to get all my teaching info from my diary into an excel spreadsheet. A fine way to spend one’s birthday… :o)
Much finer than that was the curry we just went out for, but I shan’t bore you with that…
Soundtrack – Peter Gabriel, ‘Hits’; Steve Lawson, ‘Lessons Learned From An Aged Feline, Pt 1’ (this is REALLY good, even though it’s me, so I’m not really meant to say stuff like that…), Mogwai, ‘Ten Rapid’.