That was wierd...

I just watched myself on the tele for the first time. Never done that before. It took me a while to pluck up the courage to do it and, while I'm glad I did, I might not be in a rush to do it again. It looked good though. It's kind of bizzar watching a documentary about Tommy on the show, seeing footage of him win and Alex James crying while I had no idea at the time that I might be involved. While all that was going on I was convincing myself, very slowly, that I was going to have nothing to do with music, probably, ever again. It's a funny old world.

I still haven't fully adjusted to being home. I wake up every morning and feel a strange sense of guilt that I have nothing to do and knowing that I can't afford to do nothing. I want to fill my time with things. So this week I am going to start driving lessons again if Nazir is still talking to me. I am going to think about trying to give drum lessons as well and register as self-employed and join the PPL and MU.

"Jackets" appears to have missed the charts and Michael Jackson has a record 43 of the Top 200 UK Chart. I'm not going to pretend it's not a bit of a let down but "ding, ding" it's time for round two. In the grand scheme of things it not enough people have been able to hear the song and that's a shame because it's a great wee tune with a smashing chorus and I think, given some radio play, it would have done a lot better.

Now I'm going to give you a little run-down of the tour stats and I'll let you in on the nicknames we all had by the end of the tour. So here they are...

1.. TV Rizzle, The Rizz, Tommy Rizzle (Tommy)
2.. Mr Skene, G Man The King Man G (Gordon, bass, celo, piano)
3.. Matty Roberts Drummer, McIvor, Fat Matt The Hit Man Hat (Me, the clue to what I do is in the name)

....... Someone is cooking a BBQ outside my kitchen window...smells magic...

4.. Brown Smoke (Calum, backline professional)
5.. DLo, One-peice, Justin, The Darkness (Darren, backline professional)
6.. Grahab... (Iain the Tour Manager, driver, sound man (lost out for some reason... think it's because no-body wants to annoy him incase he turns over another table))

We traveled 3802.8 miles (approx) over 26 days. We played 16 shows, had one production day before we left and did one TV show. That is 11hrs 30mins of music, 63hrs 56mins in a van, plus an extra few on a train for the band to go to and from T4. We stayed in 1 Dolby Hotel, 1 Brookdale Hotel, 1 Beacon Hotel, 1 Days Inn, 3 Ibis Hotels (one for 2 nights), 2 Jurys Inn's (one for three nights (two for the band)), 3 Holiday Express Inns, 3 Travellodge's and 1 night for the boys in the legendary Columbia in London.

We played in front of a few thousand of the prettiest people in the UK, played my first Ludwig kit, saw Prodigy arrive at Rockness in a helicopter, I shook Simon from Biffy Clyro's hand, got lost up the hill where they film Skins in Bristol, had a day out in the Historic City of York, sat in a wheelchair for the first time in Manchester, played to a sit-down crowd for the first time and did my laundry in Exeter, got really drunk at a house party in Cornwall, left before the fighting in Southampton, slam danced at a club and drank a whole gallon of water on stage in Oxford, Iain lost his iPhone in Nottingham, I had a "moment" with Smokey and One-Piece on the beach in Brighton, got a Tommy Reilly drum skin, met Miquita Oliver and filmed my first TV show, saw up-close but didn't get to meet Naboo from the Might Boosh, got thrown from a shopping trolley and went for a drink in the oldest pub in England which is in Nottingham, found out what shape a napkin/serviette is and finished "Deception Point" by Dan Brown.

All in all it was a pretty good hussle. And, thanks to the power of the internet, even if I never do it again I'll always have this wee record.

Lots a love
M xx