Death has preoccupied my mind somewhat of late. My two friends were far too young to have suffered that way and to be taken. And the deeply emotional tasks the relatives face once such important people have gone, this has plagued me. It’s hard for those of us hurt by the loss. You want to help, but you’re not there, you’re not involved. You’re not family. You feel their terrible suffering and want to console them, but you’re not there. They must move in a sort of purgatory, a middle land where reality is blurred. I had a call today from a very good mate, but again one I go a year or more without actually seeing. No lunch. No dinner. No bottles and tales, nor late confessions. But we love each other as close friends do. And I know it, and hope he knows it. His call came soon after he’d read my on-line diary. There are those you should keep in touch with. Stop putting it off. Manana, manana.......today! Do it today, I am telling myself. You drift, but true friends know this happens and do not take it personally. But I don’t want to drift too far from the few really good, important friends I’ve made and kept. I determine to make more effort.

Bob died.  I hurt. Thousands grieve.

Two separate emails received Friday gave news of two separate old friends being diagnosed with lung cancer. Two friends. Lung cancer. I was keen to get a copy of “Stranger Comes To Town” to Paul Evans, maybe the world’s leading collector of Bloomsbury Press (mostly Virginia Woolf) literature. I called the hospice late Friday afternoon; he’d been taken there a couple of days earlier. Asked if he would be able to hear it if it arrived by post Monday. Perhaps better if you brought it tomorrow, the nurse told me. It was heavy news.

Home at last. And, really, I had it easy. The tv pictures of the stranded thousands at Frankfurt airport, a few kilometres from my hotel, were heart-breaking. Families with young kiddies; the old and infirm; the once-a-year travellers, desperate to get to a wedding, a celebration, an anniversary. They all told their stories and I listened with a heavy heart. We managed to book pretty much the last seat on a Eurostar for Monday, and I arrived at Ebbsfleet last night, after moving on to Brussels for a night and a couple of days.

Had a wonderful time with Werner Reinke on HR1 Radio in Frankfurt last night. When I get more time and better internet access than now I will tell more. Since the evening came to a close, after 4 hours on air, we have done little but fight for a way back to England. The ash cloud sprung into terrible life minutes after my flight landed from City Airport on Thursday morning.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions for a “cover” for the new album.  Some interesting ideas came in,  some plain stoopit, but there’s room for all sorts. Graeme Blake took first prize of something or other with the nudge towards a long-lost fav of mine, Daniel Johnston.  We missed the tracks played by Billy Sloan on Sunday on Glasgow’s Radio Clyde, on account of Billy didn’t forewarn us. Also, he said kind words and will play more tracks as the time closes in on release date, May 3^rd. If i’m home, or away with laptop, I’ll tune in to Radio Clyde for his show, just in case I get the thrill of hearing my new music on the radio. It’s still a great buzz. Never wanes. It’s excitement in big form. Big. It’s my babies, being handed over, nervously, to strangers, then to the public, and to hear a track on air gives a sort of stress-relief. I never have got used to it, and really do still get an enormous thrill from it.

Went today to record Jools Holland’s Radio 2 show. It’s due for transmission April 19th.  Two weeks dead before the album’s release. Good chat, covering childhood (we’re both south-east London boys), young adulthood and pop. Jools glides through it, barely breaking sweat as we cover much ground. I think he’s better researched than the airy air gives credence to. It takes a lot of rehearsal to appear so ad-libbing, so the comedians both great and average tell us. His band (good players: double-bass, drums , guitar, JH himself on grand piano, and a couple of cool horn players, carried me Live through the only cover on the “Stranger Comes To Town” album, Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End.”

Been clearing my study lately. It’s a difficult one, throwing stuff away. Shredding papers you’ve piled for no reason for years. There are piles even on the floor. Time passes so quickly now. I can remember adding that sheet to that pile the other day. No, it must be longer than that – like, five years longer.

All the team is now set up for the big push. Comeuppance is the record company. That’s the modern way. We have radio/tv plugger Jackie Gill, who will do everything she can to get a single play-listed on Radio 2, and all the good tv she can muster; publicist Chris Hewlett, who has already organised interviews for decent exposure with Classic Rock, Acoustic Magazine, Guitar &Bass, Sunday Times, and more – stuff that should appear in print late April, early May, timed to coincide with the release.

Got to Rome for the Caravaggio/Bacon show at the Galleria Borghese, and what a blast! The Bacons were mostly from private collections, and you have to wonder who hangs them at home? They were all (I recall uncertainly) large canvases, housed of course in large frames.