A Message From Roberta Swipe...

Hello everyone,

I'm Bob's wife Roberta - you probably kind of know me already from the picture of me Bob's been using as his avatar for the last few months. (And no - I *don't* get any royalties from him. How do you like *that*, eh??) Anyway, that's more than enough in the way of preliminaries.

Basically, I've borrowed Bob's password to come on here and pass onto you all the very sad news about my husband. Late last night, Bob was putting the finishing touches to the artwork for his next album, when I heard a strange thudding noise coming from his attic studio. At first, I thought nothing of it - I'm so used to the sound of his foundation mixer churning away at all hours that I kind of switch off when he's up there, to be honest. But then after about half an hour, I noticed that it seemed to have gone awfully quiet up there and, realising that he wasn't working with Brian Eno on this one, I thought I'd better keep an eye on him. I poked my head up only to find Bob slumped on the floor groaning pitifully. "You dirty old so-and-so!" I yelled, rounding on him, only to realise that he hadn't been masturbating after all, but had instead had, what turns out to have been, a minor stroke. (Which probably explains the velvet gloves he was wearing at the time...but I digress)

OK, cut a long story short, the bods in A&E say he'll be fine so long as he rests, which is a relief. But, obviously, this new regime will mean there'll be no blogging or musical activities for quite a while. Of course, it's not all good news - leastwise, not for little old me. I'll be playing nursemaid to Bob for quite some time into the forseeable - so it's handy I didn't bundle up that old rubber nurse's uniform with the rest of the jumble we sent to the Spastics Society a while back.

As to what triggered it all in the first place, it's hard to say. As far as I know, he hadn't been at the glue again - although there were a few half full airtex containers littering the studio which Bob claimed to use as some sort of percussion effect. Judging by the terrible racket coming out of the studio when he was playing, this is *entirely* plausible. Perhaps he'd fitted his corset too tightly again? You'll remember that time back in 1977 when he collapsed whilst putting the handclaps on at the end of 'The Secret Life of an Aran Jumper'? I know he'd had a lot on his mind of late, what with the new record and the bods from OffGenBend (the Transvestism regulator) were getting on at him about his falsies again - although, why on earth they wanted him to wear a pair when he already had a perfectly good set of breast implants is beyond me. Men, eh?

So, yes, it's all been a bit of a hoo-ha really. A shame for Bob as the new LP was sounding very interesting in places. It covered the usual themes - the ethics of stem cell research, identity loss, the tortured question of whether or not man has a soul - the usual crap, basically. Oh well, at least I'll get a little peace for a while...


xxx
'Berta