Birthday goil...

 Ah well, another candle on the cake tomorrow - it'll need to be a pretty big one to fit them all this year. Not that I'm particularly age conscious - indeed, I'm rarely conscious, period, but that may well be as much down to the Drambuie Breezers as to any incipient senility. I hate using the phrase but 'when you get to my age', you tend to treat each day as a bonus - especially when you've lived life with an acetylene blowtorch trained on the centre of the torch as I have been wont to (Grammar Nazi aside - *why* is Blogger underlining the word 'centre' as if I've spelled it incorrectly? Did we actually win World War II? See, there, it just did it again. Ridiculous.) Anyway, assuming I make it through until tomorrow before the spellchecker gives me a stroke, I trust as many of you as possible will be joining me up in town for the big Official State Birthday Celebration shindig that Dave, Nick and all the lads are putting on for me. I'm sure you'll have seen coverage of the preparations on the news over the last couple of days and are like me scratching your head and wondering why the hearse bearing my coffin will be collecting me from the chapel of rest and not the Coach and Horses as I requested. Probably Dave and Nick's idea of a little joke at my expense. Or is that Michael Gove? Anyway, God only knows what they'll have planned for my 30th next year - probably a lynching if this lot drift any further to the right. Which reminds me, how is Kenny? Anyway, you should come along. After all, you are ruddy well paying for it.

But enough rambling about my birthday celebrations. You'll all be wondering I know how the new album's coming on and I have to say, at the risk of sounding a self-satisfied old toadette, it's progressing rather well. After having held out for as long as possible from joining the digital revolution, I recently invested in some new recording hard- and soft-ware and the results have been quite dazzling if I say so myself. I really wish I'd taken the plunge sooner. The microphone is proving a particularly solid upgrade - especially since the baked bean tin and string arrangement I've been using up until now was beginning to fray. Not to mention dent. Of course, as with all progress, there's a downside. As much as the new sense of clarity is a boon, obviously there's a cost in that you can now hear most of the lyrics. And the singing. But after the initial heebeejeebees have died down, you do get used to it - well, the cat has at any rate. Mind you, he's long been pretty much inured to the idiosyncrasies of my vocal technique as he's probably strangled more water voles than I've had hot dinners. 13 mice, 1 rat and 1 pigeon is the current body count. I'm thinking of shipping him out to North Korea - he'd soon sort 'em out. So, what can the avid listener expect from the new album? Well, it's probably my most accomplished LP to date and that production gloss is compounded by a growing sense of lyrical maturity. The title track being a case in point:

 Oh dear what can the matter be 
I got stuck in the lavatory 
Stayed there from Monday to Saturday - 
Oh what a state of affairs... 

So I hope you'll all brave the elements to join the celebrating throng up in Westminster tomorrow. I'll be handing out a few signed test pressings of the new LP - well, we have to do something to try to keep the numbers down; Health & Safety etc. Why else would Cameron and Clegg be going?

Toodle-pip!