Well, the big news is that I have been offered a deal in the US for my second record “Scene Memory”. Hurrah. It is pretty different to “Honeytrap” consisting only of laptop-mangled guitars but I’m very pleased with it and am glad that something so abstract has found a home. It is in the process of being mastered.

When I got back from the tour with Petra I was shattered and, shock-horror, had a week off. I did start working on a project with a very interesting Athenian bassist and soundscaper called Costas Andreou, but quickly realised I was a bit burnt out and stopped. But last week was back to business as something-approaching-usual with 3 gigs at the Shepherds Bush Empire supporting KT Tunstall (2 with Ed Harcourt and 1 with Petra). It was so great to be playing with Ed again, and in his own inimitable style he confronted me in the dressing room with a setlist including 3 songs I had never played before. The second of the two nights was by far the best, with the old band back together and on fine form. I hope we tour again soon. Ed is on his own for the rest of KT’s tour and it took a lot of guts for him to go out on a support like that considering he’s made 5 records. You’re really out on a limb, at the mercy of sometimes indifferent beer-swillers and inconsiderate yammerers. But anything that spreads the word has to be worth it.

I’ve also been working on my 3rd record. One of the guest vocalists will be an 80 year old New York poet called Bingo Gazingo. I had a hilarious trans-Atlantic phone call with him when he recited his latest opus “J-Lo” which was thoroughly filthy. He reckons it will outsell Eminem. Check out his work with the wonderful My Robot Friend

I am in a Munich hotel, nearing the end of a German tour with Petra-Jean Phillipson. We’re supporting Richard Hawley (ex-Pulp and Longpigs). He is five parts charming, witty melancholy to one part reluctantly miserable sod. The music is exquisite rockabilly 60s pop, and ‘Oh My Love’ features an outro so unexpectedly passionate that when it comes you don’t know whether to burst into tears or shout Hallelujah. Petra’s brew of Billie Holiday and Nick Cave is going down well. I’m playing guitar through an amp (grit) and a laptop (sparkle), and setting off samples with my feet. Thus I am addressed as Macintosh Man by the retro-Mafia guitarist in the other band

Touring as a support act can be fun – with Ed we opened up for Neil Finn, REM and more and were made to feel welcome. On this occasion it feels pretty far from ‘living the dream’. Once we’ve driven ourselves hours across country we only play for 25 minutes which is an obscene work-to-hanging-around ratio and if I don’t manage to do a bit of extra-curricular music on my laptop each day then a feeling of deep pointlessness sets in. As I threw myself prostrate across a Holiday Inn single bed at three in the afternoon my room-mate asked, ‘Is it all too much?’ to which I could only reply ‘No, it’s all not enough’. As the late great Frank Zappa once said, ‘Touring can make you crazy’.