I’m on the plane back home from Belfast after a couple of days recording with David Holmes. Having spent most of yesterday listlessly prodding a synthesiser to no great effect it came as a relief today when I came up with a rather heart–wrenching progression on acoustic guitar. I always feel like an awful fraud if I don’t do a reasonable job, but that doesn’t mean I’m averse to the ridiculously out of proportion fringe benefits that occasionally befall the hapless minstrel. This month has been full of them, from a cowboy festival in the Alps with Ronan Keating which turned into a cycling holiday, to a brief performance at the Armani show with Bryan Ferry, after which I walked away with an extremely fine suit. But no good blag goes unpunished, the former entailing appalling sunburn and the latter a humiliating fall, right on my arse in front of Bryan, the band and about 30 models. Ironically I was demonstrating to the sax player of the Zutons how, when miming instead of actually playing, the only thing left to worry about is not falling over – which therefore becomes disproportionately tricky. This has always been a problem, at least for me, exacerbated by the presence of tv cameras.

But I have been doing some ’real’ work this month too. I’ve completed a whole album for Bingo Gazingo, the octogenarian outsider poet from New York, half of which I did with Ed Harcourt. I am so pleased with the results and everything came together miraculously quickly. Often we would not listen to his words whilst actually recording the music (I pre–recorded him earlier in the year), but when the two were put together the marriage was eerily perfect and required minimal editing. It feels like a blessed project, borne of generosity and goodwill. I’m sure that self–regard and insecurity are partly to blame for the often tortuous process of realising one’s own music.

There were also more private shows and overdub sessions for Bryan Ferry, with the album really proceeding apace. They contained a wonderful blend of freedom, when I was encouraged to bring broad strokes of colour to the tracks, and note–specific analyses of intricate parts, which I particularly enjoy as that level of detail is the way I approach my own music. It’s great working with someone like Bryan who enjoys that kind of nit–picking too. A couple of things he said that made me chuckle – on becoming weary of a repetitive guitar part (that he had suggested): “That’s rather vulgar. It wouldn’t get into Sandhurst”; and explaining his distrust of a daring edit: “I’m a bit conservative by nature. That’s why I’m wearing a tweed jacket”.

Finally I had time for a couple of gigs of my own, one at a Spirit of Gravity event (a couple of confused hippies turned up in the mistaken belief that Brian Eno would be joining me!) and the other as part of Steve Lawson’s marvellous Recycle Collective. Bingo made a disembodied appearance as I flew samples of his poetry into the improvisations. It’s amazing how strongly people react to his voice because of the sheer authority and originality – two qualities that should be present in every sound committed to tape. Sometimes it helps to remember that in the heat of the moment when the temptation can be to just play anything and fill the space. I really enjoyed actually not playing and just sitting on stage listening. Often it’s so much better to play nothing. Of course that doesn’t work so well in the studio, if you want to get paid. I remember playing in Eno’s band with the bass player Tim Harries. On one song his simple bass part was so stable, repetitive and solid that it hypnotised everybody; then 4 minutes in he changed a single note and it was like there had been an earthquake. All that power harnessed and released. I’m rambling now and the fasten seatbelts sign is illuminated.