I’m on a flight to South Africa for some gigs with Ronan, reflecting on what a weird and wonderful way to make a living this can be sometimes. The itinerary tells me that there are to be a mere 5 shows in 12 days. This has been a month of manic travel and, once at the destination, unprecedented and disconcerting idleness. I went to LA to work on the soundtrack to the next Oceans movie with David Holmes and ended up effectively getting paid to sit around and go shopping a lot. For a restless chap who takes pride in his work, these seemingly cushy situations end up being pretty taxing, so I usually bring some editing to do on my laptop. Basically I was there for the first 10 days of recording, during which the priority was laying down drums and bass, and generally working out whether the overall feel was right – a crucial and delicate stage. So I did play now and then, and got some work done on David’s solo record in downtime, and got to hang out with wonderful people like Zach Danziger (who drums on my next record) and Woody Jackson (an amazing guitarist and genius professor of unusual instruments). I was also happy to witness once again the unique phenomenon of the Hollywood session musician, whose reputation and equipment precede him – the latter in the form of at least 6 man–sized flightcases that ominously appear a few hours in advance of the session so that every eventuality is covered, even if all that ends up being required is 4 bars of tambourine. I don’t mean this to sound in any way derogatory, it’s a quite simply awe–inspiring level of seriousness that is above and beyond anything you’ll find in any other city in the world, and they all have the musical skill to match. But it’s kind of funny too.

After the LA trip I went straight to a rehearsal with Jarvis Cocker to learn 15 songs in an afternoon, having not slept for 3 days. Interestingly, despite feeling utterly drunk with fatigue, the musical bit of my brain was functioning well and a few days later in Barcelona, the gig went great. Jarvis’ band is really loud, the bass player in particular has the most unholy tone I’ve ever heard, and that helped give me the confidence to shake off first night nerves. A lot of the sounds I came up with were drenched in reverb and feedback, but it still felt very exposed. Afterwards Jarvis asked me how it had been, and I said I thought I should be asking him the same question. I didn’t make any mistakes, but the brain was a little too much in ascendance over the heart, and I’m looking forward to redressing the balance next time.

There have been a couple of engagements with Bryan Ferry. First, 2 days filming for a possible TV show about his new album. The band piled into a recording studio festooned with wires and cameras and set about publicly re–learning the tunes we’d recorded back in August. I dislike cameras peering up my nose while I’m trying to play the guitar, but this time it was amazing how discreet they were, and how quickly we all forgot they were there – which makes me wonder about which candid moments they’ll see fit to include (a couple of close calls when we realised every word we said was audible in the control room). But most of all it made me look forward to the tour next year – especially with Chris Spedding, Guy Pratt and Andy Newmark in the band. Earlier in the month, we went to Moscow for a private show. This was completely bizarre. Some heavy government–types had hired out a small club and scattered it with a few tables and 20 or so of their closest and apparently most humourless associates. Mild applause greeted each legendary showstopper. The atmosphere was decidedly odd. If I’d been Bryan I would probably have gone mad but to my lasting admiration, all he had to comment on afterwards was a noteworthy guitar solo and some dodgy backing vocals!

I’ve also had a couple of meeting with labels – about my new album (which seems to be coming out on a major, bullshit notwithstanding) and a follow–up to Honeytrap on Just Music, which is now nearly written but not recorded. A couple of gigs with Ed Harcourt which felt like slipping into a comfy old shoes, some TVs with Jarvis and an overdub session with Herbert Gronemeyer, and that concludes a month that has left me both satisfied and disorientated. In the middle of all that a really good radio station, Chill FM, devoted a show to my music; doing a few voiceovers I realised how far away I feel already from stuff I wrote not that long ago. It made me even keener to press on with new ideas next year, despite being very grateful to have travelled so much this year and been involved with so many great projects.