Thanks very much Linda for the namecheck the other day and the excessively kind words about my election blog.

It's really shaping up to be a close contest in terms of overall percentages, which wil make things reasonably exciting; but of course because of our cranky first-past-the-post constituency system, it's highly, highly unlikely that Labour will wind up losing its overall majority in the House of Commons.

The Conservatives need a swing of around 10 per cent for starters just to get us into a hypothetical hung parliament scenario. Ain't going to happen....

But stay tuned - there'll be some fun, I'd guess, between now and May 5.

Since a couple of other friends also asked why the blog is behind the paper's subscription gateway - and there is no reasonable explanation as far as I can tell - I have set up a mirror blog, like a doodle pad, where I post the blog entries before filing them to the paper.

For what it's worth and if anyone's interested, but doesn't subscribe to the paper, you can see that here.

Tour dates! Tour dates!!!

April 25 Detroit, MI Fox Theatre
April 26 Devils & Dust Release Date
April 28 Dallas, TX Nokia Theatre at Grand Prairie
April 30 Phoenix, AR Glendale Arena
May 2 Los Angeles, CA Pantages Theatre
May 3 Los Angeles, CA Pantages Theatre
May 5 Oakland, CA Oakland Theatre
May 7 Denver, CO Convention Theatre
May 10 St Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
May 11 Chicago, IL Rosemont Theatre
May 14 Fairfax, VA Patriot Center
May 15 Cleveland, OH CSU Convocation Center
May 17 Philadelphia, PA Tower Theatre
May 19 East Rutherford, NJ The Theater at Continental Airlines Arena
May 20 Boston, MA Orpheum Theatre

May 24 Dublin, Ireland The Point
May 27 London, UK Royal Albert Hall
May 28 London, UK Royal Albert Hall

May 30 Brussels, Belgium Forest National
June 1 Barcelona, Spain Pavello Olimpic Badalona
June 2 Madrid, Spain Palacio De Deportes de la Comunidad
June 4 Bologna, Italy Palamalaguti Arena
June 6 Rome, Italy Palalottomatica Arena
June 7 Milan, Italy Milan Forum
June 11 Hamburg, German Color Line Arena
June 12 Berlin, Germany ICC
June 13 Munich, Germany Olympia Hall
June 15 Frankfurt, Germany Festhalle
June 16 Dusseldorf, Germany Phillipshalle
June 19 Rotterdam, Holland Ahoy
June 20 Paris, France Bercy
June 22 Copenhagen, Denmark Forum
June 23 Gothenberg, Sweden Scandinavium
June 25 Stockholm, Sweden Hovet

Ticketmaster has a "check back soon" note....

I saw Bruce at the Albert Hall on the Tom Joad tour. Fantastic show. But - word of warning - I was on the floor, and the acoustics were great. In '96, I took my eldest son, who was then seven, to the same venue to see Jackson Browne. We could only get seats high up in the gallery and the sound was really muddy and swirling.




So, anyway...

The Pope is checking out of his hotel in New York.
After getting all of John Paul's luggage loaded into the limo,
(and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is
still standing on the curb.
"Your Holiness," says the driver, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive
at the Vatican, and I'd really like to drive myself to the airport today."
"I'm sorry but I can't let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if
something should happen?" protests the driver, wishing he'd never
gone to work that morning.
"There might be something extra in it for you," says the Pope.
Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind
the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after getting on the Van Wyck, the Pontiff floors it, taking the limo to 100-105-110 mph.
"Please slow down, Your Holiness!!!" pleads the worried driver, but the
Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens.
The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches,
but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and
gets on the radio.
"I need to talk to the Chief," he says to the dispatcher.
The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a
limo going a hundred and five.
"So bust him," says the Chief.
"I don't think we want to do that, he's really important," said the
cop.
The Chief exclaimed," All the more reason!"
"No, I mean really important," said the cop.
The Chief then asked, "Who ya got there, the Mayor?"
Cop: "Bigger."
Chief: "Governor?"
Cop: "Bigger."
"Well," said the Chief, "Who is it?"
Cop: "I think it's God!"
Chief: "What makes you think it's God?"
Cop: "Well, I can't see in the back, but he's got the Pope as a chauffeur."

(There should be more chauffeur jokes. My grandfather was a chauffeur. But he just wore a black cap, though. Not one of these...)

Went to see this guy tonight, and really, really wish I could tell you it was a great show.

Now, there is absolutely no doubt he is a truly authentic American voice, and one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century - I have no problem acknowledging that.

And I know he's getting on a bit as well.

But tonight it seemed like he was just phoning it in, like there was somewhere else he'd rather be. His band was great, but because it's Willie's band he gets to solo in every song - and there were some solos where it was like he didn't seem to care that he'd just played a handful of wrong notes. It was almost excruciating at times.

I initially thought that maybe he hadn't rehearsed, but I guess it was because he probably just gets fed up with playing the same stuff night after night. (Ironic, when you listen to the lyrics of "On The Road Again").

Also ironically, the best song of the night was one he didn't write - a sublime version of Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty" (actually one of my favourite songs anyway).

Problem was too that the crowd was 90 per cent Willie fans, for whom he could do no wrong. There were many, many cowboy hats. In the first few songs, every mention of drinking too much whiskey and fighting in a bar-room got a whoop, and then folks just seemed to get bored with it all. It was as if they were cheering the fact that he wrote all these great songs, and weren't bothered that he was putting virtually nothing into playing them.

I like Willie, I listen to his stuff more frequently now than I probably did ten years ago, or even when I lived in Tennessee and it was almost compulsory. But tonight was sadly disappointing. Ah well....

One bright spot, though, was the support act, Mary Gauthier and her band. Got there late and just caught her last few songs, but picked up her new album and had a chat with her guitar player after the set.

Is nothing, er, sacred?


Tony Blair is expected to delay calling the UK general election by a day as a mark of respect for the Pope.

Blair was set to request a dissolution of parliament tomorrow - Monday - officially starting the month-long election campaign which will culminate on May 5.

Instead, according to Downing Street, he will be attending a memorial service for the Pope at Westminster Cathedral along with Tory leader Michael Howard and the Lib Dems' Charles Kennedy.

The remaining question, of course, was whether or not this would go ahead, if it clashed with the Pope's funeral, but apparently they won't change the date.

Understandable, I guess. All the minicabs have already been booked and they don't want thirty plates of prawn vol-au-vonts sitting out overnight....



Talking of pretentious French delicacies, I almost choked on my croissant this morning when I heard Emperor Chimpy praising the late Pope's "moral leadership"...

If that's the case, why didn't you listen to him when he told you not to go to war in Iraq?

(Yet, on the other side, lets not even touch for now the pontiff's apparent endorsement of the cover-up of the abuse scandals in the US which may eventually drive some dioceses into bankruptcy)....


Generally speaking, we like fish. Had this for dinner last night, with mushrooms and mange tout. So, here's a nice story, for a change;

PA 1 ANIMALS Fish
‘VAMPIRE’ FISH FOUND IN AMAZON
By Emily Pennink, PA
It may sound like a fishy horror story, but scientists really have discovered a blood-sucking vampire-like creature, according to the BBC.
It was one of four new species of fish discovered on the bottom of the Amazon river in South America during the filming of the BBC One series Amazon Abyss.
And viewers will get the chance to vote online to choose a name for the parasitic fish from tomorrow.
The programme follows the exploration of the murky depths of the Amazon for the first time by an international team of scientists and divers, led by the BBC.

...
The four species discovered by the team also include a new species of ’land living’ fish, and a catfish that is the only fish in the world to eat wood.


(p'sssshaw. yeah, right. it eats wood.)


You can go here if you want to find out more.