Catmachine

I can't believe that it's already five years since I wrote the first blog in the I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan  series, a series which turned into a book self-published on kindle and paperback . Five years now is very different from five years back then. As a Teenage Toyah Fan five years was the gap between my first Toyah LP The Blue Meaning  and the realise of Minx - five long years of adventure many of which are detailed in the book and which at the time seemed to last forever. Whereas this last five years seems to have lasted just a few months in comparison. That is not to say that the most recent half-decade was without incident - far from it. The self publishing was an adventure in itself which gave me far more confidence in my writing as a whole and contributed to the fact that I have now had several short stories published (with more on the way). Fingers crossed for the novels as well... Plus since writing those first blogs - quite by coincidence - there was a re...

I'm typing this with sore fingertips. It's the index and middle finger on my left hand, which I suppose is unusual given that I am right handed. It's a bass injury, of course. Yesterday I rehearsed for the first time in few weeks, and as is so often the case, my fingers had recovered from previous bass playing activities enough for a fresh injury to occur. When people discover that I play bass guitar in a couple of bands a common reaction is "Oh, so you're a musician then?". Well, no, not really. I don't think so. Whilst many bass players are indeed talented musicians I wouldn't put myself in the same category as them. I see what I do as the equivalent of keeping time whist moving my fingers around. Even so I find it quite tricky and have to concentrate. An unfortunate side effect of this concentration is that I tend to stick my tongue out of the side of my mouth or gurn horribly with the result that a lot of gig pictures of me are hideous. So even tho...