Defenestration of Holy texts is forbidden within the Convent grounds.

This weekend I have heard a long drum solo, accompanied Monica whilst she purchased a dress for her sister’s wedding, played my guitar solo for new song Jaw several dozen times and I am still buggering it up, got to work on Jaw with Monica, fell asleep in the 1st half of the Brazil game and made chilli.

We went out on Friday to meet friends, who we met but I couldn’t hear too well on account of the long drum solo that was going on in the Office, which is a “Rock Music” pub that is both hot, sweaty and on Friday night inhabited by a “Rock” band. I don’t know who they were but they played “Rock” on guitars and there was this drummer who obviously knew his way round the pots and pans and was determined to hit each one and get his money’s worth out of them. They played “Living on Prayer” and “Comfortably Numb”. I’ll let you guess how much I enjoyed their presence.

We are off to Denmark in a couple of weeks for Monica’s sister Pia’s wedding, so it was time to get Monica’s dress. It was a relatively painless experience all round and a very nice dress was secured as a result. However I could not stand and read the back of a clockwork radio without being harangued by staff who wanted to know if they could help me. Maybe they thought I was too handsome to be intelligent enough to read. Or maybe the look on my face brought on by the fact that I had found yet another radio that does not pick up Long Wave and is thus useless as far as listening to Test Match Special is concerned made them think I was going to go crazy and bite someone.

I have learnt how to say “Sorry, I can’t speak Danish. Ashtray. Butterfly. Cheers!” in Danish. I don’t think Monica is too keen on my contributions to the phrase, but I think they add flair and style, whilst also making me seem enigmatic and eccentric.

I have written a nice little guitar break for the new song “Jaw”, which is a little bit of a challenge to play. Whilst it is not that quick a phrase it requires some rapid bridging of several notes and some precise picking in order to get everything to ring pleasantly. Getting my muscle memory to the stage where my hands just fall into the phrase naturally has taken some time because the fingering is a bit different and has to be right each time or you find yourself hopelessly out of position by the end of the bar. But it sounds really good and makes me feel more like a half decent guitarist as well. A little but of ego burnishing is no bad thing.

We ran through some of “Jaw” a couple of times as well. We are finding that it is best to approach new songs warily at first otherwise they can get very frustrating to arrange. I have had to break out of the habit of bashing songs on the head until they are the right shape, which is the way I have worked in the past. It is very hard to change the habits of my entire musical career, but the results of this approach have been more fruitful. “What Kind of Rock?” has remained unfinished because I wanted to get it “right” when what it needs is a steady period of gestation so that the mood finds itself.

Missed all the goals in the France match because I was making chilli. There is little more to add.