Usually January is not my favourite month but this January was different.

Cover of Blighty January 9th 1954

I received a thousand copies of the album finally ‘Good Fortune, Bad Weather’  produced and written with David Baron on 23^rd December and there is a slight blip with it which most people might not notice. It was the last straw!

1903 Carte Postale

I spent New Years alone which is the first time ever and flew to Mexico having been invited.  A complete last minute surprise and treat and one I will never forget it and the company could not have been better!

Self Portrait taken in Mexico January 2012

I had a wonderful time as I never go away unless I am working.   Music is usually my holiday which is great too but this was different.  I love swimming, walking, taking photographs, eating, speaking Spanish, so I let it all go which is what I had wanted to do for so long. So I sat on the beach and spent my time:

'Manwatching' A Field Guide to Human Behaviour by Desmond Morris published by Triad Granada in 1977

Here are some images and postcards I found but it was hard to find old images.

Caribbean & Pacific Angelfish - An underwater look at some of the different types of Angelfish Photo by Luis Gomes C

Cozumel Mexico Distribuciones y souvenirs S A De C V Tel 99 88 92 19 17

Mexican cards for unknown game

Palacio de Bellas Artes 1950

Famous Mexican Artists 1944 (but I couldn't remember their names)

I still have not submitted my tax return but I am so nearly there.  I have walked through the year before last as though a ghost.  I can see exactly where I was and what I was doing, and the truth is I was busier that year, earned less than I have done this year, and spent every penny I had just to keep my music going.  This year just passed will illustrate to me how little music I have done and how much more I have worked.  The balance definitely shifted because I got myself in such financial straits that at the end of the day I couldn’t carry on.  Working in Oxford with Mike was hugely costly.   So I didn’t perform last year except a gig in March 2011 with Roger O’Donnell which I got a great review for.

Income Tax Year Form from article in Industrial Arts Bernard Jones Publications Spring 1936

So this coming year, I hope to change the balance a bit more towards music.  I’m working on my fourth video (filmed on the last day of Streatham Ice Rink).  The truth is if nowone buys music,  no musician can afford to get out there  and they are sad?!

Lettie as a bridesmaid the only time she was ever asked

I met a tarot reader Betty Palko who said to me many years ago that it would all be alright but there was a price to pay.  She was a clairvoyant tarot card reader at the ‘Mind, Body, Spirit Festival’ in Victoria, and I never forgot it.

Cover of 'Prediction' price 8d Published on November 10 1942

Page 2 of Prediction, December 1942

I watched a great Arena documentary on the ‘Chelsea Hotel‘ and it made me think how lucky I am to have this room that I live in and really does one need much space?  One of the composers of ‘Tubby the Tuba’ George Kleinsinger lived in a hotel room there which was a menagerie that included turtles!

Here’s an idea for breakfast in the Winter from my Good Housekeeping book 1954:

Winter Recipe in Good Housekeeping's Menus 1954 Copyright by The National Magazine Co Ltd

I was reading in Vanity Fair that we are culturally and visually stale which is why we look back the whole time.  They had a good point.  It would be hard to tell much difference between a photograph now and one twenty years ago yet you could tell a lot of difference between one in 1950 and one in 1970.  So I think maybe we should look at style such as below and try and think of some new kind of fashion craze.  We haven’t had one in ages and I’m willing to do what it takes to get involved in one but it has to be NEW.

Streetlook from New Sounds New Styles Magazine September 1981

I’m off to Prague for a week end, a place I have never been, and a place I am very much looking forward to seeing.  When I return I will be updating my website with the wonderful Brian Kavanagh, finishing off the videos and try to start playing my dusty old instruments again.

Anonymous Photograph

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Here’s a track someone posted a song I wrote with Anthony Phillips last year.