Welcome to my world...

Well hello y'all and welcome to the most unlikely blog possible, having only just managed to set up a hotmail account in the last few weeks and still not knowing how to operate a video recorder let alone a DVD player, it's a gigantic step to even think I will be able to post and maintain a bloglife. However after a delicious chilli, several glasses of warm red and one menthol cigarette, the lovely Catster persuaded me it would be a joy and delight to share my most intimate moments with the world.

The last weekend of the London Jazz Festival was marvellous. It all started with Jon Thorne the barefoot bassist and his gorgeous band playing in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer, London at 5.30pm. Jon is delightful and plays a mean bass, the band are all highly talented, the songs luxurious and warm and Jude Whitehouse has just the most captivating voice. They did try to finish playing at 6.30pm but I managed to pass him a hurriedly written love note on the back of an envelope, and he thrilled us all with a piano, drum and bass version of What's Goin' On. We love him and we want to marry him...

More adventures on Saturday lunchtime in the same venue, 40 children playing free jazz on their saxophones in amongst a crowd of 1000 who had come to see Courtney Pine.. excellent! After a revitaling whisky and ginger beer it was off to Catster's for the afore-mentioned chilli action, then down to the Half Moon in Herne Hill for a blues band and the fabulous DJing skills of That Man Again. Hugely stylish pointy dancing led by myself in true Lovely Brenda style... Almost a skirmish as That Man Again decided to whisk someone's else's wife on the dance floor in a passionate salsa, again lovely Brenda to the rescue pacifying a very short, bald and angry husband. That Man Again unable to fathom why a husband might not take kindly to his wife being squeezed by a talk, dark and handsome stranger....

Back to the casa for pineapple upside down cake at 3am, unfortunately falling asleep in a pernod induced stupor and forgetting to put the lid on the cream which resulted in a rather unpleasant catapulting of cream all over the bedroom floor halfway through the night... nice...

Sunday : more jazz, Sid Peacock's Surge enthralled us again in the QEH foyer, just the right mixture of groove, free jazz and spoken word from his marvellous 10-piece band. Got a bit scared when he did a sex/politics and religion rant but so far have received no letters of complaint. The stress of all this jazz forced me to forage around the South Bank for scraps, eventually finding liver for lunch, which was successfully digested with a calm walk around the Hayward Gallery in preparation for the evening drinking...

Off to the Barbican for the final concert of the Jazz Festival; the amazing Kinetica thrilled us all, roughly 25 drummers and 25 horn players all joyfully delivered music by Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, Abdullah Ibrahim and more, dancers in 30 foot high kite costumes, The Elvii were there, just glorious...

Momentarily whisked away to the pub by a strange poet wearing two ties and a necklace who wanted to recite a pad's worth of poetry over my pint of cider, lovely man but we lost him on the way back to the Barbican for the Gilles Peterson gig. And what a gig - The Heritage Orchestra featured the amazing Eska for a couple of numbers, then Mozes (from Zero 7) who sounded just like Al Green if you shut your eyes, and finally the most amazing Dwight Tribble delivered a truly breathtaking version of 'John Coltrane'. Life was worth living again, the the joy inspired by his performance resulted in us just having to go backstage and partake of more vin rouge and a highly varied buffet of 3 packets of Walkers Crisps...

I tried to leave this party several times, however the Barbican is designed as a kind of theme park-prison-maze-just-try-and-get-out-of-here-when-you've-had-a-few-drinks-party-game-type-affair, so when I finally found the door it was way past midnight with no public transport to be seen. Luckily 4 lovely ladies in a black cab let us squeeze in with them, and after much raucous shouting we were delivered safely back to South London for the crowning glory of the night, Kentucky Chicken Popcorn and the last bit of pineapple upside down cake.. please don't tell anyone..

well chums, I feel brilliant this morning....

test

Hello world...