Who knows ? Blair might yet survive. He still sounds remarably unfazed whenever I hear him. He seems to assume that the broad mass of the public don't give a toss about Iraq. He may be right.

Went to the memorial annual gig for Eric Roche last night. Eric was a phenomenal acoustic guitarist who was on the verge of real success when cancer took him about 2 years ago. He was just a little older than me. It raised money for his kids and Addenbrookes hospital. There was a rendition of one song by one of the performers which, although I didn't like the way it came out, reminded me of him very much. RIP, Eric.

I heard a phrase on a radio news item about the impending split within the Anglican church which took me right back over the years- "actively homosexual". It reminded me of a Spitting Image sketch in which a Cof E priest asks George Carey what it means to be "non-actively" homosexual. Carey replies that it's Ok to wear a leather cap with a chain, with a leather waistcoat, and dance to the Village People, and proceeds to do just that, as the Church around him turns into a gay club.

"Organised religion" is starting to sound just as meaningless to me. You hear it from people who claim to be developing some kind of spirituality, but object to "organised religion" because boo, hiss, they repress sexuality, persecute minorities etc. As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to invest your faith in a non-existent being, then at least choose one whose followers have contributed to the history of morality. A bit paradoxical given my aversion to religious dogma, but at least it avoids the kind of hooey that the likes of Madonna spout, and which you can buy in shops that sell incense, prayer mats and other such tat. I'm actually with God's Rottweiller on that one- relativism sucks.

Catch me on a bad day and I'll stick the boot right into any kind of religion, but most priests and ministers I meet are more concerned with others' well-being than most. When I was at a very low point a few years ago I went and spoke with one of our neighbours, the local priest, and she was a bigger help than anyone, despite my stated atheism. It can't always be bad to train people in contemplation and compassion.

Another recent effort here. This one's taken a while and I still don't feel 100% about it, but here it is for now.

It's not very cool to admit, but I actually like..........

The Mock Turtles, "Can You Dig It"- This got a slagging in both its incarnations. First time around because they were an indie band who dared to get a decent production job and scored a hit, the second because it was courtesy of an ADVERT (boo hiss !). But it's just insanely catchy, with a glorious wah-wah guitar solo. Lighten up, indiekids !

Sheryl Crow- OK, it may have been the trousers initially. But the songs are just great (apart from "If It Makes You Happy", which is an utter dirge). Check out the You Tube clip of her and Shelby Lynne singing "The Difficult Kind" at the Grammys. It's not her best song on record, but the two of them transform it.

I know it makes me an insufferable cliche, but I still hate-

Whitney Houston- Comparisons between her and Aretha Franklin just fill me with rage. Listen to the closing bars of "I Say a Little Prayer", and you'll hear ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE of the type of octave-stretching that La Houston does in every syllable, when she (Aretha) sings "For me there is no-o-o-o-o-o-o-oone but you". Which do you think is more affecting ?

Try though I might, I just don't get.....

Van Morrison "Astral Weeks"- No, wait, I LOVE Moondance, (most of) St Dominic's Preview, his R&B stuff. But even when stoned, this is just a mess.

Meryl Streep- Just one pained glance at the camera has me reaching for the remote.

(Most of ) Emmylou Harris- As above, substitute "vowel" for "glance".

The West Wing- IT'S JUST NOT LIKE THAT. FACE IT.

I never used to like, but am now actually quite fond of..........

New Order "Power, Corruption and Lies"- Got it out of the library recently, having junked my old cassette years ago. The dull songs are still dull, but the nice ones are great and the great ones are sublime.

Leaving Las Vegas- Thought it was overacting masterclass first time I saw it. Then saw it again and was blown away.

Beetroot- But only with olive oil dressing.

Dogs- My sister's one is dead cute.

Here's how she's progressed in the last 24 hours.

Couldn't wait to upload this, black and white, pencil lines and all. It came out so easily, Amy I love you.

95 dead just today. 600,000 in total. And the fucker still won't resign. I don't really give a chuff about the whole cash for honours brouhaha. The whole institution is so bent who cares how this particular government choose to abuse it ?

It'd be cool if there were some way of tracking which music I've listened to most over the years, the same as you can website viewings. At a guess, going by how dog-eared they are, it might be-

The Byrds boxed set
The Doors, "LA Woman" (yes ! and I'm NOT ashamed !)
Portishead, "Dummy"
Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"
Tom Waits, "Rain Dogs"
Thin White Rope, "Sackful of Silver"
Saint Etienne, "Foxbase Alpha"

I discovered a while ago that the bus ride from CAmbridge to Victoria, although about 40 minutes longer than the train, is quite an interesting bus tour of London. It approaches via the East End, goes past the Tower, then through Aldgate and WEstminster, then down Embankment to Victoria. It's also much cheaper.

So I jumped on the 8.30 bus this morning, and got off in front of the Tate Britain. I've been there 2 or 3 times before, but the stuff doesn't exactly date, does it ? There were also the stands and banners of Brian Haws' antiwar protest, recently banned from Parliament Square. Among the photos of blinded Afghan and Iraqi babies were the names of the MPs who voted in favour of the war. Depressing to see Dennis Skinner was one of them. It might have seemed from one thing I wrote last year that I supported the invasion. I didn't- I wrote letters to the press, had massive arguments about it and based lessons on material from CND, the New Internationalist and a biog of Gertrude Bell. I would have gone on the anti-invasion demo if it hadn't clashed with my brother's 40th birthday in Scotland. I was just bemused by Blair- that rapidly turned to disgust.

There was also a special exhibit in the Tate of three watercolours that Turner painted in Switzerland. Absolutely amazing- actually better than his oils that are ten times the size. Then off to browse the guitar shops of Denmark Street. Well, a visit to London just wouldn't be complete without it.

Some things in life at the moment are so fucking like something out of a JG Ballard book it's unreal. I was slumped over the photocopier at work waiting for my lesson to finish printing when I realised I was quite enjoying the warmth coming from it. It's more likely to give me cancer. As I watch music clips on YouTube my hand rests permanently on the house. Take it away and I might suddenly expire in a heap.

You Tube can provide some absolute gems, but some glimpses of a past I'd sooner forget. Watching a band on a programme I actually remember watching when I was 18 gives me the willies. I love the music, but then suddenly remember something my skin wasn't thick enough to deflect at the time. Nostalgia is a dangerous thing.

I've had a couple of dreams in recent months where I was in cities that were composites of places where I've lived. In one I was homeless in a cross between Musselburgh and some other place. Last night it was Glasgow crossed with Athens. In the dream I had woken up and couldn't tell if it was day or night, despite wandering the streets. Then I woke up for real. Deconstruct that if you dare. It still doesn't top being chased, hand in hand with Meg White from the White Stripes, by a zombie Judi Dench. That was a CORKER.

Favourite songs just now-
"More Adventurous", by Rilo Kiley
"All these things you are", by Dizzy Gillespie
"BE here to love me", Townes Van Zandt

I teach a language to foreign adults, so, as their langauge level is usually equivalent to that of an infant, I usually have to have an infantile level of communication with them. That's OK- they accept it, I try not to patronise them and I try and be as patient and tolerant as any teacher should be. But what the FUCK can you do when someone turns the handout you give them upside down and starts doing a completely different lesson from the one that you're conducting and everyone else is obviously participating in ? Or when they ask you, 3/4 of the way into a writing lesson, who "the reader" is ? Or when you spend 20 minutes helping them to prepare questions for a conversation, which they then ignore, and start to improvise questions which are inevitably wrong and irrelevant to both the topic and the answers their partner has prepared ??? It's NOT misunderstanding, it's sheer outright stupidity and I'm amazed at how far my tolerance of it has evaporated over the holidays.

And while I'm at it, a word to any toothless gripers who've got nothing better to do than whine at me about pushing my bike beside me (NOT riding it)on the pavement , as this has happened twice this week. It's NOT against any by-law, and I know because I asked the Police. Now fuck off back the bingo and drain the caller of HIS will to live.

The last few days have been a strain. Being back at work wasn't so bad, but had a rather nasty scene with a neighbour last night, with resultant lack of sleep. Suffice to say it's patched up now.

I spent most of the last week of my holiday composing emails to a long long list of art editors, and phoning venues for gigs. At times I think I haven't changed at all since I was a child. I beaver away frantically, like when I tried to build a boat out of plywood offcuts, aged 10 or so. I never work with others. I just don't trust their input. But I try to do absolutely everything alone, and as a result either don't finish it, or finish it and am too exhausted to take it anywhere. I don't know if that can explain why I ended up crying while watching "Iris" on Sunday night. It may well ahve just reminded me of my gran, though she never lost it that badly. Bumping into my ex in the street that morning may have helped too.

Anyway. A guy is walking down a country lane when he sees a guy shagging a donkey. Somewhat alarmed, he goes to the farm and knocks on the door, and a young guy opens it.
"I'm sorry", says the guy, "but there's a bloke in your field- I don't know if it's your father or a farm hand- fucking a donkey".

"Oh yeah", says the lad. "That's my father. Don't worry- hee-HAAAWllways does that".

Happy New Year, folks. Here's hoping for-

1) Eliza Dushku's imminent relocation to Cambridge, and sudden taking to wannabe cartoonists/songwriters.

2) George Galloway's debut in Ballamory.

3) Scottish independence, and the banning of references to 1978, 1707, any other year with a 7 in it, collocations of the word "English" with "poof", and the pensioning off of the Proclaimers.

4) The replacement of David Cameron by a snowflake.

5) Wayne Rooney's debut on University Challenge.

6) The abolition of winter.

7) The distribution of red wine tokens.

8) The inappropriate use of black American slang by British teenagers joining high treason as the only remaining capital offence.

9) The appointment of Matt Groening to US Secretary of State.

10) A rocket up the arse of the next person to ask me if I possess, or have ever worn, a kilt.

It seems whenever I have travel crises I console myself with drink and nostalgia TV. When my flight to Edinburgh at xmas was cancelled the other year due to storms I watched Fast Show videos and sank Scotch. When I missed my train (6 hours) and had to take the bus (12 hours) yesterday, I arrived at my Mum's empty flat and watched several hours of This Life, punctuated by Father Ted, and drank lots of Kronenbourg.

I haven't seen the anniversary special of This Life, but inevitably the original looks a bit dated now. If it were made now, Miles and Egg would be surreptitiously downloading porn (maybe the girls would too), Millie would be at odds with her relatives over her wearing or not wearing a veil, Keira would be a rank underachiever rather than a taboo-smashing whirlwind. Anna would be a self-harming binge-everythinger and nobody would have a problem with Warren's homosexuality, least of all himself. Their Tube journeys to the office would be fraught with delays and paranoia, and they would be taking coke, not E. Any allusion to E would involve depression or downmarket teenagers flogging it for a quid a throw. And of course, their computers, not their stereos, would be playing Gnarls Barkley, Lilly Allen and Babyshambles, not Underworld, Sleeper and Portishead. That's the problem with the bleeding edge- it soon heals up. Happy Christmas to y'all.

In the unlikely event of you buying a postcard or poster with a cartoon on it, what would it be ? I've decided I'm wasting my time drawing people that I like and admire-it's time to give 'em what they want.

Bike thieves saw through my chain and nick it. I buy a new one. The gears are crap. I take it to the shop. They fix them. They're still crap. I go again. The shop is closing. I cycle off. I get a puncture. I push it home. I fix the puncture. I have dinner. Now I'm so knackered I can only spend about an hour on the drawing I'm working on (my first "proper" commission, for "proper" money). To be fair, I still have about a week, though it's amazing how fast time can fly. Hopefully I can finish it this weekend- last night was a marathon session that resulted in finishing most of the B&W draft.

In the meantime-

Alexander Litvinenko- A Russian spy ! Poison ! A leggy blonde ! If only routine massacres in Chechnya for the last ten years had fascinated our media so much.

Princess Diana- Face it, she's dead. If you cried at her pointlessly young death but bought any of the rags that hounded her in her life, then you're still a hypocrite. Now concentrate on turning your guilt into contempt/envy for Jordan/Kate/Robbie/Whoever.

Impending Wogolanche - The photo that's been printed in all the papers this week of a thronging visa queue outside the British Embassy somewhere in Slavowogobongobongoland is several years old. If we can't get the actual words right, can we at least try with the pictures ? It would be ever so nice.

I suppose I deserve it. What other result could there be of reading the Express,other than high blood pressure ?

I don't mind playing gigs for no money, to no people, with crap sound, in draughty rooms upstairs from pubs where people would stab you for a laugh. (Not that last night's gig at the Cambridge Boathouse was anything like that). I just get incensed by how completely oblivious some singer-songwriters are to the cliches inherent in the format. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, to anyone who is thinking of picking up an acoustic guitar and a dictophone-

1) What makes you think that your emotional torment is any more worthy of public broadcast than anyone else's ? If you're going to take your lyrics direct from your diary then do us a favour and at least change the first person to third. Or here's a real challenge- write a song about the person/people who you believe to be the source of your misery and then change the 3rd to 1st ! Dare to try something other than begging your audience for sympathy !

2) Mumbling does not make you sound like John Martyn.

3) Screaming does not make you sound like Jeff Buckley.

4) Hitting the odd deliberate bum note does not make you sound like Ravi Shankar/John Renbourn/Jimmy Page/Davey Graham/whoever.

I read an interview with John Prine recently where he said the great thing about Bob Dylan was that he made OK to still perform music even if you didn''t sing like Pagliacci. That may well be, but listen to "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" or "Tombstone Blues" and you'll hear a torrent of ideas and imagery which prove exactly why he could get away with that. It was also 40 years ago, as was the angst of Leonard Cohen/Joni Mitchell etc ad nauseum. It's the idea of being unable to escape the shadow of all that, especially in the utterly diluted form of bedsit whiners, that really makes me want to sell my guitar.

Recent musical acquisitions-

Charlotte Gainsbourg, "5.55"- Most reviews of music by the children of established stars spend 3/4 of the review declaring that s/he should not be judged in the light of their famous parent, and then spend the last 1/4 doing just that. Of Charlotte Gainsbourg I shall say just that she is the daughter of Serge, and if you don't know who he is then go Google him.

You might expect any album by a contemporary French artist to sound like Air, and this does- mainly because it was largely written and played by them. Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon contribute as well, so there is some edge and angst, but the musical feel is the dreamy flow of Moon Safari. As La Gainsbourg's mother is Jane Birkin, it's no surprise that she sings in English, but the real surprise is her cut-glass diction. At times it's like listening to the posh bird behind the M&S checkout considering Sartre. If you like any of the names mentioned above in their own right, then this will probably do it for you.

Aimee Mann, "The Forgotten Arm"- A little like Joni Mitchell, though nowhere near the same extent, Aimee Mann is a great songwriter whose voice just grates on me sometimes. Thankfully, the sound of this album is far richer than "Bachelor No. 1", and her vocal doesn't strain high and dry in a trebly surround. And it rocks a good bit harder too. Ostensibly a "concept" album following a junkie couple's tribulations, the drums, guitars and pianos crunch behind unflinching lyrics. Brilliant.

"Live Forever"- Pure nostalgia, I admit. A bunch of hits from the mid-90s, ostensibly "Britpop", but including the likes of Garbage and Massive Attack. Mostly still sounds great, apart from those that were already clinkers. Echobelly really did rock ! "Live Forever" is actually a good song, despite overplay ! "Alright" was great but is now too familiar. The Lightning Seeds are still utterly soporific. And her out of Republica really could not sing, but looked great in leather strides.