Chubby Funster

Managed to catch a performance by Ricky Gervais at the Manchester Apollo last week. Perfect Valentines Day evening out. No red roses, no fixed-price Valentines menus, no waiters from Burnage pretending to be Italian. Instead some good-old politically incorrect gags about ME, Dawn French and obesity! What sets Gervais apart is the fact that he's natural and like, say, Billy Connolly, he just comes across as a bloke in a pub who is telling a few stories for his mates.

I see Marillion have released a few soundclips from their forthcoming album 'Somewhere Else' over at http://www.myspace.com/marillion Quite an intriguing listen, though you can't really appreciate tracks based on a few short samples. Not sure about the single choice though. I'm usually proven wrong, so 'See It Like A Baby' is bound to go top ten.

I'm off to London early next week for a meeting with the book publishers, so I'll finally be able to give a firm update of the masterplan. In the meantime, I'm trying to pitch feature stories (basically book extracts) at various editors to coincide with the book and DT album release.