2016 # 8

Nineteen seventy-four,  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM) landed on my lap. I was nineteen, just a crazy kid with a dream. Twenty-sixteen and I am in a hotel room in Winchester (long story of double bookings and administrative incompetence) and the book is back because I thought I might check it out again to see if it is how I remembered it. Looking back to then, I had no idea I would be here now, then again looking back at the weekend I had no idea I would be here either; three in the morning, unable to sleep. Which just goes to show, you can never really anticipate a life. One thing age has taught me is that ambition and progress through a life is just a journey and the journey doesn't ever promise a destination, so I guess ZMM has some resonance. Pirsig said, 'It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.' I live on the side of a hill now but the nineteen year old me would never have seen where; neither would the nineteen year old have seen me planning Edinburgh, London, Florence, New York, Chicago, Oklahoma, Crete, Brisbane, Canberra and all else in-between for this year - though I am not forgetting Western Macedonia, or Corfu, where I took this picture (above) and where I was recently privileged to be an invited guest - and hope to return. But that's just as it is too. So, from my Winchester hotel room, I decided to eat then spread down the duvet and see where the motorcycle odyssey would take me, forty years after the first time round - though I hadn't expected to be here, reading ZMM again at three in the morning, while listening to William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices, 'It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that.'

2016 # 7

Another weekend bites the dust. I was in touch with an old friend today (Davie Jack - great singer) and dates came up - mostly attached to his Lewis Leathers fringed jacket, which I coveted. What I was trying to figure out was dates; dates when we played in bands; dates when we sat on motorbikes; dates when we bumped into each other at Esk Valley College (the days of day release and education). My first paid job was 2 paper rounds in 1967; I kept those jobs going as long as I could, plus grouse beating and other assorted stuff, even when I joined the Civil Service in 1971 (in at the bottom but a day a week at day release, education). And then at night, rehearsing with bands, writing songs, playing gigs, I bought my first really special acoustic guitar (which I loaned to Brian Anderson and haven't seen since), then a Fender Strat which I still have (1961, eat yer heart out) and then other stuff, fixing Ford Anglias, a Honda Bike, an MG and laughs, loads of laughs. Stuff went on, strikes, struggles, but Alex Sharpe who will remember Hearts and Gordon Munro will remember careful with the glass Eugene, know that was just the pattern of life then. Nevertheless, there were huge laughs and music, always music, a residency at Micky Tams, that was my favorite time, huge bands, Springsteen at the Lyceum was the peak, but way back in 1970 it was Free at the Empire - and Woodstock at the cinema. It had such a strong pull. I have been working since 1967, goodness, that is nearly 50 years. I am ok with that, life is a long pier - as long as you can keep on walking. Sometimes people forget great songs for the wrong reasons (hip, cool etc) and sometimes you forget to smile. I like songs and how they are constructed, this is surely a huge one at heaven's gate: