Apart from a feeling of extreme tiredness hitting me every now and again, I am climbing out of my latest depressive episode unscathed. I have gigs to attend tonight, tomorrow night and Saturday night so a good dose of live music should do me the world of good. This just goes to show how unpredictable life can be when you live with this condition; as soon as my computer breaks and I am forced to have a break from my beloved podcast the black cloud lifts. Usually it is when I am prevented from working that I fall into the darkness, so at least this proves that depression has nothing to do with mood or fortune.

The Saturday Breakfast pilot is all ready as far as I am concerned, we are just trying to synchronise diaries now to find a suitable day for filming. I'll be glad when this is out of the way so that proper plans can be made for when/if it goes to a series next year. It'll depend on the crowd funding campaign of course because it will be quite an expensive series to make, but the pilot is weighing heavily on me for now.

I have been writing more bits of The Record Store Day Video (working title) which is likely to be the next filming project after Saturday Breakfast. My views on Record Store Day are well documented and while I am not against the concept I think it is a shame that such a day is needed. Treating record shops as an endangered species and spending money on overpriced special editions isn't really the right message. As I have said before, if people treated record shops with this reverence every Saturday (at least) then there would be no need to guiltily buy records every April. My short video reflects these opinions, expressing the fact that we should be supporting all independent businesses and not just record shops. People seem to have become more indie aware over the last few years since I first started writing about the issue, not that I wish to claim credit for it because I was just one voice and not the first person to highlight this. The problem is that while independent businesses need the support of the public more than ever, money has become tighter and quality is on the decline. For proof of this you only need to look at the High Street; pound shops and supermarkets are flourishing while higher end shops are in trouble. People don't seem to want to 'save up' any more for nice things and would prefer to go straight for the inferior product despite the fact that this inevitably means that they will need to replace it when it breaks. The rise of supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are further evidence that the world is tightening its belt, once only found on the outskirts of rough housing estates and famous for selling tins of beans for 2p, they are now opening up in more respectable areas and gaining credibility as 'proper' supermarkets. Even worse, the proper supermarkets are taking notice; imagine the producers of Eastenders and Coronation Street shitting themselves about Doctors or Hollyoaks, that's what's happening.

I digress, the video is a light-hearted affair which will be filmed in a series of shops and have only the slightest mention of actual record shops, although I am wondering whether or not to include a live music performance or two. 

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This week’s edition of The Sunday Alternative is here.