I have written before about how one of my favourite regular gigs is the Kimberley Sessions that takes place in the Nelson and Railway pub. Usually on the first Thursday of the month, on this occasion it was moved to Sunday and extended time-wise to make for a perfect Sunday afternoon into the late evening, finishing at nine o'clock. The event was billed as Kings of Kimberley, featuring a line-up of musicians that come from or live in the area. 

As I arrived, Bainy was playing a solo covers set before being joined by James Salisbury (I have mentioned this double act before), who in turn did a solo set. All but one of the acts I had seen before and the day seemed a little more relaxed than the usual Thursday night affair, possibly due to the long weekend element. With today being Bank Holiday Monday (or Sunday +1 as the cool kids call it) there was none of the concern of having a late night before work, so to be honest it could have gone on until later but the nine o'clock finishing time also seemed so perfect. 

My suggestion to Bainy and Bill that this should be always on a Sunday but this was thrown straight out. 

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Bank Holiday Monday, the day that freelancers decide to knuckle down and be productive. My plan was to get a couple of podcasts in the bank and also record some tracks for the Christmas album, if there was enough time left over I have a couple of press releases to write so how best to kick start a nose to the grindstone kind of day? Up early, light breakfast and up to the office. That is how I optimistically imagined my day going, somehow at the age of forty years and two days old I didn't know myself enough to realise how this whole scheme was utter bullshit. 

I fell asleep on the sofa last night still fully dressed including my trainers and woke up in unbelievable discomfort at about six o'clock. Perhaps this is when I should have taken Jack for a walk and embarked on my epic day of work instead of getting undressed and going to bed. Rather than choose a relaxing Sunday night to unwind after being away from home overnight, I left the house just before ten o'clock to catch The Most Ugly Child closing a weekend festival at The Lion, a pub that isn't exactly my local but a mere tram ride away. These days I am not much of a drinker and find my tolerance has dropped but over the weekend I had more than my usual quota, possibly helped by some over-eating to line the stomach. Last night I managed to drink three pints of Guinness and stay sober until the exact moment I sat down on my sofa. 

As a result of all this decadence (or what passes for decadence now I'm a middle aged man) I fucked today right up. By the time I had taken Jack for a walk, gone back out to the shop for bacon and bread, eaten an entire packet of bacon in one sandwich, read the paper and found the motivation to get my arse in the office it was about three o'clock. My main job was to release the Bank Holiday Monday edition of the podcast and it wasn't until later that I remembered that I hadn't put out a Random Saturday Sessions video. Productive my arse.

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This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative is here. (Bank Holiday Special)

The latest episode of The Random Saturday Sessions is here.

Thank you in advance for donating using the PayPal button at the top of this page. It all goes towards creating podcasts, sketches, documentaries, films and more, all of which I will make available for free in return for your generosity.

Picture from Monkey World 

Although today wasn't one of the 'proper' Bank Holidays, it was nice to have a lazy day at home and not feel guilty about having spent the entire day watching television. After a lazy morning and a long walk with Jack I changed back into my tracksuit bottoms and slippers in preparation for breakfast and was looking forward to watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks in the early afternoon. Now that my New Year Resolution to do something work related every day has bitten the dust and I am working at my own pace I had decided not to do any work today. Mandi had already pitched up on her side of the sofa and was watching Monkey Life on Pick TV. I am a sucker for a cute chimpanzee so while I sat down idly watching and waiting for the film, I soon got involved and we ended up watching every episode of the back-to-back run of the show (billed by the channel with the hashtag #BankHolidayMonkey - brilliant). 

I have always loved chimpanzees in particular, there are a few pictures of them up in my office and I recently started collecting the chimp toys from special boxes of PG Tips, I only have three so far including one dressed for Christmas but he lives in the boxes of decorations and only comes out once a year. It was the chimps that caught my attention on this show although they have all the species at the enclosure. The work they do is wonderful and sounds like my dream job, being able to rescue abused primates from laboratories and circuses (to give two examples) and give them quality of life. 

Watching how happy they are in their new surroundings is truly heart warming (although I am a bit of a softie when it comes to animals, especially monkeys) which shows that animals are only as nice as the way they are treated. It's a similar situation with rescue pets, they have been given a second chance at a happy life in a loving environment.

I know we descend from monkeys but I was fascinated by the similarities in behaviour such as jealousy and affection towards each other. As an example a toddler chimp got jealous of a new born baby getting all the attention and threw a strop that equals any child in the supermarket. None of this has put me off wanting one as a pet, although Jack might object. Come to think of it, Mandi might be a little annoyed if I brought one home.

No podcast this week.

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May housekeeping 

Please consider making either a one-off or regular donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to fund creative projects that will be made available for free.

The Sunday Alternative is a free weekly podcast. I am aiming to start making this podcast in a studio with live bands in session. This will cost at least £50 per episode so please give whatever you can.

52 podcasts and 365 blogs a year must be worth something to you?

The Sunday Alternative bag is on sale now. All you need to do is click on the PayPal button and donate £6 (or more if you're feeling generous), then email me at the address below with 'BAG' in the subject line and your name and address in the email.

(All money from the bags goes into the fund to create free online entertainment)

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76 

Picture from i09

I only realised it was a Bank Holiday over the weekend so today was an unexpected surprise, only slightly ruined by my alarm clock going off at half past seven thanks to it being programmed to go off on weekday mornings. How come my phone didn't know it was a day off? Smart phone? Stupid phone more like it eh? Eh? Smart phone? Stupid phone more like it! Is this thing on? It could have been worse, I could have got up and ended up looking like a fool when I turned up at court to find the place locked up.

Life seemed to go on as normal today with little sign that it was a Bank Holiday. I still think the whole whole system of Bank Holidays needs addressing as we get another one later this month followed by nothing until August and then we have to wait until Christmas.

It was nice to see that Star Wars Day (May the forth be with you, you already got that) happened on a Bank Holiday, as it gave me a chance over breakfast to try and annoy the devotees by being hilarious and pretending to confuse Star Wars and Star Trek. Nobody rose to the bait so I got bored with it; apart from the lines to the song 'Star Trekkin'' by The Firm, I know as much about Star Trek as I do about Star Wars - nothing. 

Admitting to never having seen Star Wars is one of the last cultural taboos, especially among people my age. First of all I don't get why you would release the forth, fifth, and sixth parts of a story and then wait years before starting from the beginning. I appreciate that technology has improved so George Lucas was able to make the film he wanted to make in the 1970s, or something, but it is still baffling to someone who not only doesn't know the ins and outs, but also doesn't give a flying shit.

I celebrated today by watching American Graffiti, the best film George Lucas ever made.

No podcast this week.

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May housekeeping 

Please consider making either a one-off or regular donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to fund creative projects that will be made available for free.

The Sunday Alternative is a free weekly podcast. I am aiming to start making this podcast in a studio with live bands in session. This will cost at least £50 per episode so please give whatever you can.

52 podcasts and 365 blogs a year must be worth something to you?

The Sunday Alternative bag is on sale now. All you need to do is click on the PayPal button and donate £6 (or more if you're feeling generous), then email me at the address below with 'BAG' in the subject line and your name and address in the email.

(All money from the bags goes into the fund to create free online entertainment)

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76 

One of the risks involved in writing a daily blog, which I am sure is already apparent to anyone who reads it every single day, is documenting those days when very little or nothing at all actually happened. I try to vary what I write about to avoid the blog becoming a 'Dear Diary' type thing, even though that was the original idea behind the concept of a blog - 'web' as in Internet merged with the word 'log' as in diary to create 'web-log', which became 'weblog' (the Internet also dropped the hyphen from e-mail and web-site at some point although we didn't notice it happening) before eventually settling on 'blog'. Usually I am against joining two words together to make a new one as the people who do it are usually massive funts. When I sit down to write this shit I try to find one particular detail about my day to expand on, or I will write about something topical or about music or comedy. The main thing is to at least hope to make it interesting, something that occasionally it isn't easy to accomplish.

Today I should have collected together the music I have chosen for this week's podcast, I have now expanded it time wise to try and fit everything in but I didn't. I have listened to everything but I need to transfer it all to my podcast laptop as there's no recording facility on the new one yet. Also, I had hoped to record a lit bit of the audio book version of Bowie Day but didn't even come close to that. If I get it recorded I will release it as soon as it is ready rather than waiting until Christmas, perhaps waiting for a Bank Holiday Monday or something. I also need to make a start on the next episode of Moonage Daydream which at the moment is a messy collection of notes on various bits of paper. Tomorrow starts a three night run of gigs so time is now against me once again. We're going out for lunch on Saturday so I will have to squeeze in the podcast recording at some point on either Saturday or Sunday morning which puts me under immense pressure once again.

When I first left Trent Sound I did two editions of The Sunday Alternative Pocket Sized Podcast and my heart wasn't really in it due to the lack of listeners. I uploaded them to the 'listen again' archive I set up on Mixcloud but didn't really push it enough and on the third week I simply didn't bother and it fizzled out without ceremony. The Sunday Alternative is a brand name that I am proud of although this time around I did question whether a podcast would be worthwhile. To soften the blow in case it didn't pick up the pace I originally did it on a fortnightly basis but thanks to the volume of music submitted to me I made the easy decision to go weekly. In theory I could do two a week but I struggle to record one which is why I am gradually allowing the running time to creep up.

I decided not to use the Mixcloud page for the relaunched podcast as I figured it was best left as a museum piece of the radio show that I genuinely enjoyed making. My reason for releasing the podcast on the blog page was simply to make it easier for me to keep a tab on listening figures. However I was asked if it could be downloaded and I had no provision for this and therefore another rethink was in order. As I am not now nor never have been an Apple user I wouldn't know where to start regarding uploading to iTunes so now I provide the link to the Internet Archive from where you can download it. I just assumed that nobody would really need to download it because you could just listen to it on the computer or phone. Obviously the first set of listening figures weren't great but this time around I thought I would see it through and try to build on it. Only Fools and Horses nearly got axed after poor results for the first series so it proves how something can be worth fighting for.

Another clever (and rather cynical) method of promotion is my habit of tweeting the same link several times from the Sunday Alternative account and tagging each band/musician is played. The same thing also takes place on Facebook and the idea is simply to try and get retweets and shares, and it does work.

The only issue now is that although hits on the podcast have climbed with every new edition, the donations to the PayPal account are not being generated. Personal gain is not my intention and every penny that comes in is used to create entertainment that I will make available for free. To me this seems like a good deal, certainly better value than the TV Licence. Aside from comedy sketches, short films, documentaries, and other podcasts I want to stop doing The Sunday Alternative from my steam powered home studio and take it to a proper facility so that I can expand it slightly and also have live bands performing sessions just like before. This will cost at least £50 per episode if things can be done quickly so this ambition might take time. I will very soon be bringing out a logo t-shirt and tote bag to sell online and put the money in the fund and any money from audio books also goes in. If every listener paid 50p a week then I would be able to get things moving. To speed things up I am planning a crowd funding campaign to help swell the coffers a bit and set out to maybe at first do the studio version monthly until it builds. If I can raise £1000 then I will be able to make twenty editions in a studio and give it a more 'radio' feel without going back to radio. This will give me the chance to raise more money to make more episodes, another way would be to find a sponsor which I am not totally against and would be preferable to selling advertising.

In other news, it seems that Jack simply doesn't like Caesar dog food and seems happy enough to just go without food than eat it. I bought him a tin of tripe mix dog food and he ate the lot this evening, so he isn't ill as I feared, he is just fussy.

This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative can be heard here.

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April housekeeping

Please consider making either a one-off or regular donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to fund creative projects that will be made available for free.

Saturday Breakfast: We are making a pilot episode of this music and cookery show and we need your help. Your donations will help to get this made.

The Sunday Alternative is a free weekly podcast. I am aiming to start making this podcast in a studio with live bands in session. This will cost at least £50 per episode so please give whatever you can.

52 podcasts and 365 blogs a year must be worth something to you?

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76 

Picture from Easter Weekend Breaks

Today starts one of the most confusing weekends after clock changing Sunday, the Easter weekend where you forget what day it is despite the days being clearly labelled. During Christmas week it is understandable but why on earth do we blindly wander through Easter weekend with our brains in a glass of water by the bed? Today feels like a Friday because there's no work tomorrow (although self-employed people with day jobs will be using the Bank Holiday as a chance to catch up), which means that tomorrow we will think it is Saturday despite the day being called Good Friday and so on.

I'm still not at 100% fitness although my antibiotics finished today so I am not going to go out over the extended weekend, and will be back on the gigging route on Tuesday. Hopefully this has given those other music champions in Nottingham a chance to catch up. A conversation with a popular singer on Facebook informed me that Mark 'literally' Del has been seen at a few gigs while I have been ill which is good to know because it means that people might start to take him seriously rather than regard him as the joke figure he comes across as. Hopefully he will stick to this when I am better and he isn't just filling in for me.

Today I have been getting on with some writing and attempting to tie up some loose ends because I want to have tomorrow off if I can help it (apart from doing one task to tick my diary) as I will be working Saturday on a newspaper article that is coming close to deadline. The list of jobs I wrote myself for the week hasn't been troubled too much at all so Easter Monday will be another catch up day, what's the rate for Easter Monday? Surely it must be double time at least? Please consider this when hovering your cursor over the PayPal button and Happy Easter to you all!

Due to illness there is no edition of The Sunday Alternative podcast this week.

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April housekeeping

Please consider making either a one-off or regular donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to fund creative projects that will be made available for free.

Saturday Breakfast: We are making a pilot episode of this music and cookery show and we need your help. Your donations will help to get this made.

The Sunday Alternative is a free weekly podcast. I am aiming to start making this podcast in a studio with live bands in session. This will cost at least £50 per episode so please give whatever you can.

52 podcasts and 365 blogs a year must be worth something to you?

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76

On Saturday night I had that dream where you’re late for work and time ticks away without you and whatever you do you just can’t get to where you should be. I once had an anxiety dream when I was a postman that I had taken a bag off someone for payment (a fairly common practice in those days – “I’ve got to be somewhere, I’ll give you a tenner to deliver a bag”) on a Saturday. Saturday is a quiet day for a postman so you’re home by ten o’clock, and it was unusual for me to do overtime, official or cash-in-hand, as I would be in a hurry myself to go and collect my daughter. In my dream it is late at night and all of my postal colleagues are watching and laughing from a pub window as I struggled to find my way round an unfamiliar route. I woke up in a panic this morning and woke Mandi who reassured me that it was Bank Holiday Monday, but I hadn’t really woken up I had done that thing where you think you have woken up from a dream but you are still dreaming. Waking up properly I realised it was Sunday so I had two days remaining of the weekend, what a beautiful thing to have happen to you. The bonus of a Bank Holiday Monday is that someone who doesn’t drink a lot can go to a family barbeque on a Sunday afternoon and drink pretty much constantly for around six hours with no real consequence as there’s no work on Monday.

That is what happened, Mandi and I went to my cousin (not my real cousin) Pat’s house, a building that I don’t think I have ever left in a sober state. I wasn’t rolling around pissed or anything, just that I had consumed far more than I would usually in one sitting, and it didn’t help that I was drinking lager because my punishment was a dull chemical headache this morning. What I needed was one of those Bank Holiday Mondays when you stay in bed until you feel better. Duvet day wasn’t an option though as I had to take Jack for a walk when I woke up (around half nine) as today we had guests. My brother Jack (author of Whatever Happened to Nathan McKenzie no less) drove down to Nottingham with my sister Mary and her three children, (I say children, my oldest nephew is eighteen) for a visit. With it being a four day weekend we hadn’t done a lot of shopping but we had enough of what we needed to pull together a nice afternoon tea for everyone. I had forgotten what mess children make with food; Harrison is six and Arthur is one and they both seem to be able to eat sandwiches from the inside out. Jack (dog) behaved himself once he had got used to having new people in his house and only let himself down with a bit of leg shagging. This is why I find it important to differentiate between the two Jacks, because my younger brother is way past his leg shagging phase.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

All donations received via the PayPal button above will be used to fund creative projects such as podcasts, short films, documentaries, comedy sketches and a whole lot more. You are under no obligation of course, but thanks in advance if you do drop something in the pot.

I had a few problems with my computer last night while trying to do some work, (I know, on a Sunday – no double time for the self-employed) which had stressed me out to the point of actually passing out and waking up on my office floor several hours later. It had been my intention to do some work last night to give me today off as I wasn’t going to work on a Bank Holiday Monday). At six o’clock this morning I woke up on my office floor and Jack, who sleeps on a nest of jumpers and coats while I’m working, had cuddled up to me. It was a beautiful gesture that he wanted to look after me, but somewhat hopeless if I had died. What was he going to do? Keep guard over me until he was hungry enough to eat me? Or would he have eventually gone for help? Jack might be many wonderful things, but Lassie and Skippy have got no competition here.

Because of this I had been a little disorientated when I woke up properly today. I remember getting into bed and cuddling tightly to Mandi for warmth (although the house was warm I was shivering), but when I woke up at one o’clock this afternoon my head was cloudy and I felt out of sorts for at least two hours. It was as if I was hung-over without the empty wallet and pocket full of change. It might have been my fuzzy mind, but I felt as though an episode of depression was looming. We had arranged to go out for a late lunch and I didn’t want to let Mandi down as my career can cause me to neglect her a bit. Is there a better cure for sleepy bewilderment than a hot shower? Yes there is, but we went for lunch first (giggedy).

Typical Bank Holiday weather dictated that we were in for another day of pissing down rain so we didn’t want to go far. The Lion in Basford was our destination, the latest pub to open its own burger bar. Sooner or later all pubs will have a hip and trendy burger franchise, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Burger Co. was our lunch today. They have a range of music themed burgers on the menu, no Rick Astley though, all reasonably priced at around the seven/eight pound mark. One Memphis burger and two pints of Harvest Pale later, I was feeling a little bit better.

To round off a three day weekend we watched, rather appropriately, Singin’ in the Rain. There’s nothing like a musical to pep you up, and this is one of the best in my opinion. Watching musicals always makes me wish that real life is like that; people randomly breaking into song and everybody in the street knowing the dance routines. Gene Kelly directed it, something I hadn’t noticed before. He is a genius of course, but nobody mentions Donald O’Connor, whose routine for thesong ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’ defies human ability.

On the subject of dancers, over the weekend I watched Bruce Forsyth’s documentary about Sammy Davis Jnr. It was interesting to see Brucie doing a documentary, (although it was hardly a hard hitting expose) as for all his faults he is good at what he does. Compare the pre-recorded programme that ITV broadcast with his live ability on Strictly Come Dancing, it is obvious that the autocue is no friend of Forsyth, although to be honest I’m not sure Sammy Davis Jnr was as much of a friend of Forsyth as Forsyth made out. Like Bob Monkhouse, a gifted comedian, Brucie has been underused for too many years on game shows (and he didn’t have the right persona to deal with the public) as a result a whole generation of people might not know of his skills as an entertainer. ITV treated us to a late night broadcast of Bruce and Sammy, a television special made by the champions of light entertainment specials, LWT. Although very hammy and contrived in places, it did demonstrate just what a gift Sammy Davis Jnr had, Brucie too. Why they aren’t making shows like this anymore is beyond me. It was intriguing to hear the warning about language that might be seen as offensive coming up before the show, I hardly thought Bruce was going to start effing and blinding. They were referring to language that might have been seen as harmless banter in 1980. In the documentary Brucie had described Sammy’s battles against racial prejudice; he’d perform in Vegas to a white audience but wasn’t allowed to stay in the hotel, he supported John F Kennedy’s presidential campaign (and thought of him as a friend) but was asked not to go to the inauguration ball. Fast forward to LWT’s shiny floored entertainment special, and SDJ is about to start playing bongos. Cue Brucie: “No secret messages to Kenny Lynch”. Kenny Lynch was the UK’s famous black person back then, and such gags were considered acceptable, as hard as it is to comprehend. It’s nice to see how far we’ve come, to see how far we’ve come, is nice!

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative and plenty more including documentaries, short films and podcasts.

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here.

I have in my rose-tinted memory of television past, not only the circus and a star-studded pantomime on Christmas Day afternoon, but also a BBC special on Bank Holiday Monday called Disney Time. Presented by a different star of the day every episode, it was a compilation of cartoons and film clips. Because of broadcast rights the BBC couldn’t play everything they wanted to due to ITV having it on their roster, but children of the 1980s didn’t really worry about such matters. I remember Tony Robinson once explaining on Stay Tooned why he couldn’t show certain viewer requests because the BBC weren’t allowed to, and I seem to recall a difference in the repertoire when the BBC programmes Cartoon Time turned into ITV’s Rolf’s Cartoon Club. The less said about that the better I suppose at the moment, although we can’t undo the fact that we watched it.

Disney Time today would have been a far different animal to the show my generation all looked forward to. There would perhaps be too much emphasis on the likes of High School Musical and the like, although on the other hand they do own the rights to The Muppets now so it wouldn’t be all bad.

When thinking about the quality of guest presenter, the standards wouldn’t be as high in these times of dumbed down TV. It would be a pity to bring back an institution like Disney Time but allow the likes of Paddy McGuinness to present it.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative and plenty more including documentaries, short films and podcasts.

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here.

Today was quite an important day for myself and all the people who have been deprived of real music, as The Sunday Alternative returned after a break. I’m going to keep the name intact but to distinguish it from the forthcoming video series, a slight change of title is in order. It will still be the show I pictured, but called The Sunday Alternative Visual Aid. That title would have been the name of the video highlights package that accompanied the radio show on Trent Sound, had it actually happened.

To save myself from potential mishaps on the day, I had uploaded the podcast in the early hours of this morning as sometimes this can go wrong, especially when I have a lot riding on it. The whole thing was posted on The Sunday Alternative blog with links to the artists, a good twelve hours before lunchtime when it officially dropped. Really keen listeners could, if they wanted to, keep a sneaky eye on the blog and grab bragging rights on being the first person to listen to it.

Back to lunchtime however, and at midday I started the social media advertising on Twitter, and to a lesser extent Facebook. It isn’t really worth using Facebook as the site is pretty much dead these days. Ever since Sherwood Radio my Facebook friends list have had trouble with the concept of interaction. You’re sitting at a computer to listen so openening another window or tab to log in to Facebook shouldn’t be a massive problem, (apart from the buffering you encounter while Facebook takes a month to load). I advertised it on Facebook and gained a few shares and ‘likes’ so it wasn’t a total waste of time. 

My main reason for embedding the podcast into the blog was so that I was able to monitor how many people clicked on it. Going on the assumption that a blog read counted as a listen, (otherwise it is a pretty pointless visit to the page), it was satisfying to see that in the hour between the first advertising blitz and turning off the computer to go to my dad’s for lunch, there had been fifty hits. Fifty hits in an hour isn’t too bad, especially as the podcast can be downloaded at any time of the day or night, as opposed to previously when people had to listen when it was broadcast. Sunday is a pretty good day to have a radio show as more people are at home; I saw an increase in listeners when the show moved to Sunday lunchtimes, but now there’s the advantage of people who are working can download the podcast to listen to on the journey. A quality podcast and double pay, some people are just so lucky. The same is true for tomorrow as it’s a Bank Holiday so it will feel like a Sunday.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative and plenty more including documentaries, short films and podcasts.

Listen to The Sunday Alternative here.

Is it Sunday today? It can’t be can it? It feels like a Sunday, I’ll be glad when this weekend is over because I don’t like it when things get silly. Apart from May there won’t be another bank holiday until August, and after August we have to wait until Christmas, that can’t be fair can it? A few years ago I completely rearranged the school holidays and suggested it, but nobody took the idea on. Bank holidays were created to give people a day off, so surely we deserve a few more to break up the time between summer and Christmas.

Despite the fact that it was an extension of Sunday today, I had intended to catch up with some work, but didn’t wake up until one o’clock. Mandi had decided to watch films all day, most of which I couldn’t be bothered with. I did sit and watch The Jungle Book with her, and then took Jack to the park for a while. I know that we should take advantage of these gifts of longer weekends and do something interesting, but my workload is so heavy at the moment that I am unable to properly switch off.

I have finished writing Bowie Day (as I am now calling it), but won’t be releasing it until next year. My aim is to have it available on Kindle at midnight on Thursday 8^th January, David Bowie’s birthday and hopefully do all the publicity on the same day. Before I break for Christmas I’ll do all the necessary emailing around to organise interviews and stuff (I don’t have an agent I do it all myself) so that everything is planned well enough to be able to relax over Christmas, although we are supposed to be skipping it this year of course. The book isn’t as long as I have anticipated; now taking on the role of a short story broken into staves rather than chapters as a nod to A Christmas Carol, on which the story is very loosely based. Although loosely (very loosely) based on a Christmas story it has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas which is good, as it can be enjoyed all year long. I will probably record an audio book too for release on the same day.

There’s only one thing that could spoil the release day of these two items on David Bowie’s birthday, and that will be a repeat of what happened on his birthday in 2013. It will be worth it of course, but at the same time will mean that my efforts get totally overlooked.

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My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative and plenty more including documentaries, short films and podcasts.

The Sunday Alternative returns as a fortnightly podcast on Sunday May 4^th (anyone doing Star Wars Day jokes will be taken out and beaten up).