August 2008

Not that this will actually have any impact on how much blogging gets done here, given that I’ve been sadly far too quiet here in recent months, but Kev and I are off for a week to hike along Offa’s Dyke, from Chepstow to Knighton. Well, Kev will hike, I will probably waddle and moan my way along, particularly given the fact that it’s supposed to piss down for the first half of the week. We’re spending half our time in B&Bs, the rest of our time camping.

I’m going to spend the time thinking a lot. And dreaming of our next holiday, which will take place in spa, somewhere hot.

A few years ago, I went through a phase of having celebrities make cameo appearances in my dreams. (I could have sworn that I had lots of blog post from years and years ago about celebrity cameos, but I can’t find them. They are probably there in the archives, somewhere, if you can be bothered to look for them.) Then, for reasons which remain unclear, they went away. Well, now they’re back.

For the last four nights I have had various celebs appear, firstly Mr Neil, who appeared two nights running. Then Iain Baker, DJ and keyboard breaker for Jesus Jones. Last night, it was Simon Le Bon and a rather startled-looking Nick Rhodes.

The odd thing is that these are all people that I’ve met, for varying definitions of the verb ‘to meet’. Neil I’ve had the honour of meeting once, and I would be over the moon if I ever got the chance to meet him again. They say you should never meet your idols, but you should when they are engaging, fascinating and kind. Iain used to be a DJ on XFM, back when it was the best radio station in town, and I had a wee little crush on him for years, mainly because he has an infeasibly sexy voice. He now falls into the ‘mate’ category, thanks to the wonders of Twitter. Simon bought me a drink after a gig once, although if he met me now he wouldn’t know me from Eve now. And Nick I once passed in a corridor. He sported the same startled-deer look in reality as he did in my subconscious.

Now, Mr Neil has been making cameos in my nocturnal meditations for a few years now and I have come to think of him as personifying creativity as he mainly seems to show up when I’m feeling particularly frustrated. I’m therefore guessing that, given that I consider Iain to be enormously talented and am a massive Duran Duran fan, they signify the same thing. Rather than attempting to pass comment, some 10 - 20 years later, on my musical tastes, I prefer to believe that my subconscious is merely pointing out to me that maybe it’s about time I stopped thinking about the bottom of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs and started to consider the top.

I just wonder whether the fact that Neil only appears to me in the context of his house - I’m always at his house, or staying with him, or swimming in his swimming pool, or about to ask him if I can borrow his couch - has something to do with the yearning I have for somewhere to call my own, where perhaps I assume I’ll suddenly be able to start writing again. Although last night’s Duran dream occurred on a geography field trip and involved firstly a music masterclass and then swimming in a mirror-calm sea over tunnels in the sand, so God knows.

But then, sometimes I think dreams are just our subconscious’ way of poking us in the ribs and saying “Nyer”.

I wonder who will have the nerve to show up tonight.

Here’s the deal - if you join the Open Rights Group, and send your confirmation code to Danny O’Brien, he has said he will produce:

• A daily blog post for another month (worth five ORG memberships) [He's now up to 2 months - let's see if we can make it 3]
• A special one-off issue of NTK (five ORG memberships)
• A special podcast issue of NTK (five ORG memberships)
• What I really think of Andrew Orlowski (five ORG memberships, even though I know I should probably price this one higher) [He's taken this off the list as he says it's bound to happen sooner or later anyway.]
• A mini-version of Life Hacks, the book he nearly wrote with Merlin Man (ten ORG memberships)

Alternatively, if you send me your ORG confirmation codes, and I get five of them, I’ll blog here every day for a month too (apart from the time we’re on holiday!).