I've been working on this piece for a while. Practising with it if you like. Cutting bits from the biography, paraphrasing myself. Editing, cutting. Reworking lines etc - proper, serious ttention to actually writing.
In the early hours of this morning (late last night) I finally came up with the line.

I'm pleased with it now.
My first paid review.

**

He swam along the channel until it became too shallow then stood up, dripping and naked, emerging into the air again, blowing the water out of his lungs in a fine spray. He looked down at his reflection in the water. He looked down at his hands.
Turning, he stepped into a tiny 8-track studio in North London, hooked up with a Freudian BBC dropout and morphed into a machine. Surfaced, politely dressed in a second hand grey suit. A New Kind of Man.
And with a new kind of sound. Unless you happen to be German… For this is England's personification of Kraftwerk; the nation's first electro pop album. Metamatic - adj: Primitive, minimalist technopunk.
Foxx is damaged, exhausted. Drifting. Severed from Ultravox and wounded, still bleeding. His world is anti-personal. The songs are anti-singing. Guarded. Detached from his surroundings maybe, yet not entirely from his former self. There are vague European folk melodies here, elements of dub. An awareness of that which is yet to come. John Foxx knows the risks, but he's not afraid to take them - it's 'Touch and Go', one of several songs written while he was still with the band, riding the crest of a neo-wave less than twelve months before.
But now the cold, grey landscape of contemporary London is inhabited by ghosts, meshing with concrete, steel and fog. A stage set, designed by Burroughs and Ballard. Figures from the Quiet Man story drift in and out of focus: the Blurred Girl is here, and the mysterious Lieutenant 030, flickering in grainy black and white. There is, in the politic climate of despondency, a sense that there really is No-one Driving, and Foxx has cut himself off from it all. Standing inside his bulletproof, invisible room, watching unseen behind smoked glass.
Making music to crash cars by.
But the great thing about not being fashionable, of course, is that one can never go out of fashion. This album sounds as crisp now as it did when the world was unworthy 25 years ago. Heavily sampled in the early 90s acid movement. Remixed in the 21st century. Only some things have changed. There are those who argue that we have moved forward. But so has John Foxx, and the rest of us still have a lot of catching up to do.
Plug in, switch on - this is a good place to start.
© birdsong. 2006.

Really tired now.
Three late nights have got to me. I can't sleep and I'm not going to bed until nearly 2am most days now.
Writing prolificlly. The media archive is coming on well, but I'm beginning to lose patience with the webmaster and wondering if he really is the right man for the ob. he's too busy with other projects and needs to take on a more overseeing, editorial and advisory role to let the site actually develop. Still nothing new updated since Christmas. I am sending snippets of info all the time.
I suspect its a big deal because there is no content management in place.

Good cell again last night - Jill is easily our best host. Incredible to learn that she's 80 in a few weeks time. So busy & and she looks great on it.
We shared, wine, homemade cake and discussed the Mark's interpretation of the Transfiguration.
Then I came home and wrote stuff. Lots of stuff.

Looking forward to a weekend off. We are going to handover the allotment tomorrow, and start cattching up with our house. Looking rather neglected of late.

My father-in-law has cancer. Aggressive and already well advanced. Diagnosed Tuesday during a routine visit to the hospital for a blood test.
He had previously told them concerns about his health that none of us knew, and the doctors picked it up immediately. It is mainly in his prostate, but has already spread to his bladder.
However he is in no pain, and was in the best of spirits on Saturday when we saw him.
Dave has found out some information about things from the hospital,and it seems that without urgent surgery and intensive chemo-therapy, the prognosis is not good. We are talking perhaps only 'a matter of months'.
But there are of course complications involved in any operation,and they can't gaurantee that it will be total success. In fact, given the advanced state of the disease, it almost certainly won't be. So there could be lots of unknowns and uncertainties. He may have to be permanently catherised, he may require reguar if not constant nursing care. He may not...
he certainly doesn't want any of this, and none of us want it for him.
Trx has been talking to her brother and sister about it, agreeing betweent hem that it will be G who goes with him to hospital on Sunday to ask any other questions and sign any consent forms.
Does the fact that the hospital have already booked him in for surgery mean it really is that serious??

All our thoughts are with Dave especially, and The Wedding in three weeks time. He doesn't need this. He flies off to Cyprus for ten weeks the day after gettng married.

It's therefore been a difficult, tense and tiring week. I'm not sure where Trx head has gone. Poor thing is desperately upset, confused and helpless. She's drifting around somewhere and has been sitting on the sofa for the past three days.
For my part Lord, I would really like to see a quick decision and an end to it as effectively as you can. If it is time for him to be taken from us, let it be done without too many complications. This baby is testing us in the strangest ways. Two of our closest friends have miscarried in the last month - making Trx more confused and generally feeling more unworthy than ever. Neither of the couples have other kids yet.

And none of this of course stops everything else going on around us.
It brings things into focus a bit, and has immediately helped us realise how lucky we are to have fertility, happiness and opportunity in abundance.