Luva Gunk

It’s all been a bit frustrating again in the studio today, although as the day has drawn on, things have started to improve. The bottom line remains that due to the almost unstoppable parade of musicians passing through the live room, we’ve still not had an opportunity to work through what we already recorded to decide whether it’s good enough to use or needs more work. At the moment we’re just piling track upon track and all of our ears have become horribly tired. To make matters worse a number of people simply haven’t turned up to the studio for their slots. At the latest count we’ve lost all three violinists from one section of music, which means no one’s playing in those bars! Sometimes I wonder why anyone would go to the trouble of agreeing to come to a recording studio, only to forget to do so or just decide just not to show up... And then there are the bed bug bites which are itching like crazy!


So, today we’ve recorded a flute choir, the Hull Youth orchestra, a folk fiddler, a ukulele orchestra and now we’ve moved on to record the top half of our rock band, Luva Gunk. I think we could well be here fairly late into the night, which is a slight issue because I’m now so tired I’m actually starting to panic! I certainly feel like I’ve lost all sense of objectivity. My ears are now a mass of crazy, bizarre harmonics and I've suddenly realised exactly what old people mean when they say they can’t see the wood for the trees!

Pepys was a busy man 350 years ago and set up even more money making schemes. I guess once you’ve popped you just can’t stop. Money breeds money... and countless other sundry clichés.

It was a particularly important day for Montagu who “entered” the House of Commons and was immediately given official thanks for the vital role he played in bringing the King back home.

On his way home, Pepys was intercepted by one of the servants of Lady Elizabeth Pickering who took him to see his mistress. Lady Elizabeth needed Montagu’s help and figured the best route to him was via Pepys. Her husband had been a rather important Parliamentarian and had even stood as one of the commissioners of the high court responsible for Charles 1st’s trial. The only thing he had going for him was that he hadn’t signed the actual death warrant. There were many in similar positions, and all were trying to wheedle their way out of the death penalty. But it was an expensive business and it had fallen to his well-connected wife to try to lobby for his mercy. On this occasion she discreetly slipped Pepys five guineas wrapped in paper and asked that he did what he could to help. Something obviously worked. Her husband eventually escaped major punishment.

Pepys' wife returned to London with her maid, Jane Birch and their dog. They’d all moved back into their Axe Yard dwelling and Pepys returned home to find a “quantity of chocolate left for me, I know not from whom.” Blimey. How good would that be right now?