Recording days

We spent all day yesterday in the recording studio. All the way from 10am until 10pm, recording drums and bass. It was a really good session. We worked hard, stuck to time, and got everything done that we needed to do. Nick the bassist and Martyn the drummer played exceptionally well. I was really thrilled. There was a slightly irritating moment when the studio engineer announced we'd have to stop recording for an hour and a half as a result of a church service going on next door. I guess that's one of the perils of recording in a studio which was once the crypt of a (still-functioning) church. I was told it's a bit of a happy clappy church these days, so was quite surprised when clouds of incense stared wafting up the stairs. I don't associate incense with the "shake-your-tambourine" brigade.

Ben Jones and his mate Dan came to hang out in the studio in the evening. It was lovely to see them, and watch them appreciate the musicians and the set up in the studio.

I couldn't sleep last night, and lay, pathetically, worrying about things I couldn't do anything about at 2am. When my alarm went off at 7, I felt like I'd done several rounds in the ring, a sensation which worsened throughout the day!

I switched the news on and immediately learned what a profound dick Theresa May had made of herself at the Tory Party Conference. She may be a deeply religious person but Big G plainly doesn't approve of her antics. The tragic attempts that the Tories are presently making to attract young people are nothing short of laughable, and to see any Tory promising to build new council houses seems utterly bizarre. They sold them off in the first place. Does that mean they're finally acknowledging that Margaret Thatcher was evil beyond words?

The studio went well today. It was guitars from 9am. The lovely Thomas brought a veritable Aladdin's Cave of instruments with him: Acoustic guitars, electric guitars, a twelve string, a slide guitar, a mandolin...

He was on fire and played track after track exquisitely. As I dashed off to Greenwich, an hour before the end of the session, I was surprised to discover that we were already ahead of schedule. Julian and Thomas stayed on to finish another number, which means we've finished eight out of the thirteen songs with another day to go.

Julian, I discovered today, suffers from a condition called misophonia, which means he gets uncontrollably angry upon hearing certain sounds. The condition is also known as "sound rage." One of the sounds which makes Julian flip is the noise of someone slurping tea - which is something he accuses me of doing all the time. I have some sympathy for him. Some people make the most God awful sounds when they masticate!

The choir rehearsal this evening at Trinity was a lot of fun. And thankfully we had more men! It's so lovely working with those young people. Some of them sit there, staring up at me, with big smiles on their faces. Some of them make my day when I see them immersed in song. They genuinely seem to embody the notion of singing for joy. We did a big old improvisation and I introduced them all to the concept of heterophony, which strikes me as an evening well spent!