Ladastrophe!

I went up into the attic yesterday to put the Christmas decorations away for another year. During the summer months, the ladder leading up there is permanently in place, but when it gets particularly cold, we tend to seal the loft up, which means going through the rigmarole of using a metal stick to open the hatch and pull the ladder down every time we want to go up there. Anyway, as I pulled it down last night, there was some sort of freakish malfunction, and the ladder came careering down at the speed of light, smashing into my thumb. It hurt like hell and instantly turned into a massive blood blister. It's still rather tender and there are all sorts of things I've been struggling to do today... It turns out that texting is incredibly left-thumb heavy, as is doing up a pair of trousers and putting on shoes!

Everyone around me is ill at the moment. Brother Edward has been terribly poorly, and Nathan is currently suffering from some kind of dreadful stomach bug. Edward phoned 111 and was immediately told to go into A and E, which does rather add grist to today's news story which blamed NHS hotlines and the like for over-crowding in A and E departments. Of course the phone operators play it safe. They're not medically trained and in today's litigious society, no one wants to end up being accused of not catching a serious illness in time.

Today, between trips to the loo, Nathan showed me the rudiments of double-knitting. I was attempting to learn about it as part of my "learn something knew every day" regime, but I've only managed to glean that the process involves knitting the front piece of yarn and purling the back one. It is, however, rather mesmerising to watch.

I put in eight hours on my new brass band arrangement of A Symphony for Yorkshire today. I've been working on the second movement. It's incredibly slow-going, but as with all new manuscripts, it's all about taking one baby step at a time.

I also went to the gym and ran six kilometres and swam twenty lengths in a frenzy of self-loathing. Christmas has turned me into a fat chocolate-froozler and I'm determined to become sylph-like and glorious before I'm too old for that sort of thing to matter! If anyone sees me stuffing my face with saturated fats, please do your best to stop me.

The dreadful news from Paris has upset me greatly, largely because the sorts of people who were effected by it felt like people I would have known if the same thing happened over here. A lot of the companies which shared the magazine's offices worked in television production. I genuinely don't know what the answer is to all of this. What I feel absolutely sure about is that we shouldn't be moderating our behaviour as a result. My Mum feels that the magazine publishers were a little silly for being so rude about Islam, but if we can't question religion because we don't want to offend religious people, what does that make us? Should women all start wearing the hijab in this country because we're frightened about the fall out which might be caused by offending British Muslims? Now, more than ever, we must defend our right to freedom of speech, and if those twisted bastards want anything else, then there are plenty of countries in the world where they can f**k off to! I am proud of the people of France (and indeed of London) heading out onto the streets, placing pencils on the pavements and waving notepads in the air as a way of showing their defiance and their belief in the importance of being able to write whatever they choose.

As I write this, I'm watching a report about Ebola on the news. There's really not a great deal to be merry about at the moment, is there?

Squashed car

...And so the public's desire to destroy Ched Evans continues. The desperate David Milliband has even got in on the act and is currently urging Oldham Athletic not to sign the troubled footballer. Milliband (and the ghastly curtain-twitching moral majority of this country) criticise Evans for refusing to "show remorse" for the crime he still claims he didn't commit, despite the fact that he's been to jail, and served his time. It seems any form of sensible debate on this issue is impossible. Those who support Evans, or at least suggest he should be allowed to re-integrate himself into society,  are accused of being misogynistic, and not giving a damn about the large number of women who are raped in this country every year.

I'm not altogether sure what difference it would make if Evans issued an apology for his actions. In fact, someone calling for him to do so on the Channel 4 news this evening had to admit it wouldn't make the blindest bit of difference. So Evans is damned if he does and damned if doesn't, in true Salem witchcraft style.

If Evans honestly believes that he's innocent, can someone explain why on earth he should show remorse? Judges get things wrong. I of all people ought to know this, having been utterly shafted by one four years ago. If Evans genuinely thinks he's innocent, even after serving four years in prison, I actually feel great sadness for him. Just imagine how that must feel? Refusing to acknowledge guilt is very different to not showing remorse...

It would appear that the great moral majority are simply taking umbrage because someone they've decided to hate isn't playing their game. As long as Evans claims he's innocent he maintains a degree of dignity, which the general public don't like. I'm pretty convinced that the missing piece in this particular jigsaw is a grovelling apology from Evans so that the public can all say "I told you I could spot a wrong un" and throw rotten cabbages at him to prove that his punishment wasn't big enough the first time around! As long as he refuses to acknowledge guilt, he somehow has the upper hand, and the great moral majority will have to keep talking about the safety of children so that we're all shocked into agreeing with them. Someone on the telly tonight even claimed that Evans' return to football would send out a message that rape was acceptable. No. Evans' four years in prison proved that this is not the case. His return to the football pitch would mean we lived in a forgiving society which believes in its justice system.

Today was the worst sort of weather for an hairy man. Wet and mild. My biggest mistake was wearing a winter coat which soaked in external moisture and simultaneously trapped anything I was sweating inside. I've seldom felt so uncomfortable as I trudged to the osteopath.

What was lovely, however, was meeting Michelle of the Turkie for lunch at Somerset House. We caught up on at least six months of gossip over a toasted goats cheese bap!

I have decided to make a rather late New Year's Resolution to learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned about castanets. Today I learned (on Countdown) a new word: Farouche, which means shy.

I went for a swim at the gym this evening and stumbled upon a nasty-looking accident as I drove along the West Heath. A woman's car had been squashed between two buses. The fireman who stopped me, fortunately also told me that though the friend had been injured, she'd not been killed. In fact she was sitting by the side of the road as I drove past. Her car had been squashed to about half of its size, however, and its bonnet had completely disappeared. What a terrible start for a year. For her, 2015 will always be the year when she had that awful accident.

We took the Christmas tree down tonight. It was rather odd to wonder what we'll be feeling when we take it out of its box again in 11 1/2 months' time. What will have happened in the year? Will everyone we know still be happy and healthy? These are the sorts of thoughts which increasingly occur to me the older I get.

Peppercorns and horns

Peppercorns don't half travel when they get dropped. We sat down for a plate of baked beans on toast last night and as I tried to grind some pepper on top, the unthinkable happened, the bottom of the mill dropped out, and hundreds of peppercorns exploded across the kitchen. I immediately pretended it hadn't happened. Sometimes you've got to just close a door and deal with a problem as and when you have the head space! I went into the kitchen this morning and saw them all rolling about like tiny rabbit poos. I had a quick sweep, but they're still there. Tormenting me.

We did another 12-hour day in the studio and I am, as ever, knackered, dehydrated, hungry and buzzing like a caffeine-addicted bee.

Today was perhaps the maddest day yet on the Brass soundtrack. It started calmly enough, with two of our keyboard players coming in to do sessions on the wonderful Hammond organ which is resident at Livingstone studios. It's the first time I've ever recorded a real Hammond and it was a treat to do so. Those organs were built to last in the 1960s, and they still work as well today as they ever did.

We pottered our way through the morning, recording pianos,  xylophones and glockenspiels.  They say that you learn something new every day, and I learned today that a castanet has a male and a female half. That's quite cool isn't it? One has a lower pitch than the other. I've no idea which. I wouldn't be sexist enough to assume that the lower-pitched one was the male.

I had lunch in a cafe: a mushroom omelette with a salad, which turned out to be just what the doctor ordered...

The afternoon saw a return of the Brass boys, and at that point, predictably, all hell broke loose! For the next nine hours those poor lads toiled, grafted and sweated in the name of music... And they did a remarkable job. I sent them away safe in the knowledge that they would never again experience such a gruelling session, but that we've infinitely well prepared them for anything a future professional recording might throw at them!

Fiona popped into the studio at some point in the afternoon, which was great fun, because I was able to introduce her to our keyboard player, Archie, who is currently studying on the same university course that Fiona did some years ago. I think it's really important, when studying an arts degree, to meet people who went out into the big wide world and made decent vocational careers for themselves.

We came home and caught a late-night repeat of the Graham Norton show which featured Conchita singing Rise Like A Phoenix, which won this year's Eurovision Song Contest. It made me a little tearful, mostly because I'm tired, but a little because it's a wonderful song, beautifully sung, and it somehow feels inextricably bound to our wedding. Conchita is a bearded lady and a proud member of the LGBT community whose Eurovision win was every bit as important to British gay people as our being given the collective right to marry each other but a few months earlier.

Wood Green Brass

We've just returned home after an exhausting twelve-hour day in the recording studio, which was made considerably more gruelling by the fact that I barely slept a wink last night. What's that all about? You know you have to be up at 8am, so your body tells you to stay alert at all costs. My nose was running like a tap as well. I thought it was a cold coming on, but it turns out it was some kind of allergic reaction to something because one Piriton in the morning made me as right as rain.

Today's session was a slightly peculiar mixture of a brass septet and timpani drums! The timps were in a separate booth, but from lunch time both groups performed at the same time. It was all rather surreal.

Every time I think we might be on for a relatively easy session I'm proved entirely wrong! Trying to get seven brass players to play together in perfect tune is no mean feat. Brass instruments, with their peculiar bells, are notoriously hard to tune. Even a perfectly in tune instrument might have the odd note which plays a little sharp or flat!

The players were absolutely brilliant, however, and bantered like pros between the takes. I'm quite convinced that there's a gene which gives brass players the ability to do laddish banter. That, or they learn it at college whilst the 'cellists are doing classes in du Pre hair-flicking. They also coped rather manfully when I had a mini melt-down in the afternoon... although the less said about that the better!

Our principle trumpeter, the remarkable Zak, did some extraordinary playing in the opening number, and every member of the ensemble had a moment when they shone very brightly. I was particularly pleased with young Josef, who is singing the role of Tom on the recording, but stepped in to play euphonium on the recording when one of the trombonists from the original band couldn't make today's session. He slotted into the ensemble brilliantly. I guess there are very few actors who can claim to have accompanied themselves on an original cast album!

Today's studio was in Wood Green, literally just around the corner from my old drama school, Mountview. It's situated in an incredibly grotty part of town, nestling in a sort of industrial wasteland between Alexandra Palace park and the infamous and ghastly Shopping City, but as we wandered off to Morrison's for lunch, it struck me that I'm actually rather fond of the area. Yes, it's full of very odd people and corners heaped with piles of drifting rubbish flapping against angry metal fences, but it's also a place which makes me feel curiously optimistic. It was only today that it stuck me this is due to my having been to drama school in the area. This was my first experience of London; a place where I felt on top of the world. Everyone feels invincible at drama school. Ours was the year group who were all destined to win Oscars (trade mark). Some other poor group of drama school-leavers would be part of the horrific 90 percent of trained actors who would never act professionally.

Livingstone is a very wonderful studio, which holds special memories for us both because it's where we did many of the studio sessions for our wedding. I guess that might also explain today's happiness. That, and a huge sense of excitement for the album we're recording.

Pot painting

It's done nothing but rain today. Horrible great vats of water were dropping from the sky all day. It was my goddaughter, Deia's 6th birthday, so I went into Muswell Hill to buy her a gift. I settled on a little kit which enables a young person to make their name in sequins! It seemed a suitably camp and theatrical gift for a goddaughter of mine. I was also pleased to see that the entire pack was designed and made in Britain. I'm trying to boycott the rubbish which comes out of China. It invariably falls apart before it's opened, and it's invariably created by children who oughtn't to be doing such work. I genuinely believe we have a responsibly in the West to stop looking for cheap bargains, and to start supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs in our own countries. There's very little which actually has to come from China.

I went from Muswell Hill to Kingsland Road where I met Deia and Silver, Philippa and her dad, Dylan, and Gaby and her lovely girlfriend, Thorunn, who's from Iceland. It turns out that we have a friend in common. The world, it seems, is a tiny, tiny place.

We went from Dalston to Victoria Park where we sat for a few hours in one of those cafés where you paint and glaze your own plates and bowls. It turns out that pot-painting is a deeply therapeutic experience. I opted to paint a little ceramic money box in the shape of an elephant, and spent ages covering it in little dots of grey, blue and mauve. Dylan decorated a mug in beautiful intricate flowers whilst Deia painted a penguin. Our masterpieces will be sent off to be fired in a kiln, where the paints we used will apparently become darker and richer. We get to see the final results in a week's time.

I went back to Philippa's briefly, where we iced and ate a walnut cake, before it was time to pick Nathan up from work. We did an evening with a plate of pasta in front of the telly, watching ball-tingling programmes on Channel 4 about dangerous bridges and roads. I shall have nightmares about falling out of aeroplanes all night tonight!

Shuffle and smash

Leaving the house today felt a little odd. I stayed indoors for a full 24 hours yesterday and the outside world felt very noisy and confusing. I completely understand how some people get into a place where they become scared of leaving a house. If I stopped doing it for long enough, I could well see myself developing some sort of hermit complex. I speedily resolved today's issue, however, by listening to music on the iPod Nathan very kindly bought me for Christmas. The world turns into an epic and beautiful film when the right music is blasting into your ears.

The new iPod seems to work very well. It's good and loud, and the headphones go into my ears without immediately falling out. It took me a few minutes to work out that the iPod factory settings include a "shake to shuffle" feature, which means when the iPod is jolted, the blessed song suddenly changes. Can you imagine anything more irritating when you're having a lovely post New Year jog at the gym than an iPod which changes to a random song every time it gets shaken. To make matters worse, before the track changes, the iPod emits a rather chemical little sound which alerts you to the horror coming your way! To begin with, I had no idea what was causing the seemingly random phenomenon. I was beginning to wonder whether I'd developed narcolepsy or entered a modern-day JB Priestley time-slip drama! In the end, I went into settings and de-activated the function. I can't for the life of me work out why anyone would want it. If walking is enough to set it off, an iPod suddenly becomes a useless object. Apple really does seem to be moving away from its famous user-friendly focus. Has anyone tried to use iTunes lately? I must keep reminding myself that, however bad Mac gets, nothing in the world can be worse than Windows 8. That system will probably go down as the biggest own goal in the history of technology!

I was determined to take it easy today, but did make a very basic start on the process of scoring A Symphony for Yorkshire for brass band. In the wake of Brass, quite a number of people are asking what else I've written for brass band and the answer "a few bits and bobs" is plainly unsatisfactory! It was actually the saw player from the symphony who suggested the piece would work well if scored for band. There are, after all, countless brass bands in Yorkshire, and a whole heap of love for the county in the rest of the world. The symphony was one of my most successful compositions, but because it was scored for 270 individual musicians, it's never been written in a form which can be reproduced for live performance. I am determined this year to make my music more future-proof so it can have a life outside film and very specific never-to-be-reformed ensembles!

I had lunch with Nathan at Stock Pot and created a terrible scene when I stood up to go to the loo and knocked Nathan's glass of coke onto the floor where it smashed and went all over his trousers and hand-knitted work-of-art scarf. It was horrifying; the cafe owner came running over with a dustpan and brush and then a bucket and mop and it took him an age to clear everything up. Meanwhile, the entire cafe stared at me. Nathan went back to work with sticky jeans, and I felt suitably ashamed.

Busy doing nothing!

I've literally done nothing all day. In fact, I'm still wearing my dressing gown! I am not very good at doing nothing. I feel terribly guilty, to the extent that I'm not actually enjoying myself a great deal. There's a little voice in the back of my head telling me that this is no way to start a year.

Still, I've watched a phenomenal number of the sorts of films you might expect me to have seen on New Year's Day. Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz, Sister Act... Mary Poppins was a particular treat. I'd forgotten what a beautiful song Feed The Birds is, and how much it has followed me around since I was a very young child. We learnt how to sing it at my drama club when I was about 8. And then, of course, Nathan was in the original cast of the show when it went into the West End.

Last night's party was a fine affair. I cooked a little too much food, so we shall be eating baked potatoes and slightly curled-up salads for months to come.

We played the Name Game, or "Meryl", as my friends tend to call it. It's a game where you take it in turns to pull a famous name out of a hat and describe the person without using their name. During the second round, the same names go into the hat and the players are only allowed one word to describe the person whose name they pull out. The last round is essentially a game of charades. You mime the names...

My team did brilliantly badly, and we laughed like drains all night as a result. At midnight, we switched the telly on, and watched the fireworks in central London with the sound turned down whilst all ten of us sang ABBA's Happy New Year at the tops of our lungs. It's a tradition. I must have listened to that song every year since it was released in 1980.

It made me realise how few other tunes there are which celebrate New Year. Auld Lang Sine aside, the only other song I can think of is that infernally dull number in Sunset Boulevard. I think it's called A Perfect Year. Can anyone think of another New Year's Eve song?

Someone has grafittid the alleyway wall behind our house. It's the first time I've ever seen graffiti there, and I'm a little annoyed that I didn't catch the culprit red-handed. It is, after all, right outside my house. I tend to think that graffiti breeds graffiti, so worry that the alleyway is suddenly going to start attracting all sorts of undesirables. Irritatingly, the graffiti is shocking pink. That wall is over 100 years old; it genuinely doesn't deserve to be vandalised so tastelessly! Where's Banksy when you need one? I'm hoping my neighbour Nathalie, who's an artist, will pop out there and create a masterpiece to cover it up!

The alleyway has also recently become a bit of a dumping ground. Someone started semi-grouting the wall about a month before Christmas and has left a load of bags of sand which we keep tripping over in the dark. I pulled two of them out onto the street with the rest of our rubbish but they were replaced a day or so later, right at the bottom of the three steps which lead down into the alleyway. Just about the most dangerous place to find a bag of sand!