WE’RE not long finished breakfast when Willie shows up to have a look at our collapsed decking. He reckons he can shore it up temporarily to keep things safe.

One of the things taking up a lot of space in the office is my bottlecap badge/fridge magnet making efforts – resin, hardener, graphics, bottlecaps and stuff all over one-and-a-half desks…and a load of finished ones waiting for badge pins or magnets.

A few of them aren’t very good, so I bin ’em, make up another batch of resin and pour some more caps then tidy up the rest. Hopefully they’ll have set enough by tomorrow to allow a decent clear up.

There’s t-shirt artwork to be sorted and an order placed. Normally we get the shorts for the USA done over there, but there’s only a handful of gigs in/around LA and we need new shorts here, so I hit up my pal Kenny and he’ll have ’em done early in the new year. We’ll just take what we can in our baggage…I’ll send vinyls and CDs ahead next week.

I’ve had a few messages back and forth with Ear Trumpet Labs in Portland, Orgeon about a microphone. Back in May I played a show at the CCA in Glasgow with Blind Boy Paxton and used just a single mic on stage – it worked great and I enjoyed playing a completely different kind of show. It’s been on my mind since and while it’s not my usual approach, there are certain shows where I think it could work really well…especially the upcoming show in the local village hall.

The mic is expensive tho’…so I’ve been talking to the makers and their distributor in LA and we’ve hatched a plan for me to pick one up when we’re at the NAMM Show…a great deal plus the dollar price is much less than trying to get hold of one over here in the UK or Europe.

Now the big job – if I want the office tidy and up to date for New Year I need to tackle my accounts. They’re only a o nth or so behind, but there’s all the Estonia tour stuff to go through. I make a big dent in the work before it’s time to go in and make dinner leaving just 1/2-hour or so to do tomorrow 🙂

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