In case you haven’t noticed I have entered a Christmas track into the Holiday section of this months competition. For a very, very brief moment it was ranked 1 – but has slipped since then.

I went through listening and judging other tracks and I do wonder if my song is a little out of kilter. I am very surprised at how much traditional Christmas Schmaltz there is on there. Not that I dislike sugary Christmas, just wasn’t expecting quite so much of it.

My track is sitting in there looking a little bit uncomfortable. Not being religious by nature, my take on a Christmas song was to talk about the armed forces out in Afghanistan. However, this is not Pro or Anti war – seems an inappropriate time to be arguing that one – but it is about forgetting the troops are out there, and will be patrolling even on Christmas Day while we stuff ourselves with Turkey, or whatever we decide to do.

Is the war right or wrong? Not sure if I really know, but I am none too happy about any return of the Taliban and their oppression of women. I wish we could negotiate, but I suspect that was never on the cards; the Taliban do not seem too keen on compromise, and perhaps neither are we.

Had a birthday yesterday – mine, as it happened. I woke up in the morning, squinted at the rain trying to get through my window and added up using all available digits. I ran out, as usual. I am far from the oldest old muso, but I am occasionally aware that I am a little older than many of you.

I did an open mic a couple of months ago – first for many, many years. I was kind of talked into it. It was a very small affair, a hand full of die-hards in a small British pub. Most were playing blues that involved a vast amount of bottle neck guitar, the death of a few blues harps, and the odd word. Actually, I like that kind of blues, just useless at doing it myself.

Me, I did a few songs. Crying, which is on here, and a couple of others that I will upload shortly. It actually attracted the attention of the young (ish – everything is relative) bar maid. Though I quickly realised the long looks were more along the lines of “I wish my dad was like that.”

Flattering in an oblique kind of way, I suppose.

So, back to my birthday. I didn’t get to celebrate it much as I had a builder in doing some work to the house. But I did do one positive thing: I signed up to Our Stage!

What a clever bear!