land lubbers

Monday 27th February 2012 11:03 PM

In my four years of posting this blog, I've never gone missing this long before, and regular readers may worry that I've died or succumbed to poverty and madness. Well I have, but don't worry about it. The fact is that in October I fell off my surfboard.

After gigs people sometimes come up to me and say, 'Mm, some nice examples of humour there, Rory, where do you get them from?', and if they've got a cheery face I tell them.

On most evenings in the caravan I like to surf the ocean of the unconscious. For a surfboard I use my mind, and for the wind and waves of inspiration I like to have a pot of orange pekoe china rose petal tea and a caramel wafer (Tunnocks if I can get it). Underneath the waves of this mysterious ocean, swimming about in the deep dark of its fathomless folds, are huge leviathans of thought and feeling, and sometimes they break the surface, (because essentially they're mammals and they need to breathe), and occasionally, some of them have got jokes written on them. If you can get near enough to read them there's a good living to be made. It's a dangerous occupation but someone's got to do it.

One evening last October, ignoring my own health and safety rules, I fell off. Usually one caramel wafer is enough to get the surf up, but on the night in question I actually ate three, and not only that, I stupidly mixed the Tunnocks with a Grey Dunn. The consequent wind and waves were too strong for me and I was consumed by that mighty sea. For over three months I roamed the ocean bed living on a thin diet of plankton, seaweed salad and the occasional mixed krill, but three weeks ago, because I'm essentially a mammal and need to breathe, I surfaced.

Since then I've done a bit of DIY on the surfboard of my mind and put some wheels on it, and now if I need some gags I just go skateboarding in the Rowntrees Park of the unconscious. It's a lot safer than the ocean of the unconscious, and there's a café there, and once you've got used to the fact that the huge leviathans of thought and feeling are now ducks, it's OK.

I spent Saturday afternoon painting painty pictures while listening to the entirety of 'Trout Mask Replica' by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Afterwards I went to check my e-mails and lo! There's a cheeky little one from Joe Coates at the Duchess in York wondering on the off-chance, if I was free on the 14^th March, if I'd be interested in doing a support for the Magic Band. Now that's what I call a real gig!

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