Goodbye Girl - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Sixteen

(Ed. note - Due to technical restrictions, the song by song breakdown of this week has been delayed until he can get the CD player to work properly. The author regrets any inconvenience caused to himself. He's a selfish bastard most of the time, frankly, although he is, apparently, a decent enough lay.)

September 9th, 2007

7:30 a.m.

My phone, which until this point has been useless for anything above ruining the line of my jacket, is beeping loudly and obnoxiously. I would, as is my habit, hit the snooze button, but I can't find the damn thing. And, quite frankly, as we're two scorpion sightings up this week, I am not fumbling for shit in this room.

I retrieve myself from the gap between the two single beds that have been pushed together to form my double. Ordinarily, I would have no problem with this arrangement, but, as I have remained resolutely pure, it has only served to accentuate my feelings of asexuality. Having pushed beds together once or twice in my life, the sensation of jury-rigged sleeping accommodations still carries a frisson of young romance, and it leaves me feeling a little haggard and past it.

I actually had the sense to pack last night, although I admit there was more scooping and stuffing than folding involved. I've actually seen people doing laundry this week, hanging their clothes out to dry in the Italian sunshine. This is all very well and good, and has certainly lent an air of domesticity to our home away from home, but, frankly, if no one's interested in seeing my pants voluntarily, I'm not going to force it on them. That's simply impolite. Plus, I carefully packed enough clothing so that I didn't run out of clean clothes, even if an iron might have come in handy once in a while.

I did, however, dress for dinner one night. Shiny shoes, waistcoat, shirt and tie. Trousers would have probably been a good idea, but then I've mentioned the couple of bottles of vodka I purchased, haven't I?

Like many insomniacs, I am tremendously gifted at remaining awake until a ridiculous time of the morning and almost hopeless at waking up once my body has finally decided it's had enough. This morning is no exception. I dip in and out of horrifying dreamscapes, as I build up the will to force myself bolt upright, out of my bed and into the shower.

I'm not ready for this to end. It feels like the culmination of an unfairly short set. You're just getting warmed up and it's time to say "Thank you, and goodnight" before abandoning the stage. I'm holding my breath for the encore.

I have described, I believe, the shower of death with which Rich and I have been granted, and it is particularly vindicative this morning, tiny little pinpricks of water mapping out the first uncomfortable patches of sunburn. Which is almost a relief, cause ordinarily I appear to sweat Factor 57. I don't tan in the summer, I reappear. The easiest way to put colour back in my cheeks is to wait until I pass out, and paint me.

I dress in what's left of my clean clothing, none of which match particularly well, leaving me looking rumpled and devil may care, but not in a good way. I look like my children do when left to dress themselves. Six ill-matched layers, topped off with glowing plastic shoes and a pair of fairy wings.

Well, perhaps, not quite as extreme as that. It is Sunday, after all. Nonetheless, I'm worried about what I will look like come the end of today's travels, if this is what I look like before I even started. I haven't shaved all week, which in a normal man should have produced a decent outcropping of Levon Helm style beardage. I have a face at war with itself, however, and the best I can manage is D'Artagnan after a month in a mental hospital.

As I come around the corner towards the drive, tugging my bag behind me, I feel a lump form in my throat. And it's not just because I am dreading attempting to drag a bag full of clothes, a guitar and my manbag around for the rest of the day. Honestly, who designs the fucking wheels on these bags? Two small plastic wheels, the size of Noel Gallagher's vocabulary, which roll over surfaces about as smoothly as a 1960's Dalek. I might as ewell attach a handle to a dead pig, cut it open and wedge my belongings amongst its guts.

No, it is not the insanity of luggage designers that causes me to tear up. It's the gathering of the people with whom I have shared this experience, with their bags surrounding them, waiting to be divided into groups for redelivery to Perugia Airport. Not everyone is flying out together, so there are already some goodbyes to be said. Emma-Wilfrid is taking the train, as is Darren. Amber is headed off on further travels, and Mr. Difford disappeared into the night in his rented Mini in the early hours of the morning.

William is warding off the world with a combination of headphones and sunglasses.

Cigarettes are smoked, goodbye hugs distributed and we are all piled into various vehicles. As we pull away, I take a last glance over my shoulder at Monestevole. Considering how much I've moved around in my life, I've already mentally added it to my list of former homes, albeit in the depressingly long column of places in which I've never had my end away. (I'm a romantic, really.)

The one or two emails I've had from the band while I've been away have carried a definite sense of worry about them, alongside a sense of utter surprise that I managed to get to another country without injuring myself or others, being arrested for smuggling bootlegged Barry Manilow cassettes or becoming embroiled in a top secret CIA invasion of Hounslow.

I nearly prove them right as I queue to check in for my flight back. Now, as anyone who has ever met me can attest, I am a man of many pockets. These pockets are always full to the point of contravening the laws of physics. I usually rip the linings out and just let the hem of my jacket carry the strain. At this particular moment they contain an iPod (sans headphones), two novels, an empty wallet, half a carton of Camels, house keys, my check-in information, my passport, a handful of now useless European change, a pair of wonky sunglasses, my notebook, several scraps of unfinished lyric and my mobile phone.

Except not quite. My phone isn't there.

I feel a cold chill run down my neck. Still half awake, I try to convince myself that I am being playfully iced by nymphettes, but to no avail.

I desperately try to remember if there was a point where I could have left it in the room. In the end, we rush back out to the van and check the seats. There it is, forced out of my pockets by the lamentable overcrowding. Okay, I'm ready to go home now. I am clearly useless at looking after myself.

Checking in, the woman behind the counter takes my guitar case and says, "Are you a musician?"

I'm always very careful answering this question, for fear of my band lurking somewhere behind me, ready to jump out and start laughing if I say "Yes."

I risk it.

"Were you performing in Italy?"

I demur, remembering a friend of mine from Canada who came to visit me in England as was promptly deported for idly mentioning that he and I might work on a novel together while he was over. Of course, the long, lyrical description of the acid trip in which he'd partaken on the bus to the airport probably didn't help matters, but I am now extra cautious when talking to travel officials.

But, no, she seems more miffed that she missed out. The rumpled clothing is working for someone at least.

"You must let us know when you are next playing in Italy," she says. Am I supposed to take details at this point? I ought to have an email mailing list somewhere in these Mary Poppins pockets of mine.

The break-up of the group is slow but sure. William, Dorie and I retire to the waiting area, pleased to find a bar, which almost makes up for the lack of a smoking area. Riley, Geoff and Danielle are around, and I catch a glimpse of the hatted Mr. Bentley, but for the time being, fourteen has become six, and so it remains on the flight, with a Scottish - American sandwich on one side of the aisle, and the Topley/Hall/Jackson Axis of Evil on the other.

We have returned to BobAir, for another excursion into budget travel.

This time it's William who kindly plies me with gin, as we discuss the gifts we really ought to have bought for our children by now. We thumb through the in-flight magazine, which is surprisingly filthy, and a good half-hour is spent, like small children, labelling various pictures which remind us of the people we have left behind. I'm surprised we aren't writing each other's names on our schoolbooks by now. The phrase, "grown-up musician" is clearly an oxymoron, but then I had already suspected as much.

Who buys things from the airport catalogue? It's like someone's flung Argos into the heavens. I'm beginning to believe that the reason why planes are designed to cram as many people together into as small a space as possible is to increase sales of perfume and aftershave. The ready availability of appealing scents is the only way the Mile High Club could ever have taken off, cause I'm sitting next to a female friend and I'm already self-conscious of my travel odour. You become remarkably used, when one's life is spent in an all-male band, to sweat, and removed from that comfort zone you begin to wonder whether your level of personal hygiene is actually adequate in mixed company.

But, seriously, you can order anything on a plane. Computers, time-share, alarm clocks, stocks in major Italian fashion houses... I'm fairly sure, in fact, that with a clear enough credit rating, you could probably purchase the plane, although you'd have to wait six to eight weeks for delivery.

Two things happen of note over the next couple of hours. One, there is an announcement from the captain, as the "fasten seatbelt" sign unexpectedly lights up, that there may be a period of slight turbulence. Moments later, the captain exits the cabin and enters the toilet. I wait for a flight attendant to join him as the perfume tray has just been passed around, but no.

We are being put on turbulence alert because the captain is having a bowel movement.

Now while I'm sure someone is still flying the plane, there is a moment of "Hey! Hold on just a damned moment. When I need a piss mid-show, I hold it." On the other hand, I'm pleased to think that he is going to be relaxed during the landing procedure, because BobAir have already demonstrated a propensity for a lackadaisical approach to setting down planes.

"Right, thank you for flying BobAir," the pilot on the way over had announced, "We'll be landing in Perugia...*THUMP*... now." It was the slight element of surprise in his voice that worried me most.

When we had purchased our drinks and food, Dorie and William had been given raffle tickets. I, as the beneficiary of free gin, had not. The raffle is, apparently, for a free flight on BobAir.

Dorie's ticket wins. Dorie does not, as William quickly reclaims the ticket and the prize, cackling as he does so.

It's the perfect end to this first flush of our relationship, as we return to the dreaded Stansted laughing.

We go through the dull and lengthy exercise of retrieving our rotating baggage, and head outside where we can smoke. John Bentley appears briefly to say his goodbyes, and disappears in search of his car. Riley, Geoff, Danielle and I are waiting for connecting flights, trains and buses, although Danielle, as a US citizen, is still entertaining herself in the customs queue.

Hugs and goodbyes to William and Dorie. I hope to see them again soon, but who knows? Life's a funny thing. We shall have to see. It's to the bar for the rest of us. Geoff and Riley check into their - separate - flights to Glasgow - Riley for some reason, and unbeknownst to him, on Air Berlin we are rejoined by our American, and we head - as is our wont - to the bar.

We drink and chat, and Riley gets a text about yet another piece of exposure for Aberfeldy that further illustrates the fuckwittedness of his former label's lack of support.

And then, slowly, we peel off... Riley and Geoff for their planes, Danielle for her bus, and me to kill a few hours until my cheap train back to Leicester.

I get a call from Jay Burnett, with news of an upcoming label meeting. I'm both pleased at the prospect, and feel slightly as if I've been thrown directly back to the wolves.

But, the adventure isn't quite over, and I don't mean the endless cups of coffee and bad airport food I am about to consume in order to pass the time over the next few hours, before I return to hearth and home.

In passing, Mr. Difford had mentioned a gig in Brighton, the Tuesday after our return, where some previous retreat attendees, including my friends Melvin Duffy and Vivien Scotson, as well as Danielle, and some others would be performing.

"Feel free," he says, "to come and play."

I'm going to stretch this out as much as possible.

But for now, Leicester beckons, with its crooked and ill-smelling finger. Life beckons. Family beckons. Now I just have to make sense of all this, and figure out how I'm going to use it to move forward.

Also, I should probably sleep at some point.

I step into the great outdoor, and light a cigarette. About what happens next, I have no idea. But, for the first time in a long time, I'm extremely keen to find out.

Points of View - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Fifteen

September 8th, 2007

11:30 p.m.

There was a moment today that stood out for me particularly. At the end of the field in which the horses frolicked amongst the flies, Dorie, Rachel and Amber are sitting at a long today, composing and rehearsing. Women with guitars. *sighs*

Half-way down the field, a selection of the "boys" are standing around. As with these fleeting moments, the memory quickly grows hazy, but I know it was at least me, Geoff, Riley and Christopher Henry. It's the first time this sort of divide has really happened while we've been out there. Deep down, we're all such touchy-feely artistic types, there has been no real battle of the sexes.

As though sensing this, we smoke our cigarettes, sip our stale beer and try to conjure up the most laddish conversation we can.

I will stress at the outset the amount of irony intended, and I shan't name names.

"So," someone says, "do you prefer tits or fanny?" (For my American readers, we are NOT referring to the derriere here. In fact, as a warning to anyone who may be considering a visit to any part of the Untied Kingdom (deliberate misspelling), please do not go into any retail outlet and ask for a "fanny pack". You may not get the response you expected.)

"If you were stuck on a desert island, like," adds another.

"Well," a third chips in, "I'd take the tits, cause they can always double up as a fanny."

The cream of several nations' songwriting talent here, people... Not a grown-up in the pack. It's brilliant.

We then, seemingly quite seriously, compare the relative attractiveness of the two sets of pigs on the farm, the normal pigs, and the wild boar, who just aren't doing it for us. They are the ugly pigs.

"That's no way to talk about the girls," someone says, and we're off again, like we never left the bike-sheds.

I'm not a particularly manly man, in fact, I'm extremely girly, but every so often it's nice to talk absolute rot while women look at you as their next purchase on returning home is most definitely a turkey baster and a membership to the Sperm of the Month club.

The week has been full of moments like these, and I wonder if, through my seemingly inability to stop analysing myself, I've really captured the flavour of what it's like to lock 14 songwriters in a farmhouse for a week.

As I sit at the table at the end of the day, listening back to the MP3s that we have FINALLY managed to coax out of the studio upstairs and into Emma-Simon's laptop and then, again, into the stereo system downstairs, I feel a montage coming on.

I see Chris, Dorie, William and myself sitting at a picnic table.

Dorie: Do you dye your hair, Chris?

I sense a running joke.

Chris D: Fuck off, bitch. (Said, of course, with the utmost affection.)

I see myself sitting in the middle of the night on a striped and slightly damp porch swing, staring at the stars and nursing a glass of vodka and lemon soda. I always think of myself as quite a solitary, pensive sort, but as I have two 5-year-olds at home, time for serious thought is restricted to quick baths and other matters of the human frame.

Mind you, as you can not lock a bathroom door against small children, their bladders having not quite yet learned to communicate effective with their own heads, this time is usually interrupted as well, by blurs of jeans and t-shirt, rendering it necessary to keep a washcloth to hand to keep their natural curiosity about the human body from translating into a visit from Social Services.

I am forever dreading a letter from school:

"Dear Mr. Hall,

It was necessary to remove Scarlet from the playground today as she was running around in circles yelling, "My daddy has a willy" at the top of her not inconsiderable voice.

You may be receiving a call from the proper authorities within the next few days."

So I tend to err on the side of prudishness.

So, yes, a little personal time was, at first, quite an acceptable novelty. Unfortunately, left to my own devices, I have a tendency to slip into depressive thoughts. A wide expanse of stars, however, helps to keep these thoughts on the right side of inspired.

So I bounce back and forth from my late night musings to the silliness and bitchiness inherent in any group of musicians. We bemoan the beer, we worry at the fact that mine and Rich's room smells - to those sensible enough to notice such things, i.e. - alarmingly of gas. We watch and wait, almost desperately, for romances - or at least lust-fests - to spring up between someone, anyone, so that we can amuse ourselves vicariously.

I swing in an indoor hammock sipping gin, trying not to wake those who have decided that perhaps an iota of sleep might be quite refreshing.

We talk a lot of shit, we swap stories of our lives within music and without.

And now we sit around the table in the middle of the night, listening to the fruits of our labours.

Chris is driving through the night to get the train back to England tomorrow, so he retires early. Upstairs in the studio, he gives each of us a big hug, which leaves me feeling sad. Even though he has not been with us to the early hours, I've really enjoyed his company, and I'm glad that we've made plans for future embroilment. (More on this later.)

It's quite moving to hear all of the songs we've all given birth to over the week, complete with our applause and laughter. Surprisingly loud is the crackle of the fireplace, which we'd taken to lighting around the second night. It sounds like gunshots, and we giggle as we mime Chris culling the group, like a shotgun-packing Simon Cowell.

We've been prone to strange mimes the whole week. From the unzipped face revelation that one of us is, in fact, Glenn Tilbrook in disguise, to Dorie and Geoff's marvellous flute faces, we have laughed a lot. I almost wish we could just purchase an enormous tour bus and head out, Stiff Records-style, as the Chris Difford Travelling Circus.

I don't know if the week is what I was expecting. It's been such an enclosed experience that's it's hard now to judge it against anything except itself. But I've loved every second thought.

I can't help but wonder what will happen to the songs that appeared here for the first time. I know I've written in a completely different way, and the songs in which had a hand are occupying a completely different headspace from the ist album in progress. But then, every group of songs I've ever written has, so far, always been different to the last, so who knows?

It has been interesting, however, how many of us have gone for the witty line, even the out and out funny line. Not all, there have been some pieces of pure beauty as well, but it's clear that the immediate reaction of recognition, a smile or a laugh is terribly addictive. That, in itself, says a lot about why we all do this... God knows, I'd trade all the late night fumbling in the world for a room full of people singing along. Although, if that could be followed by a little late night fumbling, I won't complain.

I take a last proper look at everyone's faces and realise, probably quite late in the day, that I have at least one pin-stripe sharp memory of each of them that were this a film would be re-played over the strains of an uplifiting ballad about moments and magic.

Amber: sleeping in the studio, the World's Biggest Dog at, on and round her feet. Playing the guitar with such easy grace.

Danielle: master of the outraged double-take, and prone to carrying a dictaphone recording of a drum roll to punctuate jokes at the lunch table.

Rich: Quietly and slowly coming out of his shell until we finally plied him with gin. He was the dark horse of the week, by a country mile. A true star, with too much humility for his own good. (His sudden exclamation as someone went off to bed of "Wait, we're going to skull-fuck you!" a prime example of how much he surprised everyone, in a good way.)

Riley: Oh, Riley. Where to begin? You bought me gin and cadged me fags. You drank with me to the early hours and then encapsulated my skewed, romantic nature in a welter of 80's synth. You're the reason I now can't hear The Brakes without becoming violently angry. (Before I used to just vomit. My god, they're shit.) You are, in your own words, a guid cunt.

Geoff: How the same person can co-pen the beautiful "Birdsong" and a brilliant line concerning the mounting (not like that!) of kittens, bewilders and excites me.

John B: Master of the hat, jamming off his face, phone pictures of outrageous Cheap Trick guitars and not beating me to death as I deconstructed the entire history of the Catholic Church, loudly, in an otherwise sedate National Gallery. More than that, the way you talked of your daughter and wife was wonderful. Oh, and the first person to be impressed by my Ardal O'Hanlon impression in sometime.

Rachel: Natural Reverb. Unfair. Giggling as I once again said yoghurt in my slurred Canadian accent. You make me remember why I've always been so fond of kiwi.

Helen: Those are, indeed, some kinky shoes.

Emma-Jane (I shall grant you your real name, just this once): Our ad hoc performance of "Walking in Memphis" was a highlight. Your delight in showing Difford videos of me dancing and singing show tunes, was not. Meh.

Darren: You made me play lead guitar! And I almost got it right. You're a miracle worker. : ) In our matching hats, we played some blues.

William: You rant like no one I've ever known, and sing like you were born on a bayou. I was in stitches in every conversation, and in tears at nearly every song. You kept me sane throughout the week, with your partner-in-crime, Ms. Jackson.

Dorie: For some reason, at this second, all I can see is your face as I let out that ridiculous cackle at the table. The shock and horror will be burned on my soul forever. I don't think I've ever enjoyed someone's digust at the insect population more. You thought my name was Tomkin, and I didn't mind. Says it all really.

Christopher: I bought East Side Story in 1996, and, in the interim, I've purchased every single piece of music you've ever been involved with. Which means, calculating your royalty share, that in my life I have probably given you a grand total of £11.75. You gave me so much more, by inviting me to come, by simulataneously encouraging me and taking the piss out of me, and for a host of other things I can't even begin to put into words.

There's so much more to say. So many things I haven't written down.

Happily, there are the songs... So much more is coming back to me as we listen to the songs.

Hourglass - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Fourteen

September 8th, 2007

I can't believe it's the final day. I'm not sure what to do with myself today, knowing that tomorrow I'll be on a plane home. I miss my friends, my family and my band, but the turmoil and toil of establishing myself in the music industry whilst still paying the gas bill can frankly get to fuck.

That is, however, life. But not until Monday.

I have been appalled with myself on many occasions in my life. The chasm between the person I want to be and the things that I do is often so vast, that I am unable to bridge it without recourse to a lumberyard and a team of trained mountaineers.

I think this has a lot to do with how much I identify with Chris Difford's lyrics. He and Mr. Tilbrook always pulled the neat trick of marrying singable tunes to often heartbreaking words, something I always hanker after in a song. I wouldn't pretend that we are now best friends forever, or anything even close, cause I know that I've taken more from our time together than he has. He gives off a sense of having not always done what he thinks he ought to have done or wished he had done, and a sense of having evolved over time. He also seems like a very caring man, although not without a wicked side.

He is, in an ex-girlfriend's phrase, "3-D", that is to say, he is a mess of complications and contradictions and therefore comes across as very real. My hero worship has deepened into respect, admiration and fondness. I still want to support either of his bands, with every fibre of my being, but I shan't regret this week even I never do.

Which brings me back to being appalled with myself. I admit I packed both songwriter Kenton and hungry young artist Kenton when I came out here, equally eager to advance my skills as my career. To my eternal benefit, it hasn't been that kind of week, and for that I am eternally grateful. I've been able to be a songwriter again, without worrying about impressing anyone (outside my normal pride and ego) unduly.

Shortly before I left, I read an article about Chris taking Ron Sexsmith (another favourite of mine) to Paul McCartney's (goes without saying) house for breakfast.

I did think to myself, "Well, if that's the Chris Difford Young Canadian Songwriter Package, I'll have a bit of that." And, Chris, if you're out there... Brunch with Elvis Costello would be fine as well. Supper with Tilbrook. A snack with any of the fine musicians you've had the good fortune and talent to work with. I ain't turning anything down... (Wait, I think that was my ex's phrase as well).

But all that stuff has been washed away by the revelation (I know, long time coming) that I love what I do, and, when I'm paying attention, I'm pretty bloody good at it. And, do you know what? I'm not in competition with other people that do it. We're all in it together.

I wouldn't say it's felt like a family, cause my original family were useless and my new and adopted families are beautiful, but we do function in our own odd little way. I feel as though I've added a few people to my extended family, but more than that, I feel like I'm in the game.

There's been moments where I've both thought, "I wish you could all meet the rest of the band" and moments where I've wanted to hug my new friends to myself, all for ME!

I've been in ist for six years, and I love it. We function like either a well-oiled machine, or some well-machined oil, depending on the day of the week. Without them, the music I make would be poorer indeed. It certainly wouldn't be the same songs, and it likely wouldn't be in time.

But I was on the verge of forgetting my name, let alone my identity as an individual. Like any long-term relationship, sometimes you need to have an affair to appreciate it.

No, wait, that can't be right.

I am Kenton Johnathon Hall and I have work to do.

***

Today, I am writing with Manchester singer-songwriter Darren Poyzer. He and John Bentley wrote one of the finest singalongs of the week in a track called "Jammin' Off Your Face".

There is a sense of slight exhaustion setting in amongst the writers. I don't know if we're all just written out, or whether it's the pre-tiredness of tomorrow's travel and the knowledge that every drop of alcohol that passes our lips is only going to make the early rise even harder.

It's hard to relax.

Darren begins playing a slow, reflective number called "Play Me Some Blues" that speaks volumes about our respective experiences on the week. Figuring that now is as good a time as any for summation, we divide the verses between us and both sing of how the week has affected us.

I've been on the vodka, I've been on the gin

I've counted angels atop heads of pins

But I need you to play me some blues

Three lines to say much of what it's currently taken me about 25,000 words to express. And this is why I write songs as well as ramble on the page.

It's probably the quickest I've ever written anything. But the kicker is, the song is driven around a guitar figure that Darren plays beautifully, which means that in order for me not to sit there pulling Joe Cocker poses, I am going to have to play lead guitar.

Oh, dear suffering Christ.

I do NOT play lead guitar. Many musicians of my acquaintance would phrase this as "Kenton CAN NOT play lead guitar" and they'd be pretty close to the truth. It's just not a skill I've ever hankered after, which is good, cause I'm fucking rubbish at it. I'm a rhythm player. Even that description is likely to send the rest of my band into paroxysms.of laughter.

But play lead I do. Complete with solo. Which I practice and practice and practice, determined that I am, for one brief moment, going to join the guitarist fraternity and prove that I am not just a fucked-up Canadian with a thesaurus down his trousers.

I am a MUSICIAN.

On the night I play it perfectly, except for one note that howls out its half-tone displacement like a coyote being slaughtered with a teaspoon. On the recording it leaps out at the listener like a rabbit on crack, and makes me feel glad that I at least have a talent for self-deprecation. Also, makes me even more appreciative of the two fine guitarists who have been in ist over the years, and what they have had to put up with from me.

Riley and Rich throw a last comedy number into the pot, with "Can I Get A Refund?", a song I will revisit for you shortly, alongside the many other gems, from everyone of the week.

One more night. One more night of this, and then it's back to England.

We're taping all of these tracks, and I wonder what will become of them all. Will I hear a volley of familiar songs being released across the world over the next couple of years? Will I be on any of them? How will we celebrate when Tiny Cat (On The Table) finally reaches no. 1 in Belgium?

Speaking of Tiny Cat, we've all grown so close to the song over the week that we decide that it is absolutely essential to commit a version to tape - well, computer, but tape is much more romantic. The phrasing of it, in fact, has become a template for every other thing we say.

"There's a tiny nun in the painting"

"There's a wild boar in the shrubbery"

"There's no alcohol in Peroni"

and so on..

The problem is this. We have sung the song, most of the way through, several times. We have added and subtracted bits, and Dorie has even written all the lyrics down in a book.

We have not, however, done anything along the lines of rehearsing or arranging the damned thing.

Nonetheless, we decide to close the night by performing it. About eight of us. Me on the battered brick of an acoustic guitar that's been with me through a broken marriage, about 7,000 gigs and a volley of personal idiocies, Riley on the now infamous "Benton" keyboard, and everyone else on choir and vocal duties.

It's storming. Right up until the point when we realise that not a one of us knows when the bridge comes in. The sound of heads turning towards one another is actually audible on the recording.

I still think the song is fucking brilliant, but there is an element of "You Had to Be There" about it, which is made more apparent when we realise that most of the people who would find the song irrestibly hilarious are in the band.

Chris Difford is sitting on the stairs leading up to the studio, watching as I thrash out Em, G, Am and C and sing Geoff Martyn's immortal line, "Before you mount your kitten, you must always read the label."

I wonder if this will be his lingering memory of me.

Take it to the bridge, throw it overboard...

Tight Rope - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Thirteen

September 7th, 2007

8:00 p.m.

I have always maintained that co-habiting my head are three versions of myself, aged, respectively, five, nineteen and fifty. Sitting here at the dinner table, looking around at my new friends and co-writers, my thoughts are being passed between them like a particularly well-microwaved potato.

My hangover has lifted almost completely now, and, frankly, I feel the best I've felt all week. Or to put it another way, I have driven myself so thoroughly to the limits of what my mind and body can take, that the serotonin is flowing like cheap red wine and I'm on a natural buzz.

My five-year-old self is alternately bouncing up and down and sitting quietly in a corner wondering if anyone likes him. (Some of my most eye-opening and saddest moments in recent years have been watching my daughters begin to develop their own eccentricities and self-doubt, and feeling as though, genetically, I have handed them a ticking time bomb or an aggrieved snake.)

My nineteen-year-old self is exactly like my five-year-old self, except he's slightly more concerned if anyone likes him enough to sleep with him. The answer, of course, is no.

My fifty-year-old self is looking back on this as the beginning of wisdom, and wondering if there's anyone left who would still sleep with him, whether they like him or not.

This week has coalesced a lot of my recent feelings about what it is that I do and why I do it. "Being in a band" is a terrible phrase, conjuring up pictures of spotty oiks in dole queues, battered guitars in hand and a half-finished joint in their top pocket for later. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it is part of many of our natural evolutions.

But I want to make music. For some reason, more than anything else in this life, getting up in front of a crowd of strangers and singing for them is my aphrodisiac (and my poison). Said out loud, it seems ridiculous, like I'm being interviewed on X-Factor.

"I've always wanted to perform, like. When I was a child I was always putting on little shows, singing into a hairbrush...."

Really? No shit. Not like 75% of children everywhere.

It's not so much that I think I have something to say... although, occasionally I do... but that I feel the need to say SOMETHING. There is so much banality and so little actual humour in the world these days. You have singers trumpeting the fact that they love their "baby" or indeed, want to sex said "baby" up, you have the teenage and young adult experience summed up as "I'd rather be with your friends, mate, 'Cause they are much fitter" as though young people's lives consist of only the externals, the painkillers and the mating dance. (I'm all in favour of the witty dissection of everyday life, but that particular Kate Nash song makes me want to punch her parents for not condom-ing up.) Alternate experiences descend into violence and boasting, testosterone and estrogen trotted out as the be all and end all of our lives.

It's all so removed from my experiences, I feel like an alien.

I'm trying to work towards something that actually reflects what I and others like me go through - to tell stories that make you laugh and cry. This week has finally made it sink in that I am not alone in that. I needed that.

Of course, I also want to write a kick-ass chorus that people sing along with whilst waving their hands in the air (as if, perhaps, they just don't care).

I feel myself zone out of the conversation for a moment, and once again, I'm a little bewildered that I am here with all these people. Every single one of has continued to fascinate me, for a wide variety of reasons. I can't say I've become close to all of them, and I think it would be unrealistic to expect that. We're as different from each other as we can be. We come from different countries, different backgrounds, different outlooks.

Take Dorie and me, for instance. Dorie was raised in a house full of music. Her father is a musician. There seems to have been encouragement and a sense that music was something you could do for a job. I'm sure she's had her share of unhappiness, as have we all, but trauma is not heavy on her brow.

I was raised by lunatics who tried to beat me into a preacher, who discouraged and disparaged the things I loved until I no longer loved them. There was music in my house, but it became a battleground and, for me, an escape. It was probably an escape for my father, as well, who dreamt of glamour and exoticism and settled for bitterness and madness.

We're probably at the extremes, but, by and large, what we do is the same. You don't need to be damaged to make great music, you just need to care.

Of course, for all I know, she spent a year running a Taiwanese brothel, or as a serial killer, so my glib observations are probably best glossed over.

(Quick note from the present: Buy Dorie's debut album, The Courting Ground, out now.... Click Here!)

Chris Difford speaks with great affection of his parents, both in song and in life, yet you can tell that, in his life, there has been pain: heartache, confusion... It's a crap shoot, and at the end of the day, what you see in other people's eyes is as important as what lurks behind your own.

It's the same with everyone here, and I wish I had more time and less need for a gang. I wish I was a nicer person.

To Dorie, William, Riley, Danielle, Darren, Amber, Helen, John B, Chris, Emma-Quentin, Rachel, Rich and Geoff: I owe you all a tremendous thank you. You made a lot of things clear to me, just by being there, and being yourselves. That's not meant to be sickly sweet, although it is a measure of what a soft, overwrought bastard I am.

I admit to wondering what they thought of me, if they thought of me, while I was thinking all that. I'm a performer, I can't help it.

It wouldn't be too long, however, before they will all be forced to think about me, courtesy of Riley Briggs.

***

We're in the studio again, our penultimate performance. Rachel and I have just performed "The Man That She Left (Lying in Her Bed", and again, I am stunned by her voice, and revolted by mine. We are hampered only by a combination of low lighting, and absent contact lenses that render the lyrics on the page near meaningless for Ms. Dawick.

Eventually, she goes to fetch her glasses, leaving me to vamp.

"So," I say, in my cheesiest Blackpool comic voice, "Everyone having a good time?"

"Where you all from?"

This gets a big laugh, the mark of a group of people who have been attended FAR too many bad gigs in their time.

I'm proud of our song tonight, I feel as though I've told a story - mid-performance expletive from Ms. Dawick as she struggled to read my high-scoring Scrabble lyrics notwithstanding (she really seemed to worry about this. I thought it was fucking fantastic.)

But the best was yet to come.

Riley, Geoff and Emma-Fred have just performed a fantastic Meatloaf homage about the art of writing songs, complete with a full-on rock solo, performed on acoustic guitar. As they finish, Riley moves to the keyboard.

"This next song is going to get me killed," he says, before launching into a set of 80's synth chords, lifted straight from the Survivor/Hall & Oates catalogue.

The song is "Bent On Loving You" and it's about me.

Never tell new friends you just to be called "Benton" at school.

It'll be up to Riley to transcribe the full lyrics, but here's a sampler of the choicer couplets.

"He wears a waistcoat, a shirt and tie"

"He's got the old bass player from Hue & Cry"

or the one that will forever get me in trouble:

"You're the one that he loves the best-ah!"

"Forget the wife and the kids in Leicester."

Now I don't it's cruel to say that some of our party might have been deeply upset by having their character dissected in such a way, even affectionately.

What does it say about me that I was thrilled? Thrilled to the bottom of my long black coat. I felt as though I'd been noticed.

Sad, sad, sad...

All together now...

"He's bent on loving you.... What else can a poor Canadian boy do?"

I'm starting to get Sunday evening syndrome now, though. I shall be sad to leave. I don't feel like I'm away from home. I feel like I've been lifted out of life and put down in the way I imagine my ideal life to be. But there's no time to think of that now. Still another day's writing to accomplish, more jokes to tell, more nonsense to spout and more of this experience to unravel.

When the Hangover Strikes - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Twelve

September 7th, 2007

10:30 a.m.

I am dreaming and while, as usual, there is an erotic componenent to my subconscious wanderings, this times it's not in a good way. Naked women are dancing around me, rhythmically shoving red-hot skewers into my cerebral cortex with all the grace and sensitivity of a rabid weasel.

I am frightened to open my eyes, lest I discover that I have been kidnapped by a serial killer who is now proceeding to torture me to death.

Oh dear fucking God. Mary, mother of Christ, and all the fucking saints...

Even in my semi-conscious state, I can feel the headache. It feels as though my head has been hollowed out and filled with wasps. Wasps made of acid. With guns. And hammers.

Where am I? (Italy, Kenton.)

Who am I? (You're the Archbishop of Canterbury. Pay attention, you dick. You are Kenton Hall.)

Why, dear God, why? (Cause you're a dick, who thought it would be big and clever to hoover up everything vaguely alcoholic within a 60 yard radius, on the grounds that you think it makes you more interesting. May I say again, dick.)

I stumble from my bed, if only to escape whoever it is that is talking to me with such vitriol and pure hatred. That's funny, I think, I wonder what my mother's doing here.

I fall into the shower, happily remembering to remove most of my clothing, if not all. The shower is comprised of thousands of little pin-pricks of water, each making, in my current state, a sound best represented as the word "CLANG!".

Droplets of vodka are crawling from my pores and waging war with the droplets of water, causing further unnecessary noise.

I fall out of the apartment door, stepping on Vampire Toad once again, but this time without any guilt. Let the fucker suffer. Goddamn undead amphibians.

I fall back into the apartment when I realise that at no point in the previous three paragraphs have I put my clothes back on.

I've already made clear that breakfast is not a meal with which I agree, nor which agrees with me, but I feel it necessary to announce my presence, get any pointing and laughing from my compatriots out of the way, and inject as much pure caffeine into my veins as is allowed by law.

A half-hearted and painful rummage through my luggage has confirmed that I have brought no painkillers with me. On my way to the kitchen, I fall weeping upon the neck of Emma-Elisabeth-Jim and beg.

"Give... me....," I say, with all the syllables I can muster, "... drugs. PLEASE? I will do anything you ask."

She fails to ask for anything interesting, which figures. Women. But, bless her ivory-tinkling heart, she produces a pain-threatening pill which I wash down with a mouthful of beer in a vain attempt to be the first person to prove the hair of the dog theory correct. Not that there is any alcohol in our beer, mind, but there you go.

My co-writer for the day, according to the little of Chris' list that I can read, is Rachel Dawick, a charming New Zealander who - to the admiration and envy of all - appears to have had a reverb unit inserted in her throat at birth. It truly is a glorious voice. I would be very much looking forward to writing with her, if I didn't feel the need to kill every single blade of grass surrounding the house for making such a godawful racket. Little wavy, green fucks.

I pass various groups of other writers all of whom look on me with a mixture of pity and amusement. I look like a bad photograph of myself, my eyes so red I can feel bulls from Spain stampeding in the distance.

Riley does not, the fucker, look as bad as I feel, but I'm trusting him when he maintains that he too is suffering the after-effects. Dorie opts for a sympathetic, "Oh dear..." but there's a smile in it.

Everyone tells me I was very drunk indeed. Uh-oh. Cause I don't remember being drunk until very late on in the evening. I do have a vague recollection of Dorie urging me to dance with her and then giving up with a fit of the giggles after I clearly out-Ian-Curtis'd Ian Curtis.

Look, I'm enthusiastic, if not accurate. (If I had a pound...)

I decide I am not going to think about anything I have said or done, but rather attempt to read in my fellow writers' faces any attempts I have made to bite, seduce or armwrestle any of them.

It seems that everyone is still talking to me, which is good... I haven't seen Mr. Difford yet, which is primary concern, as I fear what arse-clenchingly brown-nosey dribble might have poured from my drunken face in his presence.

I can just see me with an arm perched in unwelcome fashion on his shoulder, saying something along the lines of, "YOuknow... Ilikesqueeze.... Hey, I should be in Squeeze... How come I'm not in Squeeze, Chris? TELL ME!"

Rachel and I retire to the pool to compose, or in my case, decompose. The only writing I feel at all competent to engage in is a last minute will.

I decide a bracing swim might do the trick. The water is cold, the sun is hot and I no longer give an ounce of flying badger sputum what anyone thinks of my body. All I want is for my head to stop doing whatever it is it thinks it's doing.

I dive into the water, feeling my nipples first harden and then retreat through my back as the icy water slaps me around. God only knows how cold I'd feel if I didn't have this slick of vodka protecting me from the elements.

Eventually, I lie down beside the pool, wedge a towel over my face and let Rachel play the guitar. Hungover, lying beside the pool, clearly dying, I feel like a character in a Raymond Chandler novel, and the first line out of my face is the following:

I step from the harsh lights of neon and gilt

Eventually, the incredibly patient Rachel and I construct a vodka-soaked, hungover story to go with the vodka-soaked, hungover lyricist expiring in the Italian sun. Her voice is such that I begin to come to with every line, from the sheer joy of hearing her sing the words she and I are conjuring. I even pick up the guitar to help with the music, however much it hurts.

We conceive a tale of a woman, alone in a seedy bar, telling her story to the usual bartender. Only, as it transpires, all is not as it seems.

I step from the harsh lights of neon and gilt

Into the shadows of Ed's bar and grill

It's solitary patrons, their backs to the wall

If I wasn't one of them, I'd be appalled.

Walked up to the barman and asked for a light

He picked up a bartowel and polished his lines

And played the old number 'bout "places like this"

I said, "You're mistaken. I'm not on that list."

I'm drinking now, but can't seem to forget

The man that I left lying in my bed.

It's a cracking song, and when Rachel sings it, it really comes alive.

I only wish I would.

At lunchtime, Mr. Difford looks at me and says, "Your eyes tell the story."

But I don't appear to have tried to bite or seduce him, so, in the long run, the day is actually going well so far.

What's Wrong With This Picture? - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Ten

September 6th, 2007


It seems inconceivable to me that we should have passed the half-way point of the week. I’m trying not to think about it, other than in idyllic daydreams of sending for the band and the family and living here instead. Perhaps some manner of commune could be formed. I could grow my hair and my poor imitation of a beard even longer and wait for Interpol to arrive with the tear gas.

Ah, a boy can dream.

The children could learn Italian, I’m sure. I mean they spend half their time making languages up. Also, they have a despicable Leicester accent which needs to be driven from them somehow… The Power of Christ compels you!!

Today is a day off and we are headed to Perugia to see the sights. Over the last few days, the idea has been mooted that perhaps, some of us, early this morning, could attempt a walk to the top of a large hill nearby. I had my usual reaction to any idea which sounds ridiculous on paper.

“Hell, yes,” I said, “I’m in!”

“No other group,” says Chris “Cheeses of Jerusalem” Difford, in his sultry way, “has ever managed it.”

“Even better,” says Kenton “Won’t You Shut the Hell Up, You Demented Canadian Bastard?” Hall.

William Topley sums up the feelings of many of the group on hearing of this idea in his usual succinct style.

“Fuck that,” says the gentleman Topley. And he means it.

I go to bed the night before dreaming of the morning, smoking that first, extremely necessary cigarette, looking out over Umbria and strumming a guitar gently in the morning breeze.

When I wake up at 11, a good couple of hours past the projected time of departure, I suffer from a momentary pang of guilt, laziness and regret. All my new friends are, undoubtedly, stood on top of the mountain, plotting world domination, and laughing in a carefree, F. Scott Fitzgerald manner at the decrepitude of Canadian songwriters in general and myself in particular.

I can see it, in my mind’s eye.

“I’m very disappointed with that boy,” Difford is surely saying, “I’ve half a mind to demand all of his Squeeze albums back for this treachery. And to think I was going to introduce him into society.”

“And we,” the women of the group respond, shivering at the very thought, “were intending to drink enough for him to become moderately attractive. My God, what a lucky escape.”

Of course, when I drag myself to the breakfast table, it turns out that the virginity of the hill, in terms of climbing songwriters remains resolutely intact.

Still, we have our day out to think about.

Here is what I know about Perugia:

Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria and the province of Perugia in central Italy and is near the Tiber River.

It is a notable artistic center of Italy. The town gave his nickname to the famous painter Pietro Vannucci, Perugino, the teacher of Raphael, the Renaissance Artist.

It is twinned, for some unholy reason, with Seattle.

God bless the solid ten minutes of research I did on Wikipedia before leaving Leicester.

We pile into a variety of cars, vans and 4X4’s and head off to the station, from where we will catch our train to Perugia.

Now it is a matter of record amongst those who know me well that I adore trains. Not, I hasten to add, in a train-spotting fashion. I couldn’t give a good goddamn what number is plated to its side, where it was built, who designed it or its historical relevance. All I need to know is that it serves coffee and will travel past fields. I find travelling past fields enormously soothing. I have written many of my best songs while passing fields in trains.

Also, I find trains deeply erotic. To this day, it is still my most trenchant sexual fantasy. I might be slightly hamstrung by the aesthetic qualities of Midland Mainlines, but with a sufficiently willing partner, I’d still give it go.

I remember an ex-girlfriend once telling me of a sexual escapade in which she had engaged, on a train, with a previous partner. Obviously, this was a story I wanted to hear about as much as I wanted to have hot knives flung at my groin by an embittered ex-NASA chimp, but I can honestly say I was as upset by the fact that she’d done it on a train and I hadn’t as I was by the thought of her with someone else.

(What is it about the beginning of a relationship that prompts men and women to talk of their previous sexual partners with abandon? We think, “Well, they want to know the real me, and these people have been an important part of my emotional and sexual make-up, so where’s the harm?” Okay, some of you are probably very grown-up about these things, and I certainly wish I was, but, frankly, while I understand she didn’t just pull that trick from last night out of thin air, I don’t want to know about the guy who taught it to her. I’m a child. I’m sorry. I’m working on it.)

The train we board is a short journey train, so it is lacking in some of the necessaries – not to mention an utter lack of willing participants for my pass-the-time-on-the-train game – but it has the benefit of being in Italy, and in good company.

The first problem we encounter is that we have been hurried on to a soon leaving train by our hosts and left to purchase our tickets onboard. We have been informed of how much they are going to cost, but most of us are banging our poor and bloodied hands mercilessly against the language barrier and the conductor appears to decide to take advantage of us, by imitating a character from Lewis Carroll.

A more surreal experience purchasing tickets, for any manner of public conveyance, I have yet to undergo.

There’s about nine of us travelling together on the train. Danielle gets landed with the unenviable job – particularly as she has spent the last few days not feeling terribly well – of conversing with the conductor while we scrabble in our pockets for the milled-edged shrapnel that is our unfamiliar European change.

The conversation, which is conducted through a bewildering combination of mime, Italian, English and modern dance, translates roughly into the following exchange:

Danielle: Nine tickets to Perugia, please…

Conductor: Oh my God, you are all musicians. Now, under Italian law, I am perfectly within my rights to hurl each of your struggling, transient bodies from this moving train and laugh heartily as you thud to the ground in a maelstrom of broken bones and gore. However, I am feeling whimsical today and will therefore sell you tickets.

Danielle: Am I right in thinking that these tickets are two euros each?

Conductor: It knows too much. (He quotes a random number) 12,000 euros, please.

Danielle: Nine tickets to Perugia, please.

Eventually, he hands out some tickets which are all marked with varying prices, ranging from one to three euros. Danielle distributes these to the group. The conductor then immediately begins to go round us, taking them away again, saying something that appears to be the lyrics to “I Should Be So Lucky” by Kylie Minogue, translated into the Italian by particularly gifted sheep.

He bids us farewell, and I spend the rest of the journey waiting for another conductor to appear and warn us of the dangerous madman who is prowling the train, masquerading as a railway employee.

On our arrival, we meet up with the remainder of the group who have travelled over in Chris’s car.

It is clear that the majority are less interested in the sights of the city than in finding a bar that serves beer with actual alcohol in it, but Rich’s eye is caught by the National Gallery of Umbria, and feeling as though a bit of culture will do us good, myself and Mr. Bentley decide to join him.

After a brief and touristy foray into the gift shop, where John and I thumb through a coffee table book of paintings the size of a dining room table and I laugh out loud at an appalling children’s book – in poorly constructed English – called, “Hi, I’m Raphael!” we make our way upstairs.

The gallery itself is guarded by a small, shrewish woman who is clearly serving out a sentence of community service and appears about as pleased to see us as she would a bout of genital warts. She clearly expects us to be trouble.

Upon entering the gallery, we are confronted by eighteen rooms depicting scenes from the life of Christ, alongside his favourite saints and martyrs. The Madonna and Child and Crucifixion are represented no fewer than three hundred times a piece, across several hundred years of Italian Christianity.

It soon transpires that Rich is a student of art history, although not of any of the periods we are viewing, and that my religious upbringing is good for, if nothing else, blaspheming my way around Umbrian art galleries at a good old whack.

The first piece in front of which we gather is a near life-size wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross, with heavily stylised pectorals, and what appears to be a large erection. This pose occurs frequently through the first few rooms. In most of the renderings of the baby Jesus and Mum, Mary looks positively hacked off, like a council estate mother on the receiving end of an ASBO, and Jesus is portrayed as a pint-sized middle-aged man who is more than likely about to be caught up in Operation Ore.

There appears to have been little or no room for personal artistic expression, likely for fear of excommunication and warmish pokers in the most nether of one’s regions.

Other recurring figures in the paintings include a very tiny nun, lurking about the corners of a great many works (There’s a tiny nun in the painting… a tiny nun in the painting) and a small black devil on a chain. The latter appears to symbolise either the constant struggle to keep Satan at bay and under control, or else an Italian predilection for mutilating cats.

Nonetheless, a fine time is had and Messrs Brown and Bentley – the latter always my favourite bass player in Squeeze, with no disrespect intended at all to Messrs. Kakoulli, Wilkinson or Penda – prove to be fine companions.

On the train back, in fact, he blesses me with stories of his time in the band, his feelings on his return, and an absolute magic story – for me especially – from the making of East Side Story, the first Squeeze album I ever bought.

Elvis Costello and Roger Bechirian were producing, and I have made my love for both the album and Mr. Costello quite evident over the course of the week, so he handed me a gem.

He related returning to the studio after a break, having purchased a handful of records, and having the bag taken from him by EC, music junkie that he is, for inspection. After discarding a number of Mr. Bentley’s choices, he eventually pulled out one and not knowing the artist, or at least well, enquired about it.

The artist was Robert Wyatt, and Costello ended up borrowing the record.

The next year, “Shipbuilding” was released. (Obviously, there’s no doubt a lot more to have happened in the interim, but I think even having ANY part in introducing Mr. Costello to the work of Mr. Wyatt is something of which to be forever proud.)

Now that is a story I will hold close to my heart for some time to come.

We arrive back at the train station, and are once more collected by our fine hosts from the house and whisked to Valeria’s parents’ restaurant for what now feels like a family meal.

The day is only just beginning. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I’m crossing my fingers for spontaneous nudity and, just perhaps, frolicking.

Slightly Drunk, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Eleven

September 6th, 2007

We pull up to the restaurant in Umbertide in a bewildering variety of vehicles, looking like the cast of the most unlikely heist movie in history. God knows what we have been gathered together by Don Diffordio to steal. Cigarettes, perhaps, or cheese.

Riley Briggs stumbles from the boot of Alessio's 4X4, looking green about the gills, his previous meal threatening a new Scottish uprising.

Alessio, one of our hosts at Monestevole, is a bear of a man, all eyes, hair, beard and teeth. In addition to his position of Lord of the Manor (a purely honorary title, as his wife Valeria, like most women, is clearly and rightly in charge) he is an actor and has recently returned from shooting an epic on a budget in Argentina. He is one of those people who oozes virility and would the first person to whom you would point were aliens to land on the planet and demand an immediate demonstration of the human concept of "being alive."

He is also, clearly, mad as a box of bees. Riley describes the journey with a mixture of admiration and horror that would seem more at home in a Joseph Conrad novella than an Italian car park. Alessio appears to have taken the "off-road" capacity of his vehicle as less of an option and more of a command from on high, and has been driving, at speed, along a route that would be stretching the strictest definitions of the qualifier, "scenic".

Just to raise the stakes, he has also has been playing baroque Italian pop music at full volume, which would be no bad thing in itself, if it weren't for Alessio's need to mime the instrumental parts whilst driving. One hand, apparently, leaves the wheel at regular intervals to tap out the keyboard parts on the dashboard. There is, according to Riley, a particularly hairy moment during a trumpet solo, when he is left steering with what modesty dearly hopes were his knees, but knowing Alessio, may have been any number of appendages.

I like him immensely, and feel that I have missed out somehow.

Over the course of the week, with our two and three course meals twice a day, we have apparently been shortchanged, for tonight we are to be blessed with no fewer than 17,000. For my body, it's a nice change of pace from my usual dietary regime:

Breakfast: Coffee, cigarettes.

Lunch: Coffee, cigarettes.

Dinner: Coffee, cigarettes.

Around 11:30 p.m: Spaghetti and a block of mature cheddar.

This is, of course, only during rehearsal weeks. On tour, I supplement this with service station sandwiches and wine gums. With my insomnia factored into the bargain, suffice it to say, I'm not necessarily a poster child for healthy living.

After thanking Valeria for both the lift and her family's hospitality over the week, I leap in the smoke-shrouded direction of William and Dorie, both sucking back cigarettes in the rapidly chilling Italian night.

I have grown very fond of Mr. Topley and Miss Jackson. What they think of me, I don't know, although they have both been very kind. William reminds me very strongly of our Mr. McCourt, a quick wit and a sharp tongue, backed by an incredibly poetic soul. Dorie is just insanely talented, and a very appealing mixture of silliness and elegance. She is one of those people that appears to no have sense of their own good looks or ability, without seeming overly self-deprecatory at all. She just seems comfortable being Dorie Jackson. Even if it's not 100% true, for this is a rare state of affairs indeed, she projects it and, in her line of work, that's a tremendous advantage.

And so, we stand, and we smoke. And we bitch and we joke.

The smoking ban, I feel, makes for close relationships amongst those who still partake of the demon weed. I know smoking is bad for me, I don't smoke around my children or in their house, and one day I'm sure I will, for reasons of age and health, pack it in. The thing that keeps me smoking, other than, of course, my raging nicotine addiction, is that I find anti-smokers so appallingly self-righteous. I believe that, in life, many of the things that are bad for us are essential to our growth as human beings, and I as I don't drink anything like I used to, and have never been overly involved with drugs, I need my vices. They keep me sane. Self-justification, I know, but those are my reasons. And very few of my other vices can be explored in public without fear of arrest.

The meal is sublime, if FAR more food than my delicate constitution can withstand. But then... then... we discover the smoking area.

Apparently, in Italy, it is - for the time being - still legal for a restaurant to have a smoking area. An area, separate from other diners, where one can smoke indoors! The novelty! The sheer bliss!

I have long held - and it's only being borne out more rapidly thanks to the Nannies and Nazis in various governments - that at least 80% of the respiratory diseases contracted by smokers are caused by being forced to smoke outdoors, whatever the weather. It's a spurious argument, without any medical basis in fact, but I maintain that this does not make it any the less true. Christianity has no basis in fact, it hasn't stopped millions of people from fucking the world up with it. So there. This is my faith.

Riley (another kindred spirit, although someone I would like a lot more if he didn't insist on being good at songwriting AND playing the guitar, the bastard), Dorie, William and I retire to this Xanadu of tobacco-laced grace and luxuriate in the stale atmosphere we had thought dead forever.

Here in Italy, where they actually embraced Fascism officially, if briefly, we finally get a break from the stranglehold most Western, Democratic countries seem to want to place on their citizens.

A little bit of politics there, Kenton. Ah well, if it weren't for authority figures, I'd only have Oasis and Russell Brand to hate.

After the meal, we return to the studio, where Mr. Difford has promised us a set of his own. I take the Alessio express, whose departure is announced by a cry from the man himself of "Who comes with me? Vomit for free!"

It is everything Riley said and more. I don't think I've ever been so happy. We take seven spins on the same roundabout at one point, and then career through increasingly narrow side streets like we're auditioning for a remake of The French Connection. It is fucking brilliant. I take the boot, for the full experience, and sway and sing to my little Canadian heart's content.

Back at the ranch, Mr. Difford has brought his guitar. With Dorie on backing vocals, and John Bentley guesting on lead guitar, we get Squeeze and solo material played as we sip Sangria, prepared earlier alongside our usual tipples of vodka, sambuca, vats of cheap wine and non-alcoholic beer.

Or at least I do...

But from Chris, we get Cool for Cats, Tempted, Up the Junction ("I'm working on a chorus," Chris quips in response to Riley's "Needs work."), Cowboys are My Weakness (more on this song at a later date), Fat as a Fiddle (a new song I've heard twice now, which I believe was written with Boo Hewerdine, and which I adore), Pulling Mussels from a Shell, Black Coffee in Bed, Goodbye Girl... It's amazing. On the recording, you can, one, just about hear me singing along at the top of my lungs to every bloody track, and two, hear me and Riley requesting increasingly obscure songs that Chris hasn't rehearsed. There is a terribly embarrassing moment where I bleat "No Show Jones", a cracking song from Chris' first solo album, and am quite rightly ignored for being such a swot.

The night begins become a blur around this point. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that earlier in the day I had commented on the fact that, despite consuming heroic quantities of alcohol, none of us appear to have been properly pissed at any point. No falling over, no vomiting on tiny cat, no orgies of any description.

I'm a man on a mission. Despite my bottle of vodka, I really don't get drunk anymore. The first two or nine ist tours saw to that. But every so often, I feel the need to loosen up and tie one on, just to see what happens. Tonight is that night.

At one point, I even wandered off to bed with everyone else, before deciding that was BORING and heading back.

Riley, up to this point, has been the record holder for keeping the party alive, so once everyone has finally buggered off, I decide to join him.

I actually don't feel drunk at this point, not in a swaying, sick-making way. I am, it seems, my other, more usual type of intoxicated - the talk absolute nonsense and spill all my most innermost secrets kind of drunk.

Every love, lust and crush is identified and dissected. My history is laid out, in chronological order and with slides. My thoughts on, well, everything are trotted out and paraded around the room in hopes of a blue ribbon. Riley responds in kind, only at slightly less hectic a verbal pace. We nod at each other's stories in a wise and understanding way, secure in the knowledge that if only, for the love of all that is HOLY, they would just put us in charge of the world, everything would be OKAY. I run out of cigarettes, I start cadging Riley's. For now, he seems okay with that, but I must remember to get him some more or else be tarred - as I usually am - as a sponger of rare ability.

I tell this man everything. He probably knows more about me now than anyone alive. He is a dangerous man and must be stopped. It's cathartic for me, but I should imagine Mr. Briggs would, sober, be thinking something along the lines of, "Oh, for fuck's sake...". He's probably thinking it drunk.

The worst thing is, we're both writers. We're both storing up all of this information and filing it in a mental notebook at the back of a mental cupboard in the bottom of a mental box, labelled "STUFF".

I must never, ever, ever piss off Riley Briggs. Aberfeldy are the greatest band in the universe, Riley the most attractive man, and his children are destined to rule the world someday. The money is in a brown envelope, behind the oak tree.

We see in the sunrise through drink-narrowed eyes, hug in a brisk manly fashion, and stumble off to bed.

It is 6:30 a.m. on September 7th, 2007.

I have a song to write tomorrow. Oh fuck.

Cool for (Tiny) Cats - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Eight

September 4th, 2007

It is approximately 4:15 in the afternoon, Italian time, and I am waiting for Chris Difford to drive me to town in his rented Mini. It says a lot about the influence of popular culture that I am sorely tempted to check the boot of his car for stolen art.

As is usually the case with me, when waiting for anything, my mind is wandering like a medieval minstrel. There are two topics foremost on my mind: the fact that I am cadging a lift with a man to whose music I have had sex and the presence in my life over the last few days of a vampire toad.

The Vampire Toad has become my nemesis since the night I arrived. As with most half-decent nemeses, it began with an entirely innocent mistake. At some point, for some reason, I returned to mine and Rich's apartment to fetch something: likely my iPod for the purposes of showing off. It was dark, as night has a tendency to be in these strange foreign countries, and as I opened the door, I was momentarily distracted by the expanse of stars, twinkling above me, like God's own powdered rhino horn.

In the confusion of silence, blackness and melancholy ardour, I stepped into the front room and stepped, with my full weight, on a toad.

I didn't mean to do it, officer, it was an accident. There was a suitably revolting sound effect, a hissed "What the fuck was that?" escaped from my lips and a single star, in absence of recently birthed Messiahs, decided to cast a pale shaft of light on to what was, quite obviously, a very recently deceased toad.

For a moment I was torn between guilt and disgust, emotions I know better than many of my friends. I fetched some manner of toad-flinging apparatus and hurled the depressed green body into the night.

The next night, I stepped on the toad again. Now I am no toad expert, and ordinarily, I wouldn't know one from another, but there was a glint in the creature's eye that sealed it for me. It was the same toad, risen from the dead, and out to exact its revenge.

It's been there ever since, lurking in the shadows. (Obviously being a vampire toad, direct sunlight is a no-no.) And this morning I woke up with two mysterious bites on my torso, so I'm just waiting for the transformation now.

The other things on my mind, of course, was that I have been cast into professional circumstances with Mr. Difford, and there was a time when "Argybargy" by Squeeze, was high on my bedroom album list. Should Chris ever stumble upon these diaries, I am deeply sorry for the nausea you are likely to experience on hearing such a thing, but I don't think you or your bandmates are entirely without blame.

The album was DESIGNED for carnal experiences. It starts with "Pulling Mussels" and ends with "There At The Top".

"I Think I'm Go-Go" is perfectly placed for the main action to begin, although I was slightly offended at the early placement of "Here Comes That Feeling"... what do you take me for? "Wrong Side of The Moon" is a handy subliminal tip towards the end there, however, and for that I thank you.

If it's a one night stand I do recommend the reissue, with its afterglow commentary in "Funny How It Goes" and, finally, "Go".

See what I mean. They've only got themselves to blame.

Eventually, Chris emerges from his room and myself, Emma-Aloysius, and Helen are whisked, dans mini, into the Italian mountains.

The sun has crept from the clouds, and we are looking over the Italian countryside, with its ruined castles and rolling hills. Chris is telling a story about Aimee Mann, another of my key artists, and I do have to pinch myself slightly.

On arrival in the town, we head to a small internet cafe, where Chris and Emma-Carl take advantage of the WiFi service, whilst Helen and I queue for an available computer.

I will gloss over my internet experience, as it was deeply boring, and only proved to reinforce my addiction, particularly after desperately trying to convince myself that I was not going to miss anything important, I manage to intercept, just in time, a message about a label meeting for our producer, Mr. Burnett.

I had planned to learn a little Italian before I came out, as I hate feeling like a tourist, communicating at a low-IQ level through a series of random Italian words, shouted English words, and gestures that would seem overwrought in a drunken game of charades.

I didn't, so I keep myself to myself in the hopes that I will be taken for a mime, and perhaps given money.

Towards the end of my email extravanganze, I am approached by a man - who in the international language of holding out one's hand - is clearly asking for money himself. I am somewhat distracted, attempting to type, listen, translate and respond simultaneously, and he becomes frustrated quickly.

Eventually, when it is clear to him that I am, undoubtedly, both ignorant and mentally deficient, he resorts to props, and digs deep into his pockets. When he withdraws his hand, he is clutching a fistful of one euro coins. There must be about 50 or 60 of them. Now, I don't have 50 or 60 euros left to my name and I am tempted to thrust my own hand into my Mary Poppins pocket and show him my lint.

As it is, I gently urge him to fuck right off, which he does, cursing my name in what, I admit, is an extremely poetic way.

Our trip was punctuated by one or two other oddities, such as a Mini full of songwriters driving extremely slowly and leaning out of the windows, trying to read the date on a Van Der Graaf Generator poster. (Saxophonist and flautist David Jackson of Van Der Graaf being the father of one Ms. Dorie Jackson, and undoubtedly responsible for the repeated impression of "flute face" to which we have all been repeatedly treated by Dorie and Geoff, to the falling over laughing of all.)

On the way back, Emma-Francine and I beset Chris with questions about all and sundry. This soon descends into an entertaining discussion on the behaviour of exes, particularly at gigs, and in the presence of current partners. It is perhaps, unsuprising, that we all have far too many stories to share on the subject.

We return to our songwriting partners, and "Scorpion Girl" is given a few more giggling run-throughs. I'm feeling much more positive about a song where I can strum freely and earn, as I do, the moniker of "loudest guitar player".

Dinner is the usual plateloads of excellent food, and then once again, we retire to the studio to perform.

William introduces the song in Italian, which is something he has clearly been working on in my absence. Happily, the song goes down a treat, with laughter in exactly the right places. I am alway astounded and gratified by an audience that can a) hear the lyrics and b) is bothering to listen.

I realise I have said little about the other songs being written and performed by my compatriots, and this is only partly because of heaving jealousy. I am planning to do a breakdown later, once I've had a chance to absorb everyone else's work with the benefit of hindsight and without my nerves getting in the way. There is some stunning work being done - some funny, some serious, some just plain knock-out beautiful. It is an honour and a privilege to be a part of it.

Once again, we sit up until the early hours - Dorie and I have, between us, invested in a couple of bottles of vodka which garnered a look from Chris, as if to say, "I have hereby identified the raging alcoholics amongst us." We mix this with cans of lemon soda, which Ms. Jackson appears to have bought by the truckload.

Songwriting games are played, with a song being passed along, word by word to each member of the group. There is a brief period after being handed the word "natural", where I refuse to sing anything but the word "yoghurt", which lasts until Dorie hires Geoff to sit next to me with a blunt object and whack me should the first syllable so much as creep towards my lips.

Rachel Dawick, blaming it later on the tipple, has until this point, been next to me, following my "yoghurt" or other nonsense, with "What?" in her New Zealand trill, before bursting into laughter and leaving the table.

Once we have exhausted the permutations of this, our attention is once again drawn to Tiny Cat, begat by Pirate Cat, who is weaving between the bottles, glasses and cans in exploratory mode.

A song begins to form, one of those stone cold classics that will forever grace the record players, iPods, 8-Tracks, and CD Changers of a generation.

"Tiny Cat on the Table" is, if I may say so, one of the finest pieces of work in which any of us have ever been involved. This haunting song, about the travails and experiences of a small feline in a world that just doesn't understand, will go down in history. We think David Bowie should cover it.

I include the complete lyrics here:

Tiny Cat (On The Table)

When I was just a young man, I was told a fable

By my Uncle Arthur and my Auntie Mabel

I thought it wasn't true, till I saw a documentary on cable

Debunking all the myths, about tiny cats on tables

CHORUS:

And there's a tiny cat on the table

A tiny cat on the table

They say you won't be able

To put a tiny cat on the table


They say it's therapeutic, for the mad and the disabled

To test their motor functions

Putting tiny cats on tables

So I had a conversation, about it with Clark Gable

He said, before you mount your kitten,

You must always read the label

REPEAT CHORUS

Tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny tiny tiny cat

BRIDGE:

Tiny Cat, where have you been?

What kind of trouble are in you in?

Have you gone outside to play?

No. You're in the ashtray.

CHORUS 2:

And there's a tiny cat in the ashtray

A tiny cat in the ashtray

Tiny cat in the ashtray

A tiny cat in the ashtray

- SOLO, Obviously -

REPEAT CHORUS 1

Tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny cat, tiny tiny tiny cat

TO END

I think you can all see that none of us need ever work again.

Can of Worms, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Nine

September 5th, 2007

The days are beginning to blend into one another, in a glorious way. Much as I miss the people in my life back home, I was beginning - in the run up to my trip - to become a despicably grumpy and stressed out human being. Most mornings, I was waking up with the desire to punch someone - anyone - from a very long list, very hard in the throat.

I'm sure my children are, at this moment, relishing the opportunity to charge through their mother's house without encountering their wild-eyed Canadian father ranting on the landing, mobile phone pressed against his head at an unacceptable level of G-Force.

"Cuntingarsingbastard," they are not supposed to hear me say, "Fuckityfuckfuckfuck. Goddamn bastard record labels/managers/booking agents, etc, etc."

Obviously, I am also forced to interrupt my conversation to impart pearls of paternal wisdom which, one day, they will pass to their own children:

"STOP POKING YOUR SISTER WITH THAT FORK! AND THE SPOON! WHY IS THERE JAM IN MY SHOES? THAT'S NOT A REASON!"

Making an album to the level we're attempting, on the kind of budget which probably wouldn't pay the sandwich guy for some sessions, all the while setting up meetings with those mythical "money" men and, and this is very important, without the release of live performance, is not a recipe for harmonious relations with one's fellow men and women.

So, yes, Italy is not just an opportunity to advance myself as a writer and a human being, it is also a much needed break from being a complete bastard.

And I am finding that I am, slowly, returning to a person I thought I had buried in a shallow grave in the backyard. This has its benefits and its downsides. I used to be a very shy, heart-on-sleeve young man, but I know that, over the years, I have built up walls in varying shades of jade. It's all textbook stuff.

Despite my almost constant state of priapism, I feel rather innocent today.

So when I sit down to write with Emma-Bob and Helen today, the subject we choose for our poptastic debut as a trio is: crushes.

I am afflicted by crushes. Always have been. Occasionally, they've blossomed into love or, at very least, a few sweaty, goose-pimpled and even, from time to time, memorable hours.

For me it's always the person least expected, or the person who least expects it. And every time I revert to being six years old.

There is a picture of me somewhere, even younger than that, four or five, in which I am standing at the fence which separated my back garden in Estevan, Saskatchewan from that of the neighbours. I am holding hands with the actual girl next door through the Tom Sawyer white slates, and looking perfectly melancholy. I'm not sure I ever knew her name. I certainly don't now.

As Woody Allen once wrote, "I had no latency period."

So, today I'm digging deep into the well of my soul to pen the following lines:

I saved a space for you at lunch

I offered you my sandwich and half of my Nestle Crunch

I tell a joke and hold my breath

The thought of you not laughing now is scaring me to death

A thrill runs down my spine, each time you speak my name

It's not the right one, what the hell, it's all the same

Two things strike me on writing them out again. I don't think I've ever read a truer description of myself - ironic, as it was written by three people - and for some reason we had a good half-hour discussion about whether it should be "half OF my Nestle Crunch" or "half my Nestle Crunch". I was very protective of the "OF" for some reason. I like the way it scans, so sue me.

Again with the chunky rhythm guitar.

Both Emma-Serendipity-Wallace and Helen are dab hands at the old piano, so, of course, we write a song based purely around me playing a guitar part that runs completely at counter-purposes to what I'm singing. Nice. Still, some lovely harmony work, building to a great climax in the bridge.

I'm finding something odd about my voice. I'd already being working on beating some of my bad habits - shouting not singing, the result of too many bad PA's in bad venues - in the studio recently. After a rogue comment about "our Kenton” being “a bit of a belter", however, I seem to have adopted a low Nick Cave-esque octave this week, which, as yet, I haven't quite learned to control properly.

It was very good experience, however, pouring out some things about myself to two relative strangers and asking them to put their names and talents to me spouting it in front of a whole bunch of other relative strangers.

Maybe it's my insecurity at not being anywhere near as good a guitarist as some of my peers here. No pretty little arpeggios for me, darling, I've just put one out. Whatever the reason, I keep wading into the big, bright pop song at every opportunity. What the hell, I love it. I wish I could play them properly on such short notice, but there you go.

On the performance side, there are a couple of technical glitches, from which we are mostly saved by the fact that we need to do a re-take for the recording, due to me "being louder than everybody else" and needing completely different levels.
Hmmm...

Tonight was also the night I first heard "And Then Malcolm Came Along" by Riley Briggs and Dorie Jackson. Don't get me wrong, there have been some excellent songs all round this week, and my eyes have flashed green on many occasions, but for some reason this one hits me squarely where I live.

The story of a woman's various boyfriends before finally encountering her true love... It's funny as fuck, catchy, and driven by a complex and thoughtful lyric, with added fish jokes. I decide, early on, to force both of them to write with me in the near future, at gunpoint if necessary. I hope they record it. I'll buy it. Twice.

I would give my left nut to have written one syllable of it. Sometimes songs take you that way.

But I'll get to other people's songs at a later date. Everyone deserves mention, so mention they will have.

In between the writing and the performance, I once more entrenched myself into Chris' Mini and was driven to the Internet Cafe, with Emma-Sebastian and Amber this time. It was an altogether more relaxed experience, and I realised that my addiction was easing.

Then Chris took us for ice cream. (Apparently, I am still six for most of the day.)

At an outside table, eating our various shades of dairy goodness, we mull over various subjects - house concerts, touring, the price of wheat in Bulgaria.

I finally get a chance to scope out for Chris my dissatisfaction with previous ist tours, or more succinctly ist booking agents, for placing us in venues unsuitable to what we are trying to achieve. Really, I say, what we need is support work at the moment, with audiences that might be open-minded to the smart, lyrically-driven pop music we're making at the moment.

Now, one of the major disadvantages of meeting one's heroes, one's dream supports, and finding that you like them immensely as people, is that you are no longer placed to ask for things, lest you taint the friendship.

When I email, Miles Hunt, and he asks how my kids are, I can not then turn around and say, "They would be better if you gave us the support on the next Wonderstuff tour."

I find myself in a similar and altogether more heartbreaking position when Chris Difford turns and says to me, ice-cream clasped in one hand, the sun shining on his all-too-familiar visage and says:

"What kind of tour are you looking for?"

At this point in the conversation, my head nearly fell off of my body from sheer frustration.

In my head, obviously, I was saying: "Now that you mention it, Mr. Difford, sir, the ideal band for us to support, now that you are briefly back on the road, is Squeeze. You know, one of the primary inspirations for me doing what I do in the first place."

Of course, the Squeeze support is likely all sewn up, is undoubtedly a decision which must pass through many hands, and it just isn't something you can ask for... it's something you have to earn, and be ASKED to do.

Still, I could have died at the question. ist at the Hammersmith Apollo with Squeeze sounds very nice to me. Ideal, even.

God, I hope they do another tour.

Also, this experience is not about networking - not in that cold, what-can-I-get-out-of-it? kind of way - it's about growing, sharing, bitching about one another behind the bike sheds.

I let it go, and just hope that I've planted enough of a seed in his head, that should ANYONE interesting need a mad Canadian and his merry chums to support them, we're good to go. I also disabused him of the notion that ist is necessarily a 20-piece with full orchestra and choir, lest the sheer weight of our numbers at time frighten any potential bookers off.

Anywhere from four to ten, depending on your stage and how many sandwiches you bought in, just so you know.

I think I might be having fun. I certainly know that I feel more myself than I have for years, take that sentence any way you fancy, and I can feel the slight prickings of something akin to - could it be? - contentment rattling around in my chest.

Tomorrow is a day off to see the town and then reassemble for a dinner out, so I retire at a sensible hour, three or four o'clock or whenever it was that the vodka ran out, and fall into a reverie of erotic dreams. Ah, it passes the time.

Also, Riley broke my headphones

In Today's Room, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Seven

September 4th, 2007

I have now been out of contact with life back in England for two days, and I have to admit I am growing a little anxious, primarily because I realise that I have a problem. I am addicted to checking my emails. A cold sweat pours down my neck at the thought of all of the vitally important offers of penis enlargement on which I am missing out.

I mean, my God, a Nigerian widow might desperately need my help to shift the remainder of her late husband's multi-million pound estate lest it be claimed by rebel soldiers. And where am I? Swanning about a 15th century farmhouse, writing songs and moping around because I have clearly already become a big brother/father/uncle/gay friend to all of the women within the group.

Despicable behaviour on my part, without a doubt.

I arrange with Chris at breakfast to get a lift to the internet cafe at some point in the afternoon.

It occurs to me that in trying to jot down all the big moments of the week so far, I haven't really given a suitable amount of time to the day-to-day minutiae that makes up our life here.

Today, the primary cause for concern is that, after two days of blazing sunshine, it has decided to piss it down with rain. The breakfast coffee is punctuated, in large part, by Dorie Jackson decrying her mother's sartorial advice, and praying to whatever God might be listening for a jumper of some description.

This is the effect I have on women. Two days in my company, and they start putting on extra layers.

Also, there has been a scorpion sighting. Despite a decent amount of geographical knowledge, the romantic side of one's brain still associates scorpions with much wilder, and far more eastern climes. Scorpions should be accompanied by fedoras, whips and a rousing John Williams score, not lurking about the bathroom to mentally derange Western Songwriters abroad. It's such a waste.

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade (about 10 or 11 years old, for those Europeans amongst you who can't be arsed to look it up), we had a teacher of Indian extraction, named Mr. MacArthur, who would often tell us tales of how he and his brother would catch scorpions, remove the stings from their tails, and keep them as pets. It all seemed impossibly exotic to a Canadian boy, who - despite being surrounded by majestic geography of all shapes and sizes himself - still longed for far more adventure than could be offered by breakfast at Denny's.

Here in Italy, someone despatches the scorpion with extreme prejudice.

I have started to fall into a pattern here, already, as - it would seem - have others. I wake up feeling like shit and wanting to crawl inside myself and die, fearful of what I might have said the previous night, and to whom. Happily, I'm only drinking enough to occasionally dance, rather than passing out in the lap of someone to whom I have recently declared my undying love. Unfortunately, Emma-Jim-Fred-Vera-Hyancith Thommen is filming pretty much everything, a fact we all seem to be semi-consciously aware of, but at this point, without a real sense that it may mean our off-the-cuff rendition of "Consider Yourself" from Oliver! has now been captured for posterity.

I then proceed to what, for me, passes for Breakfast - as much coffee as I can eat and the best part of whatever's left in the crumpled packet of Camels in my back pocket. I scan the list to see who I will be working with - today, William Topley! - and then spend another hour or so mumbling inanities at all and sundry while I try to jump-start my brain.

I think the oddest thing for me, especially outside my immediate group of confidantes, is that I am insanely curious as to what is going on in the minds of the quieter members of the group. Me, Riley, William, Dorie, Emma-Greg, Geoff, Danielle form a core of people who are fairly open about what we're thinking at any given moment, or at least, what we want people to think that we're thinking. Amber, Helen, Rich, Rachel, Darren, John B, and Chris seem a little more obviously circumspect. Of course, there is a lot of cross-over between the two as people cycle through their emotional make-ups and encounter situations in which they seem more or less comfortable. (That is to say, how drunk they are.)

The one thing we all have in common is that, for one reason or another, we have all gravitated towards music as more than a passing fancy. Some of us either do it for a living or are working on it, for others it's just a big part of their life, amongst other things.

I feel a small amount of envy for those for whom it is not an all-consuming career choice. Occasionally, I catch myself bitching about record companies, managers, booking agents, etc or being bitched AT about the same, and I struggle to remember the moment when I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Then, someone picks up a guitar, or shifts to a piano, and you find yourself singing. A harmony kicks in, an egg-shaper drops to the beat.

I don't know how to describe what it's like, when it works.

Wait. I do.

There's a moment during sex, which I hope everyone has had the good fortune to experience, where you abruptly stop worrying about the chafing knee, the elbow on the hair, the fact that your partner really shouldn't be able to bend in quite that direction, and you're just there... smack fuck in the middle of a perfect moment. The edges blur, and you're lost. Being part of a song, when it's really working, feels exactly like that. Okay, sometimes, it's more like a rough knee-trembler up against a dorm room wall, but... it's the sometimes that keeps you coming back for more, that keeps you trying when it all seems to go wrong.

I've already started paying voyeuristic attention to the lyrics of various people's songs, in the hope of reading between the lines and garnering fresh insights into the human condition. Or at least fill a couple of pages of diary entry.

But now to work. As it is raining, Mr. Topley and I, after a couple of perspectively-challenged coffees, and a half-dozen cigarettes, repair to the comfort of his front room with my guitar and a keyboard.

I begin to do what I do best, which is big rhythmic chords. (I learned to play the acoustic guitar from the opening chord of "Things We Said Today" by The Beatles, and I'm still chasing that moment.) This seems to go down well with my co-writer.

But what shall we write about?

"I have an idea about a serial killer," I suggest, smiling perhaps too broadly, for William moves away from me and smokes out of the window.

Happily, this idea is glossed over and returned to Kenton's Big Book of Weirdass Pop Songs, to be tackled another day.

Then the strangest thing happens, William begins to sing over the chords in a note-perfect Jamaican/Caribbean accent.

"I quite fancy an old-fashioned calypso boasting song," he says.

I consult my inner monologue. Okay, I've never done that before, I think to myself.

Let's do it, I reply.

I agree, but add a cautionary note: Do you think it will matter that when I sing it, it will come out as a Welsh/Mexican/Pakistani boasting song?

What ensues is perhaps the most fun I have ever had writing a song. There is serious musical thought: "It's a bit strange going to that C there, but the structure really works... Do you think we should change the key?" "Let's just run at it, jump on it, and it'll work." "Excellent plan."

But the best bit, other than we fashion a tune we can't stop singing, is that the shape of the song and the subject matter allows for some fine innuendo, followed by some even finer dirty cackling by yours truly.

The verse of which I am proudest was the final one:

She take your rum and then she rub it better

Yeah, she's a scorpion girl

She suck the venom and apply the pressure

Yeah, she's a scorpion girl

We also work for a while on a more melancholy number called "No Fairytales" about being far from home, and the fleeting, anonymous, but by no means emotionless relationships in which one can easily fall. Both are songs I'd love to hear done properly - that is to say, with William and his big soulful voice singing them.

After lunch, we sing "Scorpion Girl", as our new creation has been christened through a few times, before I - traitorous bastard to the cause that I am - fuck off to the small, nearby town to check my emails (and end up both pinching myself rather hard and being startled to laughter by an Italian beggar).

Which seems as good a moment as any to take a short break...