My band is coming along nicely, it'll be better when we resolve the missing bass player problem. My slide guitar playing is improving, thankfully. It's now leaving the tortured cat phase and becoming something akin to musical. Can't wait to show that skill off in public. We hosted the excellent Roadhouse in the Oud Brabant the other Sunday, they came, they saw, they conquered. Hard not to with three female singers leading the way - fantastic harmonies and bags of energy. You can see them frozen in time here: http://davidsonmick.squarespace.com/hall-of-fame/roadhouse

On the bike front, the Christmas bike has been seen speeding through the trees, crashing through ruts and splashing through puddles in the nearby woods. So far I've not managed to kill myself, or fall off, but it's only a matter of time. Though none of this will happen before I get some new glasses. Having given all our old glasses to Africa, I promptly lost mine, so now can't cycle or drive. Some would argue that owning glasses isn't going to improve my driving - but only because they know that I can't see them when I'm behind the wheel.

Hasta la Pasta Kiddoes!

But for those of you who can't wait, here it is in slow motion:

Hasta la foto!

Chuck's away!

Oh yes, have bought a new jacket, new shoes, two shirts and a pair of rugged shorts for the summer - possibly a whole year's clothes shopping in the space of two months - what am I like?

Aardvark and De Chi,

More soon,

Using the art world's criterion, what do they do with all those aging artists who, though they might be revolutionaries, visionaries or even just plain fairies, when their production starts to slow down, when the ideas only come out in drips - like the last few drops of oil being squeezed out of a tube of paint? 'That's right, they don't, they just keep letting them work and sell, and work and sell. So older and old people do have their uses (especially if they've been to art school), but that's only if you've been part of the inner circle for most of your adult life. If you haven't and you've been stupid enough to teach yourself how to create, off your own bat and with no financial input and supported by your nearest and dearest, then you can fuck right off. Because it doesn't matter how good or skillful or interesting you work is, you are NOT part of the game and you are very definitely not going to get to even smell the ball, let alone spend a few happy hours kicking it around the pitch.

Now, bugger off!

Years ago, when I first started to play the guitar, I had the idea that anyone who was a musician - and therefore someone who was reached inside themselves to bring something out into the world (ie, was willing to expose a part of themselves that most people keep hidden) would actually be a pretty decent person. How wrong I was, how naive and wildly optimistic. I soon learnt that the world of music is as full of self-centred power-crazed money monkies as exist in what we like to call 'the real world'. The same can also be said of the Art world. Not that I was every naive about it. What really grinds my axe about these people is the way they think and just how narrow their thinking is. (Not to mention being asked to paying thousands of Euros/Pounds for some of the most ghastly shyte the paying public has ever had poked in their collective eye.)

For example, the other day I got an email from an art establishment lackey organisation praising and publicising a bunch of students who'd recently graduated (and good for them - I hope they enjoy success with their work). The list was long and tiring to read but reminded me that, as far as the art world is concerned you are NOBODY unless you've been to school and learnt what art is (according to the experts). There's nothing wrong with learning about art of course, and an educated mind is probably better than an uneducated one, but it doesn't make their work any better (though very possibly worse) than say, a single mother who (having spent the day working and caring for her family) stays up til 0200 working on her own art, learning for herself by going to galleries, reading etc etc. Who is the better artist - the ones who drags themselves through their lives and learns and makes art because they are totally dedicated and do it NO MATTER WHAT, or the students who spend three or four years surrounded by like minds and generally have a really good and easy time? And if I have to answer that question for you, then best stop reading this now. What annoys me about the blinkered dummies that control the art world is that they really do not give a toss about those outside their temple of snobbishness, those outside in the cold distance. What surprises me is that I've always though that art was about having an open mind but clearly it isn't. It's about conforming to a system. Weirdly enough it's about a system that praises the work of the unknown (and possibly uneducated) cave painters, but actively works against those in the modern world who lack a formal art education. Which is of course somewhat ironic, though not very funny. Worst still, it's actually depressing, because what should be a long and exciting adventure in colours and textures, design and emotions, is reduced to a regurgitation of the spirit-rotting, uninspiring, intellectualism/conceptualism that is forced down a narrow pipe and ends up  being splattered like shit upon so many of our gallery and museum walls. We are then expected to like it and be grateful. Of course we're given very little opportunity to do anything about it or respond - perhaps there's a reason you hardly ever see a comments book at an exhibition - even though they are quite frequent at the many amateur exhibitions I go to. They ought to be compulsory, but of course instead they are unlikely to be found in most galleries - though perhaps more likely than seeing the work of a self-taught artist there. I therefore propose that from now onwards, if you're visiting a gallery you take along a thick pad of post-it notes and a pen and leave your own comments stuck on the wall next to whichever offence against art bollocks outrages your senses. I know I will.

Bob Dylan, Amsterdam April 2009 - a Review

Mr Dylan was in splendid form and performed many numbers, old and new, to an ecstatic audience for nigh on two hours. His voice crackled and crunched it's way through the lyrics but he spoke only at the end to thank us for coming and to introduce the band. I was delighted to hear him play, in particular, Like a Rolling Stone and All Along the Watchtower. I also enjoyed paying the equivalent of about four euros for a slice of pizza. Considering it only cost 62 euros to see Dylan, I think the value for money ratio was heavily weighted in favour of Dylan, though of course I did get a lot closer to my slice of pizza than I did to Dylan, who I was given to understand, was definitely not on the menu. That said, both were very tasty.

Bon Bon!

While the <Moan> button is depressed, Classic FM - why the fuck do you insist on playing recordings of Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez with someone other than Paco de Lucia playing the bloody guitar. If you don't know the difference between his version and everyone else's, then bloody well listen to it. Listening to anything else is like listening to paper mache - do I make myself clear?

If you're in London and find yourself with an hour or two of heel-kicking to do, why pop down to the Cabinet War Rooms, where Churchill used to hang out with some other top brass and their minions during the war. It's jolly excellent and totally fascinating, especially if, like me, you bathed yourself in wartime history as a younger person. I was fortunate to spend the day there last week, on business though, so didn't get to see very much. However, I did enjoy a pleasant stroll from Waterloo station to Westiminster, crossing an almost empty Westminster bridge in a light drizzle at about 0815 on Thursday morning. There's nothing more exciting than being in London when she's just waking up. Unless it's being in Mexico city, or Lima at any time at all.

Toodle los pipos!

Being typically human, we'd much rather leave the running of the shop to other people, so that we can spend our time on more pleasant and rewarding pursuits. For example, watching shyte on TV, reading about waste-of-space celebrities (flame-thrower anybody?), dressing up as teenagers, obsessing about body shape etc etc (the punishment of luxury...). It seems that we'd rather let our world fall apart than really take part in the democratic process. So while we're fiddling with the remote control, the control we have over our lives, politicians, bankers etc gets more and more remote.

Not that I am any less guilty. One of the reasons I like living abroad is the ability to completely ignore the outside world. Sadly, that's no longer possible. So I'd appreciate if someone could get our house in order, in order that I might be able to enjoy a few more years of unadulterated slumbering.

Pasta Laredo Baby,

To remember my stay in what I like to think of as Jimmy "Many Rivers To Cross" Cliff (it's obvious he wrote that song a holidaying there...) country, I've set up a new gallery for it in the travel section - see if you can work out what it's called. If you want a travel tip, go at the weekend and stay in one of the hotels that are next to what is known as the "Office of the Translators" - that the two golden towers featured in the gallery. Not only is it very quiet there during the weekend (strangely the EU ceases to work over the weekend) but it's considerably flatter that the rest of the town (though not flat in itself). This is even more true if you happen to like your modern architecture and supporting infrastructure unfinished. In fact most of this area is so far from being completed that I'd suggest twining it with Eindhoven, on the grounds that I've been going to Eindhoven regularly for about 3.5 years now and there's always been the most almighty road works leading up to the airport turn off. How soon this may end is anyone's guess, but having driven through it again tonight, I have a feeling it might only be soon if the meaning of the word changes to mean something like "one or two lifetimes".

On the way back we drove more or less due north to a delightful village, possibly called Cervaux, where they have a great foto exhibition called the Something of Man - which features 100s if fotos taken my many of the photographers who've been part of the Magnum group. If you're a little puzzled/confused by what ice cream has got to do with fotos, puzzle no longer: it doesn't Magnum is a foto agency who's members have taken some the best reportage fotos we've ever had the pleasure of looking at. They certainly knock much of the modern day foto-bollox into a cocked hat and no mistake. Both ice cream and exhibition were very tasty and I'd recommend both.

Today also saw me breaking the language barrier by speaking four different languages, a PB for me. I've no idea what I was saying of course but it must have been funny because everyone had a good laugh.

Noodle les Pips!