On Sunday we drive to The Stables at Milton Keynes. Everyone is looking forward to this gig. The Stables was built and funded initially by Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth and is a great place to play. Everything is there for the musicians including an excellent sound and lighting crew, many of whom are volunteers. There are drinks and sandwiches in the dressing rooms as well as easy chairs. No smoking anywhere however so it’s back to the van for the guys.

A fan and filmmaker David Read has been asking if he can film at a gig and as we would like to make a DVD of part of Neil’s performance for promotional purposes, we thought this might be the best place. A lot of fans seem to think that they can just turn up at any theatre and film, but it is not as easy as that. Most theatres do not allow filming of any kind and even here we had to persuade them to allow us to do so by signing a form saying that the film would only be used for promotion, and that if it was ever found to be for

general distribution we would have to pay a minimum of £300. The same goes for photography. There was an in-house photographer who we allowed to photograph Neil providing he used no flash and kept out of the way of the

audience. Again this photograph was for the theatre – Hall of Fame sort of thing. Anyway David turned up early with his crew- Steve and Chris and sorted out where they would position themselves with the technical crew.

By the end of the evening they are confident they have got the footage they want and will get a sample to us before Easter. It was a pleasure to meet them and we are really looking forward to the film.

Another good audience – around 250- who had a really good time. The crew were all fans, so we stayed around chatting long after the show. Finally gear and bodies loaded into van and another long drive home through the night. We were all very tired that night and driving the last hundred miles or so, I had to keep myself awake by inwardly describing everything I went past – colour and make of cars, signposts etc etc. Sooooo good to switch off and get to bed.

Neil’s thought for the day ‘All alone, together. That’s the human condition and it’s been exploited by bullies and bastards for centuries’.

Tom’s poem – London – ‘I say I say I say, I saw I saw I saw, Eyesore eyesore eyesore.’