Wherever I’ve gone and lived in my life, I’ve said to people “oh, we should have a kitchen blackboard to write notes and things on”, so instead of saying to each other “when is Dougie coming round with them ferrets?” we would know just to look at the board – “police station called – they’re raiding us next Tuesday – can somebody be in?” sort of thing.

But nobody was ever interested – everyone prefers to go: “I thought it was NEXT Saturday you were going to Hong Kong with Brooke Shields – gahhh! – this has fucked up everything!”

I don’t even know where I got this idea from – I’m from a Scottish council house where you got a huge lump of coal in your porridge if you forgot something important, so you never did – or you acquired a taste for coal (quite nice with raspberry vinegar).

BUT NOW! – now I run things around here, there will be a kitchen blackboard, and right now I’m pinning on the wooden blackboard side this letter from my pal John ‘Bozzer’ Borrett, a friend for some years now – he is the publican of a smashing pub in Sidmouth, further west from where I live on the south coast of England. The pub is called The Marine – I play there once a year and haunt the ruins of my once great empire – that’s an empire of childhood, when my parents took me to this fine town for a summer holiday. Here Bozzer speaks of his time at Bryn Derwen studio, when I was recording LOVERS AT THE GUN CLUB...

DOWNLOAD 'BOZZERs' LETTER (Word Document)