… today and so far nothing disastrous has happened. Mind you, there’s still three hours yet to pull defeat from the jaws of victory so I’m not relaxing yet. But as soon as I finish these notes I’ll be scrambling off to bed, pulling the quilt tightly around me and praying that the ceiling doesn’t drop down on my head

That was what I should have done last night – scrambled off to bed as soon as I’d finished my notes but the new reformed me, desperate to chisel out of my busy schedule some private time for myself, stayed up for a while and loitered around cyberspace until … errr … let’s just say “some time later” than 23:00.

Once in bed though, I had another sound sleep all the way through to … errr … 06:05, when I note from the dictaphone that I was awakened by a phantom alarm call. How many of those have we had just recently?

Having said that, when Billy Cotton let forth his RAUCOUS RATTLE I was fast asleep and it was something of a struggle to make it to my feet before the second alarm sounded.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then went into the kitchen for a drink and to sort out the medication. I really wonder how long I’ll have to keep up all of this. Mind you, bet that I’ll order a further pile of medication in mid-January,, only to have my prescription amended when I’m in Paris on the 23rd

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night. I’ve told you about the phantom alarm, but there was other stuff too. When I was in bed I was dreaming that Steve Knightley came along and began to play COUSIN JACK and began to give a talk on how the song was made, how the song was formed etc. I was asleep me room down a corridor in some old Victorian building. I had to get up, make sure that my shorts were on but I couldn’t find my socks anywhere in the room and I had a really good look for them and couldn’t see them at all

Then I dreamed that a load of folk musicians like “A Show of Hands” and a few others came to awaken me and make me leave the bed. When they turned up in my room I had just awoken so I wasn’t exactly asleep but I wasn’t really awake either. Then they had this huge discussion about should they search me for searching the lyrics to one of the songs that they’d play. They all had something of a discussion about it. In the end one stepped forward and ripped off my blouse and found that I was actually wearing the shorts with this particular music written on it. So again another chat ensued, during which I escaped out of the centre where I’d been sleeping. Of course, they didn’t notice until after I’d gone, when they began to have a guilty chat amongst themselves

All this probably has some relation to the famous comment of Kim Howells, who said in 2001 that "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell". At the time, he was a Junior Minister in the UK’s Ministry of Culture

Steve Knightley replied by singing that his"idea of urban sprawl is a pub where no-one sings at all"

The nurse was early again today, and decided once more that I don’t need any more plasters on my leg. But I’m not going to file them under CS quite yet. I’ll speak to Isabelle the Nurse and make sure that she agrees.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

He’s finally made it onto dry land at what was then Buffalo Creek but which is today the city of Buffalo. He and his friends have engaged native American guides to conduct them through the forest towards New York.

His observations are remarkable though. He comments that "the varied hues of the woods at this season of the year, in America, can hardly be imagined by those who never have had an opportunity of observing them ; and indeed, as others have often remarked before, were a painter to attempt to colour a picture from them, it would be condemned in Europe as totally different from any thing that ever existed in nature"

Those are comments with which I concur wholeheartedly. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s always been my habit until recently to go across the Atlantic at the end of August and stay there for several months, as the autumns and early winters there are fantastic and the colours of the leaves are unforgettable

Talking about several treeless plains that he encounters on his way back from the Lakes to New York he notes that "very different opinions have been entertained respecting the deficiency of trees on these extensive tracts of land, in the midst of a country that abounds so generally with wood. Some have attributed it to the poverty of the soil; whilst others have maintained, that the plains were formerly covered with trees, as well as other parts of the country, but that the trees have either been destroyed by fire, or by buffaloes, beavers, and other animals … It appears to me, however, that there is more weight in the opinion of those, who ascribe the deficiency of trees on the plains to the unfriendliness of the soil … Dutch farmers, who have made repeated trials of the soil, find that it will not produce wheat or any other grain, and, in short, nothing that is at all profitable except coarse grass. I make no doubt but that whenever a similar trial comes to be made of the soil of the plain to the westward, it will be found equally incapable of producing any thing but what it does at present."

After the Native Americans were expelled from their land on the Plains in the States of Oklahoma and Kansas, those Plains were settled by farmers who ruthlessly and relentlessly ploughed up everything and planted as much as they could on what was perceived to be the fertile plains of the Mid-West. This led to the legendary “Dust Bowls” in the 1930s and the flight of tens of thousands of impoverished “Okies” to California and Chicago.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall accompanying me in 2002 to THE HIGH PLAINS OF WYOMING – the Plains taken from the Native Americans after “Wounded Knee” in 1894 and farmed extensively, making millionaires out of people like “Judge Garth” of the “Virginian” fame, who had millions of head of cattle roaming around up there. And when we went for a look, we found nothing but a dust bowl and abandoned shacks where farmers had fled from the land that they had destroyed.

He’s also still going on about the preoccupation of the European Americans with money and profit. He notes that "we were particularly struck with the prospect from a large, and indeed very handsome house in its kind belonging to a Major Wadsworth, built on one of these hills. The Genesee River, bordered with the richest woods imaginable, might be seen from it for many miles,, meandering through a fertile country, and beyond the flats on each side of the river, appeared several ranges of blue hills rising up one behind another in a most fanciful manner, the whole together forming a most beautiful landscape. Here, however, in the true American taste, the greatest pains were taking to diminish, and, indeed, to shut out all the beauties of the prospect. Every tree in the neighbourhood of the house was felled to the ground; instead of a neat lawn, for which the ground seemed to be singularly well disposed, a wheat held was laid down in front of it; and at the bottom of the slope, at the distance of two hundred yards from the house, a town was building by the major, which, when completed, would effectually screen from the dwelling house every sight of the river and mountains. The Americans, as I before observed, seem to be totally dead to the beauties of nature, and only to admire a spot of ground as it appears to be more or less calculated to enrich the occupier by its produce."

There’s no doubt that some of his prophecies were remarkably and surprisingly accurate

All throughout the day I’ve been working on my next radio project. This has involved speaking, would you believe, to one of the artists who was on the stage performing at the first Glastonbury Festival back in 1970 and who very kindly sent me a rare recording of himself and his friends performing one of their numbers. I also managed to track down a copy of the very first ever song performed at the very first Glastonbury Festival.

However, that’s not true. It’s a little-known fact that there was a series of Glastonbury Festivals between 1914 and 1925 but when it was revealed that the organiser was a paid-up card-carrying member of the Communist Party who debased the Nativity with a crude joke, his festivals were quickly brushed under the carpet.

There were interruptions for lunch, for my cleaner and for my hot chocolate break, but most importantly, I’ve selected all of the music that I need, tracked it down, downloaded it, edited it, paired it, segued the pairs and written about half of the notes. That’s what I call a good day’s work.

Tea was vegan nuggets with chips and vegan salad, delicious as always, especially when followed by home-made ginger cake and soya dessert. I am lucky.

So now I’m going to bed, and probably dream of folk singers again as I now have Lindisfarne round on the playlist.

But going back to Kim Howells, it reminds me of the French schoolboy who was asked "can you list the factors that separate modern Homo Sapiens from the Palaeolithic Humanoid Stone Age culture?"
The little boy puts his hand up and says "please Sir – it’s la Manche – the English Channel"

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