… turning into something of a disaster, as if it wasn’t enough of one already.

J J Cale has died today, so it has been announced.

Many people might not know who he is, but I bet that most of you will know Eric Clapped-out.

And if you do, you will know the tracks “After Midnight”, “Travellin’ Light” and “Cocaine”. Cale was the guy who wrote those tracks, although they made Crapped-on far more famous than he himself became. You can hear Cale singing them on the album Troubadour.

Yes, he“can go to paradise Maybe once, maybe twice. Travelin’ light is the only way to fly”. He won’t be letting it hang out after midnight any more though.

Ray Manzarek of The Doors has also died this year, as has David Bowie’s longtime bassist Trevor Bolder. Richie Havens, who was the opening act at Woodstock – he’s gone too and so has Alvin Lee of Ten Years After.

My rock music programmes on Radio Anglais are fast turning into a necrology. It’s dreadful. Who is going to be next?

In keeping with the depressing spirit of things we’ve had two monsoons today. One at round about 09:00 and the other one started about 15 minutes ago and is still going on (23:40).

More rain has fallen in these two deluges than I’ve seen for quite a while, and that’s saying something given the weather just recently and the rainfall that I’v seen in my life in the Auvergne.

I did manage to get out and about though – an afternoon at Waterloo – or rather Mont St Jean – and the huge Carrefour and the Media Markt across the road.

I’ve bought a pile of food and on Monday I might even make another one of my famous – if not legendary – potato pies but apart from that, I didn’t spend any money on anything.

Not through lack of willingness or lack of things to buy of course, but I forgot to mention that I have a tax bill here to pay, relating to the final year that I owned “Expo”.

Yes, property taxes chez moi in the Auvergne are about €75. Here in Brussels it was €1200. No wonder I sold up and moved when I lost my job.

I’ve also emptied a pile of stuff from here. A huge (and I DO mean “huge”) mound of papers and four sacks of Marianne’s clothes have found their way into Caliburn and next time I’m out and about I’ll pass by one of the container sites and heave the lot into the appropriate container.

Tomorrow though is Sunday and I’ll be having a day off. Then I must crack on big-time.

Apart from that, I had another dream. I had a wind turbine on a mast on my front lawn and it was going round flat-out with the blade flutter that you get on the plastic blades of the AIR 403 wind turbines. A crowd of people were watching it and there were a couple of TV cameras filming it, and at a certain moment they all climbed over the fence onto my property to have a closer look, to film it and to record the sound. I arrived a little later, just in time to see the invasion, and I had to chase everyone away. Zero, about whom I spoke the other week, also put in an unscheduled appearance somewhere along the line.