45

Despite my youthful demenour and spritely appearance I will, in fact be forty-frigging-five at the end of this year.

This number means a bit more to me than forty or fifty. It may be because I read Bill Drummond‘s book (45) and many of his ramblings resonated with me. (In the same way his Manual did)

I feel like I should do something “special” to celebrate the fact I’ve made it this far. (If for some reason, I have a hideous accident,  heart failure or fatal gardening incident prior to December, feel free to laugh at this in my atheist wake.)

In a pseudo-celebration of this arbitrary anniversary, I propose the following:

• I will collect 45 seven inch singles. they will all mean “something” to me. I will play them at my 45th birthday party.
• I will make a recording that will feature 45 of my friends, colleagues, associates and artists who I have worked with. The recording will feature acoustic guitars and vocals only and sound a bit like the drones of Glenn Branca – for no reason other than ‘limitations are nice’.

I also like that fact that ‘forty five’ sounds a bit like ‘fortified’.

(Expect a phone call soon…)