Our keyboard player is a freak. Here is a picture of his record collection to prove it.

The Owl - Ted Hughes
I saw my world again through your eyes
As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
Through your eyes it was foreign.
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
Emerged at a point of exclamation
As if it had appeared to dinner guests
In the middle of the table. Common mallards
Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
Their wooings were a hypnagogic film
Unreeled by the river. Impossible
To comprehend the comfort of their feet
In the freezing water. You were a camera
Recording reflections you could not fathom.
I made my world perform its utmost for you.
You took it all in with an incredulous joy
Like a mother handed her new baby
By the midwife. Your frenzy made me giddy.
It woke up my dumb, ecstatic boyhood
Of fifteen years before. My masterpiece
Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
I sucked the throaty thin woe of a rabbit
Out of my wetted knuckle, by a copse
Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its pinions
Into my face, taking me for a post.

Howard Marks gig went well and everyone Had a good night.
It was also Archie's birthday, so I got him 'the Electric Cool aid Acid Test' which seemed to fit nicely with the spirit of the evening.

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

This morning, between the riots and cyclones, the Today Programme had a piece on Jimmy Webb. He played a stunning solo version of Witchita Lineman and spoke about the death of craft in song writing. 
"American idol would have been laughed out of town in 1967 as cornball fluff."

Just watched the Andrew Neil program on Public School pupils taking over politics. Really interesting for all sides of the political spectrum. We all know the issues any way, but hopefully this series of programmes will make people take note and do something about it - I can dream. 
Of all the coalition government, why is it that Michael Gove annoys me the most? Is it because he is hell bent on ruining education for all working class school pupils, or just that he has the most annoying face in Britain?