This has been the worst summer in my memory -- you didn't need me to tell you that, of course. I have hardly touched my camera in the last few months, and the camera, to me, is a means of getting out the house for a bit of exercise and fresh air.

Consequently, I have reverted back to Fat Elvis. I'm 15 stone. FIFTEEN STONE. I am the John Prescott of leftfield[ish] DJ's. With fewer Jags.

So I have been waddling about the doldrums feeling a bit sorry for myself. Then eating a bit more cake, which feels like a fine consolation at the time but has precipitated some well-vivid food nightmares. In one, I sneaked over to the deli on Faulkner Street by fence-hopping my neighbour's back gardens.

One of the fences gave way and I fell on a giant pumpkin, squashing it. The goal of this nefarious exercise was the giant pie in the deli window. I had my moneybox with me and emptied it out onto the counter in the deli, nervously checking the street behind me in case some bastard saw me and reported me to my wife.

The Italian man who runs the deli [well, he runs the bakery but dreams aren't big on accurate details] started counting out the coppers one-by-one.

The pie was £9.99.

It was a beaut.

I had brought a rucksack with me in which to stow it for my commando journey home.

But the minutes were tickling by as my Italian friend counted up in increments of no more than 5p.

I was getting more and more anxious that my wife was going to appear in her jeep. She doesn't have a jeep. And neither is she in the Gestapo. In the dream, however, she did have and she was, but not for reasons kinky.

I kept checking the street outside, which -- of course -- was filled with wife-a-likes making my exercise-deprived heart hammer in my chest. And, just to increase my attractiveness quotient, I began to sweat. Canoe-able rivulets of eau de moi pouring down my face.

"98pee, one pound!"

Befuckinjeezustwatbastid!

I couldn't wait any longer.

I climbed on top of the counter and dove into the pie.

The swearing Italian wasn't going to stop me. I had to have that pie now. Immediately. My greed could wait no longer.

I burst through the delightfully flaky crust with my mouth wide open in a state of high expectation. BUT this wasn't the delicious steak and kidney filling that I had been expecting [is it okay for vegetarians to dream of meat? Will I get kicked out, now?] -- the middle of the pie was all lumpy custard, sultanas, toenails, mashed potato, lungs [I don't know how I knew this, I just did] -- all of the gaggingest food know to Adam-kind.

I woke up heaving.

I was that traumatised by the dream, I had to get up and have pizza for breakfast.

So, it wasn't all bad.

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Elsewhere, on a saner tip, I finally saw 'Halflight, who came up to Telfords a fortnight ago. Unfortunately they forgot their drummer. This is only problematic because Telfords gets a bit rowdy on Friday nights. Too rowdy for songs of intimacy and fragile melodic beauty. I will never understand the mindset of the kind of moron that stands in front of the stage gobbing off at top volume, utterly oblivious to 1) the wonder of the music he [always he's] is maiming, 2) the fact that other people might like to hear it and not, instead, have to listen to boorish stories of what a "fucking ace laugh it was in Prague. You wouldn't fucking believe how cheap it was" followed by some imprisonable comments on Czech women that even I won't repeat here. It's such a shame that ignorant people are ignorant of their own ignorance: it is the great, irreparable flaw at the heart of human society. It's almost enough to turn me into a Daily Mail reader.

Still, the transcendent wonder of Halflight's songs couldn't be completely destroyed. Sarah's truly remarkable voice saw to that. How rare is it to hear someone sing so beautifully and with such emotion without once falling into the trap [<-- irony coming] of overwrought cliche? There is no melodramatic quaver of vibrato in Sarah's voice, no extraneous notes, just a voice that doesn't fuck about and gets straight to the point of spearing the hearts of even the jaded and cynical.

I'd love to hear them with a drummer. Because then we could turn them up and drown the idiots out once and for all.

Sarah came up and told me she thought I was a good DJ, which was ever so nice of her. At that very moment I was sacrificing my dignity to the god of the dancefloor by imaginatively mixing Lady Marmalade into the arse-end of Kinky Afro.

This Friday night's banquet of booze and tunes went well, too, I thought.

There were hiccups.

My Bloody Valentine's 'Soon' and Justice's 'D.A.N.C.E' may be in the same key and close enough bpm-wise to assume that plastering one over the top of the other *might* work. But they don't. And it should never be attempted ever by anyone.

Most of my worst musical crimes have involved MBV and 'Soon'.

I am sorry, Mr Shields. I shall never disrespect the magic again.

Ben Soundhog turned up at the end of the night. Something he regretted almost immediately because one of the customers accidentally took his coat home, thus depriving the Hog of his car keys, his house keys and his mobile phone.

Fortunately the bloke answered the mobile phone and keys were retrieved.

Ben still had to put up with my "this year we'll be millionaires" Dragon's Den pitch in the kitchen at 5 'o' clock in the morning.

I'm not expecting to see him in Telfords on a Friday night ever again.

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I interviewed Martin Carr on last week's show about his new album [ace] and its proposed method of funding / release [slightly confusing].

Martin has been responsible for more visionary music with yearning heart and adventurous soul than any person I know.

He conceived Giant Steps in that big bonce of his... gave us The Finest Kiss [one of my favourites]... treated us to more excellent electronic musicality than we ever deserved with bravecaptain, and has now made an album of such grace, honesty and majesty I can't believe it's not earned him the front page of every music monthly yet.

He's even got proper rock star hair.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the kiss of death.

This time next year, *I* am going to be 12 and a half stone.

Sorry, a wasp just invaded my box bedroom.

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