Hey, umm, remember me? yeah, me neither.
Life has really done a job on me over the last month-and-a-chunk. Covid thoroughly wiped me out, even when I got back at work I felt fuzzy and slow for weeks afterwards.
More to the point it utterly excised whatever part of the cerebral cortex is that is responsible for balancing bits of Lego on LP covers and making smart arsed comments about records. No creativity or gumption left in my noggin at all, I’ve been trying to review More Specials for about 6 weeks now. True story.
Allied to that I lost my father-in-law to Covid which has been terrible and, more relevantly to this blog, my beloved NWOBHM uncle Alistair to cancer.
He was a gentleman, literally a gentle man, an endless source of fascinating war stories about life in the NWOBHM trenches. It was his funeral yesterday. I will miss him hugely, who am I going to send Iron Maiden books and whiskey to now? only a couple of days before he died I called him and we were laughing together about spandex* and a rock nightclub in Weston-Super-Mare called Hobbits.
Maiden were always his favourite band and Piece Of Mind probably his favourite album by them. It will be a good while before I can face playing it again because I know just how much it will break me down then lift me up when I do.
I used to love going up to his room when we used to visit my granny in North Petherton. She told me that when I was about seven I told her he was my third favourite person**. He never slipped too far down the charts from there.
The funeral, planned by him, was lovely, if that isn’t too weird a thing to write; these rituals we adopt really do serve a purpose. He was a much loved man and I am grateful I took my chance to tell him I loved him when I could.
In between all of this I spent 5 days in Rome over Easter and I loved it all. Especially Trastevere, walking the city at night^, Ostia Antica, frutti di bosco flavoured gelatos, the Palatine hill and wonderful meals sitting on little tables in the street.
But you’re not here for my travel blog^^, I also discovered the rather wonderful Radiation Records (Monti branch), a very friendly treasure trove of metal and punk. Which is how I ended up taking a Slayer LP into the Vatican last Wednesday.
But that’s another story. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
PS: Apropos of nothing much:
*which we both denying ever wearing, I have my suspicions though.
**she assumed after my parents, I personally suspect he came in third after Luke Skywalker and Spiderman. I may keep that from them.
^we did 71 miles walking in 5 days there.
^^try 1539. 1538 is my fashion blog, 1540 my quantum physics discussion site and 1541 is the subscription-only one with the spanking stories.