I’m currently in Moscow. Jamie and I arrived yesterday and spent the evening settling our livers in. Gigs tonight, tomorrow and the following day, much fun to be had. Vetal (promoter) just gave me a beer already. Christ. I have to play after midnight. Spare the children…

Some thoughts on the year past. A weird one. It started out pretty intensely shit for me, to be honest – for every cool show there was a lame one, being on the road alone and far from home, not much going on prospect-wise, generally attempting to keep myself going through blind optimism alone, which isn’t really the way that I like to do business. But then we had Campfire, and the reaction to that was awesome. The big day for me, really, was the Barfly show in August – after being on the road pretty much solidly since the end of MD, to get home from a manic month in Europe and get a response like that was… awesome. The album came together easier and better than I was expecting, touring got better, crowds got bigger, and everything generally seems to be pretty set up for 2007.

That said, I firmly believe that pessimists are never disappointed, and for the record my ambitions have never been solely about headlining Wembley or whatever. What I want for this next year is to travel further, play to more people (with a band where possible), write some more songs, maybe make another record. And the struts of this building seem to be falling into place already. The rest is just icing.

And thanks, also, to the people who’ve helped me out (and they are many). Roll on 2007.