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There's something on, then, isn't there?

We're off to Switzerland in a few days. I used to know when and where gigs were happening, but I've long since become far too important a person to bother myself with Google searches or remembering what I'm told by anyone. That we'll be in Switzerland is all I know. If you live anywhere near that rather pleasant land, you should do a Google search (or use whichever search engine/impulse monitoring system is your own personal favourite), find out where we are, and come and see us to say hello. I'm not giving you any clues as to where in Switzerland we'll be – I've only just got through the door, and I'm knackered. It's...a treasure hunt. It's a clever marketing tool. You're very impressed.

A trip to Switzerland means a long journey in the van. I like those, usually, but this time it looks like I'll be doing a bit of driving. I haven't driven the van in about five years, so I'm a bit worried about it. I mean, I worry quite a lot, about quite a lot of small things, but this time when I ask myself the question What could go wrong? The answer, of course, is: Well, everything, really. You could unintentionally end lives.

I prefer my life to resemble a SAGA holiday in a chemical storage facility, rather than that of any kind of modern 21st century go-getting can-do musician. I'd rather break my leg and talk to the nurses at the bottom of the mountain than stride to the summit and open my arms to a cheap postcard of God next to Brad and Linda (although they both seem very nice.)

So I'd rather sit in the back and read and be grumpy and sing and make bad jokes and throw cream cakes at the windsreen and play “make Ed cry more” than have to actually take the wheel, and be responsible for any aspect of the success of the trip.

Do you understand what I'm saying to you?

Doing is not what I do.

Hey...maybe you could win a prize...

You could drive the van to Switzerland!

It's a clever marketing tool.

You're very impressed.

Tim






[P.S. I have subsequently noticed that there is information on the gigs on Phoria social media channels. That's good - but not so good for you, as the treasure hunt is now over. I repeat, winning is now a concept from your past. Forget about it. That's over. Live now without hope.]

Strange.

Has anyone figured this stuff out yet?

There's no excuse for not knowing where you are and why you're there (here). You've had plenty of time. Don't tell me you gave up on trying to get a grip on things?

I don't mean to make you feel bad, but I expected a bit more from you.

We've done a few things since I last posted on here. Texas, Krakow, London…

But let's keep it contemporary-local.

Organic.

A few of us celebrated last week at one of the houses out in the country.

Trewin was central to the organisation of this small shindig, so we ended up with a marquee and DJ booth that, were nature to get you on your shoulders at three o'clock in the morning with eyelids not for lifting, you may well have mistaken for the Pyramid stage at that other thing that goes on every June.

I was ready to celebrate having made some leaps and bounds in recovering from (what doctor's have labelled) an RSI in my hands from which I've been suffering for nearly twelve months. It's made pretty much everything painful, and has well taken its toll on almost every aspect of me. Thanks to a few recent revelations, it looks like it's done with me for now.

So it all went on late with many a thump and a thud and tiny swimming pools popping up here and there as everybody dripped into the leaning hours. No doubt as Cheese hacked pink laughs at me and Trewin hugged away at me in his “ironic” flimsy shirt and leopard print spandex, they both thought, as I did, that it was all uphill from here.

Is that right? “It's all downhill from here” means all things are bound to get worse, but going uphill is apparently an “uphill struggle,” which suggests an uncomfortable quantity of hard work. So that's your choice, then? It's either a bad time, or drudgery?

Either way, the next morning, right when it looked like plain sailing, Trewin packs up some of the mountain of gear we had set up - no doubt in top form following a nice rest and a cup of nothing that could have actually made him feel any better - and proceeds to break his foot by dropping a big weight on it.

Not that Phoria fans are any strangers to W(A)eIghTS, eh?

So, no shock to us, there's another little setback that nobody planned for.

There actually is an interesting little project getting done as a first spurt from the new studio that you can wait for, if you really want to. There's not much else you can do with it for now. It's short.

I'm not on it.

No1 bestseller.

But all we can do is work, and all we can do is say hello, every now and then, and let you in to our little lives and show you what we get up to, sometimes. It ain't always good, it ain't always anything, but it's us.

What is the 21st century but a whole load of fuss about nothing?

And it looks like I've started writing these again, doesn't it? Sure, it's not YouTube, but we can have our fun through the written word if we all pull together, right gang?

I'll need you with me if I'm going to get back up to speed.

Don't leave me here with nothing but a broken footed weirdo for company.

Tim

"An ironic, self-reflexive subversion of multimedia brand interaction!" you shouted as you danced.

I'm the intrigued man, peeling back the curtain and standing at the window not only to look at you out there in the street, but also to better show you what it's like living in here. I'm opening the curtains wide both to wonder what the hell you're doing out there in the frost and mist and also to show you the stains on the walls from when Seryn threw that chocolate pudding at Ed, and Ed got scared.

Yes, the lightbulb is smashed, but we have ten boxes of matchsticks left. I stick them in my ears and nose and light them at night to keep a constant glow – replacing them as they burn out. It's like spinning plates. I'd smell my burning nose hair if I could, but when I inhale the wood goes up and jams into my brain.

But that light gets us through the time after the sun disappears around the side of the house.

...until the natural light comes back again, and you stand outside in your coat and fur-lined boots, peering into our ground floor den, trying to make out the shadows behind the tattered curtains and see how five men can live in such a space for so damn long. All you see are bodies draped and immobile like Greek sculptures, and plates and bowls built up to look like rock with the slow, sedimentary deposits of cheap baked beans and sauces and chips and a multi-coloured slew of dried on condiments.

The whole of the house, inside and out, is covered in molluscs and snails and slugs and woodlice and ants and grass grows everywhere, even indoors, like new life in old men's ears.

When Trewin says I can sleep I sometimes dream that I open the curtain and you are stood there as every morning - but this time with a small, blue and white box in an outstretched hand.

I yelp, and the band gather around the window like cats, pressing our faces up against the glass and each squirming for the best view.

You have brought a lightbulb for our room.

Ed lets you in, and Seryn stands on James's shoulders to screw the lightbulb in.

Ed clears the plates away.

You sit down and we talk to you and make you a cup of tea. It's a dark morning, so we're happy of the lightbulb. It's also cold, and we all drink tea with the steam rising up and occasionally hold the hot cups against our faces.

The woodlice go away, and the room starts to breath with the colour of comfort.

Trewin asks if you'd like to hear some of the new bits and pieces of music.

You say yes, and he starts to play it, and we all start to dance in the room that is now so warm, and clean, and bright, and dry.

We have the greatest time, and when I look at you I see you are so happy you came by.

But then more often than not I am awoken by my head smashing against the corner of a desk. I had slipped into careless sleep for a mere microsecond. A match burns its way to my ear lobe as Trewin chastises me for my nodding off. We have been choosing a method of audio compression for seventeen hours now. I huddle into my unwashed blanket and light another match and put it into my nose so everyone can live.

Why please can't someone please just go to the shop and buy a lightbulb?

Tim

Like paying your council tax in the middle of a marathon.

We only said so little over the festive period because we couldn't find the microphone.

I still have floor on me.

We are not bounding into this year fresh. We are stumbling over the line, bow-legged, with relief maps on our faces from fifteen-year-old carpet. We slept much on our bellies as the sun rose. We used crushed tin and glass as pillows and went to buy bacon and mushrooms without our trousers on, wondering why the earringed women would scream so loud when we so obviously had a headache and were not ready for the onslaught of the sane.

Today our mouths smell like bin water and our bones are bending to weeks of these same jumpers and trousers. If we go outside, we risk being picked up by the wind and flung over a hedge.

We won't admit this to ourselves, though. We are fresh, aren't we? We are raring to go! What a break that was! A little break, slap bang in the middle of all momentum, and now we have the pleasure of starting that momentum, from scratch, all over again! Push, boys! Push! If we can't get the engine going, we'll at least hurt ourselves beyond repair, giving us ever more reason to stay in bed and polish our ornaments.

What are you dreaming of for the next year? You should dream, if you're not. Maybe you're finishing a course or something, and you're dreaming of getting top marks? Very good. What a nice dream. Maybe you're dreaming of going traveling, and have been looking at booking something over the last few days? Another nice dream.

Go do it all, you crazy kids.

Maybe you're just dreaming of something in your life getting better?

Keep going, then!

Just don't worry about it, if you dare do that.

What are we dreaming of?

Well, James is missing. We've already got contracts for various things coming out of our ears, and a package all tied up now, I think, for something else. As usual I've been more the card-writer than the florist, so we'll see how all that turns out.

So I guess we're dreaming that we can keep making people happy.

Isn't that nice?

I bet you didn't expect that from me.

So nice and heartfelt.

You can trust us.

Just keep dreaming.


Tim