There are way too many sentences in the world.

What are we, if not present?

It's not like there's anywhere for us to go, anyway. We're always in here, somewhere. What are you doing? Streaming us? Clicking on a file front and having us blast through speakers that weren't made for us? Having a big black needle-scratched lozenge dance around in the corner of your place on a turntable that your parents would turn their noses at if they cared enough about this century to talk to one of its victims every now and then? They don't care, do they? They don't want anything to do with you. They never have. I've got a theory that every parent, when their child leaves home, joins a secret club and they all get together and bitch about their kids and how much they know that their kids will never know until their kid leaves home. I've always had this feeling that there's some secret to life that gets revealed to you at some point along the way – probably when you least suspect it and hopefully whenever my bloody phone stops ringing.

I suppose that's all good and fine. I'm sure you're loved, really.

New material's at the bottom of the just-boiling pan. To add to my legendary failure to poach an egg the other day (my close friends, at least, know that it turned into an 'underwater frying'), I also failed to boil an egg just twenty-four hours ago. I have no clue what I'm doing wrong. I was standing in my kitchen in my underwear next to the netless windows, stirring the water well with my fly swatter, keeping time by sniffing my herbaceous pits at measurable intervals (being a musician I, of course, have an impeccable internal metronome), and yet when the egg dropped onto the plate it collapsed faster than my dream of being the thing that pings the ball up at the beginning of a pinball session. I just never had the hips.

I mean, that's what brought the vision of the little bubbles that start at the bottom of the pan to mind when thinking about new material. It's born of heat and chemical and structural change, which makes it exciting and indicative of forward thinking, which is important. You have to get this right. There's no point in giving this kind of line to you, a line direct to us (or at least, one of us and perhaps the one most least qualified to conjure images in anybody's head likely to result in our success), if we don't get it right, you know? Everything has to be correct so that the whole music/image/personality of the brand can form a cohesive whole.

I mean, so long as the album cover is a .gif of me scratching my balls and the music consists mainly of my sampled farts and belly slaps, I think it's as cohesive as Nicky Minaj's strategy, and, when you really think about it, inclusive of almost identical content.

Unless the pictures match the music, there's just no point in any of it.

I guess we've all started to assume that the current government is mainly a post-modern performance art experiment, yes? Yes.

This is the last day of idleness and political obsession before hardcore rehearsals (I can't use the word 'practice' any more, as I literally cannot get to grip with each incarnation of it, so 'rehearsal' is now the word) in preparation for our supporting James Vincent McMorrow around Europe next week.

The sense of being and time in this band can be bizarre. Display came out in June and seems to have been really good for us, and enjoyed by lots of people. That's good. But on this side, you want more. You want to make more, do more, experience more, be more, in a kind of childish not only wanting to play with the toy but almost wanting to be the toy and eat the toy and play with the toy, all at the same time. So, whatever you're doing, or not doing, it's not enough, so you get kind of paralysed with movement – not only wanting but needing to go down every road at the same time. We've been here before, but the roads were smoother before and they and led to less. This one is different. It's like choosing which minefield to cross to get to the place where naked people smother themselves in whipped-cream champagne. Last time it was like choosing which country road to walk down to get to a hug from a warm, roadside-hedge-bearded vicar who smelled like lavender and fed you with sticky Murray mints.

Jeb's been in Italy, the git. That's one road you can go down, I suppose. Trewin's been working at the farmhouse. Ed's been trundling around in his new 198...3? I think it's a 1983 Citroen BX. I might have remembered his registration wrong. 'Two lady owners', is the standard description, I think. 'Only drove it to the carvery and back on Sundays.' Suits Ed, then.

Seryn's been indoors, I think, much like myself. It's pretty good. The main thing about spending a lot of time in isolation is that you don't consider how your hair looks, even for a second.

I'll let you think about what kind of paradise that might be when you look in the mirror tomorrow morning.

We'll see you on tour.

Dates and ticket here. We're with 'The McMorrow' from Hamburg to Cologne.

Don't let us put you off.

And don't forget to pick the news out of this ramble like one of those bogeys that makes you wonder how your funny bone got stuck up your nose.

News: a couple of new tunes, taking shape.

We're gonna kick each others' asses on this one. We want to get this stuff out.

Now, it's Friday, so care must be taken – but be sure, this weekend, to throw your personality at people like monkeys fling their shit at paying customers.

Otherwise, there's no point.

We're nothing, if not present.

Have fun, and don't forget that if you do what needs doing now, then it doesn't need doing, so don't do it.

Tim