After all the pre and post Christmas activity it’s been good to catch a few days off. The signs of fatigue were well apparent recently when the boy Adam found me slumped on the TBL office floor after falling asleep reading the paper.

Dad you need a rest….

I even had a Saturday off yesterday, the first since September and did what normal people do (ie those that don’t work in retail!) at the weekend – a pub meal lunchtime with the good lady, a walk in town (couldn’t resist buying this week’s copy of trade paper Music week in WH Smith’s which has a very fine colour pic of  Zep at the O2 on the front cover), and then it was back for the final scores and a quick pint discussing the forthcoming Deep Purple Convention being held here in Bedford in May with my good friend Terry Boud, himself a lifelong Purple devotee. He’s well made up that they’ve got Glenn Hughes doing an acoustic set on the night.    

Also had a bit of a catch up this last week on viewing some DVD’s including Robert Plant’s Cornbury appearance recently aired on Virgin TV (thanks JP) – very well filmed and a vivid reminder of the warm vibes prevalent that day back in July 2006…and finally watched the superb Who new documentary Amazing Journey that‘s been in it‘s packaging since Christmas. This includes some illuminating interviews notably with manager Bill Curbishley. I recently came across the tapes of my 1999 interview with Bill for TBL and it’s apparent this was one of the most engrossing interviews I’ve ever conducted. The entire DVD is full of rare footage and The Who saga superbly presented. It would be great to see perhaps some years hence, a similar visual document of  the Led Zeppelin story emerge.

Elsewhere there’s been several trips up to the loft searching out source material for the next Tight But Loose mag mainly the Zeppelin At 40 feature. Stumbled across some vintage stuff  and also received some very interesting input from Gary Davies for the collector pages. Some way to go yet, but the new mag is taking shape – watch the site for ordering details soon. On a serious note I was very concerned to here of Peter Bullick’s illness (see TBL news). Here’s wishing Pete a speedy recovery.             

Then today…February 24… 33 years to the day of the release of Physical Graffiti and a day that matched the exitement of that milestone.

In the morning it was to Luton to see Adams’s team triumph 3-2 with the boy himself netting twice (he now needs five to attain 100 goals scored in 5 seasons) including a penalty that had my heart racing.

Could the trend continue in the afternoon?

Well the beautiful game was just that as Tottenham triumphed 2-1 over Chelsea with more penalty drama and extra time. Martyn was in the stadium itself carrying the TBL banner.  

What a match…

Pleased? Just a bit!

Tomorrow it’s back to the grind but with head held high after that result and my Spurs Holsten vintage shirt the uniform for the day.

Football…never a load of bollocks!