The last couple of days have been beautiful.

The sun is shining, the days are starting to get slightly longer and the skies were blue.

I’ve got a week of composing projects coming up and for my day off today, I could not think of anything better than going for a long cycle.

As you can see from the photos below, it is very rewarding to cycle around my home and around the Garth mountain just outside of Cardiff.

There were a lot of people out today and you can’t blame anyone wanting to enjoy the fresh air and weather after a pandemic, lockdown ridden winter.

Spring is with us, and hopefully along with it, some much needed reason to be positive.

is Hindi for ‘The Heart Desires’.

My girlfriend told me this was one of her favourite films and after watching it I understood why.

The film has a cult status in India and is loved by many. It is about three young men who have recently graduated and are finding their way in the world. This of course involves their professional vocations but then there are their love lives.

What is amazing about this film though is how it approaches this subject with an extraordinary sense of wisdom. Normally, Hollywood guy romantic comedies are outlandishly tongue in cheek and look to provoke crude laughs. Not to say that this film isn’t funny as it is at many points but it actually approaches the subject of love with a phenomenal sense of delicacy and complexity.

The film explores compassion, parental pressures and expectations, attachment, unconditionality, friendships and how they evolve through adulthood. It is a film with a tone that is understated but incredibly heartwarming and affecting.

I highly recommend it.

It will also make you want to visit Goa.

Whenever I used to have a gig pre covid era, I was an incredibly good at faffing.

I would be up the stairs, down the stairs about a dozen times, ensuring I had everything I need to perform at said gig.

Checklist

Amp

Guitar

Guitar Stand

Pedalboard

Jack cables

Kettle Plug

Speakon lead

Mic

Mic Stand

XLR

Mic Clip

Spare Strings

Guitar cleaning cloth

The list goes on and there are all sorts of things you need to ensure the gig can go smoothly. It is worth the time making sure you have all of this equipment to run things smoothly because if you don’t, all chaos breaks loose.

I currently spend my time faffing when preparing to cycle. Helmet, bike, tyres pumped, spare small pump, puncture kit (you do not want to be 20km from home when your tyres go flat!), water, snack.

It is good to make sure you have everything you need.

It is even better to have it all in the same place.

Something I could do with reminding myself occasionally as it would save me twelve trips back upstairs!

P.S. I wrote a song inspired by me and my bandmate’s proclivity for faffing. It is called the Almighty Faff and features a brass trio. I’m releasing a video with the accompanying score for it this week.

People lie about their age.

Furthermore, there is an unhealthy obsession with tagging the age of someone with their achievements

Forbes 30 under 30 list is designed to make 30 people feel good about their successes and then make thousands of people feel inadequate.

The music industry’s major labels seem hellbent on plugging and thrusting up careers of younger artists in their teens. No surprise that a lot of the music in the top 50 whilst to some extent, well crafted is also juvenile.

With age comes the virtues of maturity and experience, and more of an understanding of who you are and what kind of creative statement you want to make.

How old you are shouldn’t ever matter when it comes to your journey and what you are doing. It isn’t really anyone’s business to know what exact age you are anyway.

Shun the noise.

When the BBC decides to make the main headline a nothing story about Harry and Meghan, whilst Matt Hancock’s lack of transparency over COVID contracts has been deemed unlawful, we have a problem.

The handling of public money over COVID contracts and test and trace has been appalling. As highlighted by George Monibot, Millions of pounds went to unqualified friends, teenagers were left running distressing calls and lives that could have been saved, ultimately weren’t.

The fact that this has not been properly covered leads to the plain sighted fact that the U.K. has a problem with elite corruption, both within the way news media operates as well as the severe lack of accountability when things have gone devastatingly wrong due to incompetence across central government.

The general public is being done a disservice and we need to create new systems that are more just and have more representative, transparent and active democratic processes.

In the meantime, we are dealing with a dangerous level of corruption, cronyism and inequality.

Things have to change.