Persia

Back in the studio finishing the Overture For Berlin. Quite definitely the most out there piece I've had a hand in since the days of Dr Calculus. It's an overture of themes from the forthcoming RW album Intensive Care & will be played before the Velodrome concert in October. If you look at the pictures for July you'll see us recording it with David Campbell at Henson.

I'm so pleased cricket is popular again. Any five day game that might end in a draw that survives and actually thrives in this most stupid of times is truly a miracle. Next John Luc Godard is a box office smash and Martin Scorsese makes the greatest rock film of the 21st © about Bob Dylan.

Tripping was played on the radio today. We started to write it in the late summer of 2003. It was about two or three in the morning when he picked up his new Fender Jazz bass and settled on the phrase that secured the direction of the song and also remained the bass you can still hear in the first verse. It was still early days for our collaboration so I innocently thought I had a chance to write a chorus. He immediately trumped it by singing the falsetto hook that *is* the chorus relegating mine to beautifully executed backing vocals. I'd never known the like. I was about to get used to it though. Early on Tripping was The Call Up from Sandanista to a Daft Punk rhythm. Then it became Watching the Detectives in Bollywood. Now it's the new single from Robbie Williams. The only man to say "The Lilac Time" on Radio One in living memory x