'Charlie! Help!'

Sad news - Cheeta, the chimpanzee in the original Tarzan films has died. Or has he? After all the 'character' was apparently played by several chimps, and on at least one occasion by a child in a monkey outfit...

In the meantime the YouTube clips just keep on coming - East found this extraordinary item which is simply too good not to post here. If you cancel out the onscreen advert you get subtitles for the lyrics, thereby ensuring that 'Start Me Up' will never sound the same again... I first encountered StSanders back in November 2007 when their spoof videos managed to annoy the people parodied in them so much they they were removed from YouTube by the powers that be; maybe all that money and acclaim takes away your sense of humour?

And I've even managed to do a couple of gigs in between watching YouTube clips -

Christmas Eve gigs are almost always a bit weird. I think there's a sense of anticipation that almost always isn't lived up to; either that or people just get too drunk too quickly... I've not played a Christmas Eve gig for a few years but this year saw your humble narrator appearing with Big Al Reed at The Kings Arms in Harefield. Al's pretty fearless when it comes to material - he phoned me the day before to ask if I 'could have a look at that Joe Jackson song, you know the one...' that'll be 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' then. And he hasn't got a backing track 'but you'll be ok doing it on guitar won't you?' Yes Al, of course I will... in the event it sounded rather good somewhere towards the end of our second set, which also included another guest appearance from Pete from Awaken on several songs, any number of people asking for 'Mustang Sally' (Al couldn't get the backing track to work so me and Pete played it) and a young lady asking for us to play 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town' - we didn't know it so Al put the track over the P.A. while we were packing our gear away, and as we were leaving she came over and thanked us for 'singing it for her'. Oh and the fight that everyone thought was going to happen didn't happen - until right at the very end when a father and son squared up at each other. Happy Christmas Harefield.

The Uppercut played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Boxing night - Noel the guv'nor had originally intended it to be an 'invite only' show for pub regulars although somewhere nearer to the day it became a 'standard' gig. And a good gig it was, with the band playing well (I thought it was a better show than the one at the Load of Hay the previous weekend) and our set including a few new songs and a couple that we hadn't played for ages. It's always a good band to play in so let's hope we can get a bit more work next year.

Talking of work (or at least what passes for work in my little World) I have spent much of today revising songs for an Utter Madness gig on New Year's Eve; I've not played with them since July so there's been a fair bit to get through. I'll let you know how it goes... and I don't remember the last year that I gigged on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve - if only the next couple of months were as busy as this!