'The bird is not the metaphor.' Part 1.

We braved the impending severe weather warning and made a trip to our rock n' roll meridian [Milton Keynes] on Saturday afternoon for the first four hours' work on songs for the new LP. Despite the frozen pipes in the rehearsal rooms, and the lurking expectation that we would emerge into a silent winter wonderland at the end of it all, we made good progress on 3 songs.

'Bow down' now has a splendid dronerock intro; 'Latch' has ditched its pretty-but-pointless middle section and fessed up to being the popsong that it probably is, and 'This is how I cut my own throat' has a version of the chorus that may even, eventually, work. Also making their debut, a new handbuilt pedal made and played by Andrew [it was loud] and the new bareknuckle pickups on my partscaster [they were lovely]. And, if we get sick of the putative LP title [above], then John coined an alternative [LP Title Pathway B]: 'I am the auditor.'

To top it all off, it hadn't quite started snowing when we all pealed out at 4pm, and if it hadn't have been for Birmingham's notorious inability to cope with the snow, I'd have made it home in decent time, too.

Recording booked for late April. Yip yip!