Brighton, England

My family arrived yesterday from Nashville to spend this coming week in London with me. We've taken a two bedroom apartment that sleeps six overlooking the River Thames complete with kitchen. A little strange, has a bit of business man's disco vibe about it, loads of smoked glass, white marble and shiny chrome. The restaurant in the place is called The Chino Latino Lounge, which speaks volumes. Still, the apartment itself is fine and will be home for the next nine or ten days we'll be in London. We spent the day warding off jet lag and the desire to fall asleep by taking a sight seeing bus tour round the city then last night venturing back to beloved Soho for a family dinner at the New Delhi Brasserie. Glenn Worf and I ate there about a week ago and they remembered me when we came in. The food didn't disappoint on return and we devoured every spot of it. Soho on Friday night was swinging hard, loads of young folks spilled out onto the narrow streets smoking, drinking, talking and laughing.

Today we ventured to the seaside town of Brighton for our gig, my family took the train and joined us there as well. It is our usual at The Brighton Centre, always a good gig and also Guy's birthday so his family was there as well. The acoustics in the venue are surprisingly good and we had an energetic evening despite some general exhaustion and Mark's wrist bothering him not to mention the sniffles. The audience was fab and witnessed a couple of unusual events. After our encores we all gathered front of stage to take bows, Mark accidentally swung the neck of his guitar around just as Dan was leaning to say something to him and took the headstock of a Stratocaster right in the mouth. After a quick check to see that no teeth were missing and that he was all right, we decided to do a couple more songs to wrap up the evening. The next unusual moment occurred when we'd completed the final song and Mark took his red Strat off and handed it to Guy on stage as a birthday gift. Guy was figuratively gob smacked while Dan was literally so.

There was a large reception following the show in Guy's honour. We stayed for a quick drink then back in the car for an hour and a half ride back to London. Tomorrow begins our six day run at The Royal Albert Hall!

So long,

Richard