The Urban Angels - aka John Scudder on double bass and me doing guitar and vocals will be playing a short run of shows featuring my songs later this month. It has been great working with venues that support original writing. There are still the places that want to know what you will play things they and their punters will recognise rather than self- penned material. Read More…

I have been fortunate as a musician living in New Zealand to be able to step onto a stage in front of an audience a number of times over the past few weeks. Having been able to come out of a Covd-19 lockdown that has gained us an advantage over the virus it was extra sweet to perform my songs again. Read More…

The world has seen rule by the aristocracy, the rise of meritocracy, democracy, autocracy, anarchy, bureaucracy, not so much of angelocracy (government by angels) lots of despotocracy and now we can add Idiocracy to the list. Idiocracy is an actual a word. Read More…

This weekend I will step onto a stage for the first time in 3 months. It will also be literally a new stage in my career as the venue, Space Studio and Gallery at 18 Saint Hill St, has just built a stage in their wonderful performance space behind the exhibition area. The room has great acoustics and can seat around 60 people. Read More…

I hear that Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters called another MP David Seymour ’’Sunshine’’ as a form of put-down response to being called Grandpa. The odd thing about this is that while Peters is actually a Grandfather, David Seymour is most certainly not ‘Sunshine’ in any shape or form. Read More…

Angel of mercy / Where have you been
I’ve been under your window waiting for you to sing
I just want to hear you / call my name once more
The way you’ve called to me so many times before Read More…

As a songwriter I am always looking for song ideas. Where do songs come from? Where do they go if they never get finished? I have heaps of notebooks full of scribbled lyrical ghost that haunt the pages and homeless song titles that never found a place to live. Read More…

The world is awash with conspiracies – we know this because conspirators tell us this and if challenged say that if there is no evidence of a conspiracy then this constitutes absolute proof that something is clearly being hidden from us – otherwise we would know. Defies the gravitational pull of facts and cam cause dizziness and attacks of virtual vertigo. Read More…

After playing guitar and singing at Mud Ducks Café, with my thoughts focused on songs – remembering the words to my own songs and favourites I enjoy performing - I wrote the following patchwork of song lyrics. Read More…

This will be the last column for a while as the world of newspapers adapts to the whims and ways of market forces. I thought I should bring some class to the situation by adapting a bit of Shakespeare to play the satirical jester. Read More…

When I read about the Police website set up to record breaches of the lockdown crashing due to the number of reports being received, I was not sure what to think. Read More…

The word for today is ‘exponential’. In the way that Covid-19 now means ‘stay home in your domestic bubble, exponential has become a term we cannot ignore. It is an important concept to understand. Read More…

If aliens arrived from space today, they would discover that the world was closed. There would be nowhere they could buy Star Wars merchandise or a replacement sofa for the battered old one in the space ship. Read More…

As I go about my day, I have been hearing a variety of comments and views on the uncertainties of a world grappling with Covid-19. Read More…

For many world leaders, the Coronavirus offers both a distraction from the usual political power games and a massive incentive to get their act together. Read More…

The following satirical take on ‘How to be a Bigot’ will either make you laugh, make you cry or change your life. Read More…

National trumpeting an intention to make a ‘bonfire on regulations’ is one sure way for party leader Simon to burn his bridges. It is simply a tilt for the populist vote. Read More…

Most countries have criteria for gaining citizenship. Some require a certain level of understanding of the languages spoken. Others simply set the bar at how much money you will bring with you. Read More…

There was a story in the papers recently about a fugitive from justice getting away by hiding in music case. This was quickly followed by a worried press release from Yamaha, who make a variety of musical instruments, warning people “about climbing into musical instrument cases”, suggesting this was not a good idea. Read More…

All the tech talk is about the future wonders of Artificial Intelligence or AI for those who like to shorten everything. Depending on which side of the debate you are on, it is either being talked up as a saviour or destroyer of work, life and the universe as we know it. Read More…