I shall, just whilst touring, sign off from Twitter. There are a few needy souls there who step up into frenetic activity at tour time and can cast a dark cloud over the whole thing: I find they’re much nicer to meet without a flurry of desperate messages before and after. Twitter sadly does them no justice.

The blog shall of course continue to feed through, and I shall most likely post upon it, now and then as we go along.

I look forward to seeing some of you on the road, and must gently ask again that people don’t turn up bearing gifts, as some regularly do: they’re very hard to keep hold of when we’re touring and you spending your money on tickets is more than super-kind and embarrassingly generous enough.

Right, Woking awaits. Last night I realised a minute before going on that I was wearing ridiculously striped socks. I had to change socks with Coops. This is not a good thing: he has a famously adventurous approach to foot-hygiene. Luckily, my magical powers were not too deeply affected.

Today I have chosen more carefully.
D