Posts seem to be coming on a month-by-month basis at the moment. It’s not ideal, but it’s not without good reason.

We started this month with a second gig in Whelans, Dublin. It’s a great venue and draws an enthusiastic crowd. I also tell you now, it might just have the most ridiculous wiring of any venue we’ve played recently. The only reason I know this is that we spent a significant amount of time in soundcheck trying to figure out how to stop me getting electric shocks to the mouth every time I stepped near a microphone. If any of you are unlucky enough to have fillings, try putting even a tiny piece of tinfoil in your mouth and you’ll be a step towards imagining how this feels. To those of you who don’t have fillings – well, well done you. Honestly. You can nod with satisfaction into the bathroom mirror next time you brush, you’ve done yourself a good turn.

Wiring aside, it was a thoroughly enjoyable gig and a fine start to the month. We duly celebrated by falling off the radar and starting work on some new tracks. There are four new songs in the works at the moment and video ideas to go alongside them. There’s just one slight problem. I’m not sleeping.

Now I don’t mean this in my usual, going to sleep at 6am, waking up refreshed around noon sort of way. As we’ve already established, midnight to 4am is when I get my best work done. I mean I can’t remember the last time I got a solid night’s sleep, and it’s starting to affect me in the oddest of ways. I’ve been living in London for four years now, and studied for my M.A. in this sweet old building near Tottenham Court Road. I went to classes there, I ate there, I learned the best places to get good dessert there and today, I got lost there. Hand on heart lost. I’d been due to take a left turn five blocks earlier and somehow my legs forgot they were on autopilot. I was 25 minutes late for a meeting;it was embarrassing on more levels than I can describe.

In terms of the band, this doesn’t mean that I can’t work up the energy to do anything useful. It’s that everything I do evaporates into a haze. Ideas have no particular focus or purpose. I’ve six posts typed up, none of which relate particularly to the band and all of which rocket off on some stellar tangents. I’ve written a song that loops back onto itself without end or hope of an off-ramp. It turns out that insomnia might fuel my best ideas, but the occasional night’s sleep is the best way to get things done properly.

This is post number seven and just for the sake of finishing something – anything – I’m going to post this one. Hopefully this situation will all be remedied by the next time you hear from me. Otherwise Daniel and Ben are going to have to do some serious work to stop these recordings turning into a one-track symphony that syncs up perfectly with Citizen Kane.

(Don’t worry. I hear the London Sleep Centre do online assessments now.)