My Little Office, Geddington - The Sequel Sun January 16th 2011

Good day everyone, and Happy New Year from Bootleg Sixties Towers ! Despite the fact that I'm still hoovering up pine needles and that not all of the Christmas choccy has been eaten yet ( actually that's a blatant lie ) we're already just a few short weeks away from the start of the 2011 Spring Tour. We have, in fact, been working on this since way back before the last jaunt in the late summer of 2010, but in the way of these things what starts out as a distant mark on your wallplanner suddenly becomes the day after tomorrow in the blink of an eye. Actually we've been pretty much free of the usual logistical and personnel buffoonery that surrounds tours, meaning that either we're getting better at it or a disaster of truly gargantuan proportions is waiting just around the corner to bite us on our Christmas pud - reinforced arses. Apart from some posters going temporarily astray and the fact that Scotland was shut for December ( apparently they had some trouble with a light dusting of snow. Can't say I noticed...was it mentioned on the news ?? ), our biggest headache so far has been finding a replacement tour bus. Oh yes, we're going all proper rock 'n' roll on this next runout. Now, SOME tour buses are mobile Palaces Of Sin, but somehow I can't help feeling that ours will be more a travelling melange of Ovaltine, Ssanatogen, Ralgex and slippers. We'd found a bus company that had come up with one of those " so brilliant I can't believe no-one's thought of it before " ideas about their cost structure. Well, the reason no-one's thought of it before is because it obviously doesn't bloody work, and they've now gone out of business, leaving us to find an alternative in what is the country's busiest touring period of the year. I thought we were going to end up with a twelve - berth hay wagon or, if we were REALLY lucky, a sea - going container on the back of an Eddie Stobart truck, but no, we'll have a real, shiny bus, with bunks, a kitchen, a loo and everything. We even toyed with the idea of having the band's logo emblazoned on the side so that as we traversed the country, people would rush into the street, look at the bus and say " Who the hell are The Bootleg Sixties....?" As it happens the artwork for this was going to cost the equivalent of the Gross National Product of Paraguay, so we knocked that idea on the head. Our other big task has been replacing the godlike genius that was Pug, monitor engineer extraordinaire. We were even hanging on to a vestige of hope that he might tire of his new life Down Under, especially in the light of their recent moisture problems, and come back to help us; however, he sent me picture of himself in Sydney harbour on a blisteringly hot day, happily shitfaced and mooning at the camera with a whole posse of simiarlly beer - sodden chums, so clearly he's not pining for home TOO much. We think we've found a likely candidate to take over, but so as not to tempt fate I won't mention his name in case he explodes, contracts dengue fever, or turns out to be number one on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Whoever we end up with, though, this next tour's going to be very interesting. Not only are we going to some new places like Andover,Exmouth and St Helens, we're going to a whole new territory, Scotland, for the first time. We're also going back to some places we did on the last tour, hoping to improve on or at least match how we did before, so the overall aim is to crank the show's profile up a notch or ten. We're still planning to stick to one major UK tour per year, so we have to make the most of every show. We WILL be doing some special one-offs around the country again later in the year, so watch the website for details. Speaking of the website and all things digital, we're about to add a FanZone page in time for the tour. It's going to be a members - only feature, and we'll using it for news updates, visual and audio downloads, competitions, and all manner of Booties - related malarkey, so keep an eye on the site until you see the link to join. You'll also, I'm reliably informed, be able to follow us on Twitter. Far from being something that might pique Bill Oddie's interest, this is, apparently, a new - fangled thing that young people use, like Mugbook or Faceache or whatever it's called. From our point of view it means that we'll be able to give you minute - by - minute accounts of debauched Nurofen - popping sessions on the tour bus and the like, plus you'll be able to tell us what you think of the shows pretty much as they happen. I'll still be doing the blog, of course, but Twitter gives us a faster, closer relationship with you all...plus it means some of the other buggers in the tour party can write something this time ! There'll probably be at least one more blog before we kick off in Haverhill on February 24th, so as they say on all those radio shows that make you want to reach inside the set, drag the DJ out and punch him in the face, " Remember, keep it here...."