Lyme and Clasp are new today. Most of the rest you can see on the Widget are from the vaults deserving more exposure. My cold seems to have got worse.

On Friday I caught the coach to the Park n Ride and met up with Paul B. The purpose of my visit was to research investment in the UK railway infrastructure and Paul's stock of magazine's enabled me to make good progress on that front. Paul had been to here Joan Armatrading live and was very impressed. I imagine S Cozens who played with John Martyn was in the band.

I came back yesterday tea-time and before long I found my way to JA's Into the Blues which is the first album by a UK female artist to get to No 1 on the US Blues Chart. It was also nominated for a Grammy - another UK first. The songs are mostly with a blues flavour rather than being strict format blues. JA's soloing sounds very good too. Her current album, Starlight, where she plays most of instruments is jazz influenced and some reviewers have compared it to Miss M's Mingus. I am wondering whether to go and see her in Oxford on 18 Nov?

Gilbert is pleased with the way his four with Scott Walton went. We need to give some weight to Fruitful - the mp3 album which comes out on Spaceward Records this Friday.

Just this afternoon I have been indulging myself in Karen Carpenter videos which are spell-binding. Sad that we have seen the last episode of the last series of the Thick of It.