– On Saturday 10 October record stores and outlets will be selling re-releases from the 80s.
Albums, as we all know, are bodies of work from artists who define themselves within whole albums. All my life “listening parties” brought siblings, friends and fans together.
– To celebrate this at 3pm on Saturday 10 October there will be a TIM’S TWITTER LISTENING PARTY for my album ANTHEM.
I can’t wait to tell you track-by-track my unique memories of each track as we recorded it, from microphones in loo bowels to create waterfall effects to popping out mid recording session to have Tea with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret to pizzas at 7am after epic nights of recording…… it’s going to be one glorious walk down memory lane.
Rather surprisingly Ancestry.com contacted me last month to inform me I am 31% Scottish, 5% North of France, 1% Spanish, 30% Irish and 33% English.
It was the Scottish percentage that surprised me, as my parents never referenced Scottish ancestry, but it makes sense to me because my concerts in Scotland have always been magical.
The Spanish and French came as a confirmation of something I have instinctively felt all my life, a connection to these countries.
My mother arrived in this world 7 days early. She was born in Newport Wales. Her mother, from London, was visiting relatives in the area when her premature labour started, so can I add Wales to this equation?
Since taking up Muay Thai martial arts three months ago I am finding a new physical confidence.
Three months ago every part of me hurt and I put it down to the inevitable onset of age.
It appears my aches and pains where due to natural muscle wasting in lockdown, the fear of hurting myself was stopping my attempting physical exertion. Now I am intrepid. Last Sunday I scaled an 8ft wall and scrumpted the apples from my neighbours orchard.
The joy when I saw people watching me from their park cars next door, throwing the apples down to my accomplice Frippy on our side of the wall, it must have been quite a site to see a 62 yr old women, in her Hobbs dress nicking apples whilst standing on an 8ft wall. I can’t bare waste, apples are precious at a time like this.
Talking of Frippy, looking out of the kitchen window last Sunday, there was a White Dove on the opposite roof and I called Frippy in and said “ Look Robert there’s a Cockatoo on the roof!”
“OMG! So there is!” he exclaimed. “How on earth did it get there?”
“It must have escaped.” I answered.
And for two days I managed to persuade him we had an escaped cockatoo in the garden. That was until our murdering Sparrow Hawk swooped down and annihilated the poor dove in one swoop.
The neighbours must hear me regularly shout out “Bugger Off you murdering Bastard!” To a sparrow hawk who sits in the branches above looking down at me with contempt.
On telling Robert of the “cockatoo’s” demise I admitted he had been idolising a Dove.
I bet he can’t wait to be on tour again.
Our Sunday videos go from strength to strength and we are growing an International audience. It appears Journalists, Professors, Authors, Artists are among our audience, but we were equally thrilled to note on Facebook that the “ Montreal Fetish Weekend” where looking forward to our films too. How can our British normality appeal, they must think we are a super subtle S&M couple.
All last week we were waking up to white feathers within the house, with no way of knowing where they had arrived from. Resting on chairs, in draws, on stairwells, by our diaries, falling out of books.
White feathers are believed to be contact from those who have passed, very reassuring.
It was Bill Reflin’s birthday on the 30th Sept. He would have been 60.
The night before Robert had a dream that he was at a venue and Bill walked past his room in the corridor outside and didn’t say anything. Robert woke feeling “why didn’t Bill tell me he is alive! Bill is alive, why didn’t he tell me!”
I mentioned a week earlier I dreamt I was in a huge, beautiful barn, it had a glass ceiling and it was filled with an artist community and art was everywhere, when Bill walked in, didn’t say anything, he was his usual beautifully sardonic self and he walked out the building without acknowledging me AND I woke utterly devastated that Bill didn’t tell me he was alive!
So Robert and I tried to work out what this meant from Bill’s perspective.
We came to the conclusion that Bill was referencing that everything was in place, as it should be. He was where he is now and we are where we are… it is as it should be.
When Robert and I rehearsed our Sunday filming of “Never Mind The B…….” we rehearsed with three large fans blowing to lift the large blue flags I was using. Everything worked. The following day when we came to shoot, nothing electrical worked. The fans wouldn’t work, the lights wouldn’t work but Roberts amp was lit up and working, yet it appeared the buildings electrics where down. We couldn’t fathom it, so we shot the sequence in natural light without the aid of the fans and it looked great.
As I carried the props next door Robert came back and said “You wont believe this, all the fans are working again.”
Bill was definitely around.
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Christmas has arrived in our house. I know we haven’t had Halloween yet, but we prefer Christmas and we intend to have a good three months of it!
Life goes on, yet I am aching to perform in front of a live audience. Time is moving quickly, the days seem so short, probably because we always invent something to do and in this rare event of actually having an immense amount of time on our hands, the potential to be creative seems to be an immeasurable pool of choice and possibility.
My big challenge for the next 6 months, because I am optimistic we will be able to do live shows from April onwards is to focus on the possible and stop the impossible from distracting me.
This definitely is a time to reset and be ready for the explosion of life outside of these four walls in 2021.
STAY SAFE EVERYONE,
WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS, THE END OF COVID MUST BE IN SIGHT.
BE PROUD! BE LOUD! BE HEARD! LOVE TOYAH XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I can’t wait to tell you track-by-track my unique memories of each track as we recorded it, from microphones in loo bowels to create waterfall effects to popping out mid recording session to have Tea with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret to pizzas at 7am after epic nights of recording…… it’s going to be one glorious walk down memory lane.
Christmas has arrived in our house. I know we haven’t had Halloween yet, but we prefer Christmas and we intend to have a good three months of it!