In the West End of Glasgow, the traditional pastime on Christmas Eve and Hogmanay (for me anyway) is bumping into unexpected people in Byres Road and standing around chatting. So when I emerged from my haircut this morning, I ran into John and Bar Purser, visiting from Skye. Yesterday I'd sat around happily with Greg comparing thoughts on the importance of listening and intention in music - nothing that would make much sense written down, but it seemed completely lucid at the time. I've also been playing with my latest eBay purchase of a Behringer V-amp, trying to resist the temptation to make mid-life-crisis electric guitar noises. I'll find a more focused musical use for it soon, when I've stopped messing around with the presets.

Speaking of messing around with presets, the arrival of a nice Lexicon reverb plug-in for my computer has meant that I could finally mix the Marshall-Burns set of tunes that DG and I recorded here in my study nearly a year ago. We only jammed it down quickly so that we wouldn't forget how it went (and not to disturb the neighbours too much) but it's pretty good.   

I don't really engage with Christmas music much any more, apart from smiling when Wizzard, or Kirsty McColl and the Pogues come on the radio. The 'traditional' carols all seem to be in the same form that they were in when I was at school twenty-odd years ago: you still hear the David Willcocks arrangements everywhere.  They were great for their time, but I suppose I'm a bit disappointed that, for example 'O come all you faithful' is hardly ever heard in the old Greatorex version that made it famous, where you repeat each half of each verse. You have to do it faster and get rid of the cheesy 4/2 chord at the beginning, but it's really good fun to sing. Why should Christmas always involve pretending that we're in King's College Cambridge in 1975? 

That's enough bah humbug for today: I'm off to have fun getting ready for tomorrow.