LIFE UPDATE: DIGI, BYAMPOD, CHEAPSHOW etc.

Morning all.

Apologies to the upper tiers for not yet getting you the outtakes from the letters ep. Annoyingly, my hard drive containing them has been… uh… well, I don’t know where it is. It’ll turn up though, and I’ll get you them. We’ll hopefully get you something else exclusive this week to apologise.

We’re filming today with Paul and Eli, for the first time in ages. It’s an out-and-about episode, and we’re playing dinosaur mini golf. Expect chaos. That will likely be this week’s Digi, if I get it edited in time. I’m also editing a few little video bits for Cheapshow Live.

Talking of… that’s happening this Saturday. I’m a bit more involved with it than I’d expected to be, so if you’re coming… expect quite a bit of me on stage, along with Ashens, Ash Frith, Octav1us and Ethan Lawrence. Gannon is swearing revenge for the indignities heaped upon him on Digi. Apologies to the Cheapshow fans who aren’t there to see me. I’ll be hanging around afterwards, so I hope to get to say hello to some of you. 

It’s going to be a scorcher on Saturday, and we’ll all be a sweaty mess by the end, but it’s going to be a brilliant show. Tickets still available.

Tomorrow I should be interviewing the driving force behind Marko’s Marillion Museum for BYAMPOD, and we’ve also hopefully got another interview coming up with Neil Cockle, one of the founder members of Silmarillion. It got delayed because of all the stuff with my dad, but hopefully we’ll have that to you soon.

By the way… further to our current episode, two of our friends have very, very kindly offered to step in and help us out with the deposit for next year’s Port Zelande Marillion Weekend. Suffice to say, our gratitude is off the charts, and we know very well how blessed to have such good friends. 

We can’t guarantee 100% that we can go – as our mate Rich said to convince us to accept the gesture, getting there is a series of hurdles, given our current predicament, and this is but the first one (there’s still the balance to pay, along with flights and spending money) – but we’ll see where we’re at this by early next year. If things haven’t improved by then I’m jumping off a cliff.

On the topic of my dad, because I know some of you would like to know… there’s no real news. He remains very ill and very low, and the hospital don’t even seem to know what’s wrong, how long it might last, or whether he’ll even get better. At the minute, we’re all sceptical. 

My mum is obviously very worried what this will mean for her future, and it’s something we’re trying to figure out together. It’s the not knowing and uncertainty that is the most anxiety-inducing part of it all. There’s a sort of constant background level of stress and worry, which spikes occasionally. It’s just hard to see them both suffering, in different ways, without knowing how long this could go on for.

My sister is back from her holiday now, so that should at least mean we’ve a bit more time than we did last week, where we were splitting our days between the hospital and my mum. Consequently, I’m still intending to do a Biffo’s Brain Zoom on Thursday. This one probably won’t be shared with everyone like the last one was! I’m also, finally, cracking on with your extracurricular commissions. I really appreciate how patient everyone has been, and understanding of the unanticipated turn of events.

Lastly… once Cheapshow Live is out of the way, we’re hoping to sort out the details for Digi Live 2023 – our 30th anniversary celebration. It’s most likely going to happen in July next year, but I’ll confirm once we know. I hope lots of you will be able to make it. We’d still like to hold some sort of Patron-only event during that weekend to thank you all for having our backs. We literally love you.

Paul