I’m just coming up to the grand young age of thirty twelve, I’ve been playing drums for most of my life. Have been in bands for most of the time I’ve been playing drums, and have been drinking for most of the time I’ve been in bands playing drums.

So why is it that until the show that we just played in Helsinki, I’d never had a Jägerbomb whilst on stage?

Those of you who’ve never tried one, I suggest you do so at some point over the festive season, or sooner, and those of you who have tried one, will know exactly what I’m on about.

I mean, it’s not that I wasn’t having a great gig already. In fact it started off great and just kept getting better, but then I heard (what I can’t imagine is a very common sound at a gig in Finland) A vaguely familiar sounding Welsh bloke at the front shouting “Ritchie, fancy a Jägerbomb?”

Be rude not to now wouldn’t it.

So there we are, one song later and not one, but two of these cheeky little thirst quenchers turn up.

Egged on by the whole crowed I manage to down both drinks in the space of a few seconds and then it’s head down straight back into the set for a few more Wildheart classics.

Now I’m not sure if the combination of Jägermeister, intense physical exertion and Redbull is all that clever an idea, but I have to say that immediately after consuming said drinks I began to play the best I’ve ever played, the band was the tightest we’d ever been, the songs were the best songs I’d ever heard, the crowed sounded like angels, and the lights………good god the lights……..And at that point I realize that Scotty is pointing a mic in my face and I’m singing The Duck Song.

Damn! How the hell did that happen?

Thanx Steve, you bastard!

But this time I’ve come prepared. Converse, as good as they are for drumming in, don’t really cut it as an all terrain snowshoe. So this year I’ll mainly be wearing the hide of pre-historic woolly mammoths, along with some very flattering thermal underwear made by that classic top Savile Row designer – Thinsulate. Let’s face it, you’re past caring about your appearance once your lips have fallen off. I dare say I won’t be so agile around the drum kit, but god damn it I’ll be warm.

Ah! How cute I think to myself as I correct her telling her it’s gingerbread man. “No Daddy, it’s gingerbread person”

I scan the counter of all things yummy and there, wedged between the cheese straws and yum yums are a few familiar looking fellows advertised as ‘gingerbread persons’

Now I’ve been giving this some thought, and the only reason I can think of why anyone could possibly be offended by a gingerbread man being called a gingerbread man is that it may seem presumptuous of someone to name a gingerbread man a man when it could have actually been created as a woman.

But then surely the baker who’s selling the gingerbread men is well aware of the sex of his ginger biscuits. His train of thought must go something like – “right then, now I’ve finished the muffins, I better get on with making the gingerbread men.”

So there’s absolutely no question about it, they’re definitely male. So why call them persons?

Anyway, the fact that it was eaten before I’d even paid for it leads me to believe that, all names aside, they’re still as tasty as ever.

Speaking of which, did anyone notice how tasty our London show was? I thought we were rather excellent.

Tokyo, bring it on!

Hmmm! I wonder if Ginger has any of that crystal meth left from Exeter?

I rush to the laptop and on my way to the Wildhearts tour page I get sidetracked and disappear down a very wobbly pathway. There’s an RAC van coming right towards me, and the driver is looking very, very sad and depressed. I’d say he was on his way to a breakdown.

After perusing the comforting pages of www.don’tbesostoopidofcoursemencan’tgetpregnanttwice.co.uk I conveniently reappear at my original destination only to find I’ve got some bloody homework to do. Well there’s no time like the present. I’m about 3 bars into the 1^st song when my simple little mind goes skip, skip, skipping off and before I know it I’m thinking about last nights fish and chips. Mr. C’s! The pride of Yorkshire. Well it was a very pleasant supper but I can’t stop thinking about the texture of that fish being just a little bit too similar to that of chicken. (not that hat’s a bad thing, ‘oh no’!) (In the voice of the Churchill dog) Then I start wondering if Mr. C has a little secret. And what does that C really stand for. It’s Mr. bloody Chicken! I knew it! I knew there was something funny going on.

I wake with a bloated belly and to the sound of my son crying like a baby (he’s allowed to, he’s 17 months old). I realize that I actually know all the songs very well. Still not sure about that fish though!

Oh what a wonderful week it’s been. The English Riviera can be a beautiful place in the height of the English summertime. It was the combination of jam, butter, clotted cream, scone and tea that initially captured the imagination of my rumbling tummy, but oh dear what did we spot as we set foot onto the golden sands of the Cornish coastline. Not the quaint little tea room with the little old lady who gets mighty confused when you ask her if she sells them horror teeth. You know the Halloween ones with the fangs. No, not a tea room, but a pub! A bloody pub! On the beach! Well needless to say I didn’t get to sample a Cornish cream tea in Cornwall. Does it taste the same if consumed  anywhere else on the planet? Answers on a postcard please to Doctor big love and his long brown finger……………. Beside the seaside, beside the sea.