Paul Goodwin

The National

Published on Sat 9 Apr 2011

No, not the band, the horse race. I've staked a massive £3 on Niche Market to win for no good reason, but, you know, the favourite never wins... I don't think I've ever bet on it before. I'll let you know if I win by the end of this.

Spring is in the air - it's wonderful, but even so, I can't believe there's a show called Lambing Live. I always got queasy when Peter Davidson was pretending to lose his watch in a cow every week on All Creatures Great and Small so I think it would probably be a bit much for me.  It is nice to finally have some warm weather - it's been a long time. Everything seems better when it's sunny. 

Niche Market has made the second fence and they keep mentioning it. Fuck me, it's really exciting. I hope I don't get into this on a regular basis. Niche Market still "tracking the pace". Come on. I don't even know which one it is. Seems like it's quite a way back though.

Last Friday I went to the Folk Club to sing a song or two. As is traditional I was on fairly late and 80% of the crowd left during the person before me. Still, I wasn't exactly stellar, I think because of that. I did A Happy Ending and Waiting For You, which I've not even tried to play for a good few years. I mostly got it right though. It's still stupid and consequently people still like it.

Oh, God, they keep missing out fences because there are dead horses on the other side of them. That's put me off it.

Most of the rest of the week has been spent putting the finishing touches to "Trinkets and Offcuts" and designing the sleeve. I have a not-as-long-as-you'd-think list of tweaks to make, then one more proof listen (and no doubt a few more tweaks) and I'm going to send it off for mastering. I really hope I don't go crazy about it like I did last time. I'm sure I won't - it's not so important to me. I've also realised that nobody really cares apart from me. I think it'll be quite good though.

Niche Market came in 5th. I knew I should have put the money on each way. Ah well. It made the race exciting.