Spirit of Play

is a mere week away.

I mean our last gig of the year, of course.

Why, what did you think I meant?

Oh, I see . . . well . . . made you look.

This will be our second gig for Toby Burton's magnificent Rock-Til-You-Drop outfit, the first one being an amusing night out at the Dublin Castle, with Dipsticks (shock, horror, no myspace page), 14-Carat Grapefruit and The Great Outdoor Experience also on the bill. (I say amusing: 14CG had inflatable guitars. And at least one hat. Why don't we have a hat? We really should, I guess, by now.)

To everybody who came along to that one, and everybody who came along on other sordid nights to see us yell and blather and strut like curiously resurrected dancers from an antique land (ie, Mick Jagger): we thanks you. We is of few words, but we thanks you.

Trick Noise Makers lead the line on November 7 at the Libertine. They do indeed make a fine noise; I don't know what the trick is yet. Help.

Hope to see you there. It is a free one, incidentally.

After that, SOP retire to the studio, to turn our own trick noises into MP3s et al (obviously, we take requests; who's up for a new recording of "Get up you lazy son of a bitch"? Anyone? You there, sir, you look like a single parent, what's your opinion on the matter?).

And after that, we'll be mainly skulking in the dark corners of seedy pubs, probably like this one (apologies for the pop-up), in order to plot and fret and determine the shape of 2010.

With any luck, next year, there'll be a bit of this, and some more of this (61ers, we bow to you, with give you thanks, we praise you for your glory). And I can't promise that there won't be songs about love, hate and the American Dream.

It's just that we haven't written those. Yet.