Have you ever wondered how we get from stage to stage? We travel honey, we travel. So today there’s me, in 3E behind Rhodes’ head in 2E. TM Duffy on my left and opposite in the window seat across the aisle SLB.

It’s like we are playing a game of ‘cough the splutter’. Every minute or so one of us coughs, sneezes, spits some green goo out into a tissue, and then a few minutes later the next man does the same, on and on, around in a circle of sickly admission.

The drummer is missing you may have noted, because he was not at all well, not well enough to travel today. He’ll board a night flight via Sao Paolo tomorrow evening. We’re hoping two solid days of bedrest will sort him out and we’ll all be ready to rock and rolla Mexico City Friday.

And this is how we depart South America, we Duran Durans!

Was it worth it?

I’ll say, absolutely. The most fun tour we have done in a long time. And now you wonder, have they been having a touch too much fun? I don’t think so your honor… I mean, maybe that teen discotheque in Sao Paolo Saturday night put me over the edge, but at the same time, it gave me the edge…

And edge is what we need right now, a hunger to proceed, lay out and create the next step of our journey, whatever it’s going to be. (Not jazz certainly, and not country and western).

The good news is this; as we wind down a twelve month touring cycle that began in New York off Broadway, when we should be thinking of languid baths in honey and mustard and hour upon hour of… quite what exactly?

I’m ready kids, to put the muse to the test once more, and see what dish we can serve up. And you know what? These suckers in front and beside me, they’re thinking exactly the same thing…

Gratitude List

Does everyone out there know what one is? It’s something we should all do, now and again, to counter those creeping (and creepy) thoughts we all have sometimes, that our lives aren’t the lives we (thought we) wanted. To counter the fears that we all have that we’re not going to get what (we think) we need, or lose something we already have. A gratitude list is a useful tool, as we say in the trade. For the most part it’s an extremely personal experience, usually best kept between you and your God, although it can also be worthwhile to share with a loved one, especially when things are seemingly spinning out of control (as I know they are for so many folk right now). It’s a way of getting down to the fundamentals…

Exhibit A

‘Today I am grateful that I have a career making music.’

‘Today I am grateful that I have a genuine love for the men that I work with.’

‘Today I am grateful that I am alive to be a parent and a step-parent to my beloved kids.’

‘I am grateful that I had wonderful parents who never abused me or fucked me up beyond being able to function on a normal level in society’.

‘I am grateful that I have an extraordinary wife who loves me and wants to be with me’

‘I am grateful to be as passionate as I am about life, generally, and music in particular’.

‘Today I am grateful that after many many years of trial and error I have finally made the connection between physical fitness and happiness.’

That sort of thing. And you know I could go on, but would not want you to think I’m bragging. You might be thinking that already, but really, can’t we all write a list similar to this? It’s a question of slowing down for a minute and focusing on the positive, things we get to taking for granted, like health, or the health of our kids (is there anything more important than that?) And if you don’t have kids, maybe it’s your parents that are doing well for their age, or your dog…

T.I. says at the beginning of what is perhaps the best pop song of the year ‘Live Your Life’, ‘We got to start focusing on what we got, and not what we ain’t got’, and while we’re on the subject, explain to me how a rapper from Atlanta can sing one of the most heartfelt anthems of the year (I love his callout to the troops in Iraq) can be the same guy who got busted by the Feds for trying to buy a job lot of machine-guns?

‘I am so grateful I don’t feel or have the need to have guns in my life, in any way, shape or form’.

Number one in the US and the UK. Congratulations.

Reminds me of Rod Stewart, famously in 1972 had a number 1 single and album (‘Maggie May’ and ‘Every Picture tells A Story’) in the UK and US simultaneously. It were the talk of the town kids. It made him the coolest most smartest superstar sexy motherfucker in the world that week, and this week it’s T.I