Saw him last year in Putney and will check out the Oxford gig this time. They were great last year - fabulous set played exquisitely. Best of all, he stuck around afterwards to chat to lots of us former pale-and-interesting-80s-waifs turned balding-middle-aged-middle-managers.

Mind you, please God he isn't letting his wife do the warm up again...

Mrs U and I plan to be at the Liverpool gig. We'd be delighted to meet up with anyone else who is there too.

Count me in for the Liverpool show - last saw him 21 years ago at the Newcastle Mayfair, which all of a sudden makes me feel very old.

I saw them back in the day at Leeds Warehouse; saw Prefab Sprout & The Go-Betweens at the same venue around the same time. Boat to Bolivia was a great record and maybe it still is. If they come to Holmfirth I'm in.

See you there!

Saw him on Saturday in Gateshead - he's on excellent form, though as a local lad the place was so full of his mates it felt at times like we were gatecrashing a private party. It's a lot more than a Boat to Bolivia recap - we got most of Gladsome Humour & Blue too, finishing with a walkabout of Salutation Road.

There's a nice blog by support Helen McCookerybook, http://mccookerybook.blogspot.co.uk, covering the tour so far.

Great gig, but somehow in the last twenty years, he's transmogrified into George Formby.

I actually attended a guitar course run by Martin last month. Very enjoyable it was too. He's a sound bloke with some great tunes and a fantastic attitude to life and music.

To my shame, I wasn't aware of his music before the course, although the name and the face looked familiar.

I have to chuckle at the George Formby reference, how apt. I am sure he did an impersonation at the open mic session, or perhaps that was the many pints of beer I had imbibed by that point.

He's running a songwriting course in June if anyone is interested - if it's half as good as the guitar course it'll be well worth attending... I know I'm going to be there, at least :)

if it weren't in Scotland!

Excellent night at the Academy2 last night in the company of the Turner brothers.

After a good few plates of Tapas at La Tasca beforehand - including what was by all accounts the worst Paella ever tasted, we headed off to the venue. It's not the biggest venue - in fact it's quite possibly the smallest - but there was still plenty of room. Martin's appeal is obviously quite 'selective' these days.

Not that that seemed to concern him - Steve T collared him before his set and we all had a good old chat* semi-backstage for a while. What a lovely, upbeat, excellent fellow he is! (Martin, not Steve. Although Steve's alright too.)

I scanned the crowd for Southstand of this parish, only to realise that identifying one bald, bespectacled bloke out of a veritable sea of bald, bespectacled blokes was a mission doomed to failure. Sorry John.

Anyway - the gig. We got all of Boat To Bolivia, including bonus tracks, lots of other old favourites including a full band crowd walkabout to Salutation Road and a stream of jokes and banter. Plenty of Liverpool references as well, namechecking Holly Johnson, Peters Coyne, Wylie and Burns, and Michael Head amongst others.

After a couple of hours we left for home, exhausted but happy. Lovely night chaps.

Oh, and then Steve called me to let me know that Liverpool had had another goalkeeper sent off in their game against Blackburn. They really are The Gift That Keeps On Giving.**

*ok. We fawned like a bunch of schoolgirls and begged for autographs.

**cue out-of-this-world, matchwinning performance from the third string keeper on Saturday.