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How quickly a summer can slip by. Suddenly there are leaves everywhere and you want to turn your collars up against the wind, rather than just to look cool. It only seems a few days ago that Dan and I were bobbing around in the sea in inspired awe of our surroundings. The trouble is that it’s all very well getting in, but scrambling up that pebbled shelf muttering “Oww!” isn’t very dignified. There was me thinking I would emerge, James Bond-like, after my dip. I was more Daniel Johnston than Daniel Craig. Still, it was glorious!

The days are now drawing in. The tweed is coming out. Actually, the tweed never really went away did it? You’ve seen the snaps. Or followed my “Tweets”.

Brighton’s been a great place to be over the summer. Not least for me, getting back to my roots, as it were. I’ve been getting reacquainted with its nooks and crannies, some old and some new. It’s lively and vibrant and friendly. I haven’t once felt like someone wanted to punch me. London, on the other hand, feels like everyone wants to punch me. Which perhaps some of them do. No matter! It’s ace to be back in the bosom of such bohemia and bonhomie. Also, there appears to be a regular convention of wrist-slashingly unapproachable, tattoo’d, desperately “hot” young women knocking about which has been incredibly helpful for my personal state of mind. Ladies, I salute you… and will perhaps eventually pluck up the courage to actually say hello.

However, I digress somewhat.

What we’ve been here to do, most importantly, is write and demo our second record, which has, in short, come really very easily.

“Difficult second album”?.. Apparently not.

If anything, I’m beginning to think of this as our first record. “Silver Spoons”, to me, is the sound of a band working out what they want to do. Experimenting. Feeling out what kind of band they want to be. In a lot of ways, SS&BB was the difficult second record and we’re able, now, to be whisked back in time and do the debut. A cocksure new band with a manifesto.

These noises we’ve been making are the sounds of a band that knows what it wants to do. Who know who they are and where they fit. We’ve each settled into our “roles” and are comfortable with what they are. Words have flopped out of us just as easily as the riffs and grooves have. We’re coherent. Well, most of the time.

Also, we’ve found ourselves writing with our audience in mind. Having played all those shows we know, far better than we did, what makes YOU jump around and go nuts which, in turn, makes us jump around and go nuts and everybody goes home with a sore neck and a big stupid grin.

When we first piled into Dan’s kitchen and plugged everything in there was no moment of thumb-twiddle and “Errrr, right then… what happens now?”

A great lump of rock immediately fell out of the ether and we let it take us where it naturally wanted to.

And that just kept happening.

The songs seemed to tell us what they wanted to be about, and how they were going to go. It was like we channelled the damn things. Perhaps we did. Who knows?

All I know is that in demo form, this record sounds fucking ace and is, for all intents and purposes, the record I’ve been wanting to make since 1991.

And so, in a fortnight’s time, we return to Leeders Farm to fire up the old Neve and commit these things to tape. Proper.

We’re going to attempt to film ourselves as we go, so you can see us while we work, as it were. I know we’ve said it before, but this time we have the right cables and know how to work iMovie. Well, Robin reckons it’s a “Piece of piss”, anyway.

I’m hoping for a good few of those brilliant electrical storms that Norfolk does so well. Added to the vibe last time and, no doubt, will again. In the very least it’s a chance to indulge in the legendary “Storm cake”. It’s just regular cake, of course. But if there’s a storm outside and you call a cake “Storm cake” you have an excuse, nay, a duty to eat it.

There’s a few ghosts hanging around up there now. But they’re all rather friendly, once you get to know ‘em. Apart from the poltergeist in Studio 2 and the Demon in the fireplace, of course.

Ahh, Leeders. The place where this whole crazy story started. ....

And what a story it has been, so far. More twists and turns than an M.Night Shyamalan movie and just as entertaining. In equal measures exhilarating and frustrating, happy and horrifying, funny and sad. People, it’s been emotional. And it’s only just started…