Jim Lad - you plainly know nothing about UK clubs - or geography! Most of the time when I'm not on the road playing is taken up with arranging bookings. It's two to three hours most evenings I'm not gigging, and three to five hours at the weekend. (Plus the email, letter and website work in the daytimes). It's a constant, never-ending struggle, even for well-known people, because there are way too many acts (many of whom are not doing it for a living, so don't need a working wage, but are still very good and have just as much right to the gig as me, for whatever fee they fancy) and nothing like enough clubs to keep us all occupied at a viable rate. So not only is it hard to find gigs, even the keen ones are in a buyers market. THEY can organise a years work, with top names, in an evening - and still be unable to fit in most of the people they really wanted to book. So woe betide any artist who misses that window. Fail to get through at the right moment and suddenly the door's shut till next year. Spend a month on tour, miss the AGM season, and woops, you've got an empty diary.

But the gigs do come in - of course, or we couldn't do it at all (and my diary is nicely full thankyou, thanks to many wonderful, courteous and efficient and kind organisers, like Mr Villan)!