It’s been a good two months for the podcast. Numbers are up and we’re hitting the lower reaches of Music Commentary Charts across the globe (ish), despite the fact that we’ve done very little promotion and I struggle with building the Twitter following. There is a definite sense of momentum and we feel like we’re continuing to get better. I’m certainly putting in quite a bit of time into researching interesting information and links for each episode as we know there’s a lot of competition out there in Beatles Podland.

I’ve spent some time today putting together some notes for my next pod recording session with JG. Having moved on from A Hard Day’s Night and also recorded an episode on the Long Tall Sally EP, our next recording will focus on I Feel Fine. My research has currently taken me into the world of Irish wedding bands and the early career of Jimmy Page. You’ll have to listen to the episode in August to get a sense of how all of that is connected (it is very, very loose but hopefully entertaining). 

We’re 48 episodes in after nearly two years of recording. Perhaps we might want to revisit our fortnightly release schedule otherwise we’re going to struggle to complete this endeavour by the end of the decade. Effectively, it’s going to take us longer to release all our episodes than it took for The Beatles to record them. As JG has just asked, “That makes us better, right?”

I guess this has been brought into focus by my recent pulmonary embolism with a four night stay in hospital with one particularly horrific night on a cardiac ward.  There’s also the thought that, at 51, I’m not taking as much care of myself as I thought. With that in mind, I contacted Thrombosis UK about doing some fundraising. As a keen (though ineffective) runner, I’d already entered a spring marathon before getting ill. I plan to try and train for it although my lungs may not be up to the task at the moment. If it is too much then I’ll switch to a hill walking challenge. Which, now I come to think of it, might actually be harder.

To paraphrase a great philosopher, I can work it out. And, even though there’s no one reading this (or if there is, you haven’t got this far, have you? C’mon, be honest), it’s still a public declaration which means I have some extra motivation. Perhaps there’s even the thought that if I’m trying to raise funds for, and awareness of, a charity working to help those with blood clots, I might actually work harder at lowering the risk factors for myself. 

If nothing else, it would be nice to still be here by the time episode two hundred and something hoves into view. 

Upcoming episodes:

15 July –  A Hard Day’s Night – discussion about the album and the film. This is either going to be a fascinating, lengthy discussion or those two guys prattling on and on and on. 

29 July – Long Tall Sally EP. In a change to the normal format, we’re doing all four songs on the EP in one episode

12 August – I Feel Fine