And you are?

I used to describe myself as a musician, and really believed it. The music I was 'making' then seems utterly pointless and slow now. I've been trying to nail a new song down and keep getting to a point where I don't know what else to do to improve it - my technique on the keyboard, not perfect at the best of times, limits me to a style that is little more than a child's standard, and not in a Mozart-child way at all.

Maybe it's just my current mindset that's limiting me in what I can do. It's something that will feed on itself because if I don't get a recording 'quickly' then I feel I've failed.

Bollocks to music. Only that music is why I'm alive - it can't be for anything else.

Jimmy Page is in my head, which for a guitarist is a bit daunting. There's some footage of Led Zep at Earls Court in 1975 and Jimmy is playing as though he's possessed. It's effortless but accurate and incredible in the range of techniques he uses. If it can't be perfect, why bother?

Songs come to me easy enough, but it's the arranging where I struggle. Partly it's because of the way in which I record, which is building up each part myself and so there's no spontaneity or 'group interaction'. I dunno. Maybe playing with actual musicians where there can be a certain level of creation that takes ages to achieve on my own.

This is when the madness of spending £4100 on guitars in January seems, er, mad.

Never mind. I just need musical laxatives.