Well, thank god that's over.

My sister just called to ask me how it went last night; I said, well, so-so, it's hard to concentrate properly on singing and playing the piano simultaneously. She asked me how Elton John and Phil Collins manage it, then. I told her that they'd had more practice. She didn't seem convinced. So I suppose I'm officially worse that both Elton John and Phil Collins, although I bet I could thrash them in a game of Bonving.

After the soundcheck there was approximately 50 minutes left before I was due onstage, so I went with Spearmint to a tiny Thai cafe round the corner from Grays Inn Road for a hurried bite. Original Duran Duran singer and van driver to the semi-famous, Jeff Thomas, was also in attendance and attempted to keep my mind off the forthcoming debacle by talking constantly, working on the old percentage humour basis: if enough words are spoken, some of them will be funny. Annoyingly, Jeff maintains about a 80% hit rate. I can't remember anything except spluttering through a mouthful of massaman curry at the word “pejefftrianisation” (instead of pedestrianisation.) “Don't get curry on your hands, you'll get it all over your keyboard,” said Shirley. “And then what'll happen?” asked Jeff. I mused for a moment. “I suppose it'll start sounding all Asian.”

I've never seen Water Rats so busy at 8pm before. I doubt that anyone had come specifically to see me balls up Free French standards except my trusty guitarist and , but nevertheless I suffered immediately from an attack of nerves and had to go and stand on my own in a quiet room, which also happened to be the toilet. I eventually lumbered on, pumping up the crowd into a frenzy with the call to arms “Er, I suppose I should start, then.” Talking Nepalese suffered from bum notes and off-key singing as I attempted to ease myself into the persona of Gilbert O'Sullivan, but failing horribly. I cut new number The Scales short by one chorus to save the audience too much embarrassment, and then it was time for the Hall & Oates number. I was hoping for whoops of encouragement during the “you, and me, forever” bit in Sara Smile, but all I could see were looks of complete bemusement, that a fat boy from the Home Counties was attempting to sing some smoochy Philadelphia soul. Things perked up with Cotton Buds, and the little aired Mode Off finished things off quite nicely. Someone came up to me afterwards and said “Oh, you were really good! You looked really nervous, though.” Then Shirley came up to me and said “That was good. You looked really confident.” I've no idea who to believe.

Spearmint were stunning. Probably the best gig I've seen them do in 3 or 4 years.

Midlands-born broadcaster Mark Sheldon bought me a drink, as a reward for having to go to all those auditions for the “Guitarist Wanted” column in the Observer Music Mag. Annoyingly it pushed me into the realms of drunkenness, which became horribly apparent on the way home. I fell asleep on the tube, predictably, and woke up at Tooting Broadway. I turned to my left to tell Jenny that it was time to get off, and she wasn't there. A moment of blind panic. What could have happened to her? I ran off the train, and was halfway up the escalator, sweating, before I remembered that she hadn't been at the gig at all. Bizarre.

At home I foolishly stayed up until 2am watching a grim documentary about exploitative working conditions in the Guatamalan coffee industry, and now I'm really, really tired.