It's 10.20am and the phone has, unsurprisingly, not been ringing off the hook since the G2 piece was published this morning. I'd like to say that this is because my mobile phone doesn't come equipped with a hook, but actually it's purely because it hasn't rung. Come on, Commissioning Editors! Surely this scintillating 450 word thriller is sufficient to employ me to write up dozens of weddings, barmitzvahs & funerals? At very reasonable rates! Oh, go on… OK then, Publishers! a 3-book deal? Just a little one? Hello? Oh, sod you, then. Not easy, this writing lark.

I was employed yesterday by my friend Vic to DJ at her wedding in September. Payment: the privilege of DJing at her wedding, which is plenty enough, thank you. The invite arrived yesterday, all swirly cursive fonts and the revalation of a few fantastically embarrassing middle names belonging to the bride or groom. (Yardley???) My DJing is amateurish & clumsy – despite all the songs being located on one CD – and consists of favourites from the 70s and 80s, interspersed with segues delivered in the manner of a rambling local DJ from the Swansea area who was sacked from his job at Morriston Hospital, and will use any excuse to talk about various disappointing life experiences he has had in the environs of Ystradgynlais, or perhaps Cwmrhydyceirw. This means that I've got just under 2 months to brush up my Welsh accent. Research will involve talking to my mother's family on the phone more often than usual, and listening to the whimsical poetry of Max Boyce. In full flow, the short link -

“I saw Baccara at Pontarddulais Rugby Club, 1986, I think it was. Dreadful, mind you. Two songs in, they had women and children running for the exits.”

- has immense comedic potential. Please believe me. Especially the word “running”. If you see me in the street, I'll do an impromptu performance (for a small fee.)

Now i'm listening to one of two CD compilations kindly put together for me by Will, and I'm contemplating Phil Spector's so-called “Wall Of Sound”, and how I might develop my own production techniques along similar lines. “Rhodri Marsden's Wall Of Sh!t”, perhaps. Or “Rhodri Marsden's Squeaking Garden Gate Of Sound”. Yes, that's better.