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If you noticed we had gone ... now we're back. If you didn't ... then never mind. Just when you think you have a handle on technology for some inexplicable reason it turns like a tail-held tiger and bites when you least expect it. The less-than-reassuring message that tells you that your system has experienced an 'unexpected' problem does little to help. And when you ask for more information it confuses further with a message that tells you a file (with a seemingly random-number name) has 'stopped working'.

And the wonderful 'something' you can do is help keep one of London's most intimate and unique live music venues alive.

Union Chapel is a working church, a centre for those homeless and in crisis in London and one of the most impressive live music venues you could hope to visit. Now I don't mean 'impressive' in terms of size, we have the O2, Wembley and the Albert Hall for that. No I mean 'impressive' in terms of ambiance, people and presence. Sadly, the Chapel remains under threat from proposed housing developments and we risk losing a stunning live music venue.

If that concerns you, and it should, read on and then go here: www.unionchapel.org.uk 

Without delving deeply into too many practical lexicographic tomes a song is broadly a composition for voice or voices. It may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in a cappella form. Lyrics are typically poetic or rhyming but can equally be free prose. The only real proviso is that people equipped with the required human auditory system can hear them – so why are some lyrics recorded so far back in the mix that they become inaudible or at best indistinct?

The weather in this country takes the blame no matter what. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy. We oscillate from drought to flood from hurricane to blizzard. And it only takes a small fluctuation in the barometer for the British to debate the weather at every opportunity. My latest encounter with the weather however broke new ground. Now I have to be fair it wasn't just the weather our old friend Health and Safety joined in as well.

Another year, and some things change but others remain exactly as before. To explain ... different pub, different place, different people, same old crap. "So you write about folk music, do you? Well that can't take too long can it?" (Followed by barely concealed nudge-nudge, wink-wink, pretend laughter.) "After all isn't it dying out. How long can old fools that sing about Robin Hood and dance around waving hankies and wearing bells survive?"

The year may be turning and the dark nights slowly giving way to the light but we still have the long drag through January to endure. However, there's always the notices for spring and summer festivals that start to arrive, some with pix attached reminding us of sun-soaked fields and happy people. And that's one of the perks of this job. While we arrive at the office when it's still dark, turn the lights on in the early afternoon and then battle with the weather to get home, those releases and notices let us know that it will all change and the light will return.