February 2026
Fringe preparation, lots of new music and goodbye Robert Duvall
This month, tickets went on sale for my shows at both Greater Manchester Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe. The hard work of promoting the shows, eg designing fliers and posters and making preview videos, is mostly still to come. Recent open mics have been super depressing with bad weather and low attendance, so I am due some luck.
Activities
I saw the hotly anticipated film ‘Saipan’, which is about a real-life incident that I was very familiar with. One of the climactic lines is something to the effect of ‘you know why everyone loves the Irish? Because we’re no threat.’
I have been muddling along at work, I often get requested by name for particular roles, but at the same time am not at all upwardly mobile. Over the course of my working life, I have generally been liked by both superiors and colleagues. Maybe that’s the problem. The next academic year, when Edinburgh Fringe is over with, I really need to be in something a bit more gainful.
On top of this, I gained a new qualification, passing a quiz on Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But I already have qualifications covering my wall like custard pies. None seem to make it easier to land jobs or even interviews.
I don’t always fail to get noticed. This month’s media appearances included one on Hannah’s Bookshelf on Radio North Manchester, and one at Dragon’s Voice on Allfm.
Output
According to the websites’ own data, this month was my best ever on YouTube, Instagram, and Substack. As The Kev, I released a demo of new song titled ‘There’s a Way for Us’. The final edition will have drums and lead guitar:
I re-recorded ‘The Great British Indie Song’ because I was not that happy with earlier renditions. It is now available on all platforms.
On the Kevin McGeary Guitar channel, I released a cover of ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ by The Manic Street Preachers.
I also recorded a rendition of ‘Memories of the Alhambra’, one of the most beloved pieces on the classical guitar canon.
Here on Substack, my post ‘Work Is the New Religion’ was my most popular yet. On Instagram I made two posts a week, and according to the website’s monthly report I had my highest ever number of views and post engagements.
Wider World
In the novel ‘Tiananmen Square’ by Lai Wen (which I recently reviewed for Asian Cha Journal), the narrator reaches the conclusion ‘imagination would always be papered over by propaganda…the poets and peacemakers would always be stamped out by those who had force on their side.’ This month, Jeff Bezos brought this corollary closer to reality by laying off one third of the staff at The Washington Post.
Journalism has long been a bit similar to acting in that it is a job mostly for the wealthy and connected. As far back as 1969, Times foreign correspondent Nicholas Tomalin described it as a “privileged profession”, and that newspapers were “feudal fiefdoms all bound up in intimate friendships and shared values.”
This is partly why good journalism is highly expensive to produce, and never easy with which to break even. Citizen journalism has its place. But you just have to scroll through TikTok to see that it is absolutely no substitute for the real thing.
One of the best novels I read in recent months was ‘On Hampstead Heath’ by Marika Cobbold, and in it the protagonist rants: “Fake news, alternative facts, disinformation, the proliferation of online ‘news’ sites that are little more than propaganda tools for some interest group – those challenges are a threat to democracy and to civil society as a whole.” Adding that if “we” (journalists) don’t fight the good fight, then we don’t deserve to survive.
The actor Robert Duvall died this month. One of the many masterpieces in which he had a starring role was ‘Network’ (1976). The film is something of a prophecy about the triumph of spectacle and sensation over dispassionate, fact-based reporting. His character Frank Hackett agonises about whether to put a ‘manifestly irresponsible man’ on national television. Although ostensibly the villain of this movie, he is the last television producer real or fictional to have thought twice about giving airtime to an over-opinionated lunatic.