January 2026
Confirming my Fringe dates and reflecting on the end of Pax Americana
This month began with some particularly sad news for Greater Manchester’s creative community, with the passing of Salford-based poet and radio personality Rob Dunford. My rendition of ‘Hope It Might Be So’ at The Egerton Arms on January 7th was in front of an audience that was still processing it.
With miserable weather, a long stretch between paydays and large heating bills, January is usually a slog. This one was no different, but I got a lot done.
Output
The size of my online following and engagement is still depressingly low, but it’s not for lack of frequency or variety of work. As The Kev, I posted a re-recorded version of ‘Millicent’, one of my biggest crowd-pleasers:
I also finished writing a new song, ‘There’s a Way for Us’, and will upload a proper recording in February. On top of this I added a live rendition of ‘You Can’t Say Anything These Days’ and the Chinese rendition of happy birthday which I wrote in 2012.
As for non-silly music, I recorded ‘Samba Pa Ti’ by Santana, one of my all-time favourite guitar instrumentals:
And this classical guitar rendition of Puccini’s ‘Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen’:
Activities
This year I plan to make these Substacks a lot more frequent, so have posted one every Friday so far. The pick of them was this one about the late literary critic John Carey.
I have been trying to boost the consistency of my Instagram posts, with reels every Monday and Thursday. Engagement is still negligible but good content is its own reward.
As with most months, I have read on average about a book a week, and I document this habit on Hannah’s Bookshelf on Radio North Manchester:
In other media appearances, I throughly enjoyed going on the Christian Reeve podcast to discuss my creative journey:
I paid the fees and did the paperwork to confirm my appearances at both Greater Manchester Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe this summer. I will share the exact details soon. Last year, comedienne Kate Smurthwaite, who has appeared on television multiple times, booked her place at Edinburgh Fringe but had to cancel her gigs due to low ticket sales – there is no reason to believe the same thing won’t happen to me, so the hard work is still to come.
Wider World
American President Donald Trump has openly coveted the mineral-rich territory of Greenland. In reaction, a European country owning land thousands of kilometres away from its mainland which it began colonising in 1721 is now inspiring a sense of solidarity.
Trump’s exact position often changes on a whim and in a speech at the World Economic Forum, he seemed to confuse Greenland with Iceland. Historian Timothy Garton Ash made this observation about the situation:
Since 1945, the democracies of Europe have enjoyed Pax Americana, the peaceful umbrella of American defence. Now the continent that used to rule the world is being forced to mobilise again.
Historian Rutger Bregman told Bloomberg Politics that the main problem with Europe is its weakness. Its biggest companies are the likes of Dior and Louis Vuitton, meaning Europe is now the continent of ‘handbags instead of hardware’.
Rich and stable democracies have lost sight of George Orwell’s observation: “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
U.S President Crazy Pants will probably suffer badly in the mid-term elections this November. And he’ll be dead in a few years anyway, but even then the old order will never come back.