Goodbye 2023, and it was a year for me of some good things but overshadowed by some not so good. A lot of good friends passed away and others contracted nasty illnesses. I can only hope that 2024 brings better health to everybody experiencing tough times.
Without getting political, I don't think there is one government anywhere who have a clue about humanity or running a country. Even more worrying is that there seems to be nobody in the wings anywhere who has the know how to take over the reins.
Covid has left the entertainment industry in shreds, but it is definitely recovering and slowly returning to some semblance of normality again.
Truth is I could rant for pages about things that really annoy me at the moment as well as governments and so-called politicians, such as "woke" for example… if I said what I really think, I'd be lambasted by social media, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself, but I rather suspect they would be shared by many.
However, to end the year on a positive note, I was so happy as to how the Saving Strays charity concerts went, especially St Mary le Tower Church in Ipswich as it's always nice to do something close to home!
Thanks so much to Triple Cream, Mim Gray, Peter Egan, Matthew Jones, Steve Vintner and Griff Rhys-Jones who helped so much in raising a tremendous sum to help save some more badly treated strays and find them new forever homes.
Thanks must also go to Maria Slough, who is co-chair of the charity with Peter Egan, for the immense amount of work that went into organising the events.
Right, so now my first rant of the year is over, what's in store for 2024… well hopefully a lot.
There will certainly be plenty of live shows around the world and at the end of 2024 there will be a pretty long Xmas tour in the UK which will be a bit different from previous Xmas shows.
This month will see a lot of preparation and the start of rehearsals for the ERE tour in February which Hayley is now not able to do for personal reasons which we all understand and look forward to welcoming her back in the future.
Our new singer for the tour is Mollie Marriott, who comes highly recommended by many, including Hayley herself and there is no doubt that she will be great. I have met her before as she is the stepdaughter of my good friend Joe Brown and the daughter of the late great Steve Marriott.
We are also about to announce the three backing singers who, along with Dave, Lee and Adam will be doing the considerable amount of BVs… Everybody is getting pretty excited about it all and so I need to get revising!!
So what about New Year's Resolutions? Well I've failed miserably for the last few years but for 2024 I really have to make an effort, especially on the health side of things and that has to start with losing some weight, well actually, losing a lot of weight!
De-cluttering is important too and so much is going to be sold throughout the year, some by auction, some car boot sales, and some on e-bay. Has to be done!!
That's it for now to kick the new year off which I hope will be wonderful for all of you reading this… 2024 here we come!… and with a new name too… goodbye GORR and hello to Rick's Ramblings!Cheers Rick