Greetings from the rather unsavoury interior of the Bellowhead Tour Bus (one of two)! It's Day 5 of a three-week tour which stretches from Gateshead to Brighton, and Falmouth to Ipswich . As well as publicising our new Hedonism Live DVD, it's an opportunity to compose A Bus Song A Day (see Bellowhead on Facebook), and rehearse new material in preparation for next year's album and tour of the Continent. We have just been nominated for two Radio 2 Folk Awards, and will be presented with a Silver Disk at our Shepherd's Bush gig.

Three days after this tour, Belshazzar's Feast go on the road for our annual Christmas tour, during which we promise to introduce some new material and jokes.

And in the meantime, preparations are being made for the reunion of the original Faustus trio – we've got festivals and a tour planned for 2012.

Other exciting news includes the forthcoming release of the Andover Museum Loft Singers' debut CD, The Bedmaking, which comprises new arrangments by me and features Paul Hutchinson on accordion. Fables - A Film Opera, Streetwise Opera's commission for which Bellowhead's Andy Mellon and I wrote The Hartlepool Monkey, has been nominated for a British Composer Award by BASCA – see www.britishcomposerawards.com

Finally, Oxfolk are holding an auction of promises to raise money for a mini-folk festival, at   www.folkweekendoxford.co.uk/auction-of-promises , so get bidding.

Paul.