P a r t   5 :   M   i s   f o r   M y   d a  u g h t e r   M a t t e r s   M o r e   t h a n   a n y t h i n g . . .

They tell you when you have a child, you will never love anything else as much. Turned out they weren't wrong, I do quite like spending time with her. Luckily, music being the other big thing in my life, she's always been up for doing stuff with meself and Uncle Skit too; from 'Jesus Is Dead (Let's Eat Chocolate)' and 'The Adventures Of Officer Kitty In Space' when she was seven, right through to her occasional appearances on the radioshow more recently at the ripe old age of twelve. I always wanted to share my musical world with her, but was hoping her inheritance from me would be limited to my creativity and my movie star good looks. Sadly, she got the autism as well. It's something we'd been watching for and, if we're really honest with ourselves, had probably been aware of since she was a toddler. But... we'd never said anything to her about it, reticent about 'branding' an impressionable young girl who may then have felt she needed to conform to type. I know that would most likely have been my reaction had I been told as a youngster. So, we made the decision that when she realised she wasn't quite like other children and asked the question, that's when we would have the conversation.

   The Twelve Days Of Christmas (4:40)

The festive interlude, December 2023; we'd desperately wanted to do something for Default Standard's Xmas comp, Project M now nearing it's third birthday and all...

Then came New Year 2024. Twizz's autism went full-on eruption with a major pyroclastic flow to follow, and you try getting swift help and support for it with the chronic underfunding of children's services in this country at the moment. There were some incredibly difficult months that followed. Last year, I honestly don't think any of us could have talked openly about any part of it, hence the long silences, and I still wouldn't be comfortable going into detail. But fortunately, she's at an excellent school in Lancaster Girls Grammar and they have been unbelievably supportive. What with that, the team on the ND Pathway (the process for a formal diagnosis of autism) and the supporting services we eventually got access to, she's in a much better place now. We all are, but fuck, that was a tough year. So you can imagine the effect all of that had on creative matters. We put together 'Kollaboratis' for Default Standard, figured we seriously owed them an album, plus two other collections; 'Fraternitas' (for our own Music & Elsewhere) and 'Obscuritas' (for Otcrah Records in Mexico). The radioshow was honestly the most creative thing I did, and there's where the Mission To Mars thing really started to develop in the latter half of the year, Twizz modelling the t-shirt bottom left. Project 'M' though...

16/12/2024, 10:15
Magic
Hi Mr. Cosmos,

Sorry to be such a let-down, struggling for time with everything at the moment. Been a tough year, produced exactly three new tracks, and one of those was only 50 milliseconds long. If not for the radioshow, I think I would have been totally lost and hapless for most of the twelve months. Here's hoping for a much simpler, less stressful and far more productive 2025!
Festive greets,
Mick
P.S. 2025 - I WILL do that collaborative album for you!

ON TO PART VI