Blog: A Whole New Q

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You join me today at the start of a whole new QUARTER, as Old Father Q1 totters off into eternity and a young and vibrant Q2 toddles into his place. It's like SPRING, but for spreadsheets!

I am particularly excited about The Turning Of The Qs this time because the first quarter of 2026 has been BUSY for me, but also NON-EVIDENT. In other words I have been DOING loads of stuff but not much of it has made it out into the public domain and garnered the PRAISE and ADULATION which I, of course, abide only reluctantly. For instance, I've been toiling away on the data gathering for "Data and Judge Dredd" which is NEARLY finished but then will need to be cleaned, analysed and written up before it rides out on the LAWMASTER OF THORT in February next year, which feels like a LONG way away.

Staring at page after page of Judge Dredd and thinking "Do I agree or disagree that Judge Dredd regularly finds fault with others in this story?" (SPOILERS: I agree) is not the MOST fun I've ever had, but some of the other ongoing STUFF is a LOT more exciting. In particular the PODCAST version of Data and Doctor Doom is getting into a DELIGHTFUL groove at the moment, with the writing of the SCRIPT turning out to be loads of fun, and the recording of the SONGS even more so.

I've already released a couple of ACOUSTICAL versions of songs from the show, but for the podcast I'm recording them "properly", in a similar way to the how we did the Jane And John songs i.e. with loads of SYNTHS everywhere and without too much PRE-PLANNING. This turns out to be a JOYOUS mode of action, and it's reminding me what I LOVE about making music. On Monday, for example, I had a spare hour and so sat down to record a song called Why Don't We Talk About Comics? This never got into the main SHOW because a) there wasn't time and b) I was never happy with the tune, but it IS going into the podcast so I decided to have a go at re-writing it. I have a BANK of possible tunes recorded on my phone so went through those, found a good one, and was delighted to discover that it FIT, so used that. I then worked out the tempo, made a drum pattern, recorded a guitar and then vocal over it, and followed that with a very happy half hour or so plunking about with MIDI bass and keyboards.

It was LOVELY, and reminded me very much of the long ago days when I used to record TAPES up in my loft in Leicester. Many was the time that I'd wander up there of an evening and lose myself in bass playing and guitar soloes. It didn't always come out BRILLIANT but it almost always came out INTERESTING, to me at least, and the freedom of being able to do - or at least try to do - whatever I wanted on the spur of the moment was LIBERATING.

Obviously there are huge and mighty benefits to recording with a) intent b) other people, but it's been wonderful going back to this way of doing things. Coincidentally there was much discussion of this on the latest episode of This Are Johnny Domino which only increased the NOSTALGIA for the Olde Ways and the DELIGHT in realising it was still available. In these days of SOCIALS and ENGAGEMENT and so on it's great to remind oneself that the core of all this is titting around with noises until they sound fun. More of this sort of thing please!

posted 1/4/2026 by MJ Hibbett

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