From the horse's mouth

The rumour mill is bound to start soon so here's the facts from
source. 

Regulars here may have noticed I haven't been posting much for
quite a while; others will have noticed that my website is way out
of date, that I've not been replying to email; and word will soon
get round that I've pulled next week;s part of my autumn
England/Wales tour.

For the past 2 years I've been slowly losing my sight. I now have
no vision at all in my right eye and the sight in my left is
rapidly failing. For some reason of her own, nature has decided
that I develop cataracts at a relatively early age. The consultant
thinkis it unlikely that there is any other condition and that
replacing the lens should restore sight so I'm having the right
eye done next week - he can't give any guarantees that there's no
other dmage as the right cataract is so dense he can't see behind
it to properly exmine the retina but the chances are that it's OK.
Because that cataract is so dense, the modern simple technique
won't work so while it'll still be a minor op, the procedure will
take the best part of an hour, I'll require a general anaesthetic
and he's insisting I take a week off to recover afterwards, hence
the gig cancellations. There is a 95% success rate with repairing
cataracts so I should be back in full action again by the weekend
beginning 12th of December.

The gigs I've had to cancel are -

Isle of Wight (3rd), London Rose+Crown (4th), Dorchester (5th),
Topsham (6th), Derby (8th), Leicester (10th). My apologies to
anyone who was thinking of coming to any of those. Most of them
have been rescheduled for next spring.

So, if you hear any rumours that I'm dead/have a terminal
illness/retired/in jail/in a locked ward/etc, you can now give the
"greatly exaggerated" response :)

I can't spend any longer in front of a monitor than a couple of
minutes at a time - the above has taken the best of an hour to
type, which is why I haven't been replying to email.

-- 
Cheers
DG