Oh yes, I remember

"Some news will follow in a bit," I said.

OK, that was a lie.

So then it was September, and Autumn was almost upon us. It would be easy to pretend that we'd spent the summer eagerly beavering away at new material, but that would be another lie. In fact we've both been far too busy enjoying the nice weather. And the rubbish weather, of which there has been quite a lot this summer.

So, here's a roundup of the latest news, in no particular order:

I have been finishing lyrics and starting to record vocals for the not-very-forthcoming ninth album. I'm really pleased with the direction it's taken so far, and I think we both hope to have it finished much more quickly this time, maybe early next year. There's a lot still to do, but we've also got a lot done already, so things are looking up. Rejoice.

For some months I have been about to try and remix Bulletproof for a possible future single, but never seem to get around to it. It will happen eventually. At some point, we'd like to do at least one more single from Dusk, possibly two if we can manage it. OK, here's a promise: I'll try and blitz said remix in the next couple of weeks, so we can have a single ready within the next month or so. Of course, whether that's a promise in the New Labour sense remains to be seen.

Simon did a really good remix of Erasure's track When a Lover Leaves You, the original version of which appears on their not-particularly-good new album Light at the End of the World. He has rather generously called it the Hypernova Remix, even though my involvement was limited to saying "Well done," in a very patronising voice when I heard it. I've just spent ages searching the website, and finally managed to find the page where it's posted here. Scroll down a bit. Keep scrolling... we're number 148 on the list. I think you'll agree that it sounds more like Erasure than the original.

Electraparade can now be bought for real dollars. If you have a bit of spare cash-money, click on one of the links on Electraset's MySpace page there. Someone had even singled out our track My Light as one of their favourites, which is all the more impressive given that we don't wear nice hats or do songs about Hoovers. So thankyou.

I've been for lots of nice bike rides around the Yorkshire countryside, averaging a little under 100 miles a week in recent weeks, and I'm hoping if I pretend to be really enigmatic and German, we might one day turn into Kraftwerk. The other positive thing would be that we'd only release an album every decade or two, which I'm sure would be preferable for most people.

Also, Bruce Parry's Tribe and Michael Palin's new series are both extraordinarily good. Are you actually interested in what I'm saying here? What's that? It's more interesting than going on about music? Yes, probably...

Right, that's enough for now. Some more news will follow. In a bit. Possibly.