In an unsurprising, and arguably sensible move - bearing in mind the current global situation with Covid-19 and the Omicron variant, which is spreading extremely fast - the January/February 2022 Saucerful Of Secrets tour of the US and Canada has now been postponed until later in the year.

The band's social media channels note the move "with great regret" and point at the "uncertainty surrounding the Covid pandemic". We think this is totally understandable and an eminently sensible move, despite any disappointment. Everyone's health has got to be the priority at the current time. Venues involved are suggesting that the rescheduled dates will be taking place in the Fall (Autumn) of 2022, which we all hope will see things on a much better footing than at the moment.

As most of you will have had experience of Covid-related postponements of various events, you will know that as a ticket holder, you are advised to hold onto your original tickets and await further information from the venue and/or ticket company where you purchased your tickets.

Once we have the revised dates, we will let you all know. Rescheduling dates is a difficult thing, to ensure a logical and achievable route, so we'd expect it to take a little while, particularly with the Christmas and New Year seeing businesses and venues either closed for the festive period or on reduced staffing.

Following a slight delay to its originally announced publication date, The Art Of Pink Floyd The Wall is now available and shipping to those who have already ordered it. This is a beautiful new, 288-page hardback book, in landscape format housed within a cardboard sleeve (shown to the right) that reveals a huge amount of rare and previously unseen sketches, paintings and more, created by Gerald Scarfe principally for The Wall project, but also includes earlier materials, for Wish You Were Here and Animals, for example. It is an expensive book, but the work involved bringing together the breadth of material within, and the quality of its presentation, help to justify the price tag - and it is completely different to any previous books on Scarfe's artwork for the Floyd.

From the first ideas for The Wall, through to the finished images that we are all familiar with, there's such a wealth of material that steadily progresses through the album/film/concert staging, that you can quickly feel quite overwhelmed with the amount that Scarfe clearly created during his time on this project. And, for the first time, an incredible amount of that work has been revealed.

Our review of The Art Of Pink Floyd The Wall is worth checking out if you are interested in the book.

However much you think you know The Wall, and Scarfe's artwork for it (and earlier Pink Floyd projects), this book will reveal far more than you could imagine. One wonders if there was anything left in his archive that wasn't included? That's not a criticism, but a note of thanks for bringing in so many early sketches and ideas to sit alongside finished designs and images.

This is a truly incredible book that will appeal equally to Pink Floyd fans, to Scarfe enthusiasts, and to those interested in production design for film and concert stage.

This really is an exemplary collection of Scarfe's work for the band, and the image reproduction throughout is top notch. Yes, it has a hefty price tag, but putting together a book like this was never going to be a quick and cheap affair. Some retailers are offering discounts thus reducing the price a little.

As a special exclusive treat, Gerald had this video shot especially for Brain Damage, so you get a feel for what the book includes, and the format it comes in. Thanks Gerald!

There is another option if you can wait until 3rd November 2022 - a paperback version of the book is due for publication then. You can order it now from UK retailer WH Smith, and we'll also add links for Amazon stores once they list this correctly. Amazon's current listings show a paperback version as currently available, BUT that's an error, as it is an older book and not The Art Of Pink Floyd The Wall!

Well, it's that time of year when we look back at the past twelve months, and forward to what the following year is likely to bring.

Obviously life for all of us has been somewhat disrupted due to the obvious, with things like concerts on the whole a distant memory! Tour dates for Roger Waters' This Is Not A Drill outing, and Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets, were originally planned for 2020, with some of them moving to dates this year (2021) and now postponed again to 2022. Whilst in the early days concert postponements and cancellations were disappointing and at times, frustrating or annoying for some, it now seems to have an inevitability to it, and events are routinely cancelled or postponed, some of which at very short notice.

We're remaining hopeful that things improve on the Covid front in 2022 to enable the various tours to happen. It partly relies on a decent take-up of the vaccination programmes ongoing in most countries, and also hopefully no further variants such as Omicron to come and spoil things.

In terms of releases and publications, there's the recently announced PULSE double Blu-ray and double DVD sets, complete with the long awaited return of the flashing LED on the spines. Could there be other things on the horizon? The Animals section has a caption up at the Los Angeles staging of The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains which mentions a release in June 2022, which if that happens, will be a very popular one indeed. There's also the (slightly delayed) 320-page book from Aubrey 'Po' Powell - Through the Prism: Untold rock stories from the Hipgnosis archive, which should be fascinating!

We'd also like to take this opportunity to thank you all so much for your support and kindness - the site is done purely for you, and as we approach the staggering total number of visitors since its inception of 100 million (the previous version of the site reached 21 million), we look forward to continuing to bring you news and information from the Floydian world! We might also have some prize opportunities coming your way soon...

Whatever your plans for Christmas and the New Year (and we suspect that, like many, they will be smaller scale than in previous years, and potentially just sitting at home!) we hope you have a peaceful, happy and healthy time, and here's to a 2022 that is significantly better for all of us!

Now published and shipping is a new French language book, Pink Floyd en France. Pink Floyd and the band's individual members have enjoyed a long relationship with France. From their early appearances on French TV, to their eventual spectacular arena shows - not forgetting the recording of landmark albums such as The Wall - the book traces the band's historic "French connection"!

France embraced Pink Floyd's music right from the very first album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Nick Mason was quoted in Muziq Magazine in November 2016 as saying that "Pink Floyd may never have survived without the French audiences. We toured a lot in France and appeared in many TV shows. It was our home from home in a way. France responded to our music quite rapidly, as opposed to England where our fan base was not always very reliable". The group performed on more than 60 occasions in France between 1968 until 1994. Roger Waters and David Gilmour also toured extensively in France to promote their solo albums. Nick Mason's own band Saucerful Of Secrets has also played a few shows there.

Author Patrick Ducher tells the band's story from several different angles: firstly reviewing numerous French rock magazines of the times, including long discontinued and forgotten publications, and secondly his many personal concert recollections. Next, Patrick invited a number of fans to review essential bootlegs, one from each of the band’s French tours, along with solo performances by individual band members in France. Finally, the author posed the simple question "Why Pink Floyd?" to almost a hundred French fans, passionate followers of the band, and interviewed musicians from several tribute bands, all devoted to keeping Pink Floyd's music and legacy alive.

Pink Floyd en France is a 435 page, French-language hardback book with many rare pictures. The 250 illustrations include magazine covers, adverts, posters, and tickets. It's now available to order direct from the publishers, at pinkfloydenfrance.com in standard or limited edition, priced at respectively at €45 and €85 plus shipping. The limited edition includes a copy of the book signed by the author, a 2-track 7" by a French Floyd cover band, 2 prints, 4 coasters, and 2 plectrums, all in a special box. The website has full details...

To give an idea of its presentation and contents, Patrick has put together a short look - in English - for those who don't speak French: