Between the shifting shadows, in the no-man's zone...

....there's bar at the end of the street.

In a few weeks time, I shall don the old travelling shoes and head down to our nation's capital city for a weekend break, to catch up with old friends, and to sample the delights of the various ales and alehouses of London Town. Booked my train ticket and accommodation with generous discounts for booking online (I love t'internet sometimes), and during mid May, I'll be on my merry way.

I figured that doing the normal touristy thing and staying in a hotel in a central location was a bit dull, as I want to see the real London. Therefore I've arranged to stay in a hotel in the Crystal Palace area in the south east of the city, close to the border with Croydon. A mate who stays in London lives closeby here, so it made sense. My new favourite toy, Google Streetview, has given me an insight into the area, and it looks a suitably downbeat working class area of the city. And where there's working class people, there's working class pubs. I've had a look at some of the local hostelries, and it's fair whet my appetite for the journey ahead.

Saturday will be spent in the confines of the city centre however, as a few of us will be battening down the hatches as we attempt the Circle Line Subcrawl. As a veteran of the Glasgow version of this, it feels almost like I've qualified for the Champions League of Subcrawls. It's a sterner challenge too, with 28 stops compared to Glasgow's 16. That said, we'll have to miss a fair few of them, as doing this one on a Saturday is without question the worst day, given all watering holes in 'the city' will be closed, which accounts for around six stops. Apparently, the capital's financial workers don't venture down that area of a weekend, so the pubs stay closed, which is damn inconsiderate if you ask me, but there you are.

No rest for the wicked though, because the Sunday will be spent exploring the local area around the hotel. Well, that's if I'm still alive after the marathon crawl of the day before. No-one says the Champions League is easy after all...

Deepest grave, supreme deceiver....

......brave new worlds and cursed emotion

Just over 25 years ago, I sat in a typically depressing school classroom, listening to a typically depressing old codger of a teacher. A mate of mine pulled a book out of his bag after the lesson, and things changed overnight. As a 12-yr old, my reading habits of the time rarely ventured further than the latest Whizzer & Chips annual or whatever Marvel comic was doing the rounds. However, that night I was introduced to an intriguing new literary concept called Fighting Fantasy.

"It's a book you not only read, but you decide what to do in it" was how he described this book, enticingly called, "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain". And that's pretty much exactly what it was. Armed with only a couple of dice, a pencil, and a rubber, it was up to you which path you chose, which doors you opened, and which hideous monsters you fought. As you might imagine, for a 12-yr old in 1983, this was truly mesmerising stuff. Not only did it develop my reading skills, it also led me into more straightforward fiction novels, which I've not stopped reading since.

Although my reading habits have now progressed somewhat from fighting Orcs in a dark cavern, I recently returned to these Fighting Fantasy books. I kept most of the original series which I'd collected back in the day. I think I had around the first 34 of them, and over the last few months have tried to complete the 59-strong collection through the wonders of Amazon and E-Bay. I even started 'playing' a few of them again, and just like watching an old tv show, waves of nostalgia flooded over me, memories of a more innocent era returning.

Like any drug, the effects of nostalgia only last so long, but I'll keep this collection, and when my daughter is old enough, I'll introduce her to the wonders of goblins and demons. And that's before I ever take her to Recreation Park in Alloa for the football! The world is now full of Playstations and Nintendo Wiis, but I'd like to think there will still be a place for these wonderful paperbacks. There always will be for me, anyway.

A hurricane blew out of Memphis.....

....revolution in the south.

Do you remember the first 'single' you ever bought? If you're of a certain age and persuasion, you could be forgiven for thinking I'm asking you about that most illicit of schoolboy japes, buying cigarettes from the local ice cream van, but no, the question is somewhat more basic. The digital kids of today won't believe it, but for many years, the purchasing of 7 inch discs of vinyl was an essential ritual, and developed many playground bragging rights.

I was a relatively late starter when it came to popular music. Neither of my parents were ever into the more contemporary sounds of the day, which considering both were in their late teens/early 20's when Elvis first blew away the cobwebs of dull balladry, is somewhat of a surprise. No, to them, listening pleasure was some James Last or Dean Martin, neither of which interested me, so for the first nine years of my life, pop music pretty much passed me by. Which meant so did punk. It was 1981 before any of my pocket money was exchanged for a record, by which time punk had all but died a death, and the post punk branches were extending far and wide. I often wonder what my musical outlook would be now had I been born five years earlier.

Anyway, it was around this time that I was starting to properly listen to the charts on the radio. John Peel's shows were, for me, a few years off at this stage, and the first bands to really catch my attention were Madness and Adam & The Ants. When I was at school, you were either into one or the other, so I often got disparaging looks on informing others that I liked both bands. It was also around this time I started getting into the retro sounds of late 50's rock 'n roll, and the only real contemporary artist to plough that furrow at that time was Shakin' Stevens. By coincidence or not then, the first single I ever paid money for was the Welsh Elvis's cover of the Stuart Hamblen classic, 'This Ole House'. Those were the days when you could buy records from Boots, of all places. Other artists started to appear performing those retro sounds, such as the Polecats, The Jets, and the wonderful Stray Cats, and it was from there I developed a penchant for the burgeoning 'psychobilly' scene. Some wild acts eminated from this, with even wilder costumes. Who can forget the recently deceased figure of Lux Interior from The Cramps, for example.

During this period, I had become disillusioned with the current hit parade. Nothing there was interesting me, until two bands entered the fray that would change my musical outlook forever. Mixing the final fragments of punk with the bombastic sounds of the bagpipes, Big Country arrived and offered a fantastic release from the dull sounds of Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. The band's debut album, The Crossing subsequently became the first full length album I ever bought, despite taking weeks to save up for it. Hey, £4 was a lot of money when you were earning £1 a week in pocket money! It's an album I still listen to regularly today, and it's never got old or tired. The current climate of Ipods and playlists means I can now add the previously discarded title track onto the end of the album which makes it even more complete.

And then there was The Smiths. I'll never forget my first sight of Morrissey sashaying across the Top of the Pops stage, gladioli sprouting out his pockets, and wearing a hearing aid. Here was an act which was truly defiantly different, but still had songs which were highly accessible. They were arguably the first band whose lyrics I paid proper attention to. Witty, yet acerbic, punchy, yet thought provoking. The band's detractors have always labelled them 'miserable', which to any true Smiths fans is as false a description as they come. It's the equivalent of calling Westlife life-affirming. The band's piece de resistance was the sublime 'Queen is Dead' opus, another of my all time favourites.

From then on, I've embraced many different genres of music. I had a worrying period in the early 90's of listening to nothing but country music, and not the particularly great kind. I'll forever thank Oasis for rescuing me from the twin spectres of Garth Brooks and Nanci Griffith.

Of course, these days, most music is more readily available than ever before. I hear many people, young and old, waxing lyrical about the Radio 1 playlist, and I can't help feeling annoyed. When I was young, Radio 1 was pretty much the only place you could hear new music, but now there's next to no excuse for blindly following the one avenue. It's sheer laziness. How I wish the Internet and digital radio were available in 1981. Perhaps 'This Ole House' would never have been my first ever single.....