My daughter, Luci, came to stay for a few days. We took her to the local bar where we sometimes play. There's all sorts of paraphernalia in there, impossible looking brass instruments, paintings, bits of old signs, dusty parasols... and on the piano in pride of place a pristine ten inch copy of my first album. Nicolas, the patron, gets quite upset if anyone touches it. For myself I feel a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Of course, Luci being my daughter was allowed to pick it up with no questions asked.
'I still wear that shirt', she said.
I was astonished - I 'd given up even wondering what might have happened to it. It's featured on the front cover of the Reconnez Cherie single too. It was one of a pair which I bought in October 1977 at an army surplus shop round the corner from Brighton Station. I don't know why they were in an army surplus because I can't imagine an army person wearing either of them. Perhaps we were all much more quietly kinky in those days or at any rate the army might have been. One of the shirts was blue with little white birds all over it. The other, the one on the covers, was black with big lurid insects all over it. Your average sergeant major wouldn't want to wear something like that, not in public anyway, even if he could have fitted into it. They were children's shirts really. I was an aspiring seven stone weakling at the time so I didn't have much trouble, and I didn't care if people thought I was a homo or a poof because I was a bohemian and a libertine (or I thought I was). Luci reckons she has trouble buttoning up the remaining shirt so I dread to think where that leaves me. She asked if I wanted it back in a manner that suggested that I might still want to wear it though I was more inclined to the idea that it might fetch a price on ebay along with the master tape of I Need A Situation and Let's Go To The Pictures which I noticed was up for grabs at around fifty quid the other day.
Some time in 1988 I telephoned the bank for some boring reason. I tried not to telephone the bank very often because it made me depressed. On this occasion I was put through to a personable young man at a call centre and the business was easily concluded.
'I know who you are', said the young man. We went through the whole Wreckless Eric / Stiff Records thing and then he mentioned The Len Bright Combo and that made me very happy so we talked for a bit more and it turned out he'd live in the Medway Towns, and then he mentioned my ex, Philippa, Luci's mother, and suddenly it was as though he couldn't help himself -
'I've got a pair of your shoes', he blurted out. 'Philippa gave them to me when you left.'
He went on to describe them in great detail. And then, having said how much I'd enjoyed our chat, because after all, he was a Len Bright Combo fan, I rang off feeling very confused.
So I'm just wondering if anyone else has got anything belonging to me.
Well, I know they have. Like my Rickenbacker (pictured in part above). When the head broke off in 1981 I put it in the hands of an odious guitar repairer by the name of Martin Woods. He fucked off to Australia having first sold the guitar to Roka's on Denmark Street in London. It showed up in the repair shop at the equally odious (and happily no longer with us) Andy's across the road six years later in 1987. Because I hadn't realised at the time what a cunt Martin Woods was, and because I was a drunken, trusting soul, I hadn't got any paperwork. I hadn't reported the guitar as stolen because I didn't know Martin Woods had upped sticks and buggered off - I always thought I'd get it back. Before he left he sold my guitar to Roka's for some ridiculously low price - twenty five pounds, something like that. As it turned out I could have had it back - the new legal owner, who was finally having the repair done at Andy's (unwise move), offered it to me for eight hundred pounds. I was on the dole at the time living on twenty seven pounds a week so I never did get it back
But never mind - it wasn't actually that good because the neck was too thin so unless I kept perfectly still it used to go out of tune. I still wish I had a Rickenbacker though. Perhaps someone from the company will read this and a parcel will arrive in the post... I must have helped sell a few in the last thirty years!

And apart from that please, please don't ask about the suit. It was homemade - it probably fell to bits. But if you see it on ebay let me know. I never reported it stolen but there's just a chance... Anyway, I didn't want to go in a negative direction with this - I'm just glad the shirt's still in existence and still in the family!

I wanted to give Jim Driver's Rhythm Festival a plug. We're getting ready to do a couple of UK dates next week and while we're there we're dropping in for an evening. Amy and I played there last year and it was great. So we're hoping for hot, dry, sunny weather. The Blockheads are playing so who knows, I might get to introduce them. I've heard a rumour too that Eric Clapton's going to play with John Mayall. As far as John Mayall goes I can take it or leave it (usually leave it) but I'd like to see Clapton at close quarters again and the Rhythm Festival might be just the place. Last year we saw Chas 'n' Dave, Wilko Johnson and Jerry Lee Lewis all in the space of about four hours. It's probably the most civilised and friendly festival going.

11July 2007