Well, it must have been about half past two in the morning, and just sitting there in the front room, with Carl and Brendan and Adrian. We're just sitting listening to music, drinking tea, talking about the Palace Brothers, Bonnie Prince Billy, that kind of thing. All of a sudden the room fills with a harsh brightness and in barges my sister mob-handed from Cream. She points at the speakers on the stereo and starts chanting: "Shit band, no fans, shit band no fans…"

Well, I'm just about to defend our corner when her mate Natalie at the back pipes up with: "Yeah, the windy minimalism of that last track recalls some of Labradford's isolationist period."

Thoroughly defeated, I retired upstairs to bed, left them to it. However, step forward three years into my secret hayloft, shot with shafts of afternoon sunlight. Brendan's changed his name to Federal Metronome…

Did you see me, being escorted round the ground, Motorola in the pocket of my Wampum jeans, over the ad for Continental, I made a comic bid for freedom…

There are a million retired liberals watching Countdown. And in the adverts they close their eyes and they go to Umbria with Carol…

Oh Carol, oh…
Oh Carol, oh…

They subscribe to Erotic Review because it's broadsheet acceptable, and they can read it in bed with their partners and perhaps try out suggested oils. Ah, but they still feel the need to board an EasyJet to Amsterdam every now and again. 'Cos you can't get Teenage Eskimo in Wantage…

See the keepers hanging rancid in the glade, Arconada, Pfaff and Bats and Joseph-Antoine Bell… I hope for answers in the distance, far beyond deep sierra

Go on, ask me what we do next. Just attribute it to King Alfred and go like this…