A few days ago I downloaded a recording of a Billy Bragg show from the Live Music Archive and I listened to it on the way home last night. It was a recording of an Radio 1 In Concert programme from 1984 which featured a set from Hank Wangford as well. I remember listening to it at the time and if I searched my garage hard enough I'd probably find I had a tape of it too.

Hank Wangford - part time Country and Western singer, part time Gynaecologist - "I still do it once or twice a week just to keep my hand in!" I saw him once at the Royal Standard in Walthamstow which he pronounced in a fake American drawl. One of the joys on the disc was the final song "Jogging for Jesus" with it's unforgettable chorus

Jogging for Jesus
Jogging for Jesus
Jogging for Jesus
Down lifes long highway

Jogging for Jesus
Jogging for Jesus
Let Satan go skating
His sin spinning way

It was in 1984 that I first saw Billy Bragg at my first ever Glastonbury Festival. Things were more political back then with the Miners strike and good old Mrs. T - Stand down Margaret, Stand down please. Back in those days Labour was left and Tories were right. The first gig I went to after I moved to London the following year was Billy Bragg at the Stoke Newington Town Hall where I got in for a reduced rate as I still had my UB40.

The tape included some of his political songs such as Which side are you on? and Between the Wars which should have become an anthem for the left wing. It sent a shiver down my spine hearing again after all these years.

Call up the craftsmen
Bring me the draftsmen
Build me a path from cradle to grave
And I'll give my consent
To any government
That does not deny a man a living wage

but at the same time it included some of his quirky love songs such as A New England and A Lover Sings which includes the following lines that I've always loved

And you're the kind of girl who wants to
open up the bottle of pop
Too early in the journey
Our love went flat just like that

While I was driving home my phone rang and it was Rhianna who had got off the bus at the wrong stop and her and her friend were lost somewhere in Gillingham. I had to pull over and get my A to Z out and help her find her way home.

In the evening I watched the movie Sliding doors on BBC 3 which stars the "lovely" Gwyneth Paltrow and I was reminded of the time I bumped into her at Nice Airport. Well actually she bumped into me, actually she barged her way past me as she thought I was taking to long to find my passport and jumped in the queue in front of me.

My first instinct was to shout "oi love who do you think you are" but I didn't which was just as well as she probably would have thought I was taking the piss (I didn't actually know who she was at the time it was I only found out when the check in girl told me)

Anyway she sat opposite me on the plane in Club Class and I was horrified when I saw the Stewardess offer her a menu and she simply ignored her as if she wasn't there. Maybe she was lost without her PA who had been sent off to tourist class at the back.