Friends Linked In

Some years ago I responded to an advert on the above website: it caused ructions in my marriage, but also reunited me with an early soul-mate. We had been friends at school and hadn't spoken since we were eighteen years old.

First thing she asked me was if I was still into Northern! Good girl! And then she went and dropped dead on me - which wasn't so good. Particularly not for her. And I didn't find out until the day of her funeral, because I was wondering why she hadn't called. Something to do with the last Mrs E being jealous of my one female friend. The author cast a risky yet joky aside.

Apparently Peter Kay describes these social networking sites as Facetube. I don't like Kay, but this does strike me as funny, and he is northern, so I suppose I should maintain a sneaking regard. Which thought brought me back to my schooldays. There are some great clips on Facetube of dancers and songs in the Northern scene. It is still 'underground' but the web has opened it up to many more people. Records that once cost lots of money to acquire are now freely available to download, but you cannot download the experience.

My first trip to Wigan cost me £2 on the coach, £2 to enter the Casino. A friend and I had sent off for the required membership from Blues and Soul magazine, spent some time planning the manouevre, and left the Welsh Border Villages one Saturday evening. We were fifteen, with bumfluff moustaches. But we got in: and that was part of the adventure, because we had recently been refused entry to Emmanuelle 2! Half of the naughty boys from the Birmingham overspill were on the coach, and we danced through the night. There were drugs, but no alcohol. Perhaps I went down the wrong route at this junction? To return to the villages from where the coach dropped us we had to thumb a lift as it was peeing down. A dude in a Jenson Interceptor picked us up, and played more Soul. He knew where we had been, and his kindness finished the weekend off in great style. Trouble was my Karmann Ghia jeans frayed in the walk. And my Dad wouldn't let me go to bed before I had my Sunday lunch...do you think he knew something?

I found out some years later that my Home Boy Souly went a bit off the rails. Must be something in the water in Worcestershire.

Gosh, that is a bit of a soul-barer: how unlike me. Next bulletin will be back to the clammed-up repressed old boy.

Set musical text tonight is 'The Snake' by Al Wilson, available with lyrics on Youtube. Fantastic thoughts and a great song: 'Shut up silly woman: you knew darn well I was a snake before you took me in'.