29:

Magazine. Oh, this is an oddity. I had a punk phase (well, OK, a wannabe punk phase), and there will be evidence in the shape of the Buzzcocks along in a while, and then I had a New Wave phase, which lasted a bit longer, and was a bit more serious, and involved buying things like Magazine singles, and then I had a particularly ill-judged rock phase (yes, some gruesome evidence to follow...) during which, all traces of my past were obliterated or at least left in Aberdeen while I moved to Edinburgh. Fortunately, it didn't last long, and it was a combination of the sainted John Peel and a Magazine song which opened my eyes.

I have no idea now why Andrew, Graeme and I were driving (in Graeme's famous Escort) through bits of Morningside, listening to John Peel, but we were. On comes 'Shot by Both Sides' - again, I have no idea why; perhaps it was a personal message. Something in me aches with a painful nostalgia for the last of my schooldays - all of three years before - and the excitement of those times when everything seemed possible, and probably was. I quietly resolve not to be so blinkered in my musical tastes. Slowly, but surely, it works...