Something happened on Saturday that hasn't happened for a good while. Mrs S and I were out, together, on our own. This is a rare occurrence (it was probably the last time we had a super moon that it happened before). I've had one or two use 'em or lose 'em days off recently and even then, we haven't been able to overlap for an afternoon in the park or a bite to eat in our favourite little cafe.
But Saturday night was the first of one or two excursions that we have planned for the next few months. For Christmas, we decided, quite independently of each other, to buy tickets for the theatre, gigs or shows. We have one planned for each of the next three months and another one has just cropped up for when the nights are drawing in again. So Saturday we went off to the wonderful setting of The Liverpool Empire to take in the astounding delights and mesmerising tricks of Derren Brown. He's very good. Very, very good. But we did promise not to say anything about the show so as not to spoil it for anyone who may see it later in the tour.
On the 30 minute car journey into Liverpool we had the radio on. My current favourite music station is Absolute 80's so that was playing quite loudly, mainly to drown out the singing. One or two tunes came on that took me back to certain periods of my life.
One such anthem was You Win Again by The Bee Gees.
We were playing name the year and I knew that this was number one on my best friends 18th birthday. Of course, he was 18 before I was and it brought back memories of the night we spent in our local pub celebrating his birthday, with the landlord "telling us off" for going in before we were 18. I had it again 6 months later.
It brought back those distant recollections of going into a nightclub in the mid to late 80's and comparing them to how nightclubs have evolved since. Back then, all nightclubs were dimly lit with a long bar, expensive black leatherette seating areas with plenty of curves and absolutely no sharp angles.There were no bar stools or leaning shelves. Instead there was bays in which round metal tables stood and were frequently knocked over at around 1.30am.
The DJ would talk between each record, either to give some snotty 17 year old lad a bit of grief (yes, I was that lad) or try his chat up charms on whichever bouffant caught his eye that night. There was no mixing together of records (not CDs or MP3s. Proper jumpy vinyl).
And very often, in the back or on the top floor of the big clubs, there was a burger bar selling chips with tomato ketchup that looked really good all down your new pink shirt at ten to two in the morning.
I read somewhere that your Life Song is the song that was number one on your 18th birthday. Here's mine.
What is your Life Song?
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