This is me (from 0:32 to 0:37 in the video below - literally my five seconds of fame) in the middle seat of my first band's blue Toyota Hiace, which we converted into a tour bus and living accommodation with a sheet of plywood. The rest of the video is where I grew up and went to school. And, more importantly, where I started drinking.
Although I don't appear 'In The Talbot' in this video, that's usually where I started my Friday and Saturday nights out, on and off for a good number of years, although it's also a good number of years since I've been back now, too. The Talbot Inn, my hometown's oldest pub, is now a Co-op Foodstore, sadly, although I believe the old pub sign is still in place. This is how Google's Map van saw it a few years ago:
And this is how it was in its pomp:
Like many of the old regulars, I suspect, it's past its prime. Indeed, I discovered while researching this post that some of them had been found after a particularly heavy session during excavations looking for Roman remains:
Anyway, the point of all of this is to say thank you to the internets for providing a little and a lot more of what we had back then. I rarely go to the pub these days and while it's nice to go with a couple of friends occasionally, it's not the same. And I'm glad about that, too. I never really felt like I fitted in as everyone else seemed to be in the pub every night of the week and Saturday and Sunday afternoons as well. So I'm happy to sit here with my glass of lemonade knowing that no one else knows and that I can chat to people in real-time on Identi.ca talking like a drunk madman without fear of getting punched in the face for shooting my mouth off or of waking up on some strange floor in my clothes stinking of cigarettes, alcohol and vomit the morning after the party the night before.
I had a big idea once. Maybe twenty years ago I dared to share this vision with one of my drinking buddies whom I considered to be much more open-minded and receptive to crazy thoughts. My idea was for beer to be delivered to the comfort and relative safety of our individual homes in pipes and for us to communicate with each other via multi-channel interactive TV screens. I called it Cable Beer. 'That's way out' I heard him say as he headed for the exit and on to the Red Lion (now flats) across the road. I have kept this to myself all of these years until last night when I was reminded of its potential by my friend Luke on Identi.ca who was out of beer and out of money.
I'm not sure how the sausages got in there, but thanks to Bruce for reminding me that I had some in the fridge, too, which I had for breakfast.
Now, I say that it was my idea for the World Wide Pub, but it looks like some sleazeblogger beat me to publishing it. Damn.
Oh, well. Here's the second and final video of my hometown including New Year's Eve 1987. I'm not in this video as I was on another gig at the time entertaining the Queen, or something. Memories, eh?
Just one final backwards trip to 1978. Here is the beginning of the end of Scottish football:
If you want to find out more about the World Wide Pub in its Identi.ca incarnation, please visit This is not a podcast.