SO I’m driving along the hateful M53, past the Satanic smokestacks of Ellesmere Port and on towards the chainstore Hell that is Cheshire Oaks retail carbuncle.
Suddenly a song bursts out of the cassette player and lifts my spirits.
It is Bonnie Tyler singing Total Eclipse of the Heart. I sing along to it with passion (well it is a very passionate song) bouncing in my seat as I go…

“I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark
We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever’s gonna start tonight
Forever’s GONNA START TONIGHT!!”
I’m absolutely shouting it out by now, with memories of my many ruined relationships crowding in on me and the threat of the bitter sting of tears ever present (not ideal, when you are driving).
Next think you know, I’m wondering whatever became of my former East Anglian squeeze, “Treacle” Tartt?
And relax. The next song up certainly has a restful quality, though it also has the requisite bitter edge I demand of music.
So it is that I am soothed by Don Henley’s voice, like honey poured over Golden Syrup (help, I obviously have a fixation for sweet uguents!) as he intones the poetic lyric to Lyin’ Eyes.
“Late at night a big old house gets lonely
I guess ev’ry form of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is
Only given to a man with hands as cold as ice.”
Fantastic!
Another Eagles’ song bursts through as I motor around Chester's dreary suburbs, Hotel California. Among the many memorable lines is “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”. That's also the best definition I’ve ever heard of the unbreakable silver thread which binds anyone baptised as a Roman Catholic into everlasting membership the Church. Whether they like it or not.
Talking of Christianity, this week I have started wearing my silver crucifix around my neck. I had given up doing so temporarily.
I’ve put on the image of the crucified Christ again as an act of protest at the treatment meted out to devout Christian Nadia Eweida by her cretinous employers, British Airways.
BA has banned this airport check-in worker from wearing a cross, out of the utterly misguided fear that it could offend Muslims and other minority faiths.
When wearing the cross, or a crucifix, you should always do so with pride. I certainly will.
After all, the cross belongs at the heart of British culture, and no secular fundamentalist, liberal extremist or human resources martinet can be allowed to take it away from us.
There is nothing offensive about the cross. It is part of our lives and has been since St Augustine landed in England all those centuries ago.
The cross features on the British and English flags, for heaven's sake, and it is depicted on our postage stamps as part of the Queen’s Crown.
But I digress. That music tape… Next up, came a poetic medley from Morrissey with You’re The One For Me, Fatty, followed by his serious and beautiful peaen to dying British culture, We’ll Let You Know, then Every Day Is Like Sunday, which could have been written for New Brighton.
It is an odd mix is this particular compilation tape. I made it one weekend a few months ago. It contains some modern stuff, including the brilliant She Moves In Her Own Way by The Kooks plus another one by them, the name of which I can’t remember.
But there are also two Dorothy Squires songs on it (look her up, younger readers), including I’ll Be Walking Behind You (On Your Wedding Day), which manages to be both beautiful and sinister (well, it is essentially about stalking).
Then there’s a couple of songs by Steve Forbert, who no-one seems to remember these days but I think is a poet and a hero - and American version of Paul Weller.
The tape finishes with two great Daniel O’Donnell ballads, My Lovely Island Home (A Cup of Tea From Mammy) and Sure, I Have The Sweetest Sister.
OK, now the astute among you must already realise that the preceding paragraph was a blatant lie.
I simply don’t do bland, musically or in any other way.
Whenever I try a bit of blandness – while shopping or dining in Chester, for instance, where blandness is in plentiful supply – I get tight pains in my chest.

Congratulations, by the way, to the Bacardi Queen, who organised (along with her former husband) a brilliant 21st birthday party for her son Dom (or was it Dick? I get the lads mixed up) at the poshest hotel in New Brighton, the Hollington Toffspot.
Yes, there are some posh places left in NB. Wirral Council hasn’t quite managed to bulldoze them all into dust yet.
Everyone was dressed very smartly, apart from me. I wore a crumpled, stained linen jacket (Tesco, Bidston), £6 Primark denims and a shirt by the mentally handicapped charity shop in North Birkenhead.
The food was fantastic and there was an elegant little dancefloor set up, though the giant inflatable rabbit did lend the whole scene a rather eerie Donnie Darko atmosphere.
And, I don’t wish to gripe, but our DJ did seem to be diving back and forth from his music deck on our floor and the other one he was using a floor below us where there was another function. Hmmm. Not sure if such a division of labout really works, but Dom’s party seem to go very well anyway.
Incidentally, Hell’s Waiting Room hath quieter and bleaker been during the past two weeks because the Barcardi Queen (who can light up any room with her smile) simply hasn’t been in there.
Why she hasn’t been in, well, I couldn’t possibly comment…

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