An afternoon with old friends brings joy and sadness. That's what happens when you are my age. People you never thought would divorce, people get ill, people get fat. I retreated with a smile of resignation to Spotify and my eighties classics (Sisters of Mercy, Killing Joke etc) in the twilight. The Sisters I feel were particularly impressive for their generation (anybody agree?) They are kind of filmic, and I always distrust the word 'filmic' in relation to almost anything.

University is a sort of Sisters of Mercy record right now; we sit and wait, we are on the eve of dread.

Saw some Sisters fans the other day. They had grown very large indeed, but had all bought XXLG Sisters outfits and were tucking in to breakfast in a Wetherspoons. You don't expect SoM fans to be anything but razor thin living on a diet of sulphate and cider, but they'd clearly stuck to the cider. They were talking of their shifts and their mortgages and their kids. Nothing wrong with that I thought (not being exactly slight myself) and then, about the 'bond' they still shared with the kids; the kids they had obviously just encountered at some goth gig the previous night. Lovely I thought.

Let us all 'rock on' (but not in that David Essex way).