Friday 8th July 2022

Alarm at 0800. Woke to news from Japan that their former PM had been assassinated in a street in Nara! Got up and made Aki a mug of tea. Breakfasted on porridge. Walked down to Islington Central Library in the sunshine to join a guided walk of Islington rock 'n roll hotspots. It's organised by Healthy Generations, so is supposed to promote the notion of a two hour walk as good exercise, but one of our number turned up with a crutch, which meant we had to walk at the same pace as she did! A young lady named Mary lead the procession, first stop being the Hope Workers Cafe on Holloway Road, which was apparently a favourite haunt of the young Suggs, lead singer with Madness. Then onto what is now a late night bar, called House of Hammerton, where John and Yoko swapped some cuttings from their hair for a pair of Muhammed Ali's boxing gloves! We hung a right up Furlong Road...the young Elton John lived in a basement flat at No.29 with Bernie Taupin, before heading a little further west to No.13 Crossley Street, where a very young Keef Richards would hang out with his grandad, Gus...Gus handed the youth his first guitar...the rest is history! 

Walked on to The Garage, then Union Chapel, both currently in use as music venues, before stopping outside The Hope & Anchor on Upper Street, a small pub venue that helped usher in the punk era. At No.35 Brittania Row we stood outside a stone-built church hall which had been turned into a recording studio by Pink Floyd in the 70s. Then it was up to Islington Green. The Waterstone's bookshop was originally built as Collin's Music Hall, the Euphorium Bakery was the site of Reckless Records, which I must surely have visited on a fairly regular basis in the early 1980s, and The Screen on the Green cinema, which had hosted a couple of infamous Pistols gigs in 1976 and 1977. Walked home via Waitrose, and got comfy on the sofa to witness Cameron Norrie's inevitable defeat by the great Novak. I cooked a Goan fish curry for dinner, which we had with mushroom rice, vegetables, and pakora. Very tasty! Watched a bit of telly before bath and bed...