So, how was your Easter? Because of the obligations and vagaries of magazine production, I’m writing this before it’s even happened. So what shall I write about? What is still in my heart and soul to tell you? The endless rain? My endless poverty? My latest run-in with Vodafone? I’m sorry, I can’t this week, I really can’t. So instead I’ll tell you about something nice that happened to me during my week off. 

What happened was that my friend, who coincidentally happens to be the editor of The Whistler, invited me to a gig at the Prince Albert. Not only is the editor of The Whistler, he is also a gentleman of exquisite taste, so when he invites you along to a gig you go along without asking who’s playing, because you know it’s going to be good. A few days later, I asked “who are we seeing anyway?” and he replied “Jah Wobble”, and I fainted.

You might remember my having written about Mr Wobble a few months back, when I saw that he had followed me on Twitter. This put a spring in my step. For I had been a fan of his since October 1978, when Public Image Ltd’s first, eponymous single came out, with its simple but devastating bassline, played and conceived by Wobble. Since then he has released several groovy records, including collaborations with Sinead O’Connor and Holger Czukay of Can, but now is not the time for a discography. 

Now as it happens my friend, the editor of The Whistler, knows Jah Wobble (he was christened John Wardle, but “Jah Wobble” is how a drunken Sid Vicious pronounced it once, and the name stuck). As it also happens, I get a bit giddy in the company of musicians, especially in the company of musicians of whose work I approve. A girlfriend of mine once saw me in the company of Jim Reid from the Jesus and Mary Chain, and said she’d never seen me act like that ever before: simpering and giggling like a schoolkid with a crush. Writers don’t impress me nearly as much: I know their specious ways all too well. Artists can make me go a bit silly but then I knew Marc Quinn at university and I thought “grifter” and “he’ll go far”, but I once met Francis Bacon and I was deeply impressed and wondered if he’d paint me if I slept with him. But I was with another girlfriend at the time and couldn’t think of a way to drop it into the conversation. 

T

he plan was to meet with JW at the pub before the gig. I got into a right tizzy thinking about this. I shaved and bathed and brushed the few remaining hairs on the top of my head. It turned out that Spurs were playing Fulham that evening and Wobble, who is a huge Spurs fan, wanted to see the match. Only there was some rugby nonsense going on that evening, and the only pub playing the match was a cavernous pile by Old Steine mostly frequented by students. I was a bit anxious: I am not a Spurs fan, which I thought would put a spoke in the wheels of my friendship with JW before it had even got moving. As it happened he couldn’t even make it into the pub: there was a queue and he thought Sod that for a lark and went back to the Albert to watch it on his phone. 

As history records, Spurs barely even showed up either and Fulham slaughtered them 3-0 and it would have ben 4-0 but for the slimmest of offsides. After the match we went off to the Albert. “Hurry up,” I kept saying. “I want to meet Jah Wobble.”

“I’ve never seen him like this,” my friend said to another friend, another journalist who also knows Jah Wobble. Does everyone in this stupid town know Jah Wobble apart from me? 

So we finally made it to the Albert and went to see Jah Wobble in the dressing room which is even tinier than the room he was about to play in. I was, by this stage, quivering with excitement. And so what did they all talk about? Football. Worse than that: Spurs football. I’ve never been so bored in my life. Never meet your heroes, I thought.

But the gig was brilliant, and as Mr Wobble came off stage he squeezed my arm and I’m in love all over again. 

l Previously published inThe New Statesman