Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol just now on the breakfast show. The subjects in paragraph four are all stories from today's show:

Let me tell you the best way to hit a target. Find a wall with a bit of give in the plaster. Throw a dart at it. Now take a marker pen and draw a target around the point of impact. Bingo. Bulls-eye.

I've been doing ready, fire aim most of my life. It's a plausible approach as long as you are good at inventing a reason for that thing you just did.

In Christian ministry people are always looking for a way to count success. Which was more important - the 40 or so people who came to church on Sunday morning or the seven young people who came to a small discipleship group for teenagers later that day? If I miss a Christmas party for 100 homeless because I'm called to the bedside of one sick parishioner who might die, how will that look?

So what should we count to see how life in Bristol is going? We want that education, health and care plan figure to go up. It sounds like it's the only way it could go. We want more pianos in public spaces - well I do anyway. Pianos bring me joy. We want violence to go down and trees to grow up.

I've never scrutinised the purpose driven ministry of Jesus against his goals but it seems to me he kept planning to go to Jerusalem and was constantly distracted by people needing food, healing and advice. His ministry development review would probably have been disappointing. Jesus of Nazareth - stick to your mission action plan.

So here's a prayer for statisticians everywhere. At election time we need you to tell us how we are doing. And if we've improved. But that isn't everything.

Politics Made Simple

Outrageous assertion. If we do Brexit more poor people will die than if we don't.

Our philosophy primer asks us, would we divert a train about to kill 6 people by switching the points so it only kills 1?

We are in the midst of a time of great political turmoil in the UK. I have no idea how things will turn out but it is clear that cans have been opened that contain far worse than worms. And someone threw away the can.

So my title is a bit of an annoying tease. I offer no great wisdom on how to move forward. But I want to clarify the question we are asking every time we do politics. Here are some scenarios. I invented all the stats:

• A new drug is on the market. For a million pounds per person its targeted application has a 50/50 chance of eliminating a particularly nasty cancer which five people a year get. You paying?

• It is clear that seat belts save lives. But 3 in 10,000 very unlucky participants in serious accidents lose their lives because they are wearing one. If they hadn't clunk-clicked they'd have survived. You overturning the legislation?

• Cannabis is, statistically, safer than alcohol. You decriminalising one and stopping the other?

• Every now and then a boxer dies from a blow to the head, a batsman from a ball to the head and a biker from a road to the head. What you banning?

• A vaccine has been invented which stops people getting measles, an illness which kills several people a year and, if unchecked, can reach epidemic proportions and take many more lives. The vaccine has slight risks of complications? You making it compulsory?

I could go on. You knew that. Today's set question or thought for the epoch is this.

We can fiddle with as many details as we like and make petty adjustments to trivial matters as much as we like but this distracts us from the big question. Politics is about this. Who dies?

It Was Better Yesterday

I am still reading my way, very slowly, through Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. Each chapter is so profound and informative that, if it wasn't for the annoying statistic that 60% of the population of the UK do not read one book a year, it should be compulsory reading for everyone. Notwithstanding the alleged beauty of democracy it does seem abundantly clear that smart people know more than thick ones.

Hoping to finish it this sabbatical. So here's the latest lesson.

Most of us know that we have a tendency to idealise the past. We recall the good and forget the bad. In massive general terms this leads to sentences such as 'It was better in the old days' even though people got rickets and polio, children died in infancy and there was a war on.

The Match of the Day and Football on Five pundits should all read it as a condition of their contracts. Put simply, they are lazy. Which is not as rude as it sounds because it means they are using System 1 thinking (in Kahneman terms) as it is easier than System 2 and we all do that.

So when they say 'A top striker has got to be putting that away' when a gaping goal is missed, they are fooled by highlights' packages. They have in their heads every goal of last week's top four tiers and those showed, time and again, strikers putting away simple chances. System 1 recalls that. What they do not have is ready head-access to the hours of footage of appalling football. System 2 would do the hard thinking necessary to find that. Highlights are highlights. Lowlights packages don't sell, although this was recently voted the worst twenty seconds of football ever and it is compelling.

So pundits recall many occasions when simple chances were taken and not the far more numerous occasions when they were not.

Someone who cares more than me, enough to do actual research, watched hours of football clips of top strikers recently and found that 'simple' chances were taken on less than half the occasions they presented themselves. Put simply, missing easy open goals is more likely than not.

If our history is told only as a series of 'good things' then we will look back on it more positively.

Thoughts on Leicester City

I have very little to go on save a few conversations and a brief highlight from one game, but that never usually stops me chucking my oar in so heads up.

Away in the Champions League last week Leicester City produced an outstanding away goal to give themselves a chance in a two-leg tie. The goal, scored on the break in their stylish counter-attacking way, involved a perfect Danny Drinkwater cross and a late-arriving Jamie Vardy putting it away. Cracking goal. Shortly after that their manager, who had led them to the Premiership title the previous season, was sacked.

The next match saw Leicester beat Liverpool 3-1. Vardy scored twice.

Some people pointed out that the sacking of the manager gave them something to prove. Well that worked then. We'll see if it continues so to do.

But I see something different. That Premiership-winning season showed us what can happen if a team has everything go like a dream. Since that can rarely be expected, Gary Lineker's offer to present Match of the Day in his pants was not one he thought he would have to keep.

All teams are trying to do what Leicester did. For few does it come right. In my judgement last season Leicester played teams in the right order. There is a right order and you want to play teams on a run of confidence-sapping defeats, with star players missing or with nothing to play for. Their team suffered minimal injuries. I reckon their defensive pairing of Morgan and Huth avoided a lot of deserved suspensions. Their style worked. Shots went in the corner of the goal rather than hitting the post.

Then they sold Kanté to Chelsea for £30m and couldn't re-invest it in anyone similar. Teams such as Leicester need to take £25m profit when they can get it. The big four will buy the players from the next ten teams, if they are vaguely any use, to keep themselves as  big four.

Chatting to fans I learn that the style was the same this year but it simply didn't work so well. Final passes were misplaced. Shots narrowly missed, were well saved or hit post or bar. A bad run sapped confidence. Players got injured. Huth and Morgan were a season older and slower.

In that away goal at Sevilla I saw the season turn. That was Leicester at their best. They would probably still have beaten Liverpool who are depressing right now.

In football details are everything. You have to expect that everyone is trying to do the big things right. The detail of that away goal should have put the Leicester owners on notice to keep faith with Claudio.

Leicester City aren't a great team any more. Last season they were a little above average and this season are average. They will finish mid-table. 

My own team, West Brom, are having a remarkably good season but eighth is our rightful place and seventh the dizzying heights of ambition.

Last season was a joy for football fans because it gave us all hope. Which is stupid. It shouldn't have. Normal service is resumed. Chelsea walking it. But the teams still in the Champions League haven't experienced a Leicester moment yet. I wonder?

On Trusting Statisticians and so on...

There was an excellent Long Read in the Guardian last Saturday about the death of statistics. In a detailed piece William Davies discussed the current environment of appealing to emotions rather than facts. Now I am sitting in the middle of the current maelstrom in which members of the liberal chattering classes whirl. I really don't know how it has come to this. But I have watched the developed western world  (if I may call it such) get here and would like to have a go at discussing why.

I am a stats nerd. I never miss More or Less on BBC Radio 4 and take longer than most people digesting (and sometimes checking) graphs and tables in papers. Current bugbear - the axis that doesn't go to zero making variations seem worse than they are. I know this is not normal. I also tend to avoid thinking with my emotions having been encouraged by endless management training courses to 'take the emotion out of it' when facing conflict. Or to put it more bluntly, a football coach once said 'Never think with your bollocks son they're not meant for that.' So I tend to look for the reassuring solidity of facts.

But in politics especially over the last thirty years facts have been used messily. Summarising political debate a few years back a friend of mine paraphrased a BBC Radio 4 interview. Imagining they were discussing a snooker ball, he said one person asserted:

This ball is completely red.

Only to get the response:

No it's not, it's completely round.

A more subtle and duller version would be (and these facts are all made up):

The cost of travelling has increased 12% year on year since the year 2000.

Responded to with:

This government has put £10bn extra into public transport, making a 15% increase in investment in real terms over the corresponding period.

You will recognise the sort of discussion. At least in the second version the divisive 'No it's not...' is missing although it is pretty much assumed.

It is not a contrary position. We may not like it but this is exactly what an 'alternative fact' is. It is quite possible for both sides to be right with stats.

During the recent US Presidential campaign the statistical fact came up that a massive reduction in violent crime against the person, nationwide, was being reported during the Obama administration. Challenged on this a panellist on a news show said:

Not in Chicago it isn't. Followed by, People don't feel it is like this.

John Oliver accused the guy of bringing feelings to a facts fight. Yes. He did. And I think he won.

And what do we need to say of Michael Gove's Brexit campaign rallying call that people had had enough of experts. They were, and still are, tired of the sham expertise that rubbishes the other side's stats as a matter of course. For the message received by the public is that all stats are wrong, not just those ones. It was not because of the experts that experts became mistrusted, but because the information provided by the experts was used so badly. And it was ironic that it was Gove, one who had been doing that, who called it so.

This has been an opinion piece. But it is my opinion that facts matter. If they don't then we can plaster whatever we damn well like on the side of the campaign bus. It doesn't mean we have to do it.

And finally, as a coda, those of us who believe in facts need to quadruple check the 'facts' we share, especially on social media. Trump didn't photoshop his hands and it makes us look bad to suggest so. Neither did he hold hands with our Prime Minister in a giant love-in; he helped her down some dodgy stairs. We'll do photos another day, but those things freeze movement and can make it seem permanent. Some photo editor somewhere has 99 pictures of Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich properly.

Statistics and Cathedral Worship

As regular readers (hi Mum) know, I am a great consumer of statistics. I am no expert but one thing that bugs me above all else is when conclusions are drawn from numbers which are simply opinion.

So now the church attendance figures recently released for 2015 (we're getting faster at this, believe it or not) show that attendance at cathedral worship is up compared with many other places where a downwards trend is observed.

And immediately one or two lazy commentators suggest that this proves that modern forms of worship are failing and we should all get back in the cloisters.

It does no such thing. In fact what we see on the ground is a number of very small evening congregations being wound up due to a shortage of organists, choir-masters, choir and indeed congregation. I should just have said 'everything' but I'm a sucker for merism ladies and gentlemen.

As they wind up, some people choose to worship at other times and other places; a number simply drift away, but a few, who were mainly attracted by choral evensong, find their way to the nearest cathedral. Up go the numbers.

It should be our expectation that as things get rarer the finest expressions of them survive the longest and attract the most attention. No conclusions beyond that can be drawn.

Premiership Football and Coin-Tossing

A few years ago I played a whole Premiership season using a coin toss to decide games. The system was simple.

Heads = goal

I tossed a coin for each team and each match. I tossed until a tails came up then I stopped. The number of consecutive heads tossed was the amount of goals scored. This gave a spread of points at the end of the season which had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with luck.

The winning team had 67 points; bottom of the league 31. It would only have needed one slight change of luck, one more heads for the top team and one fewer for the bottom team and the range of points would have been a nice 30-70.

What do we learn? We learn that this season only Arsenal, with 71 points, and Leicester with 81 were better than an ordinary team with good luck might have performed. Arsenal marginally better; Leicester considerably.

Only Aston Villa, who were atrocious, were worse than an ordinary team with poor luck. Everyone else was unlucky (Norwich and Newcastle to be relegated) or lucky (Arsenal, Spurs and Man City to get in the top four). 4th to 8th, and 11th to 16th could have been much changed by a couple of offside or penalty decisions.

Leicester deserved to win; Villa deserved to go. The rest was inseparable from luck. And it explains why so many managers go on and on about referees' decisions. Because they are out of their control.

A few seasons back West Brom sacked a manager for poor results although at that point in the season the club had receieved two letters from referees apologising for mistakes; mistakes which would have led to a certain two, and possible four, more points. And a much more respectable league position.

Chelsea sacked a manger for not delivering the Champions League trophy when they lost the final on penalties and the last penalty hit the post.

Club owners make some terribly tough decisions based on luck. On the other hand who wouldn't want to employ a lucky manager?

Leicester fans enjoy your party. You absolutely deserve it. No-one else should rejoice. And Villa should despair and offer opponents a coin toss rather than playing the game for the next couple of seasons. Might work.

If everyone is good, good is average

My fascination with statistics has developed over the years. Possibly because I am a bit nerdy; maybe because as an intuitive by nature I need to remind myself constantly that statistics are counter-intuitive and need to be studied to reveal their secrets. As I am fond of saying, a mugging victim will find it hard to believe that crime is down in the moments after the attack.

I read another example of this in the excellent 'Thinking Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman this week, discovering the delights of 'regression to the mean'.

Which is better? Shouting at the poor performers or praising the good?

Time's up.

What is your gut reaction? Probably that there is a place for both stick and carrot.

Now let me tell you more. In an organisation where everyone is on top of their game - say it is sales - give or take, most of the team members sell 100 units a week, most of the time. One week a sales rep shifts only 23. You are the team leader and you have that person in your office and give them a dressing down. They can offer no explanation for their poor sales and so you assume they didn't try hard enough, missed some leads or allowed private affairs to get on top of them. After a stern talking to and threat of disciplinary action, you send them packing.

Next week they come in with 105. You pat yourself on the back for your management skills.

Another week a second member of the team pitches in with 342 units. You invite them to your office, praise them, give them a bonus and a 'sales-person of the week' award and an afternoon off.

Next week they come in with 95.

Which is better? Shouting at the poor performers or praising the good?

Time's up.

Obviously the counter-intuitive conclusion from these results is that shouting works but praise doesn't.

Wrong.

Your intuition was right at the beginning.

You see, all things being equal, from time to timely average performers will produce above average results and below average results. They average out. Rarely, but occasionally, very bad and very good results will crop up. Remember that in this organisation everyone is on top of their game. I told you that. So circumstances will conspire to have an occasional customer who wants to buy loads of your product as a one-off, giving you an outstanding week. And sometimes all the good customers stay away at once. It just happens like that because averages are, well average.

The shouted at will put extra effort in and do slightly above average next week but they won't keep that performance level up. The praised will be encouraged, slightly complacent and try slightly less hard.

It all reverts to the mean.

So if neither make a big difference, ask yourself this. Will my workforce do better in an environment where the good is praised and the bad understood? Or in one where the bollocking is the only tool?

Freedom of the City

What would you do if you had the freedom of the city? On Wednesday morning that was the discussion Geoff Twentyman introduced on BBC Radio Bristol's Breakfast show. I pondered it a bit because sometimes, when you go in to do Thought for the Day, they throw the question of the day at you in the pre-thought banter and it is good to have some idea what to say. I am not quite quick-witted enough to have fully grasped the Joe Lemer book of one word put downs - I bow to an expert of the form - but what is the answer?

I wasn't asked and am glad. It is a hard question and the answer really ought to be one that makes life easier for some. Heart for the poor and all that.

But, a day late, here is my idea. I'd employ an official public statistician. No wait. Come back. Hear me out.

Do you ever get annoyed at politicians throwing statistics at each other? One says how good it is that crime is showing a reduction according to the latest figures and the other says how appalling the government's record is on violent crime, which is up.

In fact both are telling the truth. Overall crime is down but one area is not. It is like two people arguing over a cheese. One says it is beautifully white and the other other says no it's not, it's crumbly.

Well it's Wensleydale so it's both.

My official statistician would have three responsibilities:

1. To be the agreed arbiter of statistical slanging matches.
2. To be present at all major public debates involving a need to agree stats.
3. To collate and comment on all stats given prominence on the media.

Every town and city should have one until people had learned to be open rather than selective and maybe a national statistical officer could also be appointed.

Bit dull. But wouldn't half make a lot of people happy. Better than driving your sheep through town or whatever rare and unlikely privilege is usually attached to the honour.

Better than average?

It was Garrison Keillor who described his wonderful Lake Wobegon creation as a place where all the children were above average. It was the American dream and American arrogance in one beautiful comedy package.

This morning there was a discussion on Radio 4's Today programme about tennis. No great surprise there; a lot of people have been talking about tennis recently. But the question was posed, 'Why has Britain only one player in the top 100 men?'

Statistics are a bit counter-intuitive so something that sounds wrong can be right and vice-versa. There are about 7 billion people in the world. That is using the US billion so it means seven thousand million - 7,000,000,000.

The population of Great Britain is roughly 60 million - less than 1% of the world's population - so we should expect to have 0.86 of a player in the top 100. We are above average if we have one. Scotland is punching well above its weight if it has one.

Now, of course, things are not divided up equally. Where there are no tennis courts there are no tennis players. So we might expect to do better than a poor, over populated nation with no facilities. We do. But I feel Britain still has this colonial feel that we ought to be better than others. We should get over ourselves. We are good at some things and not so good at others. In the words of the famous Goon-Show character Eccles, 'Everybody's got to be somewhere.'

Apparently, according to the radio discussion, we have 14 golfers in the world's top 100. That is remarkable.

1 in 5

You will know, regular readers, that this blog gets profoundly irritated when statistics are used badly in the media. That irritation reaches seismic proportions when it is allegedly smart people who try and say intuitive things about stats without thinking first.

So, with the possible caveat that there may be a misquote in the ipaper, this from Sanjay Sharma, professor no less, of cardiology at St George's Hospital, Tooting, south London, who runs a screening unit for sports people. We are talking about the collapse of Fabrice Muamba in Saturday's FA Cup tie at White Hart Lane:

I am surprised it was not picked up. The medical screening these players get is extremely comprehensive. It will identify 80 per cent of conditions causing sudden death.

If 20 per cent of conditions are not found then that is one in five. A sudden collapse is a rare event (but the papers have recently given details of four or five in the last few years) and I think a professor of cardiology should rein in his surprise and instead be amazed at how lucky he has been to date.

We continue to pray for Fabrice Muamba's recovery but our optimism about the future should be tempered. An 80 per cent effective screening process is good but not great. One in five of the people who have a rare heart condition (so a small group) will be playing without knowledge of it.

Music List - Uncatalogued Stuff

In searching down the crannies of the storage system (OK behind the cupboard) I discovered the following. I'm only posting this to really annoy those of you who thought music lists were finished:

Classic fm - Music from the Masters 2011 Vol 2 (2011)
Noel Gallagher - The Dreams We Have as Children (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (2009)
Q - REM Jukebox (2008)
Q - New to Q (15 of the Most Exciting New Acts on the Planet) (2010)
Q - Born in the USA (2010)
The Best of the Secret Policeman's Ball Part 2 (2009)

Music List - Albums Z

So here we go. Final instalment. Except tomorrow I will list my eight desert island discs and then, at some point in the future, will do my DVDs. You may then ask to borrow them, so it will be good for you. This is a good way to eat a slug.

Then watch out for a sidebar item saying 'New music.'

I notice that the only post I illustrated with a picture (albums - M) got ten times more hits than all the rest.

A guy call Syd used to bring Hot Rats to every youth group meeting in 1971/2 so it got ingrained and I had to buy it eventually. Apostrophe(') is my favourite Zappa album.

Zero 7 were another band that emerged from my older son's bedroom. It was a surprise that something so mellow could be born of a drum n' bass DJ and has upped the household romance quotient.

Frank Zappa 1969 (V) Hot Rats

1972 (CD) Waka / Jawaka

1974 (V) Apostrophe (')

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

1975 (CD) One Size Fits All

Zero 7 2001 (CD) Simple Things

2004 (CD) When It Falls

2006 (CD) The Garden

2009 (CD) Yeah Ghost

Earl Zinger 2004 (CD) Speaker Stack Commandments

Music List - Albums Y

In the prog rock camp at school we divided into Yes fans and Genesis fans. With forty years of reflection I now suggest that Yes were the better musicians but Peter Gabriel's Genesis the better lyricists. Both were a bit Lower Sixth (a Roger Waters' expression). Mrs WWA and I made the decision to begin a relationship whilst listening to Genesis' Cinema Show. If I ever get hold of permission to play a church organ Rick Wakeman's work on Parallels will be my gold standard.

Yazoo 1983 (V) You and Me Both

Yeasayer 2007 (CD) All Hour Cymbals

2010 (CD) Odd Blood

Yes 1971 (V) The Yes Album

1971 (V) Fragile

1975 (V) Yesterdays

1977 (V) Going for the One

Neil Young 1989 (V) Freedom

The Young Knives 2006 (CD) Voices of Animals and Men

Tom Yorke 2006 (CD) The Eraser

Music List - Albums X

Apart from the dilemma as to which letter to file J-Xaverre under there is little to say about this. XTC - good song writers, especially lyricists. X-Press 2 was bought for the David Byrne influence and the single Lazy.

J-Xaverre 2003 (CD) Three Acid Stars

X-Press 2 2002 (CD) Muzikizum

XTC 1980 (V) Black Sea

The XX 2009 (CD) The XX

Music List - Albums W

The existence of the Marti Webb album tells me what a dull, middle-class family we were destined to become before St John's College got hold of us. Witness (from Wigan) were another band I discovered through late night drives home accompanied by John Peel. Stevie Winwood has been good company all my life and World Party's Always is a desert island disc.

The Wades 1992 (CD) A Touch of Heaven

Rick Wakeman 1975 (V) The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

The Warner Bros. Music Show 1975 (V) (Sampler)

Warp 20 (Recreated) 2009 (CD)

The Waterboys 1988 (V) Fisherman's Blues

Marti Webb 1979 (V) Tell Me on a Sunday

Paul Weller 1994 (CD) Wild Wood

1995 (CD) Stanley Road

2010 (CD) Wake Up the Nation

Bill Wells Trio 2002 (CD) Also in White

Whale 1998 (CD) All Disco Dance Must End in Broken Bones

The White Stripes 2001 (CD) De Stijl

2001 (CD) White Blood Cells

The Who 1971 (CD) Who's Next

1975 (V) The Who by Numbers

Robbie Williams 1997 (CD) Life Through a Lens

1998 (CD) I've Been Expecting You

2001 (CD) Sing When Youre Winning

Mark Williamson Band 1980 (V) Get the Drift?

1984 (V) Missing in Action

Amy Winehouse 2006 (CD) Back to Black

Steve Winwood 1977 (V) Steve Winwood

1980 (V) Arc of a Diver

1982 (V) Talking Back to the Night

1986 (V) Back in the High Life

Wishbone Ash 1971 (V) Pilgrimage

1972 (V&CD) Argus

Witness 1999 (CD) Before the Calm

2001 (CD) Under a Sun

Stevie Wonder 1972 (V) Talking Book

1976 (V) Songs in the Key of Life

The Wonder Stuff 1989 (V) Hup

World Party 1990 (CD) Goodbye Jumbo

1993 (Tape) Bang

1997 (CD) Egyptology

2000 (CD) Dumbing Up

Music List - Albums V

Not much to say about the Vs. Stick with Vampire Weekend beyond your first reaction is my advice. I now love it.

Vampire Weekend 2007 (CD) Vampire Weekend

Suzanne Vega 1987 (V) Solitude Standing

The Verve 1997 (CD) Urban Hymns

2008 (CD) Forth

Voom Voom 2006 (CD) Peng Peng

Music List - Albums U

U2 have made some great tunes (never seen them live) but I don't often get the urge to play a U2 album. If I had to keep one artist beginning with U it would be the wonderful Japan meets France meets jazz meets lounge meets I-don't-know-what that is the United Future Organisation. Try this. Great video. They're another band that came tunefully out of my older son's bedroom and my love for them overtook his. I'd also rate Underworld ahead of U2. I don't own Uriah Heap Live but I have a drumstick from the actual gig it was recorded at and you can hear me, Alan and Keith shouting in a quiet moment. So proud. Bought The Magician's Birthday the next day.

U2 1980 (V) Boy

1980 (V) October

1983 (V) War

1984 (V) The Unforgettable Fire

1987 (V) The Joshua Tree

1988 (V) Rattle and Hum

1991 (V) Achtung Baby

1993 (Tape) Zooropa

2000 (CD) All That You Can't Leave Behind

2004 (CD) How To Dismantle an Atom Bomb

2009 (CD) No Line on the Horizon

Ultravox 1980 (V) Vienna

Underworld 1998 (CD) Second Toughest in the Infants

1998 (CD) Dubnobasswithmyheadman

1999 (Tape) Beaucoup Fish

2002 (CD) A Hundred Days Off

2007 (CD) Oblivion with Bells

United Future Organisation 1993 (CD) United Future Organisation

1995 (CD) Third Perspective

1999 (CD) Bon Voyage

2001 (CD) V

United State of Ambience 1994 (CD)

Uriah Heep 1972 (V) The Magician's Birthday

Music List - Albums T

Seeing gigs at pantomime or variety show (Freddie and the Dreamers, Bachelors, Sounds Incorporated, Searchers, Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark Five) with your parents doesn't really count, for me, as 'first gig.' The first proper gig was Ten Years After at Birmingham Town Hall in the autumn of 1971 supported by Keith Christmas and an early version of Supertramp. The first reverb-heavy 'One of these days boy...' and a guitar chord like someone dropping scaffolding and I was hooked. TYA were not the greatest band in the world but they were my first love and still uncover something primal when I hear them. Alvin Lee, Rick Lee, Leo Lyons and Chick Churchill - I thank you.

2 many DJs is another candidate for the great intros competition but you may be offended as it segues into 'F**k the day away.' Sorry. Still love it. Groove trumps offence any day.

Fall Down by Toad the Wet Sprocket is a desert island choice. Here it is. If you're at a PC and not tapping your hands on your desk within 30 seconds your arms are too short.

Much pleasure given to me over the years by Talking Heads' Remain in Light side 1 (younger people may not know what side 1 is - tough) and Traffic On the Road especially Sometimes I feel So Uninspired.

Other goodies well worth investigating. Some mighty fine things begin with T. And yes, I do own two Take That albums with pride.

2 Many DJs 2002 (CD) Part 2

10CC 1974 (V) Sheet Music

22-20s 2004 (CD) 22-20s

1975 (V) The Original Soundtrack

1975 (V) How Dare You

Take That 2006 (CD) Beautiful World

2010 (CD) Progress

Talking Heads 1977 (V) Talking Heads 1977

1978 (V) More Stories About Buildings & Food

1979 (V) Fear of Music

1980 (V) Remain in Light

1982 (V) The Name of This Band is Talking Heads

1983 (V) Speaking in Tongues

1985 (V) Little Creatures

1986 (V) True Stories

1988 (V) Naked

Talk Talk 1982 (V) The Party's Over

Tame Impala 2010 (CD) Innerspeaker

Tangerine Dream 1974 (CD) Phaedra

Tangle Eye 2004 (CD) Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed

Taste 1970 (CD) On the Boards

James Taylor 1971 (CD) Mud Slide Slim

The James Taylor Quartet 1998 (CD) Blow Up - a JTQ Collection

Steve Taylor 1985 (V) On the Fritz

Tears for Fears 1983 (V) The Hurting

1985 (V) Songs from the Big Chair

Television 1977 (V) Marquee Moon

Ten Years After 1967 (V&CD) Ten Years After

1968 (V) Undead

1969 (V) Stonedhenge

1969 (V) Ssssh

1970 (Tape) Cricklewood Green

1970 (V&CD) Watt

1971 (V) A Space in Time

1972 (V) Rock & Roll Music to the World

1973 (CD) Recorded Live

1974 (V) Positive Vibrations

1989 (V) About Time

Texas 1989 (V) Southside

That Petrol Emotion 1987 (CD) Babble

1988 (V) End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues

1990 (V) Chemicrazy

Thin Lizzy 1976 (V) Johnny the Fox

Thirteen Senses 2004 (CD) The Invitation

2007 (CD) Contact

Thompson Twins 1983 (V) Quick Step and Side Kick

1984 (V) Into the Gap

Tracey Thorn 2007 (CD) Out of the Woods

Timbuk 3 1986 (V) Greetings from Timbuk 3

Tinariwen 2003 (CD) Amassakoul

Tiny Dancers 2007 (CD) Free School Milk

Tired Pony 2010 (CD) The Place We Ran From

Toad the Wet Sprocket 1994 (CD) Dulcinea

Peter Tosh 1978 (CD) Bush Doctor

Tower of Power 1974 (CD) Urban Renewal

1974 (CD) Back to Oakland

1987 (V) Power

Pete Townshend 1985 (V) White City

Traffic 1968 (V) Mr Fantasy

1970 (CD) John Barleycorn Must Die

1971 (V) The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

1973 (V) Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory

1973 (CD) On the Road

1994 (CD) Far From Home

Travis 1999 (CD) The Man Who

A Tribe Called Quest 1993 (CD) Midnight Marauders

1996 (CD) Beats, Rhymes and Life

Truebrit 1996 (CD) 40 Essential Indie Hits

K.T.Tunstall 2010 (CD) Tiger Suit

The Twang 2007 (CD) Love It When I Feel Like This

Two Tribes 1992 (V) Two Tribes

Music List - Albums S

The letter S gives a reasonable impression of the whole gorgeous and messy cross-section of my taste. From the Screaming Blue Messiahs to Sancte Deus calling at Dusty and Sting. Pink Bullets by the Shins is a current desert island disc; they are great song-writers and fine lyricists:

'Over the ramparts you tossed
The scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
Tied to a brick,'

Hear it here.

Mrs W brought all the Simon and Garfunkel records into our relationship but they were knackered from being played non-stop in a teenage girl's bedroom in the 60s and sit there useless with valuable sleeves.

The two minute intro to Ebeneezer Goode on Boss Drum is a genius piece of pop-building. Just when you think they can't lift it any more they add something else. Listen here. Clever to get massive club crowds singing '...eezer Goode' rather than  'Es are good.' Naughty naughty very naughty. Got banned.

Raphael Saadiq 2009 (CD) The Way I See It

Sade 1984 (Tape) Diamond Life

1865 (Tape) Promise

Sancte Deus 2000 (CD) A Journey Through the Renaissance

Santagold 2008 (CD) Santagold

Santana 1970 (V&CD) Abraxas

1974 (CD) Santana's Greatest Hits

Saw Doctors 1991 (V) If This is Rock and Roll, I Want My Old Job Back

Nitin Sawhney 2001 (CD) Prophesy

2003 (CD) Human

2005 (CD) Philtre

Leo Sayer 1973 (V) Silverbird

Boz Scaggs 1997 (CD) Come On Home

Scissor Sisters 2004 (CD) Scissor Sisters

Jill Scott 2000 (CD) Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1

Shirley Scott 2001 (CD) Talkin' Verve

Screaming Blue Messiahs 1989 (V) Totally Religious

Seasick Steve 2009 (CD) Man From Another Time

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band

1978 (V) Stranger in Town

Sex Pistols 1977 (V) Never mind the Bollocks here's the...

Shakespears Sister 1992 (V) Hormonally Yours

The Shamen 1992 (Tape) Boss Drum

Shine 1995 (CD) 20 Brilliant Indie Hits

The Shins 2001 (CD) Oh, Inverted World

2003 (CD) Chutes Too Narrow

2007 (CD) Wincing the Night Away

Paul Simon 1986 (V) Graceland

1990 (V) The Rhythm of the Saints

Simon and Garfunkel 1966 (V) Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

1966 (V) Sounds of Silence

1968 (V) Bookends

1970 (V) Bridge Over Troubled Water

Nina Simone 1971 (CD) Here Comes the Sun

Simple Minds 1985 (V) Once Upon a Time

1989 (V) Street Fighting Years

Simply Red 1989 (Tape) A New Flame

1995 (CD) Life

1996 (CD) Greatest Hits

Roni Size 2002 (CD) Touching Down

Six. by Seven 2000 (CD) 04

Sky 1980 (V) Sky 2

Smaller 1996 (CD) Badly, Badly

Smithereens 1991 (V) Blow Up

Marston Smith 2002 (CD) I Cellist

Smiths 1985 (Tape) Meat is Murder

1987 (Tape) Strangeways Here We Come

Snow Patrol 2004 (CD) Final Straw

Sounds Album 1977 (V) Good for Nothing

Sounds Album II 1977 (V) Sounds Like a Good Album To Us

Sounds Album III 1978 (V) Can't Start Dancing

Sounds Album IV 1979 (V) The Heavy Metal Album

Sounds Album VII 1981 (V) Into the Arena

Sounds Incorporated 1964 (V) Sounds Incorporated

Soup Dragons 1992 (V) Hotwired

Southside Johny and the Asbury Jukes

1978 (V) Hearts of Stone

Spandau Ballet 1983 (V) True

1984 (V) Parade

Sparks 1972 (V) A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing

Spiritualised 1992 (CD) Lazer Guided Melodies

1997 (CD) Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space

2001 (CD) Let It Come Down

2003 (CD) Amazing Grace

Split Level 1991 (CD) View of a World

Spoon 2007 (CD) Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Dusty Springfield 1969 (CD) Dusty in Memphis

Squeeze 1978 (CD) U.K. Squeeze

Starsailor 2001 (CD) Love Is Here

Status Quo 1972 (V) Piledriver

Stealers Wheel 1973 (Tape) Ferguslie Park

Steely Dan 1972 (CD) Can't Buy a Thrill

1974 (V) Pretzel Logic

2000 (CD) Two Against Nature

Gwen Stefani 2004 (CD) Love. Angel. Music. Baby

Stereo MCs 1992 (CD) Connected

Cat Stevens 1972 (V) Catch Bull at Four

1975 (V) Greatest Hits

St Germain 2000 (CD) Tourist

Sting 1985 (V) The Dream of the Blue Turtles

1986 (V) Bring on the Night

1987 (V) Nothing Like the Sun

1993 (Tape) Ten Summoners Tales

1996 (CD) Mercury Falling

1999 (CD) Brand New Day

Stone Roses 1989 (V) Stone Roses

1992 (CD) Turns Into Stone 1994 (CD) Second Coming

Strawbs 1972 (V) Grave New World

The Streets 2002 (CD) Original Pirate Material

2004 (CD) A Grand Don't Come for Free

The Strokes 2001 (CD) Is This It

2003 (CD) Room on Fire

Style Council 1984 (V) Café Bleu

Suede 1996 (CD) Coming Up

Sugar 1992 (V) Copper Blue

1994 (CD) File Under Easy Listening

Summerhill 1990 (V) West of Here

Andy Summers 1998 (CD) The Last Dance of Mr X

Sundays 1990 (V&Tape)

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Sunshine 1972 (V) Sunshine

Supertramp 1974 (V) Crime of the Century

1975 (V) Crisis? What Crisis?

Supremes 1974 (V) Greatest Hits

Esbjorn Svensson Trio 2000 (CD) Good Morning Susie Soho

The Swimming Pool Qs 2003 (CD) Royal Academy of Reality