I was there (apparently...)

The Swinging Sixties, the Summer of Love, Madchester, Punk. Wow, wouldn't it have been great to have been part of something like that? Just to have been lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time.

Up until last night, I thought that the limit of my involvement in the bleeding edge of popular culture was walking round Romford in a boating blazer, bowling shoes, and wrap-round sunglasses that made my eyes hurt, all as part of the great Mod revival... Which was a bit stupid in a way as Romford around that time was the genesis of the Casual movement, when jumbo cords, Sergio Tacchini trackies and Pringle jumpers came round the first time, and I was one of three blokes who didn't look like an American golfer.

Anyhow, the point of this is that I was watching the 7th of the 7 Ages of Rock last night (courtesy of the ever wonderful Sky + box), and discovered that Camden was "It" in 94/5, when the Madchester crowd moved down, and BritPop took over. You couldn't, the talking heads said, go anywhere without seeing someone who was on Top of the Pops that week. That's amazing, I thought, I lived in Camden then, went out there most nights, and didn't have children, so I was a full-on, paid-up, Camden socialite. So how did I miss all of this?

And then it hit me. I was too busy going out to watch Top of the Pops to see who these people actually were. Did I bump into Justine Frischmann and spill her pint unwittingly? Did I knock Noel Gallagher's fag from his hand in my rush to the bar? If I did, sorry chaps.

At least when the children say "What did you do in the Great BritPop Wars, Daddy?", I can hold my head up and say "I was there, kids, I was there"