Saturday, 12th. September 2026

It is very calm out there, and reasonably quiet to boot. No sun and clouds are moving very slowly across the sky despite being quite high, altostratus or perhaps even cirrostratus, but I am no expert in nephology – the science of clouds. There is little or no chance of rain but, looking to the west, I can see the clouds are white because they are breaking up and thinning out, not enough for blue sky but enough for a bright and perhaps even sunny afternoon. Anyway, I find myself thinking about my old 7-inch singles – and the intricate mesh of connections between them.

I shall be indoors all day and, since I went to the effort of removing my scanner from beneath the bed and setting it up next to the computer in my sitting room, I might well get on with some scanning. Yesterday I scanned a few singles from my days as DJ ‘Funky Genghis’ at the LSE in the 1970’s. The vast majority of my singles disappeared decades ago, but somehow these managed to survive and have been with me, never or rarely played, ever since. 

I managed to write two articles for my website yesterday, both based on singles. The stories they can tell fascinates me, not only as individual items but as an ecology with shared ideas, musicians, producers and writers. I found a link between Wilson Pickett and Neil Diamond via a song and Tommy Cogbill, a musician and producer, which carried over to a link between Neil Diamond and Bobby Womack. How’s that for a perhaps unexpected thread?

I suspect I might continue my exploration of old 45’s again today which, like old photographs, can trigger old memories and experiences that go far beyond the seemingly mundane seven inches of vinyl. Each single reminds me of people, places and events that had hitherto been forgotten and, furthermore, some of those memories – the link between the record and my life – are unique to me. Or are they? Is it possible that someone out there enjoyed that same record and in similar circumstances to me and with a similar impact on their life? It seems a bit of a stretch, but an interesting thought nevertheless.