I had cause to drive into London early yesterday morning. Leaving the house the other side of 6am, by 6.45 I was parking at the curb behind the Albert Hall, parallel to the steps where Michael Caine wrestled with the bald-headed rain coated man in the Ipcress File.

This part of west London was once my neighbourhood. I moved into a flat in the Old Brompton road back in the late sixties and trod these streets with a growing familiarity and affection. I drove close to the old flat, situated on the first floor above a seedy chemist shop, then owned by the faintly sinister Louis Diamond, but I resisted a fleeting urge to pass by the door, content to let the memories rest in peace, locked away for now, the key misplaced inside some drawer.

Twisting and turning through the still quiet streets, I was surprised that the back route had not deserted me despite time’s passing, hardly believing that forty years had gone by in the click of a finger.

My errand done, I turned the car around and headed south across Battersea Bride, the Thames flat and bright like the surface of a mirror, the towering condominiums that now line its banks reflected in a perfect, shiny, reverse image of themselves. In the outer suburbs, passing seven speed cameras in as many miles, I cleared the semi-detached sprawl and was back in countryside, the white frost in the trees illuminated by a blazing orange sun: truly a sight to see on this one of many mornings.

Words of wisdom from the late, great Bill Shankly:

'If a player isn't interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be !' Take note, Gerrard & Co. Croatia did.

And in defiance, after a defeat:

'They're nothing but rubbish. Three breakaways, that's all they got.' McClaren should have recycled that one after last night's debacle.

I’m sitting in my studio, the rain pounding on the roof, Steve Earle in my headphones, phone turned off, pen in my hand and all’s well. Much better than it’s been in my dreams of late: all trouble and strife with disasters befalling and situations impossible. Waking has been a blessed relief, once I realize that what’s been taking place isn’t real.

What’s brought on these dark disturbances I wonder? Could it be the deadlines I’m presently having to keep? Possibly, but I’ve been doing that all my life. Maybe it’s that I’m now solely responsible once more. Whatever it is, those beasties and spooks can just get back in the box and give way to some sweet dreams.

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." Bill Shankly

Reflecting on this afternoon’s football match between Scotland and Italy, I found myself comparing the differing attitudes to the success of ‘the old enemy’ that exists north and south of the border.

As looks likely, depending on the result between Russia and Israel, England will be lucky to qualify for Euro 2008. Once again, they find their destiny in the hands, or rather at the feet, of others with only themselves to blame. Scotland on the other hand, or foot, have merely to beat Italy to go through. Something they will have achieved on their results alone. After years of international underachievement, a win would certainly be a boost for the Scottish game and a chance to put the boot in to England. And there’s where the sporting difference between to two nations is to be found.

In the past, if England have failed to qualify for a major tournament and Scotland have succeeded, on the whole, we English resign ourselves to second best and generally wish them well, even offering mild support if pushed. If the boot is on the other foot, forget it. The Scots hate any success that comes England’s way with a passion. On the eve of the recent Rugby World Cup final in Paris, Scottish supporters were spotted wearing kilts and South African jerseys. I suggest that if Scotland had made it to the final, on merit, through sheer guts and determination, no England fan would be moved, or bothered to put on an equivalent public display of grudging contempt. After all, it’s just not cricket old boy.

With much hoo-ha and media trumpeting, Eurostar train services have begun operating from the newly refurbished St Pancras. The redeveloped station is certainly impressive and it’s good to see it restored to its former glory, however, I for one am sorry to see the rail link to Europe abandon Waterloo.

The first and totally selfish reason is one of convenience. Waterloo is my London terminus and on arrival, the Eurostar train was a mere walk away. Okay I wasn’t hopping across to Paris or Brussels every other day, nowhere near, but when I did occasionally make the trip it couldn’t have been easier. Now I’ll be forced down the tube onto the nightmare that is the Northern Line, with a change at Euston. Or, it’s a taxi with not much chance of seeing change from £15. So what, those may say if Waterloo doesn’t happen to their station, St. Pancras is more accessible to those travelling from all points north of London, which, I know, is the majority of the country. But I repeat, I live south of the Thames and I’m being selfish here. Despite the heralded green credentials of using the train, the switch to St Pancreas, as a Network rail client of mine use to call it, could make even the hell that is Heathrow seem like a credible alternative for me.

And the second reason to lament the move is one of allegiance. Waterloo has been my link with London since childhood and this loss of status has awoken a hitherto passive, but nonetheless strong loyalty to the old place. It’s as though the station has undergone relegation from the premiership to the championship in the league of termini, now having to come to terms, once more, with merely servicing the southwest as far as Exeter. Worthy, essential even, but hardly glamorous.

My newspaper today revived the old stuff and nonsense concerning French sensibilities being spared now that they are no longer forced to use a station named after the battle that finally saw off Napoleon. There were once unbelievable suggestions from some quarters here that Waterloo's name should be changed to spare French pride. They seem to have no such problems in their own capital with the Gare D’Austerlitz and the subsequent risk of upsetting all those Austrian and Russian visitors. I doubt, in the unlikely event of such political correctness gone bonkers having even been raised in France, that they would give a Gallic toss about hurting anyone's feelings if Parisian waiters are a true indication of their attitude.

I wonder if the bar situated opposite the now sadly deserted ex-Eurostar facility at Waterloo, currently named Bonaparte’s in a half-hearted attempt to appease sensitive French travellers, will now be renamed? To Wellington's perhaps.

Today, for the first time in a long while, I watched the live broadcast of the service of remembrance at the Cenotaph in London. I wondered why, that this year, I was so compelled to sit through the ceremony and the closest I came to an explanation was a need to be involved in some way, awakened, I think, by current events in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, there have been many wars and campaigns since the end of the Second World War. During that time there have been few years when a British serviceman has not been killed in action. But there is something about the present conflicts, destined to seemingly last for years, with no clear end, that engenders a deep sense of unease and foreboding. In the meantime, the list of those we remember on November 11 will grow with each week that passes.

Watching the veterans march today, my thoughts turned to my dad, who was called-up a month or two before war broke out in 1939. During the following six years, courtesy of the British Army, he travelled the world, from the fjords of Norway to the jungles of Burma.

If there is something good to come out of war, it’s the life-long bond that forms between the men and women who fight in them. Time doesn’t diminish the camaraderie that is forged through adversity. It seems grows stronger with age. That is their legacy and no-one can take it from them. It shone bright in the eyes of the columns of marchers today, filling the eyes of the crowds that looked on with tears.

My dad left a record of his army life in a series of drawings, completed just after he was demobbed while the memories were still fresh. They’re a personal and wry observation on his war and the originals now sit in the archive of personal accounts and diaries at The Imperial War Museum. Today seems a fitting occasion to share a few of them here.

Silly question really. Should anyone be even remotely interested in what became of Ralph - streets of London - McTell the answer can, naturally, be found on his official website, mctell.co.uk

I have vague memories of going along to a concert of Ralph’s sometime way back in the 70’s with our very own Frankofyle. Don’t remember too much about it, other than Ralph knocking out a couple of tunes on the harmonium, instrument of choice for the late, great Ena Sharples.

Thinking of Ralph and attending concerts way back when brought to mind Led Zeppelin, who are famously about to get together and run through a selection of their greatest hits at the O2 next month. It was to be this month until Jimmy Page managed to break a finger, a slight handicap for any guitar picker.

I’m not so sure about reunions. Although I think it depends on who and why? In this case I think I prefer to remember Zep in their heyday when Robert Plant could still hit those helium-like high notes and John Bonham was still with us, thundering away at the back.

I only saw them play live once, at the Albert Hall and it’s the memory I prefer to keep. Although the evening was slightly marred by a chemically enhanced fan who rushed to the balustrade in the balcony and proceeded to grip the rail while throwing himself around in wild and wreckless abandon. I expected that at any moment he was going to launch himself into the void onto the heads of those in the stalls below. Fact is, he was so out of it he probably wouldn’t have missed a beat and survived unscathed, wiping out half of row G in the process. I can think of worse ways to go. Being crushed by a plummeting groupie at a Daniel O'Donnell concert for one.

I‘ve been holed up in the studio for a week working on an illustration for a company Christmas card. Yesterday evening I finished it. Although I could email the artwork to the client I’m going to jump on a London train and deliver it in person. It’s a cold, but sunny day and I could do with some fresh air and a change of scene.

If it stays fine, after leaving the client’s office in Borough High Street, I’ll take a stroll to the Millennium Bridge, cross over to the north side, make my way through Smithfield to the Clerkenwell Road to drop off a package at another client. Then stop off at my old company in Hatton Garden for a quick meeting before strolling back to Waterloo. I never tire of walking the streets of London, by far the best way to appreciate the city.

Whatever happened to Ralph McTell I wonder?

Surprise, surprise. Fat is the new thin. Doctors in the USA are suggesting that being overweight might actually be beneficial to health. Hold on and soon cigarettes, alcohol, crack and unprotected sex will follow. Yippee.

I don’t want to go to Chelsea, Elvis Costello once declared in song. Now he’s added West Ham, Tottenham, Fulham, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sunderland and everywhere else in the UK to the list. In a recent interview for a music magazine, Elvis, christened Declan Patrick, stated that he didn’t care if he ever played England again.

Costello, born MacManus, said after 25 tears spent living abroad that he no longer got along with the old country. ‘I don’t dig it, they don’t dig me’. The catalyst for his pronouncement was a ‘dreadful’ appearance at Glastonbury in 2005. He said that British music fans are naïve and ageist, refusing to listen to records produced by older artists. In the USA, his adopted home, he said that younger people find a place in their lives for the work of mature artists, like Willie Nelson.

But back in the UK, not all performers from the older generation have suffered a similar indifferent reception from the Glastonbury crowd. Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett, even Rolf Harris have all gone down a storm in past years. Besides, Glastonbury is no longer the preserve of the young. These days the popping of champagne corks amongst the hamper and camping chair brigade is in danger of drowning out the music on occasions: quaffed by the very people who were once pogoing in the mosh pit on the 1977 Stiff’s Live Stiffs tour with Elvis Costello and The Attractions up on stage.

No, I think Elvis is merely wallowing in a little of what he once did best: being bitter, twisted and a miserable (now old) git.

As I sat in my studio listening to the screams, bangs, fizzes, crackles and lesser pops of an early celebration of Guy Ffawkes night, it occurred to me that we are a nation at odds: a bunch of perverse oddities. Others around the world light the blue touch paper and retire to mark revolution, independence, religious festivals and other such patriotic and spiritual events in an excuse for explosive celebration. Us? We ignite the gunpowder in memory of a failed plot to blow up Parliament by a bunch of Catholic terrorists.

Are we lamenting the plot’s failure, or giving thanks for it as we light our sparklers? Even old Guy himself has faded from the scene in recent years. When was the last time a cheeky young artful dodger accosted you in the street demanding a penny for the Guy? Pennies don’t exist anymore for a start and 1p for the Guy doesn’t have the same ring to it somehow. Anyhow, what ten-year-old these days needs to waste hours stuffing old clothing with newspaper to make a penny? Demanding money with menaces is a surer route to securing financial gain. And now we call it bonfire night: a night usually without a bonfire and if there is one, almost certainly without a Guy atop it. Perverse indeed.