Germany 0 Spain 1. Ole.

Caught a glimpse of Glastonbury from the comfort of the sofa, couch, settee, whatever ‘World Of Leather’ word you want to call it. After Amy’s set unravelled pretty much in time with her hair, Jay Z, that’s Zee not Zed, eventually pitched up on the Pyramid Stage, - some may say fashionably, others may choose predictably - late.

Jay drifted on, stage right, or left depending on your point of view, sportin’ a geetar and launching his evening with a rendition of the Oasis anthem ‘Wonderwall’, an ironic sideswipe at Noel’s bitch about Glastonbury being no place for rappers. Jay 1, Noel 0. And I thought Americans didn't do irony.

Forced to endure the Chris Moyles Show playing on the audio speakers at the gym, I overheard a comment that, even by his standards, was right down there at the bottom of the chemical toilet. The talentless super-sized tub of rancid lard was discussing Glastonbury with another moronic member of his studio posse chums during which five chins Moyles remarked that if he wanted to pay to spend the weekend in third world conditions he’d head straight for Ethiopia. This, I presume, a reference to the tented camps set up to receive and shelter the starving in that country. Coming from a man who has obviously never missed an opportunity to stuff his face from the moment he was born, bad taste hardly covers it.

The day this sack of fetid wind overdoses on doughnuts and explodes in a fireball of dripping fat can’t come soon enough.

They played like a bunch of turkeys and they still managed to win.

The reaction to the Irish ‘NO’ really is a European farce. Failing to get the proposed constitution through in 2005 when it was rejected by popular French and Dutch vote, its authors merely renamed it ‘treaty’ and tried again. When that, in turn, was rejected in the Irish referendum at the weekend the response from the larger European States is to bully them into holding another and presumably another until the answer is ‘yes’. It’s as if the Football Association, unhappy at England’s defeat by Croatia, insisted that the game was played again (and again) until the result went England’s way. We could still be waiting.

Unlike their Irish counterparts, the British Government grabbed the chance to renege on its election promise to hold a referendum by saying that the treaty includes, in their opinion, satisfactory changes to the rejected constitution, so removing the need to put it to the vote, apparently happy to hand over legislative decision making to unelected, faceless, fat cat, wallowing in the gravy train bureaucrats from Luxembourg and Estonia. Democracy? They fart in its general direction! Its mother was a hamster and its father smelt of elderberries!

Read an article last week in which Tracy Emin waxed, as Tracy does, lyrically about the burgeoning art scene in Folkestone. I have fond arty memories of Folkestone and surrounding hills, woods and fields myself as it happens. While a student at Canterbury I made several trips to the Kent port, due mainly to the fact that my good chum Gordon had done his foundation course there and was still in contact with friends who were still living in the town.

These outings usually took place on so-called ‘fine art days’ when we swapped the typography and layout of the graphic design course for a spot of drawing and painting. Something that by all accounts has been abandoned by art academia. A grave mistake, as if nothing else, drawing things, especially outside, teaches people to see the world. More important than ever when days are now spent transfixed to a bloody computer and mobile phone screen. And when I say ‘see’, I’m talking about a real good look. It can take hours to transfer an object or scene onto paper and by the time it’s done you know the subject very well.

Sometimes, especially in winter, we would draw inside the studio, but in the summer, we’d be encouraged to venture out. We, that’s myself, Gordon and Dave – dubbed ’The Three Musketeers’ - needed no second asking. With our half imperial drawing boards (no metric nonsense back then) and a stack of paper and pencils, we’d squeeze into Gordon’s bubble car, a maroon BMW Isetta complete with stuffed platypus on the rear shelf and head for the coast. On route we’d park at a suitable scenic vista, spend a couple of hours drawing, stash the finished results and artistic paraphernalia under a sheltering bush, then head into Folkestone for a spot of luncheon and socialising.

Mid afternoon we’d bid farewell and head back to the field to retrieve the results of our morning’s labours. Getting out of Folkestone, three-up in a bubble car, was a bit tricky. The hills leading in (down and no problem) and out (up and too much for the plucky little engine) meant that on the return journey Dave and I would walk up the steepest hills and meet Gordon at the top. It was not a foregone conclusion as to who would reach the summit first.

Once, I recall, Gordon and I managed to convince our photography tutor that Folkestone would be an ideal place to spend the day snapping. He rather reluctantly agreed and we putt putted into town looking for likely subjects. These presented themselves in the shape of two mini-skirted girls, probably playing hooky from school. Having recently seen Antonioni’s ‘Blow Up’ and dressed in our matching white Levi’s we imagined ourselves as twin David Hemmings and convinced the girls to leap and loon around for the camera. The results were surprisingly good with lots of blur and movement. Happy days and good to know that Folkestone is still inspiring artists today. I wonder whatever became of the ‘blow up’ girls? And the bubble car. And the platypus.

With the date for my exhibition only weeks away now, I finally made it into the loft to look for long lost and forgotten illustrations from my record cover days. God it’s dusty up there - cobwebs hanging from every rafter and beam and all manner of dust and debris that has blown in under the eaves and dropped through the cracks in the planking that support the tiles. But at least it looked dry and sound and offered up a few surprises.

As suspected there were things that I half expected to find, some which I hoped to find but didn’t and others discovered that had completely faded from my memory. I can only assume that the items that weren’t there had fallen victim to some earlier cull during one of my occasional but ruthless turnouts. A large and battered folio from my earliest art college days was not there as I had imagined. A pity, as I have a dim and distant recollection of it containing a few original pieces of work from my days at Decca Records. I‘d obviously decided that I’d hung onto the stuff for long enough and it was no longer of any worth, hidden away, obsolete, outmoded and passed its prime. Wrong! Rather than all those things, it was buried treasure just waiting to be rediscovered. Or it would have been if I’d only I hadn’t dumped it. But what’s gone is… gone. Real gone.

Thankful for rediscovering the pieces I did decide to keep I set about cleaning, repairing and tidying up those that hadn't fared too well during their time in dark attic obscurity. Once they were buffed up, window mounted behind clean crisp card and framed, they turned out not half bad. I was particularly pleased to find the artwork for a leaflet I’d designed and illustrated during my time at EMI Records, advertising the Beatles back catalogue and post Beatle solo albums. It needs a bit of work, but scanned in and with some photoshop work to remove various stains and surface damage it should come up a treat. If so I’ll get a digital print done and frame it. Seeing it again, especially the illustrations, I recalled drawing each one as if it were not quite Yes-ter-day (when my troubles seemed so far away) – more like the day before Yes-ter-day (when my troubles seemed slightly further away).

Went to a Ruby Wedding celebration last evening. Fort years married. I was the groom’s best man on the day. I wore a Pierre Cardin suit, complete with waistcoat. It was the suits first big occasion and the first and only time I have been called upon to carry out best man duties. I remember very little about it. Can’t recall making a speech, but remember that I had to thank the bridesmaids and read out the telegrams. Don’t recollect doing either, but trust that I did both. I have hazy memories of keeping the youngest bridesmaid entertained at the reception. A four-year-old can get the jitters at a long drawn-out wedding reception: too much having to sit still and listen to grown-ups drone on in between courses of food that, as a child, you don’t like, washed down with drinks you can’t have. She was there yesterday, my little mate, forty-four now and making the most of the food she liked and the drinks she could have, slipping out frequently to the front garden along with the other ex-bridesmaid to ‘check on the cars’, fags and lighter in hand.

The other guests comprised of those I didn’t know, some, with prompting, that I did and those that knew me but who I had totally forgotten, leaving me trying desperately to superimpose a twenty-year-old face onto that of a sixty year old whose name had faded into oblivion. But no one appeared to take offence and some went on to recount events that fanned a faint glimmer of recall in the back of my mind but from which they had been completely erased. A little disturbing this. Hopefully not a precursor of things to come, causing me to bring to mind the words of an elderly relative now resident in a care home – ‘I don’t know who you are, who I am, or where I am’. Sadly a fate all-too-familiar in a world where longevity is increasing but not necessarily with all faculties remaining intact.

Pushing such sombre thoughts aside, I had a good time and was able to join two old friends in a raised glass to their time together and judging from the lives recounted in conversations by others attending, forty happy years with the same partner being a reason for true celebration. And I’ve still got that suit. When I mentioned it to the bride, a tailor (recently retired) by trade, she kindly offered to let it out for me should I be tempted to relive my youth. A kind thought, but probably best left in the wardrobe as a fond, but slightly moth-damaged reminder.

Question asked in yesterday’s paper. Is David Hockney the grumpiest old man in Britain?
Not a chance. Except maybe the grumpiest old man called David Hockney, born Bradford 1937, who paints. Mind you, the feature appearing in a 'quality' newspaper will do nothing to help his mood, as one of his gripes is the increasing British obsession with empty-headed trivia. This on the same day that 'Big Brother' returns to the Nation's TV screens.

Otha Ellas Bates McDaniel (Bo Diddley), musician and songwriter: born McComb, Mississippi 30 December 1928; four times married (five children, one stepson); died Archer, Florida 2 June 2008.

Bo Diddley was the first musician of rock ‘n’ roll. So said American DJ Alan Freed, credited with coining the phrase in 1955, so he should know. Since those far off days, the ‘Bo Diddley beat’ has been covered and lifted by artists that include Buddy Holly (Not Fade Away), The Rolling Stones (Not Fade Away, Mona), The Who (Magic Bus), and U2 (Desire). Arriving in the USA with the Beatles in 1964, John Lennon, when asked what he was most looking forward to seeing, replied, ‘Bo Diddley’. In 1965 Bob Dylan bestowed the accolade of name checking Bo in his song ‘From A Buick 6’; ‘Well, she don't make me nervous, she don't talk too much, She walks like Bo Diddley and she don't need no crutch’. Ellas was not so reticent when it came to including his adopted persona in his own songs; he recorded more than 40 in which his name formed part of the title, including ‘Bo’s A Lumberjack’, ‘Bo Diddley Is A Lover’, ‘Bo Meets The Monster’ and of course the eponymous ‘Bo Diddley’.

Frequently falling foul of bitter racial divisions during the 50’s and 60’s in his own country, Diddley became an icon for the musicians and followers of the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene in Britain. The Stones, Yardbirds, Pretty Things, Animals and every fledgling art school R&B outfit worthy of the name would cover Bo; there are over 1800 recordings of songs originally played by Diddley.

In 1970’s, although experiencing difficult times, Bo was asked to support The Clash on their first American tour and so, was recognised by the next generation of British musicians. The USA finally caught up and in 1987 Bo Diddley was inducted into the establishment that arguably could not have come into being without him, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1997 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and in 1999 was awarded a similar honour at the Grammy’s.

Diddley once said, ‘I’m sick of everybody talking about Elvis. It was me and Chuck Berry that started rock ’n’ roll’. And he was right you know.

‘Oh yea, you said you's fast,
But it don't look like you gonna last,
Goodbye! I've got to put you down,
I'll see you some day,
Baby, somewhere hangin' around’.

Road Runner
(Ellas McDaniel) 1960