Being a little physically diminished as a result of a cycling incident in November, I have learned new pleasures and thought I’d share one or two, because people seem to like reading that sort of thing. This afternoon I went to the Hope pub in Windsor where my wife/partner is the singer for the Windsor Ukulele players. It was a pleasure not to be enjoying a pint (this being day 78 since the last drop).

My love of my partner is 25 years old but her singing and playing led the orchestra of ukulele players for two hours. The pub – a wet pub – invited her and Ray and Chris and June and everybody else back for another gig.

I have never been prouder of my partner pic.twitter.com/GqyyYvo4DT

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) February 2, 2025

I have been walking listening to beautiful things fed through ear pods. Indulgently I have listened to Nick Cave three times as he shares his Desert Island Discs with Laurene Laverne. I am listening to Jools Holland with his Earlier program . I had not thought that my stars as l passed through teenage years would pass to me through Radio 3 and 4 just as I have. And the greatest pleasure, to listen to Jenny Smith who preaches the word of God with a manner that makes me want to backtrack you tube to listen to more.

It is odd that this week’s Saturday Earlier show has Jools Holland talking with poet Wendy Cope about the delight of the recorder which we hear played next to jazz and ancient singing. These things are open to me and my reduced capacity to do physical things has been exchanged for a new wish to listen.

And it seems to have brought me closer to my friends. I am closer to Derek Scott and Pensions Oldie and Dennis Leech and the distant sense of Philip Bennett up north! I am closer than ever to Con Keating and Andrew Young and I listen to Jnamdoc who must not be mentioned by name on this blog!

My childish loves are still my loves. The Beatles and Dylan (for you Derek!) .

A Brighton man and an Australian who now lives in London- Nick Cave! Surely a man who brings  me to my friends – fellow Aussie Jo Cumbo. Cave brings me to my son Olly , his lovely partner and Phil who  came with me to see Nick Cave at 02.

The new bands I enjoy with my Brighton beach festival friends (who all seem to be called Andrew!). But while I can remember the names and sounds of older bands, newer ones are lost to me like so many short term memories.

I realise now how bad I am at music. I cannot play, I cannot sing and yet I shocked  through sections of a film I went to. I shook because of Dylan’s music, Phil and I wept with Nick Cave. But I think my musical sensibility has increased since I had time in a coma and hospital and it has brought me closer to what I do not know but definitely feel.

And I hope it has compensated for pain. Bob Marley is another who has returned to me. That Lennon, Presley, Cash, Strummer, Holly are dead is sad to me. But the death of Marley in 1980 was both a loss and a way of focussing me on what he produced in the short 27 years in which he performed. Excuse me for not putting together an equivalent group of women but I am drawn to these deaths with a male sensitivity. Marley is the greatest spirit of my time, he was buried with a bible and a guitar.