We met at nine. We met at eight.
I was on time. No, you were late.
Ah yes! I remember it well.
We dined with friends. We dined alone.
A tenor sang. A baritone.
Ah yes! I remember it well.

Bring on those lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer, (You know real summers, when in July and August the sun shined and we all went to Barry Island for excitement, or Aberafon to brave the rust polluted sea there....), we'd play football till the sun was long gone, our ice creams melting before you could eat them in the scorching heat. When sunburn was good for you, and stuffing blind worms, frogs, or newts, down girls blouses was the accepted norm.

And what about those winters ? dew !!!! we had real snow then, but it never stopped traffic like it does today, because if we didn't get to work we never got any wages, so 20ft drifts were no deterrent, and it was always the right snow when we had it, it had no leeway to be contrary on railway lines then........ snow piled so high you could scarcely see out the window, which was a blessing really, because our outhouse toilet door didn't shut properly.

Happy carefree times, a time when all your neighbours used to say hello in the morning, and whistle on their way to work, like the 7 dwarfs with a growth impairment....those that had teeth did anyway, the others did degrees of dribble.... a bore da from them of a morning tested most friendships...... Of course, that time was different for all us, so I'll cover a good few years to try and ensure that I've captured the "good old days", as I remember them before senility, a labour government, and daytime TV set in.

I'm sure we've all heard about how our parents used to go to the cinema, drink 14 pints and still had enough change out of two bob, and I neither know nor care what it is in europloppy, to buy a huge newspaper full of fish and chips... OK not everything has changed, except two bob is nearer 30 quid now, beer is undrinkable, fit for only taste-deprived 9yr old children, and we're reduced to downing copious pints of CBL in the vain hope if we sink 25 of those we can regain that warming memory of when beer really meant beer (What happened to Mackeson, that's what I want to know !)..

Cod fish don't exist any more or they have all gained foreign names, gone European or emigrated to Beijing...our sixpenny Saturday matinée films then were a lot tamer too, just the occasional 3 stooges who spent hour after hour hitting each other on the head with hammers, poking people in the eye with broom handles, smashing plate glass over their heads, used electric drills to ventilate each other's brains, or pushed each other into the path of steamrollers, harmless stuff in my day, not like the violent stuff kids get these days....

Really great times when us Brits really felt wealthy, when we had 240 pennies in a pound, and paper money was a real novelty, not the endangered species it is now, with "We promise to pay the bearer... ", and a photo of Gordon Brown sniggering on it......

Our money never used to have so many corners on either.... mind you all that copper, gave you a limp when you went out shopping, so you had to balance it out in each pocket, and had to hold your trousers up until you spent it all, that's why we wore braces as back up. I once ended up in hospital with 7 stitches at one evening charity street parade, where us kids used to throw our pennies onto the passing lorries, and I got 50ps worth, 16 army buttons, and a bent half crown on the noggin.... still, I made I profit... and dined out on wagon wheels and Lush bars for weeks from telling the story...

I can also recall, when music used to sound like music, when songs had a rhythm and you could hear the words, who can forget 'Nut Rocker ?' (I tried....), and "By a babbling brook, near a shady nook, that's where I tripped and fell in poo....", or "tra-la-lal-lal-lal-la-lee, oooh ohh", or "they're coming to take me away ha-ha, hee-hee, ho-ho", by a 7ft tall contralto called Tiny Tim, on day release.

When any guitar player who knew more than 3 chords was called a show-off, and lost all street cred.... Did you know the minor chords were the secret to the Beatles success ? and diminished sevenths ? they left the rest for Status Quo.

Superior singing artists that sang about pied-purple people eaters, and trashed hotel rooms, Amy Winehouse simply isn't in the same class (Or on the same planet so they tell me..). OK she looks after bird-life with the hair style, and Bill Oddie buys all her CD's but, it was all sheer melody and inspired song-writing, hardly surpassed, in my day, even by that deaf bloke, Beethoven, (him that lugged pianos around for a living).

I used to enjoy that chart topper he done, that went, "mein lieber-ling! mein lieber-ling!, I Vant you to play with mein lieber-ling." (Or was that Halle Berry ?), he never finished that symphony did he ? but still made it, and how many of today's artists can do that even after dying , except Elvis ? Should they have told him it sounded like a herd of elephants, stampeding and trampling over the keyboard ?

Next week, school days, WERE they our happiest days ? and should I have gone to find out ?