Kinky Groovy Afro

Today's track takes me back to 1997 and my honeymoon.

Up until about a week before we got married I wasn't aware that we were even going away. Everybody had decided to keep the fact from me on account of my very rational fear of flying. When I was eventually let in on the secret I was less than pleased,  as up until that point in my life I had managed to avoid flying extremely successfully.

After what turned out to be a rather eventful flight, sitting at the back with the cabin crew being plied with brandy and smoking like a lum, we touched down in Barcelona and got the bus into the city. We alighted at las ramblas and followed the instructions down the side streets to our hotel. As we were walking down the street we passed 3 record shops, to which L remarked "fucking wonderful".  About fifty yards after the last one was our hotel.

After getting settled we did what every tourist visiting Barcelona does,  we went for tapas on las ramblas which was great until a few hours later when L started complaining of a sore stomach which before morrning had turned into full blown food poisoning from most likely the calamari, as I didn't have any of that.

So what to do? Stuck in a hotel room in Barcelona with a new wife, spending most of her time talking on the big white telephone to god. Eventually L told me to go out.

I decided to check out the record shops when I had the chance. There was one which appealed to me in particular,  a dance music specialist shop which had a great selection of second hand dance and indie records. I could have spent an absolute fortune, but knew that when L recovered, if I had spent all of the holiday money there would be hell to pay. So I only bought half a dozen 12" singles, including Good Thing by The Woodentops and today's track Kinky Groovy Afro by Happy Mondays.

Before L did recover I managed to spend a small fortune on 2 tickets to see Barcelona vs Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League game at Camp Nou. This was to be L's first ever football match. Barcelona ended up getting gubbed 4 goals to nil, with Shevchenko scoring 3, one from the penalty spot. There was one strange coincidence, the referee that night was Scottish, Hugh Dallas, who had a particular dislike and bias against my team Airdrie.

Oh, and what did L think of her first football match? "It was alright but I don't think I want to go to another".

Happy Mondays - Kinky Groovy Afro