THE SEYMOUR MONKEY CHRONICLES:

Sunshine on cobblestones and winter weary monuments, jazz bar surprises in dank late night basements, a cheeky smile from a shy blonde - February London is intoxicating. I drink deep. Networking by numbers. Email, eat, drink, sleep - Repeat - Watching the world go by through the bottom of a pint glass. Then it is over. Work catches the 10.15 to JFK. I count to three and pull the rip chord.

Underground clubs and pubs consume me. Russian mafiosi and their starlets in creepy late night speak-easies. My imagination runs wild. Shady deals done in shadowy corner booths, buy some hooch, buy some booty, buy a football team?

Covert Garden late afternoon drinks. Chainsaw juggling busker near naked in the evening chill, oblivious, entertaining, out of his fucking mind!

Borderline queues for hold backs prompt questions, either a quaint English tradition to ensure walk ups can get in to sold out gigs, if they are patient enough – Or a prank to get punters standing in an alley for hours in the winter chill. I am not sure which. As we wait Soho nightlife provides the diversion of street bum theatre - “Don’t worry, just be happy I aint robbin’ yer bastards.” Tattooed, toothless and cockney, this ball of misery leaves to be replaced by a few drug fucked Irish punks who try to jump the queue.

In punk terms these guys were elderly, old enough to have felt the spray of 1970’s era Sid Vicious spittle from the front row. But neither their self stated punk credentials, their alleged connections to the band, nor even their spokesman’s blue hair and bizarre matching tutu would get them in the door. They leave in a torrent of abuse. We watched on gobsmacked swapping stories with the other late arrivals, then seconds before the main act comes on stage we get waved in.

“Hello London. We’re called Airborne and we’re from Warrnambool!”

I appreciated the irony. I had travelled to the other side of the world to the home of punk, and on the one night I was free to see a band in Swinging London, the best available was a band from home. We rocked on, the sweat flew and when it was all over we spilled onto the frigid streets passing the door bouncer who is now sporting a bloody nose and standing on the agro blue Irish fairy's throat, whilst his mate applies the handcuffs. Tinker bell was fuckin' nicked!