NINE THEN, FORTY TOMORROW

Some people who've attended a gig of mine over these last eight years will have heard the story (which I told only a few times but always went down well) of the one time I met Bob Dylan, backstage at Earls Court during Bob's run of concerts there in 1978 - and how my son Gabe came with me that night, and so met Bob too, and didn't know that back then you weren't supposed to seek Dylan's autograph (it was too uncool to ask), but that since he was nine years old at the time he asked and he received. Well, in a personally terrifying example of how time flies, Gabe will be 4o tomorrow.

Happy birthday, Gabe!