We Do Adventure

As a songwriter I know something of what it takes to marry thoughts and melody, and then present the result to an audience. Every song is different. Some come easily, some are labours of love; some are easy to hold lightly, some are profoundly personal. When I got the chance to play with a Serbian folk songwriter last weekend I quickly realised this was no throw-away tune we were bashing out. I won't claim to have caught all the lyrics but it was enough to know the subject was a friend who had walked out of rehab and then died of an overdose. It was a song born of painful personal experience. We were playing at a conference that had gathered ex-addicts from across the Balkans. The flags hung in the meeting room announced the countries represented. It's not an array you'd often see displayed together, and some would say the delegates were not a group you'd often find together. You could put it down to their shared past experiences, the struggle of overcoming addicti...

Today as we walked into our new local supermarket of choice my eye was caught by a poster on the window. It was a 5-a-day poster. I know I shouldn't have been but I was surprised, surprised perhaps because it reminded me I had been thinking about a regional take on the 5-a-day concept only a week or so back. After months of unscientific observation I had found myself formulating this tongue-in-cheek assessment of Balkan life's essential ingredients. Caffeine. A life without coffee is no life at all. It's not just about staying awake, I have had it explained to me that the highest form of existence is sitting in a caffe bar with no plans and no cares and a decent coffee. Nicotine. No caffeine fix is complete without a fag or two. At about 50p for 10 it's definitely a cheaper habit than Mars Bars but should you be short of cash almost all caffe bars provide a perfect passive smoking environment. Sucrose. Why have one sugar when you can have three, or seven? And if you tir...