Who is Joan?

I genuinely don't know, even though I apparently inflicted it on men.

University days mid 80s. Journey's "Open Arms". Her knickers were around her ankles faster than you can say Steve Perry.

I saw Journey a few years ago at a festival in M Keynes Bowl. I noticed a fearsome, hard drinking biker wearing a plastic Viking helmet and singing it word perfect. Which shows that Journey ballads are not just useful as a knicker extraction device but they also soothe savage breasts too (or in this case, a right tit wearing a Viking helmet).

with us Captain. Lull us into a false sense of security. They let us seduce them with our superior taste in music and then eventually expect us to reciprocate with their music. Don't normally have problems in the erectile business but Neil Sedaka is a fucking step too far!!

My home made John Martyn compilation seemed to set the mood. Just a pity I never had anyone to share it with!!!!! I've still got it if anyone is interested????

T went to the same school as I did and was one of the few people in our year who could run faster than me. Her literal unattainability during our protracted lunchtime games of Jailbreak made her, at first, an object of my curiosity and, later, the focus of my unrequited affections.

At this stage in my life I was an ardent music fan who had never set foot inside a proper record shop and who jointly owned (along with my brother) a couple of Nik Kershaw albums on cassette. I consumed music almost exclusively through Top of the Pops, Radio Kent and its commercial rival – Invicta Radio.

I had a blank cassette that my godparents had given to me as a birthday present. Instinctively (with no knowledge that all around the world people like me were doing the same thing) I began compiling the mix-tape that would make T fall in love with me. I kept the cassette cued-up in my red stereo cassette player. When something came on the radio that seemed appropriate I would dash across the room and press down record. I would remain there, poised by the stop button, ready to cut off the DJ at the end of the song.

I can’t remember much about the contents of the tape. The track listing did include Bus Stop by The Hollies (courtesy of the DJ - Roger Day)and a horribly overwrought power ballad by a band called Glass Tiger called Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone.

The end result was, like so many things I have created, a rough cut and paste job with visible joins. Eventually I lost both hope and heart with it and never reached the end of side two. The tape was this thing that was supposed to move my relationship with T onto the nursery slopes of a proper boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. I soon realised that not only would I never be able to summon the courage give it to her; I didn’t even know how to approach her. I suppose that it must have ended up in the loft with all the other cassettes. A few years ago I emptied the whole lot into a couple of black plastic bin liners and drove them to the tip.

In hindsight I think T liked me. Neither one of us were particularly assertive and I don’t think we had any idea how to talk to each other. I didn’t have any untoward intentions. I think I just wanted to put my arms around her, but it never happened.

For me - I had family cast off radiograms and Dansettes till I went to university which knackered my singles (or should that be - gave them an authentic patina) and I shared a room with my brother so luring somebody back to my penthouse of pleasure wasn't really an option till I was older and at university.

I was definitely trying too hard as the Captain says in his post, took a long time to calm down but I had been wound up pretty tight by my formative years

I remember a short relationship with a girl called Angela. I was quite smitten with her. A big plus for me was that she had an older brother who a cool record collection and introduced me to stuff I didn't know about - for example Richard and Linda Thompson. She was the first girl to dump me - it bloody hurt. Looking back I don't think she liked the fact that I liked the same music as her 'uncool' brother and certainly wasn't going to be seduced by it.

Some time ago at a party, I got chatting to, what I can only describe as "a very nice girl." For some vague reason I thought that the sensible thing to do was to introduce her to a mate who was with me. They got on well, I got extremely drunk, and had no real recollection of the previous evening upon waking up on someone's couch.

Later the next day I met up with my pal who thanked me for introducing him to the girl, with whom he had spent the night. Too much a gentleman to ask for a detailed account, I congratulated him on his good fortune and asked how, as quite the shy chap, he managed to be so unusually bold?

"She invited me up to her flat and do you know what she did? She put on Al Green!"

Reader she married him. The moral of the story? Sometimes being totally blatant is the sensible thing to do.

I will draw a discrete veil over the occasion when I handed a C90 tape to a girl I fancied which opened with Standin' On The Verge Of Gettin' It On by Funkadelic...

At university, there was a C90 with Ammonia Avenue by The Alan Parsons on it. Nice, gentle, bland. With an instrumental called "Pipeline" about two thirds of the way through. This was the killer track. When the sax solo kicked in, you made your move. All of us who lived in the house used it and, if you heard the album playing, you knew not to go downstairs..

Later, in my Batchelor Pad, Jerry Burns' debut was the selected mood-enhancer and was very successful to the extent that I can't listen to it now without getting unfortunate Pavlovian side-effects.

After a bit of an own-goal when "Dogfight Giggle" destroyed the moment, i compiled a 90-minute tape of his sweeter pop songs, soul mixes, lurve ballads, etc. I must say, it was a resounding success - until girlies tried ther albums with their 30-minute synth epics, "Singring and the Glass Guitar", etc. I even had a tape player with an autoreverse, which meant enough time for a second coming, if you know what I mean.

especially early '50s Stan Getz and Lars Gullin. I came to conclude that women responded well to emotional detachment, considering the popularity of Chet Baker, but failed to test this hypothesis with some Bird and Diz.

To answer this truthfully I have to go back to 1977. It’s a serious point this, as a mistake committed then would have caused a split in the space time continuum resulting in two current generations of subsequent offspring who would never have existed.

We were both performing arts students, experimenting with different sounds. There were shared interests, but there were also lines that were not to be crossed. (Come to think of it, it was only me who wasn’t allowed to cross them.)

The Beatles White Album (nothing pre Sergeant Pepper was allowed) was a favourite as was Alice Coopers Love it to Death. I was experimenting with pomposity however which culminated on one particular evening where a vinyl box set of KarlHeinz Stockhausen material was produced. Together with that, and my future in laws being in the next room, I do not recall any significant action taking place on that evening.

So one thing led to another, our LP collections were forever merged, and we were married in 1979. Reggatta de Blanc by the police was about to be our new defining soundtrack.

Shortly afterwards we woke up one morning to the news that John Lennon had been shot dead. Everything changed.

One month later, a whole new generation of Simmonds was bought into the world without a Beatles reunion ever being possible. Twenty one years later this was followed by yet another generation of Simmonds arriving. Paul McCartney would soon be performing on the X Factor.

Like I said everything changed.

The counterpoint to all of this; I have found it most effective in the removal of said ladies come the following morn*.

* if the GLW is reading: kidding, dearest :)

In an unfortunate period of of nominative coincidence, the album in question was "Up". I have no idea why it worked, but it seemed to.

Oh, and Kung Fu Fighting. Don't ask.

It starts with a brusque intro, speeds up in the middle, builds in intesity toward the end and then fades slowly. And, as I say, is around of quarter of an hour's duration.

I was such a music snob I am amazed I ever had any success with women. On our first date my (now) GLW made clear her intention for staying over that evening, and then bought an Alison Moyet CD. I was so sneering she nearly went straight home. Luckily Tequilla played its magic, and it is 16 years together in January. She has not forgiven me though.

with a girl who was visiting our flat (we're talking mid-seventies share house here). I was playing her my Frank Zappa records, and she seemed really interested so I kept playing them and telling her all the useless information that FZ tragics tend to have.

Anyway eventually innocent me announced it was time for bed and I said goodnight. After a short period she invited herself in and, er, y'know...

She actually thought I was trying to seduce her. I wasn't, I was just grateful to find someone else who I thought really liked Frank Zappa.

Confused or what?

Ahem!! Those years of drum lessons and endless practice didn't count for nothing you know.

that this is where my appreciation of the work of the lovely Ms Bush was really (ahem) cemented.

It was the mid 80s and everyone at Uni was listening to 'Hounds of Love' - great album, but hardly seduction music. It just seemed somehow wrong to think of any woman apart from Kate when it was on...

But then a long-term Kate-fan made me copies of all the previous albums and I discovered the magical properties of 'The Kick Inside'

So as not to take up too much time, suffice it to say that there was a young lady who I was very smitten with but who appeared to regard me just as a friend. I'd been totally noble about this as she was such a lovely person. One evening around her room, nothing unusual taking place, a few friends chatting, I popped her copy of TKI on the cassette desk. I look up to find her staring fixedly at me. I think little of it, until she is suddenly saying good night as she has an early lecture and ushering us all out. She detains me and I'm looking out of the window idly when suddenly she virtually leaps on me and we're playing very determined tonsil-hockey. When I finally surface for breath, I ask (like a right t*t) 'What brought that on?' 'Ooh, I don't know why but this album just does something to me.'

Sadly once the album faded, normality was swiftly resumed, but it was lovely while it lasted...

Then in my final year I met another lovely young woman who I got on with very well. This time I thought I'd see if it had the same effect. By the time we got to 'Saxophone Song' we were (cough) intimate (to put it mildly). We've been blissfully happy for nearly 20 years now (soppy but true)

Believe me, if you've never acted out this song with a loving partner, you have honestly never lived:

Danny Wilson. Large Baileys.

Leicester. 1993. *waves* hi Julia

Perhaps a little heavy handed, but worked a treat.

And the Red Hot and Blue compilation - modern takes on Cole Porter songs. Just the right amount of emotion and humour for a convivial setting.