I was sat reading a book of Tom Waits' interviews (Innocent When you Dream) - one particular interview quoted (can't remember why) the first line of Sam Cooke's 'Cupid' - as I read the words ("Cupid, draw back your bow-oo-ooh"), the Amy Winehouse version started playing on iTunes in the background.....

...but sadly, I had a funeral to attend in Dulwich. Getting there involved driving through Clapham. As I entered, my MP3 player (connected through the car stereo) blasted out "I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham", courtesy of Squeeze's "Up The Junction".

Seriously, it was possibly the third time in my lfe that I've been to South London. Although my song shuffle was only 1500, so 10 times more likely to happen than to Andrew2.

My iPod played both versions (by The Crystals and Bruce Springsteen) of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town back to back, whilst shuffling through 11000 + songs. If only it had been Christmas Eve.

A couple of years ago I was travelling back from a friends wedding in the Lakes and had my iPod connected to the car stereo on 'shuffle'. At almost the exact point that the M62 intersects with Saddleworth Moor 'Suffer Little Children' by the Smiths came up on the iPod!

...a couple of weeks ago. We'd arranged to go out with friends, got tarted-up, but neither of us fancied it. This called for a quick kitchen snifter, "Do we have to go?" enquired Mrs B as I guided the wheel to 'shuffle' and we got the answer:
"Well it's Saturday night and I just got paid..."

About 2 years ago - we were on our final descent and I got ' I was raised here in Westchester county' sung by old LW111. I doubt that we were actually over Westchester county but we were pretty bloody close.

I was once passing the Clarence Hotel here in Dublin whilst my ipod was playing "A Sort Of Homecoming" and Larry Mullen (I'd hate to see the painting in his attic, handsome bastard) almost walked into me coming out the door.

Three factors take this story out of the realm of the fantastical-
1. I own a lot of U2 records
2. I probably walk past the Clarence most days
3. U2 own the gaff.

Did you know I was once physically thrown out the very same hotel for drunkenly giving Ronan Keating out o' Boyzone a hard time? True story.

It was December 24th.2007 and as I was just about to enter the penal system for the first time being found guilty of a bit of B & E. I thought "Bingham, give the old I-Pod one last shuffle" so shuffle I did and you'll never guess -------

Funnily enough, I was involved in a mass murder at a well-known film director's house in the 1960s.

We didn't have iPods in those days, though.

Whilst wandering into my local Subway in Byres Road in Glasgow I- I was humming along to The Stereophonics version of Handbags and Gladrags- I LIKE it OK?! Whe I took off the headphones to order my sub- playing on the stores speakers was The Stereophonics version of Handbags and Gladrags. Spooky Huh?

My iPod has a particular penchant for Sparks. 68 tracks out of over 7,500 and on the last three car trips two Sparks tracks have come on each time. I mean...what are the chances of that?!

110 - 1

Oh well, on a visit to NYC, waking up early thanks to jetlag, decided to walk from midtown all the way down to Battery Park to get some exercise, and build up an appetite for breakfast. Just coming up to 9 o'clock, walking down Broadway, feeling the gust of warm air coming up through the sidewalk vents, my iPod decided to play Londonbeat, "9am on a New York Subway". Actually, it quite freaked me out...

I was flying from Charlotte to Gatwick one Saturday night a couple of years ago. It's a flight that goes up the eastern seaboard and then turns right to come back over the Atlantic. I had the iPod going through some random R.E.M. songs when I could hear the pilot start an announcement so I pulled out one of the earbuds to hear what he was saying. The message was that we were about to do the right turn and leave the US behind so if you wanted a last glimpse of the US, which was the night time lights of New York below us, look now. I did and honest to God my iPod was playing, "Leaving New York."

Last time I worked for N.A.S.A. on a manned flight to the moon as I touched down on the loveable globe of cheese what came on my ipod but "Walking on the Moon" by Sting & his old cronies. What's the odds to that etc etc etc ............

and......

...when we had personal stereos playing cassettes, I was working at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham under a temporary contract. I went in the one day, turned off my music and went in to work.

When we got to our work room, we were told that our services were no longer needed, thank-you very much and you can go home now. Bit of a git as I had to cross the city to get there in the first place.

However, after getting changed and leaving the factory, I started playing my music again. Straight away, I heard XTC start up; "Ah well, that's this world over...."

I was stuck in stationary traffic due to heavy unexpected snowfall when I thought I would pass the time by listening to my player and the first track was Walking the Long Miles Home by Richard Thompson. Fortunately it didn't come to that.

I'm not making this up. Honest.
My ipod was connected to my hifi and randomly played Donna by 10cc. At the very second the line "Donna waiting for the phone to ring" came up (helpfully, with a ringing phone on the song), my own telephone rang in synch with the rings on the song. I have about 9,000 songs on the pod so it's a 9000:1 chance, except it had to coincide exactly with the phone ringing in the song so the chances of that are astronomic.

1] I was reading a book about the First World War on the bus, and when I came to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II the iPod played I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman.

2] The morning of this year's Liverpool vs Chelsea European Cup Semi-Final, in short succession it played two different versions of 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. I took this as an omen - erroneously, as it turned out.

3] One of my most vivid memories of the past ten years was walking through Union Square in New York at Christmas 1995 and hearing St Etienne's very Christmassy 'He's On The Phone' on my CD Walkman. It's a brilliant, moving pop song with lovely cascading pianos over a weapons-grade Eurohouse beat. Anyway, at Christmas 2007 I was wandering around New York again and as I crossed on to Union Square, the iPod played… 'He's On The Phone' by Saint Etienne. The years melted away.

I don't own a digital thingumy so it was a good old fashioned casette in my car.
I was driving home to Newent - home town of the legendary Joe Meek, Newent fans - over the magnificently beautiful May Hill. What's The Story Morning Glory was playing in the car and as I drove past The Glass House pub, who should I spy in the garden but locally-based rock legend Richard Ashcroft (with locally-based rock legend wife Kate out of Spiritualised), I did an 'Oh look, there's Richard Ashcroft,' to my girlfriend as genuinely on cue, the Gallaghers struck up with the song they wrote for the thin man of Wigan, Cast No Shadow.
It was a sunny day and I can confirm that Noel Gallagher is in fact lying and that Mr Ashcroft does cast a shadow - in the usual way in fact. Still, it was a nice moment.
In an even less high tech way (sod i-pods, I haven't got one so I'm predictably curmudgeonly about them), I was sat in a pub in Highgate Village with a friend one Sunday on our way to visit Karl Marx's grave, we had the Observer out on the table in front of us with the magazine with a huge picture of Dave Davies on the cover to the fore, when who should walk in... Indeed he did! Mr Davies used the toilets then left without buying a drink - possibly freaked out by the open-gobbed looking at paper looking at rock star thing that was happening in the corner.

Can't believe there has popped up a chance to tell my one. Not an ipod moment but a book moment. Once I was making a fairly convoluted rail journey from Preston to home in Berkshire. As the train pulled into Crewe station where I was due to change I was midway through John Buchan's 'Thirty Nine Steps' and had just reached the point in the novel where Richard Hannay is on a train passing through Crewe on his way to Berkshire.

Well I never, I thought.

Carry on.

My i-pod selected Arctic Monkeys' Fake Tales of San Francisco from 10,000+ songs as I was cycling home. Not through san Francisco. But it did perfectly time the line "You're not from San Francisco, you're from Hunter's Bar" just as I hit the Hunter's Bar roundabout.

Well, I was impressed. A bit.

As I walked home last night, my iPod started playing the reasonably obscure Jim Motherf***er by Ohio punk band Gaunt. At that very moment, my good friend Jim cycled past. He stopped and we chatted. He's not a motherf***er, though.

The first time I drove onto Santa Monica Boulevard in LA, the song on the radio was Sheryl Crow and All I wanna do - the chorus of which features Santa Monica Boulevard. Which was nice...

It's the other way round, but I now find that when I travel I start humming whatever was on the i-pod first (or last) time I visited that place. A cheap soundtrack to my life.

Our first child was none to happy at being removed from the hospital a week after being born in 2001 and was expressing her displeasure at the top of her lungs. Upon putting her into the car to go home and turning on the ignition I pointed out to my tired wife that the radio was playing (Baby) Stop your crying by Spiritualized. We laughed and included this in some of our "birth stories" and sort of forgot about until...

Our second child, born in 2003 spent 5 weeks in hospital shortly afterwards (2 in an ICU over Christmas and New Year). My wife and I had had a rotten time of it, staying in an awful hotel in Paddington to be close to him at St. Mary's. When he finally recovered and we were putting him in the car for the first time to take him home, the radio came on to McAlmont and Butler's Yes (I do feel better). This time I didn't need to point it out and we drove home feeling slightly freaked-out.

The car (a Clio) died irreparably a few months later and was scrapped along with the possessed radio.

When my son Adam was a precocious 2-year old, he was being strapped into the car by my wife, who was doing the 'Who does Adam love?' thing & showering him with kisses each time he gave the correct answer, 'Mummy'. At precisely that moment The Last To Know by Del Amitri came on the radio, & as himself with the sideburns sang the opening line, 'So you're in love with someone else' , Adam piped up, with immaculate timing, 'No, only mummy'.

A few years back I was on the way back home form a colleagues leaving do in Caernarfon. As I was leaving Llanberis up the pass, John Peel played "Llanberis Pass" by Zion Train, a track which he mentioned he hadn't played for a few years.

Bought a copy of the album the next day.

A friend and I were driving through a west yorkshire village a couple of years back;Talking Heads were the in-car music of choice,when we spied Alan Bennett,the noted author and playwrite....spooky.

You're right Phil - I am no lover of Mr Davidson's... However, I was never a Highgate village resident! Oh no, far too expensive (I am a genuine poor person)... I think everyone should visit Marx's tomb - it's the best enormous head in London; it is impossible to visit it without having some interraction with Highgate Village.

Nice to be a stereotype though - I probably should have been drinking Weiss beer in the pub but it was probably cider.

...Karl's big old bonce some years ago, but was further put off the whole busted flush by the dedications which had been placed there in admiration of Peru's Maoist loonies, let's hear it for the truly barking, The Shining Path guerillas.

My money's on cider to prevail. Only not with ice in it.

Strongbow I should imagine - there was a craze for cider with ice when I was a student, inspired by Withnail and I's supping of it in the Mother Black Cap before the 'Perfumed Ponce' attack. Although not in the pint bottle over tonnes of the stuff now popular - I can vividly recall the day I arrived in my local pub to discover an overnight conversion to the bloody stuff; and this with Weston's (one of Britain's best fizzy apple loopy juice fans) factory not nine miles away and on draft at a fraction of the price.

I lived not far from Highgate Cemetery and it's a fine place to visit - there were always flowers on Mr Marx's grave, or other dedications and messages and I liked the way communist graves clustered around his great giant head, obviously trying to get as close as they could. If only I could keep this on topic by recounting that I wore a walkman when I visited and The Internationale had popped up as I approached the grave, sadly I can't.

Nice to make your acquaintance Philip.

I was equally pleased to see Dave Davies that day - a hero in the flesh is worth two in the stone.

...out west, Thatcher's cider is the one for the discerning, (with current posts in mind, no, I'm not kidding - ask for Thatchers!). Although I have to avoid it, as I find it sends me all "Shining Path..."

Nice to meet you too, Spadge. Shame DD didn't stop for a Guinness - I can recommend his equally barmy book, Kink.

Driving away from the marital home for the last time, all my gear shoved in the back of the car and guess what came on? I have never sung along quite so loudly to anything else in my life... I'd love to know what hubby was singing along to - is there a song called 'Good riddance you mardy cow'?? Looking forward to your inspired suggestions.