29.1.22 In the morning you go gunning for the man who stole your water

 It's the two weeks between meeting J and ringing her to ask her out on a date. I'd met her on the Friday; with friends in the Black Bull in Walton Vale, J and Jo walk in, J works with my mate. So we meet. We (the five of us) drink in the Bull, we drink in the Black Horse, we end up in The State. And somewhere in all that, the two of us start a conversation.

I tell her I've just quit my job in an insurance office and got a job in a record shop. She tells me I don't want to work in a record shop, I tell her it's too late, I start Monday.

I spend two weeks writing master bags: it's the old days, you don't put the record out in the racks, you put the sleeves out in a PVC sleeve, fit a cardboard square where the vinyl would be. The vinyl goes in a 12" cardboard sleeve behind the counter, artist, titled, record label, catalogue number and date last received written on it.

Customer brings Robert Cray's Strong Persuader to the counter, you pull the master bagged copy, stick the record in the sleeve, sell it. Everything is fled by catalogue number. Good luck with Led Zep 4, there's nothing written on that record. At all. Ta, lads.

It's a new shop, getting ready to open, so my job is to write out all the master bags. From 9 in the morning to 5.30 at night. That's all I do; I write out master bags and I master bag records. 

One benefit to this: you learn a lot about artists that you're never heard of before.

There's this label called 'Charly' and they're great. All they do is Jazz and Blues and they do it brilliantly. All this old stuff, all the building blocks of everything we call rock'n'roll in a series of themed sleeve. There's an identity to this, and a quality.

And they cost £2.49 each. When you apply your 30% staff discount that's... less.

And my idea is that I build up a library of this stuff. Buy an album a week. Whatever else I'm buying (Bunnymen, Elvis Costello, whatever), I also buy one of these cheap masterpieces. 

I've no idea why but this is what came into my mind as I picked up the car from Aintree Station after being out last night and very, very drunk, and the radio started playing Steely Dan's 'Do It Again' as I turned the key in then ignition.

I didn't start listening to Steely Dan that week. I don't think. But that's what it feels like. That's where it puts me. 

And that's all I've got to say on the subject.