My first 1998 Girl Band post will be coming up in the next couple of days - honest. Apologies for the sadly predictable delay.

In the meantime, a brief announcement;

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Thought I'd repost the email below here, just on the off-chance that I have any London-based readers whom I don't know personally, or else forgot about or don't have a current address for - in which case, please consider yourself invited to pop in and say hello!

That said, I have removed the actual location of proceedings, just in case you're actually some right bloody weirdo who stumbled upon this page whilst looking for santified hi-fi equipment or somesuch, but if you're a geniune nice-person type reader, just drop me an email and I'll fill you in on the details.

Dear London dwelling folk,

On July 30th this year, it will be exactly one quarter of a century since the dawn of my existence on earth.

Unfortunately though, that's on a Monday, so the proceeding weekend is probably the best opportunity to put some time aside to celebrate my mother's decision to go through with the whole business all those years ago.

So for that general purpose, myself and others will probably be found in [.....] from about early afternoon to early evening on Saturday July 28th, and yourselves, plus your friends, partners and any interesting strangers you meet along the way, are hereby invited to drop in and raise a glass / share a bottle.

Later on I suppose there will be food of some sort, and then I'm quite tempted to head off to the Luminaire in Kilburn to see ace '50s rock n' roll singer Wanda Jackson. Tickets are a hefty £17.50 though, (available from here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/18015 ), so if anybody wants to go, let me know soonish and I'll pick one up for you.

She'll be hitting THREE quarters of a century before too long, but if she's still a fraction as good as when she recorded tunes like "Fujiyama Mama", the ticket price will be small beans. And spending the evening with a bunch of good-natured rockabilly types is sure to be a bunch of fun whatever happens, let's face it.

Alternatively, I/we might do something different. Or nothing at all. Who can say.

I hate RSVPs, but you'll notice there are a lot of "hopefully"s and "maybe"s and so on in this email, and no solid times etc., so probably best drop me a line to confirm if you're thinking of coming along to any aspect of the above.

Best wishes!

Ben