Paper Sun

Paper Sun is a Traffic song. It’s got a tenuous, link to my day; it’s a terrific sitar driven piece of pop psycadellia; and it’s got Jim Capaldi playing drums – who I will come to later.


Today was one of those big days, an appointment with the Cardiologist in the morning, an appointment with the dole in the afternoon. Both with the potential to pull me under like the undertow (thanks John Irving).

I decide to run to the Royal Free, because it gets me there quicker and sandwiches in a bit of exercise. I’m early, sweating like Jabba the Hut, but sitting outside a toilet with ample supplies of paper towels. In twenty minutes I’m dry, and not really that smelly.

The Cardiologist goes like a dream. He takes me off one of my pills, decides not to increase the dose of another. He says I can go back to the way I was before; run a marathon if my body says so. He hands me a discharge note that means I don’t have to go back and move among the sick.

I throw him a curve ball on leaving, telling him a story about a couple of Pharmacology professors I once worked with, who took beta-blockers before making speeches. But he misses the point, and says there great for people with heart disease. What I meant was they were perfectly healthy and taking them like a sedative. Suppose I was a little high.

Appointment two is even sweeter. I talk about my one day’s consultancy work, and my possibility of working in Europe. And I’m being truthful, because sometime next week I will get paid my first wage in more than a year. But I do give it a lot of spin, so all the usual stuff that constitutes my monthly interview is dispensed with in a flash.

And now I’m so high I almost punch the air leaving the dole office. There’s the lyric of a terrible Chris De Burgh song (which Word for some reason has in its dictionary) going round in my head. All rolled up jacket sleeve and pleading voice. I’m high high on emotion he’s singing; and if I cackle I could almost be the psycho in American Psycho. But I’m getting carried away with myself.

Later in the evening I watch a documentary about Steve Windwood (now he’s not in the Word dictionary) on BBC4. There’s a lot about his time with Traffic; hence the inclusion of Paper Sun in this blog. And there’s lots about Jim Capaldi who drummed/sang/composed with Steve Windwood in Traffic. And for those who don’t know much about Traffic, they were a quintessentially English pop/rock psychedelic band; formed in the late 60s and active into the 70s.

After the programme was over, I watched the video attached to this blog. And I thought about an afternoon during the last recession. I was unemployed, doing a little work for the Brother-in-law on the side. At the time he was successful in the property business and friendly with a few celebrities of the day. One happened to be a famous Chef.

So one Sunday we go south of the Thames to eat at his restaurant. The idea being, my accounting skills are going to be pitched at the chef; who is looking for someone to do his books.

But when we arrive, we are made to wait, just like ordinary customers. We wait a while, and while we wait my Brother-in-law focuses his attention on a man sitting next to us. He’s middle aged and decked out in outlandish cowboy regalia. He sports an El Gringo style moustache, and my memory assures me he was wearing silver spurs.

El Gringo amuses my Brother-in-law no end. He was the type of man who liked to mock people, and I suppose it distracted from his loss of face. Big important men aren’t supposed to be kept waiting. Except his friend the Celebrity Chef had an ego the size of Luxemburg, and liked to keep people waiting.

Eventually we ate, I had part of a Pigs Head – it was pretty cutting edge back during the old recession (before every man and his uncle copied the Celebrity Chef). And at the end of service, the Celebrity Chef joined our table. We spoke for a while; the job was mentioned, but not exactly discussed.

By this stage most regular diners had left. The Chef then asked if his friend could join our table. Brother-in-law obliged, and ordered another bottle of wine. He showed no surprise when El Gringo sat down, and no recognition of the mans name when he was introduced as Jim Capaldi.


I knew who he was, even remembered the name of his solo hit. But by this stage the wine was kicking in, so I kept quiet. Celebrity Chef encouraged Jim to do a couple of party tricks. Keeping time with a spoon, while playing a different melody on a glass.

And I would be a liar if I recalled much more than a blurred impression of that afternoon. And I would be a liar if I said I got the job. But I did meet Jim Capaldi, one Sunday afternoon in South London, and shared a few glasses of wine with him. And I’d like to think we talked about his song Paper Sun, but I just can’t remember.