Well the CD is still stuck in the car player, so this week what I have been mostly listening to the hum of rubber on road. I've given up and turned her off.

Once at work though, I've had an unusually office based few days. Most of the time I'm out in cars without music radios so it makes a nice change to be inside with some audio company even if it is frustrating not being out and about fighting crime. Some genius in the office had left our little DAB on the superb Absolute 80s which for someone my age turns the radio into a magical box of memories. Not great for my productivity to be honest, but made the nights fly by...

This so vividly transports me back into the hurricane of 1987. About 3 in the morning, sitting in the dining room with my Mum, Dad and Sister, with the wind howling like nothing I've heard before or since. We were sitting in the dining room because it was the only central room in the house, with no windows to the outside world which were threatening to blow in at any time. While this was playing the room became much less internal as our conservatory gave into the wind and took off, never to be seen again. It was an incredibly exciting night!

Although I would have been in many before the first time I specifically remember being in a pub this was playing, with the video on the TV too, quite a novel thing in a pub back then. It was in Norfolk with my Dad and Grandad while my Mum and Nan stayed home, a pub was a mans place then. I was allowed a sip of beer, I remember quite liking it!

Also work related this week, it is 5 years since I joined the Police. It was a very daunting thing, going from something I knew inside out where I was at the top to being the new boy, the clueless beginner with everything to learn. I remember driving towards the police college for the very first time, not knowing what to expect or really if I was even up to it. The thought of all the training and proving myself to come felt crushing, as someone going in knowing nothing I felt so small and insignificant I half wanted to turn around, drive home and ask for my old job back. But then as I joined the A130 in the final run towards Chelmsford a song came on the radio. It had nothing to do with anything but was so fresh, so upbeat and just happy it totally changed my outlook. The day and months ahead suddenly felt like an exciting challenge, not a burden, and I've loved nearly very minute since.

Inescapable this week is this little nugget of turd

It's horrific. Every time it gets to the chorus and it doesn't quite follow the melody it has otherwise wholly ripped off I want to scream. It has no redeeming features, from the talentless bloke speaking over most of it to the shallow weak production, I have no idea why it keeps getting played and people seem to be buying it. It isn't even an original rip off, it is a rip off of a rip off after last years Alone Again by Alyssa Reid, who at least managed to learn the whole tune before she gave it a go even if she did butcher it in exactly the same way. For those who don't know, what these are both ripping of is the powerful and beautiful Alone by Heart.

Doesn't need improving, does it?

Laters.