last time i jumped into a taxi at charing cross i was with mum and there was this 24 gun salute for the queen mum not me or mum and funnily enough later that same day we went to see 24 hour party people at the Gate in notting hill and i'd set the video 24 hours in advance to record the next episode of 24 and i'm talking twenty to the dozen cos i've got twenty quid and twenty minutes and the meters gonna be running here's one hello could you take me to erm the kings road via curzon street and then on from there i'm gonna head on towards the portobello road yeah curzon street first then kings road thanks sounds a bit strange but i have my reasons thank you

ooh we're here my big sister ali she couldn't wait to come down from manchester and be a nanny in london in fact she said she'd give her right arm to be a nanny in london and then she ended up geting a job for mr & mrs moss near marble arch looking after this one-armed baby named dahlia and ali made it like a monopoly board come to life and i wanted to go to all the places on the monopoly board and it was like erm i know it sounds a bit corny but it was like a london of big ben and red buses and biba and she was always the boot and i was always the dog and when she moved to london what i missed most of all was i had no-one to play monopoly with anymore

we're in curzon street and erm i once worked in marks antiques just on the corner there oh and oh my god there was this day this woman came in and she was buying up half the shop and turned out she was a props buyer on a film they were shooting up the street and i said ooh what film's that and she said The Hunger and i said who's directing it and she said tony scott brother of ridley and i said who's in it anyone decent and she said oh catherine deneuve susan sarandon david bowie and i screamed DAVID BOWIE!!!! and i dropped this huge solid silver tray i was carrying i was like oh my God i've been his No 1 fan since i was 12 i've got to meet him is there any way i can meet him so she talks to tony brother of ridley and fixes it up for me to meet him the very next day and you can imagine i didn't get a whole hell of a lot of sleep that night anyway the next day erm the street was all cordoned off and there were all these trailers and leads and no lighting crew or technicians or anything i think they'd all scarpered off for a lunch break or whatever and i'm told by this bloke tony brother of ridley to wait there on the pavement and david'll be with me shortly and i'm standing there with my Lodger and my Scary Monster's under my arm ready for him to autograph and i'm thinking oh my God david'll be with me shortly and i'm getting this acute sense of how acute pleasure is a very similar sensation to acute pain cos the next thing you know he steps out of this house where they're filming and he's coming towards me in this divine lemon suit with a bum freezer jacket oooh God that bum and i'm frozen to the spot and my minds going a mile a minute and i'm about to come face to face with The Man Who Sold The World The Man Who Fell To Earth Ziggy Stardust Aladdin Sane The Thin White Duke and i'm going oh dear God i beg you don't let me shit myself anyway i got a signed photo as well as my Scary Monsters and Lodger autographed but oh god i wanted the pavement to open up and swallow me because oh i really let myself down it was just like I'd been stunned by an electric cattle prod or whatever and when he asked me my name I couldn't even remember it never mind spit it out and he was just lovely and he still had those divine canine teeth cos it was way before he'd met Iman and it was Iman who made him get them fixed

and i'll be seeing him in a few weeks at the lancashire county cricket club cos he's playing divine comedy supporting and i wasn't gonna go cos i hate those big gigs with no seats in fields last time i went i took my shoes off and the grass squelched and ugh needless to say it wasn't lager and i had to walk around all day with someone elses piss under my foot ugh anyway i wasn't gonna go but dave said call yourself a david bowie fan i'd stand in a bucket of shit to see bjork so i was sorta shamed into getting a ticket

and david bowie was a big syd barrett fan and one day i'd quite like to wander the streets of cambridge and see if can spot syd altho there's probably more chance of spotting lord lucan or the loch ness monster then again it might be a bit sad cos he could be any old fat bloated bloke down the pub now and not that gorgeous creature that mick rock photographed....... before his slow retreat into the self

park lane that's where the playboy club used to be and the first time i lived down here i ended up going back to manchester with my tail between my legs and then coincidentally enough i ended up with a fluffy white tail press studded to my bum cos i was walking past the playboy club in what was it canal street manchester and my mate feria dared me to go in and ask for a job and i did and a week later i was a lobby bunny

just passing partridges sloane street purveyors of fine foods to posh folk oh and dirk bogarde bless his soul i once saw dirk bogarde in there he was wandering round the shelves with a wire basket oh i loved dirk bogarde i loved him the night porter death in venice he was a bit of a hero of mine as well that's 2 heroes with the same initials db db oh! and david byrne as well talking heads david byrne dirk bogarde lived just near here a short walk from harrods that's what he called his last book actually

habitat there's a nice loo upstairs in habitat if you get caught short before you get to peter jones it's shocking they haven't got one in starbucks the big starbucks that one on the corner there y'know a strong latte and a blueberry muffin and you get these stirrings and you have to abandon a half-eaten muffin to leg it across to habitat and then when you get back someone's nabbed your table and made off with your muffin

i love the kings road ali was a nanny for the naylors just off the kings road shawfield street that one that one there and she used to write these really exciting letters home and tell us how sandra mrs naylor would put on a kaftan and pour herself a glass of wine and play dark side of the moon every night before her husband came home and every letter she wrote home started with you'll never guess who i saw walking down the kings road and she saw rod stewart buying patchouli oil and justin heyward from the moody blues who else linda thorson from the avengers

and i think i think that's the cinema thats the cinema where ali took me to see the exorcist when i was 12 and mum put me on the coach with ten pounds spends and she thought we'd be going to see the site of the scaffold where anne boleyn was beheaded & madame tussauds and things but she took me to see the exorcist jesus i was terrified and she'd put all this make-up on me and i had to stand by the kiosk where they sell the paynes toffets while she got the tickets and she was all don't forget it's an X if any one asks you you're 18 and if anyone asks what year you were born you were born in 1956 God i was terrified i was too scared to leave my seat for a choc n' nut tub and when i said what are all those men with stretchers doing at the back and she said oh they're the st johns ambulance men for when you faint God i had to sleep with me mum for a month after that

picasso's is still going strong i was in there once and paula yates came in the fat nanny in tow and she was waiting for a takeaway spaghetti and she was all coquettish and kittenish in a ra-ra skirt with her legs wrapped round the back of a chair sort of christine keeler style it was when she was living round the corner with bob

ah good old chelsea kitchen we had a nosh in there before the exorcist you could get pate on toast and moussaka and chips and a creme caramel for about a fiver no not a fiver about a pound what am i on about it wouldn't even cost you a fiver now and the handwriting on the menus not changed i think the same bloke still writes them

just heading towards my sisters abode on the portobello road now in fact could you take me to a road off ladbroke grove my love it's called chesterton road and then i'll go on to the portobello after that thank you

i've done a bit of a detour to somewhere that isn't on the monopoly board i want to go to i think it's 104 and it's just on the right further down bit further yeah can i just stop here for a couple of minutes yeah i'll be two minutes oh my god i had to get out last time i stood in this street it was 4 o'clock in the morning and i was standing barefoot in the middle of the road flagging down an ambulance oh i lived here with bernie my first boyfriend er oh and we had talking heads blaring all the time i remember more songs about buildings and food god we played it to death anyway the last time i was here i was standing barefoot in the middle of the road flagging down an ambulance cos he'd hanged himself from a tree in the garden with the washing line and i cut him down with the breadknife and it was the year charles & diana got married and the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy was on the telly and bucks fizz won the eurovision song contest and mcenroe beat borg i think anyway that was 21 years ago when I was nearly 21 and i haven't been back here since maybe to have talked about it sooner to have written about it earlier would have been a case of premature articulation too taboo to talk about anyway talking into this and sitting safe in the little bubble of this cab's providing me with some kind of protection i'll just head towards the portobello road now love thank you like a sort of filter a bit of a distance like a camera would do it's nice to be back in the cab and i'm remembering lovely funny things about him now actually like him sitting on the toilet reading fungus the bogeyman and kissing his fingers like a chef tasting his own cooking he loved his own cooking sorry to be all morbid and i suppose october the 14th has always been my september the 11th a bit of a bungee jump into hell and he'd come home really late that night and i'd been lying awake for ages worried sick something'd happened to him and i was lying there listening out for his taxi and waiting for him to come bounding down the steps and put his key in the lock and we had this stupid oh stupid ugly horrible row and he stormed off into the garden and it was the first time ever i'd done what mum always did with dad and let him stew in his own juice and not go after him

but i swear to god the other night i had this dream but maybe it was a what d'you call 'em an astral journey and not a dream and it was as we were then and not as we'd be now and it was lovely cos we were eating scotch eggs on a picnic and laughing and chatting nothing profound like why did you do it why didn't you leave a note and all i can remember for sure was him saying fancy a scotch egg and that sort of made sense to be eating a scotch egg cos I wasn't a vegetarian then

and the first time I got in a taxi after he'd died the taxi driver said where to love and instead of saying euston station and I know this sounds really corny but i wanted to say is there any way you could take me to heaven but it would have been a bit of a waste of time cos a priest told me he wouldn't be in heaven cos of what he did with a bit of luck he'd be stuck in purgatory but i swear to God the other night we were having a picnic in heaven

and i know unthinkable things happen people die twin towers come down and i've got the reverse midas touch when it comes to lurve but it erm sort of ups the ante and the need for art to address this feeling sort of thing & that christian boltanski bloke saying it's easier to make art than it is to live i sort of understand what he means by that anyway at least the meters still running

i can get out anywhere round here love wherever's good for you to stop thanks ever so much how much do i owe you love right hang on thanks for your patience stopping and starting that's brilliant thanks a lot darlin' take care bye