There are some people we meet in life and, for one reason or another, our paths don’t cross again, even though we had plenty in common and enjoyed each other’s company. It could be we live miles from each other, didn’t quite establish a strong enough bond early on in life, moved in different social circles, or even felt a bit hesitant about reaching out to say how’re you going.
Guy Haslam falls into that category for me. Let me introduce you, as we have many things in common. We met at university. I was dating a friend of his and got to know him that way. But post-dating, we fell back into our own social circles. However one pal we do have in common from those days is previous interviewee, BBC correspondent Rajan Datar.
Football. I last bumped into Guy walking back to the railway station after we’d watched our respective sides play each at the old Highfield Road. Him, Villa, me, Coventry. We had a good chat about how the season was going, how rubbish our left backs were, then literally went our separate ways.
Cryptic crosswords. We didn’t actually talk about this on the episode, but Guy is the youngest ever winner of The Times Cryptic Crossword competition. When people joke that someone is so bright they can crack the Times crossword in five minutes, that’s a slow day for Guy. He once solved 2,000 clues in a day for charity. For context, I like cryptic crosswords as well, but hardly ever get out a complete Times crossword if I’ve been staring at it all day. Guy is now overlord of a range of puzzling magazines.
I recall back in 1983 having chatting after he’d returned from a trip to Pompeii (not Portsmouth football club, the volcano place). He’d found out Lou Reed was playing nearby and busked with a friend to raise the money for a ticket. I recall a conversation about The Dream Syndicate in his room. Fragments from the past. I’m sure he won’t mind me mentioning that Guy comes from a music household, the brother of the renowned music journalist, author and DJ, Dave Haslam. He reveals he was a big fan of Snub TV, the brainchild of previous interviewee, Pinko Fowler. These days he goes to see Lord knows how many bands each month and is a passionate believer in the primacy of live music.
Through the medium of Facebook we’ve been reconnecting over the last few years, and I’m proud to say Sombrero Fallout made the cut of five music podcasts when he enacted a cull recently. It was a pleasure catching up with Guy again. We really must do it again some time in the next 30 years.
Setlist:
Theme from Shaft, Isaac Hayes
Double barrel, Dave and Ansel Collins,
Don't be denied, Neil Young
Here she comes now, The Velvet Underground
Highway blues, Roy Harper
Europe endless, Kraftwerk
Tell me when it's over, The Dream Syndicate
I love my leather jacket, The Chills
Evangelist, Ut
Poor boy, John Fahey
Bill Norrie, Martin Carthy,
Penelope Keith Blue, Peter Bruntnell