It was a big week for birthdays. Monday night was the fourth anniversary of Strictly Handbag, the nightclub run by Martin Thomas at RiRa with the sub-title "Music with words for your dancing pleasure". Strictly Handbag, you see, luxuriated in the 1970s and 1980s, long before Velvet Goldmine and The Last Days of Disco told us it was fashionable.
On the night there was lots of ice cream and Martinis and of course, a beautifully large handbag-shaped cake. The invitations (in the form of baggage check tags) instructed us to bring our cutest handbag to win a Sabotage clothes voucher, and after a savagely-fought contest judged by Thomas's girlfriend, actress Venetia Quick, the prize was won by a very dinky little number that sported four lit candles.
Among the handbaggers invited along for the do were Rory O'Keeffe of the Ultramontanes. He was just back from a rather hectic tour - 24 cities in 26 days - then over to the US for five days ("They loved us") and then back to the recording studio in Dublin. That's rock 'n' roll for you. One new face to the scene was David Dunne, who has just started at Atlantic 252 having been head-hunted from MTV in London, where his wife and family still live. That's rock 'n' roll commuting for you.