Sixteen words which constitute the only love letter I ever wrote.

Scrawled on a bus ticket.

It was a dark night but I'd been light fingered – and she knew it.

"British Sea Power?" she asked.

Well, yeah...

Do You Like Rock Music?

The name of their new album.

Less and less is my answer.

There was a man with a fiddle in this country inn. Not rock, but it rocked.

The sound crashed around the furniture like a warm sea swell and the floor became hot coals. It made the bitter taste sticky and sweet. Outside the wind fair whipped off the lake, and when we left it blew through our hair and bones. It was a long walk home but we had scarves and the thought of warmed-up stew.

Do You Like Rock Music?

It made the top ten. And then it made a news article in The Times. It advocates immigration, see. It also pay tribute to Big Daddy but The Times didn't mention that. Eighties wrestlers aren't as scary as foreigners. Although you wouldn't say that if you were put in a ring with one.

Sport, eh? Do you like that?

The doctor liked his cricket.

He sat on my parents' couch for 40 minutes cheering India against England before he even took my temperature. But it made me feel better, just him being there. He'd travelled a continent and a half from a town on the banks of the Ganges to look after me.

I was sad when he died. I was sad when they said he should never have been here. Papers and passports don't give a person his place in the world.

Immigration? It's a minefield if you're not armed with a chorus.

The three men with guitars and the one with drums were armed. They played in this Irish centre on the outskirts of the city. Outside you were never more than a street from being mugged but inside the carpet was red and knee-deep, and old ladies sat where they'd played bingo all afternoon. Not rock but it rocked.

Afterwards the band sat drinking Orangina with ice.

The one who wrote the songs didn't like journalists. He didn't like me. He didn't like my questions about immigration and wooden horses and Big Daddy.

"It means what it means," he said. "And sometimes it means nothing."

"It means something to me," I whispered and grew bitter.

Soundbites and sloganeering — just like a politician. He didn't like me. I didn't like him.

But the sounds of his mind continue to hum on my Walkman.

And I'd still follow him into any bleached-out morning.

Just like, four years on, I'd still build that wooden horse for her.

She liked the gig, same as me. She was glad she hadn't met them.

We bought a carton of wine and a pack of Top Trumps for the night train home.