Bruv

This is another of Peter's wonderful photographs. My brother was the other guitarist in the Chefs although he is playing bass here and sitting on the old black flea-ridden sofa at their house in Kingsgate Road, West Hampstead.
As soon as you sat down anywhere, a mass of fleas would jump on to your lap and then seek out exposed flesh to attack.
Their unfortunate (for them) favourite was cups of tea, which they sprang into in droves, seeking heat but finding termination-by-hot-drowning.
Russell, our drummer, was given some ghastly Old Spice aftershave one Christmas, and we filled glasses with it and then had random competitions to see how many kamikaze fleas we had caught. I think the record was around 108 in a half-hour period.
I have written before about Russell's triumphant mouse-trap prey, that turned out to be a large and juicy ex-slug, and the dogs downstairs that widdled on his drum cases every time he put them on the pavement to load into the van before a gig (Question: why not stop putting the drum cases on the pavement? This was never answered).
John Peel cycled over for breakfast one morning, politely ignoring the squalor and wearing a pair of Dave Lee Travis's underpants (clean) on his head to keep his ears warm; and one day the BBC broadcast the first of a series called The Young Ones.
The inhabitants of Kingsgate Road looked at each other in recognition!
I was really glad I didn't live there, but actually the house where I lived was a million times worse. I will write more about that one day.