So, farewell, old blue cardie. I have finally accepted that my midnight blue cardigan has passed over from the realm of garments to that of rags. I bought it from Benetton on King’s Road sometime in early 1985, when I first came to London. How many gigs did I wear it to? The Smiths, at Brixton Academy, probably; The Triffids, when I trooped to every gig they played in London – quite likely. And it came to Berlin with me, later that year, when I went into (well, continued, actually) social hibernation for the 1985-86 European winter. Somewhere, there’s a black and white photo of me (self portrait, taken using a timer), sitting at the trestle table in my room in Charlottenburg, and I’m wearing the blue cardigan, over a black dress shirt (of sorts) with various chains of second-hand beads round my neck. I used to wear the cardie over a men’s pyjama shirt, too, if I remember rightly – as daywear, I mean. It was the 1980s, after all, and the blue cardie was probably one of the few items of clothing I bought new. But now, it’s reached the end of its useful life and it’s time to consign it to the ragman.