Of the many fabulous evenings I spent leading the Songlines Music Travel trip to Dakar, this soiree senegalaise
was one of the more entertaining. I had told Moussa, our fatherly driver, in Wolof (so the others couldn't understand) that I would lose my job if we didn't find music that evening. We were in St Louis and the town was dead. Moussa had been telling me to take people home, we must be tired, we shouldn't stay out alone. I was tired of his mothering on a trip that was meant to see us out till all hours. When I told him I would lose my job, he stepped his foot on the accelerator. Hands to the wheel, nose pressed against the windscreen, we bumped the two miles down a deserted road through the fish market, ending up at the Papayer Nightclub.

Before I could stop him, Moussa had leapt down from the driving seat and charged, wooly hat and all, into the glitzy nightclub. By the time I arrived, he had gathered the doormen and bar staff and told them he was leaving us in their hands, that we were their responsibility. They were not to let us walk the 100 metres to the hotel alone; we were to take a taxi.

Up for grabs that night at the dancefloor competition was a ram.