Last night I had an interesting conversation with one of the small group of British musicians who tempted me away- briefly at first but more seriously recently- from African music. Chris Wood is a fine story-teller, singer and guitarist with a burning hatred for Margaret Thatcher and a love of the Kentish land where I was brought up. Since Thatcher was also a large part of my growing up (parents to this day divided over the issue), as was the joy of visiting fish and chip shops by the Kent coast on special occasions, there is a lot in Chris's music which reminds me of my childhood and points me back to a place which, in my meanderings, I thought I had long left behind.

We've met briefly on a couple of occasions and I am amused to discover that he still finds the music press in Britain a waste of everyone's time. Last night he asked me how it all worked, a question I am often asking myself as I try to navigate my way onto the pages of the papers which seemed filled with the regular names- both journalists and musicians- and nothing much new or adventurous. Occasionally you'll read about something non-commercial but once a big release comes out, you can be sure that anyone hoping to sell any papers will be printing something about it, even if everyone agrees it's rubbish.

One of his criticisms of the music press is how much we rave about things, to the point where it all becomes meaningless. I'd agree, though if I'm writing about something it's usually because I've gone through weeks or months (years in many cases!) of research, contacting, pitching, waiting, pitching again then listening, organising and finally interviewing and writing about this person who I better think was pretty interesting in the first place or else it's been a painful waste of my time. But he's right: there's a lot of shoddy journalism out there and it must be pretty disappointing to spend years working on a piece of music only to have some unprepared nit-wit turn up asking the obvious.

Perhaps I should write something critical about his gig? The audience were a pain in the arse, the extra-tall couples infront of us stroked eachother in an annoying way that they no doubt thought romantic and secretive, though everyone standing behind them could see what they were doing. Some people sung along to Chris's tunes, and they did not have good voices. It was too hot.

But Chris put on a rusty performance (it being the first solo gig in 3 months, he told us) which just added to his witty way of telling stories, made him seem even more down to earth and made us all laugh. I hate to say it, but it was a really good way of passing two hours. Sorry.

Oh, he did ask me how I ended up in Senegal. I told him I heard a Song by Orchestra Baobab and that was the next ten years turned on its head. He said he thought that kind of thing only happened to musicians. Photos back from the lab today, reminding me of why I'll be really happy to get back to Dakar in March.