Road tripper

On the day: 
30/08/2012 

On the way: 
He's a small man with a small face and a healthy head of hair to his shoulders, the bleach blonde growing out. It's a slightly crumpled face, protected by sunglasses on a rainy morning and a west coast rock moustache through which his mumbles into his mobile phone. 
He still has a chain around his neck and his jacket is still leather, but it gangs over sloping shoulders and his walks with a stiff-legged hobble, like Ozzy Osbourne, as though each impact with the unforgiving station platform judders straight through the soles of his cheap black plastic shoes and jangles nerves long-since shredded by a borrowed life of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll on the road with the bands that took him on unimaginable trips - Kashmir, Panama, Africa, sweet home Alabama. 
Oh the stories he could tell about boozing with Bonzo, kicking back with Keef, jams with Jimi. If only he could recall... If only he had been there... 

On the pod: 
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac 

On the front page: 
Lift-off! The Paralympics are go (Metro)