Bikini Beach Band – The White Hart, Stoke Newington

A last minute decision to go out and do something on New Year’s Eve. OK, I’m happy watching repeats of Father Ted, but not everyone in my household feels the same.

Plus of course me and Mrs Red Penguin love the Bikini Beach Band. We first caught them live in 1995 supporting My Life Story at the Jazz Cafe, where they played a cover of MLS’s Motorcade, a track which appeared on their 1998 album The Bikini Beach Band Leave Home. They also supported the band on a comeback show in 2006 and I’ve caught them live five times in all, not least of course at Mrs RP’s 40th birthday party a few years back.

We didn’t get a chance to say hello, we waltzed in and out and were back home in time to not watch Jools Holland or a Rick Astley live concert on BBC1/BBC2.

Weird personal story: I haven’t walked around Stoke Newington much before. Tonight we walked past a Thai restaurant called Yum Yum tonight (I remember thinking what a stupid idea for a name – possibly because I don’t really like Thai food much). It was a grand old building, about 200 years old. I didn’t give it much thought as to what it was before it was a Yum Yum.

My dad passed away six weeks after this gig. When I was going through his documents I found his birth certificate which showed he was born in the Home Hospital for Women in Stoke Newington High Street. It was a hospital for women who couldn’t afford regular hospital bills at that time (a good 15 years before the NHS was founded).

He’d never told me or my sister this – he’d mentioned he was born in Dagenham when we were doing family trees, and left it at that. I don’t know if he was too proud to tell me the truth – but at least I now know that tonight I walked past the very building he was born in, without realising it.