In 1971, I visited London with my friend and flatmate Simon. This was still in the "far out, man" days, and London was still a place with w-i-l-d fashion sense. I remember buying a pair of remarkable vivid lime-green crushed velvet trousers in the King's Road, which never looked quite as marvellous when I got them back to Edinburgh. However...
In our quest for cosmic consciousness we decided - no, it just seemed like a good idea at the time - to go dowsing in St James' Park. We each appropriated a forked twig, and with eyes closed wandered around the park chanting mantras and searching for oneness with nature. Simon almost immediately had things happen with his twig; it started twitching and bending, and drawing him around behind it, just like the books said, in fact.
My own experience was a bit different. No twitching, but I started to feel a tingling in my hands which got me excited. Until I opened my eyes to see that my palms were turning bright red, and my fingers were starting to swell to an enormous size. Instead of divining the earth's mysterious forces, I was suffering from an allergic reaction to the twig I had chosen. Bummer.
That was the moment I realised that Joni Mitchell wasn't going to sing a song about me. Stardust I was not.
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