ONE MAN ONE GUITAR

‘There's a woman on the snowline selling sex - she got a little tartan skirt and a bottle of Beck's'

Driving on tour in early 2006, from Dresden to Vienna via Czechoslovakia, we came down a long mountain pass towards one of the most godforsaken towns I have ever seen – and I've been to Barry … As we descended via hairpin bends, I glanced to the right and saw a glamorous coloured woman standing in a clearing of pine trees, just where the snow ended, wearing a tartan skirt (MacDonald dress tartan) and holding a bottle of Beck's beer.

‘Did you see that?' I said to fellow traveller Michael Cosgrave – ‘why would that woman be standing there?'

‘Yes I saw her' said Michael – ‘but look at this'…

Looking ahead I saw that the entire town seemed to be lining the street in billowing snow, clearly selling sex, and also that most of the buildings were brothels with names like ‘Hotel California – Best Massage'. Old men and women, people in wheelchairs, and very young teenagers, all peered into our tour bus, beckoning us to stop and go with them. It was one of the saddest and most disturbing places imaginable.