Vinyl.  Was there ever such a word to bring a smile to your lips?  In the back room of a pub in Hornsey High Street people of a certain age gather to play records from their youth and tell stories of the concert, the love affair, the shop which started it all.  I took an Alan Price LP which I bought in France in the 70s, but the track I chose on Saturday, ‘I Put a Spell on You’, came out as a single in 1966.   Almost any track that featured the electric organ was a hit in the Orpheus, the mods’ coffee bar in Chelmsford, but the opening notes of ‘I Put a Spell on You’ had a special haunting quality that made conversation fall away and stilled the clatter of cups on saucers.  And in the Railway Tavern, you tell your story and then sit in the leather chair as Dansette Dave plays the track.  And again, the room was captivated by the sound.  And last Saturday, people who told a story received a gift from Santa’s sack.  Mine was a Neil Diamond LP, the first I have ever owned.  www.stylusstories.co.uk

And then on Tuesday, stories of a different kind in Store Street.  I was speaking at a Haldane Society seminar on ‘How to Be a Feminist Barrister,’ with Alison Diduck an academic from University College London.  It was a truly uplifting evening, the room was full of young people, mainly women, mainly law students, most of whom according to my straw poll, identified as feminists.  The thing therefore was to give them tips – work for women, work with women, use your skills to make the world better for women.  They all seemed up for that.