When I got tired of the city and a job suffocating in an office, I went to Paris and sang and played in the streets to cinema queues and up and down the French Riviera.

Every summer for three years I would break the chains of a job (anything from librarian to crate-humper) and leave for the continent, taking £5– the fare to Paris, freedom and the sun of the Cote d’Azur.

Before I play I don’t know exactly what notes will come out, but I know the mood the number conjures up in me, so that on the framework of, say, a 12-bar blues with a slow tempo and a minor key, I can make the guitar cry by whining the strings.

On the other hand, for a calypso or fast rocking blues, I can use running single-line phrases with clipped notes to convey movement and excitement, filling in with block chords to keep the pulse of the number.

For the last two years, I have been playing in Nick’s diner near Earl’s Court where I eat excellent steaks and am acquiring a taste for good wine and cigars!