And this is all basically pre-rock''n'roll, remember. Jazz is the thing for the kids in Absolute Beginners, and it's odd reading about what was actually the more traditional end of jazz in similar terms to how some might react to grime or gangsta rap today. Britain's love for trad jazz did set up the mid-60s British blues boom (and thence Led Zep, Fleetwood Mac, The Stones, Cream, UK as early adopters of Hendrix etc.), and also paved the way for the likes of John Surman, Dave Holland, John McLaughlin and Kenny Wheeler to become among the finest modern jazz players in the world. All the more curious to hear the genesis of all that lot in these passages:

"And that's what jazz music gives you: a big lift up of the spirits, and a Turkish bath with massage for all your nerves. I know even nice cats (like my Dad, for example) think that jazz is just noise and rock and sound angled at your genitals, not your intelligence, but I want you to believe that isn't so at all, because it really makes you feel good in a very simple, but very basic, sort of way. I can best explain it by saying it just makes you feel happy. When I've been tired and miserable, which has been quite more than often, I've never known some good pure jazz music fail to help me on."

Who indeed. It's also very funny. Witness this exchange, just after our hero blazes out of the city on his Vespa in a lover's rage, ending up in the middle of nowhere. A passing motorist helps him out, and he siphons some petrol back into the scooter. The motorist looks on at him with a sophisticated blend of pity, curiousity and altruism:

"'I guess you've got enough to take you back to civilization.'

'Thanks. Where is civilization?' I asked.

'You don't know where you are?

'Not an idea.'

The cat made tst-tst noises. 'You really should lay off the stuff,' he said. 'Just turn about, follow the cat's-eyes half a mile, and then you're on the main road into London. I suppose you want London?'

I handed back the tube. 'I want the whole dam city,' I said, 'and everything contained there.'

'You're very welcome to it,' said this benefactor. 'I'm from Aylesbury, myself.'

'My lord, one thing is certain, and that's that they'll make musical sone day about the glamour-studded 1950s'. And I thought, my heaven, one thing is certain too, I'm miserable."