So by Peter Gabriel 1986

I was traveling back from the UK after spending Christmas of 1986 there. I had turned out to be quite a rubbish experience. I was supposed to take a train down to Italy and meet a friend from school there. After spending Xmas in Blackpool I went down to London. The winter was a particularly cold one. Within two days London seemed to be snowed in. The trains weren't running. Shops were empty. I spent New Years Eve in Trafalgar square. After the countdown, I bought myself a hot dog but before I could eat it some girl took it out of my hands and scoffed it and then proceeded to try and snog me. It wasn't a pretty sight. I retreated to my hotel room alone and watched Ziggy Stardust on the telly.
The next day I tried to get to Europe but the ferries were closed due to the winter conditions. London was dead. It was getting kind of miserable. No good bands. A few days later I got to Paris. But they decided to have a train strike. As I pulled into Paris gendarmes with machine guns lined the railway tracks. I sat on the bench at Gare Du Nord and thought about Melbourne. When I left it was hot. Rubber Soul was jumping. And I'd just kissed a girl outside the Jump Club. Now here I was freezing in a hotel room in Paris watching French TV without subtitles. The cold had given me chapped lips as well. When I went to the chemist and tried to get something for them I could have sworn they were laughing at me. The chemist seemed to pull out a one-litre jar of Vaseline.
My Euro rail train pass useless. Italian ferries suspended. I had to get out of there. I was back in Blackpool by 10pm the next night. drinking brandy and dry with my brother.
All the while Peter Gabriel's So album was playing on my Walkman. And despite Kate and Peter imploring me to "Don't Give Up" I guess this time I did.

PS As for the album the cassette was a constant on my Sony Walkman as I walked the streets of London and moped on my single bed in a small room in Paris. Later back in Melbourne I bought the album and it became a favourite of mine. They used a few of the songs in Miami Vice which particularly effective. Red rain especially. And then of course there was the scene in "Say Anything" where John Cusack plays "In Your Eyes" on the boombox.