My Saturday mornings usually consist of dozing lightly with Brian Matthew on in the background, but yesterday, I was out of the house at 8.35am with a purposeful stride. Unfortunately, my purpose was to reach Lowestoft station by 8.42am, a journey I know to take 10 minutes. The plan was to catch the train to London, spend the afternoon researching at Colindale, then head off to see a much-loved band of my formative years in concert. Amazingly, with a bit of light running, I made it to the station just in time to see my train pull out. As it was an advance ticket, tied to the service I'd missed, there was no point in hanging around and catching a later train. My emotions were mixed. I was moderately annoyed to be missing the show, although I have seen the band in question enough times not to mope about not making it. I was fairly annoyed to have spent £30 on a concert ticket for no good reason. Most of all, though, I was cheesed off at the waste of £32 on the rail fare. However, as sticking to the plan would have involved even more expenditure - another bloody ticket to Colchester at the very least, plus a Travelcard at the other end, not to mention nosh and drinks - I decided that cutting my losses and going back home was the best option.

As the day wore on, I occasionally thought about where I'd have been at that given moment, had I caught the train. Oddly, instead of gnashing my teeth and cursing my tardiness, I started to feel relieved that I hadn't gone anywhere. Instead of sitting in a venue I know to be horrible simply to hear music that I know backwards forwards and sideways, paying through the nose for beer I wouldn't touch under any other circumstances, and then struggling to get back to my mother's house for a few hours' kip, I was at home, listening to Paul Barnes on the wireless, making a curry and sharing a bottle of Albanian burgundy with the GLW. I started to feel that, had the concert ticket and travel been free, I'd have paid £62 willingly not to have to go anywhere. I'm getting old. And, you know what? I love it. I'll just have to wait for the tour DVD.

Speeding along Lowestoft's busy London Road South on my bicycle earlier today, a teenager in a hooded top shouted something to me as I passed. I couldn't quite make out what he'd said, and assumed it had been something insulting. I was just about to slam on the anchors and give hoodie boy a piece of my mind about cheeking your elders when I realised that he'd merely said "Oi, your back wheel's following you". Perfectly innocent, not at all insulting, agreeably absurd but logical and clearly designed to make me think "What the f....oh, I see". Judge not...

It pains me to admit this, but I've become jaded, musically speaking. This chap, who once pored over release schedules and went to the record shop most Mondays to pick up something farm-fresh, hasn't bought anything new for ages. Don't get me wrong. I still love a nice tune, but there's just nothing being made today that makes me go 'bloody hell, who's that?'. The next CD I buy (do you want woofers and tweeters with it, grandad?) will be something from the Sensational Alex Harvey Band catalogue, to follow up on my recent purchase of a 'best of' compilation (although how it can claim to be a 'best of' without including 'Boston Tea Party' is beyond my comprehension), but I'm currently undecided which one to go for.

The first problem is that when I hear something 'new', I can usually pick it apart and identify all of the influences. In particular, it rankles that so many bands have done well by sounding like a pale imitation of XTC or Squeeze, while either band has yet to receive even 1/10 of the kudos and royalties they deserve. I admit that it's always been the case. My mum would come into my bedroom (never bloody well knocking, until a traumatic incident made her very punctilious in this regard) asking "Is this Three Dog Night?" when I was listening to something I thought was wonderfully original. I've just crossed over to the other side of the fence.

Secondly, there seem to be a lot of artists who have become successful not by exciting anyone's passions, but by being acceptable to a large enough number. I'm sure it's always been the case, but it just seems more obvious now. Even the wock and woll webels are crushingly ordinary. The Kaiser Chiefs seem to be about the best we can manage, but the strongest reaction they provoke in me is 'meh'. Does anyone really get passionate about them, or have they become big because nobody really minds them? Meanwhile, who let that mumbling bore Jack Johnson - for people who find John Mayer a bit too edgy - become famous?

I'm not asking for uneasy listening. As I get older, I find myself unapologetically reaching for my Dean Friedman (Maturity = realising what a bloody clever song 'Lucky Stars' truly is, wisdom = realising that he did loads of other songs that were even better on that album alone, including 'The Deli Song (Corned Beef on Wry)' and 'Rocking Chair'), Andrew Gold ('Hope You Feel Good' from 'What's Wrong With This Picture?' being a real stand-out) and Rupert Holmes (I'll see your 'Pina Colada Song' and raise you the sublime, cynical 'Him' - complete with 'my Mini-Moog's broken' comb and paper solo) records. Even Peter Skellern. Stuff like 'You're a Lady', 'Hold On To Love' and 'Our Jackie's Getting Married' is quirky pop of the highest order. I can take or leave the faux-1930s stuff he did later - it's nice, but it comes across as a good musician relieved to find a lucrative niche after years of struggling with his own original material. I just find their modern equivalents paralysingly dull.

Or maybe it's just me.