"I am the greatest American poet who ever lived," the lead singer of this little known band says. Just so you know, he was standing on a stage in a small club in a big English city. Just so you know, he wasn't Henry Rollins or anything.

Behind us the man who's job is to sell the band's records for them during their set is sitting behind a flimsy trestle table with a pair of headphones on so that he can't hear the band, and he's reading a book about Julian Cope.

Just to point out, they're not that bad, this band. But they're not that good either. They're just a small band in a small club playing to a few people.

Afterwards a girl comes up to us. "What did you think?" She says. "Aren't they amazing?"

Me? I look at her, and I say, "Not really all that amazing. Actually. And he was a bit of a twat with all that 'greatest American poet bollocks.'"

"Twat?" She says, and she looks at me as if I've slapped her, hard with the back of my hand. "He's not a twat. He's a genius." And she sighs and gazes a practiced longing look in the direction of the band's abandoned instruments.

Just so you know, this girl, she's the sort of girl who falls for lead singers of little known bands. She's overweight and she wears glasses, and she's tried too hard with her outfit and her make-up and you just know that her masturbation fantasy is where the lead singer sings a song to her, looking directly into her eyes, then climbs down from the stage and takes her home.

My friend, he's standing next to me and he's listening to this.

My friend, he's not the type to stand for over-age teenage mooning.

He looks at me and he's got that look in his eye that he gets, and so I think about it for a minute, and then I know what he's going to do before he does it and I start to smile.

So the girl and I, we watch as he fiddles in his pocket and he takes out three pound coins and he turns and he goes up to the table behind us, and he doesn't hand his money over to the guy behind the table, he just puts it down on the top and picks up the 7" version of the bands single, and he brings it back to us.

And the girl squeals, "Ooooh, ooooh, you liked them then!" And she's so excited to find that her heroes might have added to their fan base that she's almost jumping up and down and you can bet that her toes are all curled up inside her boots. You can bet that someone buying their record is enough to make her knickers wet.

But my friend doesn't say anything back. My friend, he just looks at her and and he takes the record out of it's sleeve and he holds it up, and then he breaks it in half.

And the look on her face, it's so funny. You can see her brain is struggling to make sense of what's just happened.

She looks around to see if anyone else is laughing, and they are, they all are, and I know she can't help being stupid and silly, a girly groupie and I know it shouldn't matter how overweight she is, or how bottle-thick her glasses are, and I know it's horrid and bitchy and bullying and mean but the look of disbelief and utter confusion on her face, it just makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.