Just back from a great concert by one of the world’s greatest poets and musicians. We went because one of our daughters had given us tickets and because we wanted to hear America, The Boxer, Sounds of Silence, Bridge over Troubled Water. Paul Simon played all of them. He gave four ‘encores’ and was in great form, with a great band.

Although I had listened to the song loads of times on the radio, tonight I got the words for a first time. It’s a song from his latest album and it’s about access and inclusion:

Wristband, my man, you’ve got to have a wristband
If you don’t have a wristband, my man, you don’t get through the door
Wristband, my man, you’ve got to have a wristband
And if you don’t have a wristband, my man, you don’t get through the door

I can explain it, I don’t know why my heart beats like a fist
When I meet some dude with an attitude saying “hey, you can’t do that, or this”
And the man was large, a well-dressed six-foot-eight
And he’s acting like Saint Peter standing guard at the pearly…

When I was thinking about it I realised that much of the world is about wristbands. About allowing people ‘through the door’ and a well-dressed six-foot-eight man standing guard at the pearly…

In Paul Simon’s song, the riots started slowly with the homeless and the lowly,
then they spread into the heartland towns that never get a wristband. Survivors of a severe acquired brain injury never got a wristband in this country.

They will. Whatever it takes. We will not tolerate the status quo. Under no circumstances.