Interesting gig last night: playing support for a show band up in Gateshead. The occasion was a Freemasons Ladies' Night - which means there were men and women there rather than the more usual blokes-only affairs I imagine they have.

Great fun, actually. The band, a Geordie outfit called Roll The Dice were your typical pro musicians: the defeated members of a destroyed crusade slumped face down on the dusty, bloody road to Jerusalem. They do a mix of jobs during the week, then spend every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night playing 'Vienna' and 'Radio Ga Ga' in working men's clubs in places like Shildon and Peterlee. When we ate together they were wonderful company: wry, funny, interested in what I, a stranger, had to say. Their leader, Dennis, runs the band on an employment basis - and as such sits a little aloof and apart from the others, a slightly odd figure, though friendly enough.

And what am I supposed to say about the Masons themselves? That they were a bunch of Mail-reading, racist, lower-middle-class reactionary small to medium businessmen with orange tanned mutton-dressed-as-lamb wives in tight dresses and clicky heels? That they're losers who indulge in absurd rituals with veiled homoerotic overtones? Well, if that's the kind of description you're after, you've come to the wrong place. Because they were good to me: they were polite and considerate, they paid me more than I asked, fed me, were solicitous for my welfare and seemed interested in my life and my interests. I didn't pay for a drink all night.

About ten o'clock I was having a waz. A Mason who must have been in his late thirties came and stood at the urinal to my left. His son - around nine or ten years old - went for the one on my right. We stood in silence for a while. Then another bloke, older, joined us on the other side of the young lad. He nodded at the boy's dad, then spoke to the boy:

'Ha ya reet, son?'

The boy looked at his dad, as if he didn't know what to say to the older bloke, who was obviously quite important. His dad, looking across me, nodded encouragingly. The boy turned back the other way.

'Ah'm reet, thanks.'

'Grand,' said the older bloke, 'as long as yes is enjoyin yerself. Tha's warrit's all about, eh?'