My Saturday nights usually consist of watching crap television. With a child under five, this means Total Wipeout, which (in the BBC’s words, not mine) is a programme where “twenty contestants take on one of television’s largest and most extreme obstacle courses”. I spend the programme hiding behind the cushions on the sofa, imagining the horrific injuries being caused by the biggest balls on television (and that includes adult only channels), whilst The Boy rolls around laughing. I thought this was an under five thing, until my boss - a sensible man, despite his West Walian roots - recounted the latest episode, with tears of laughter forming in his eyes. It’s a bloke thing, obviously.

Anyway, this Saturday night will not concentrate on keeping The Boy awake long enough so that he’ll consider 6.30 Sunday morning as an inappropriate time to bounce on my bed. Instead it will be all about getting ready to enter the sweat-pit, also known as The Sub Club, and dance like a lunatic to the best music ever written.

The Smiths divide people. They are the Marmite of the music world. No-one “quite likes” The Smiths. There are fans and then there are the rest. People who can’t see the poetry of the lyrics. People who don’t see the uplifting quality of the music. People like My Dear Friend, who I’m sure will be adding his comments below at the first opportunity…

I remember listening to The Smiths on John Peel, with a transistor radio stuffed below my pillow in a pastel bedroom in the mid-1980’s. I was hooked instantly and like Peel himself, could see the humour in Morrisseys words. They weren’t depressing, as my friends then - and since - thought. To me, Coldplay are depressing (well, the early albums anyway). Radiohead had their moments too. But, The Smiths, they were a band that could see me through. Best of all - back then - my parents hated Morrissey’s voice with a passion and that was enough for me.

I tried to get The Boy into The Smiths whilst he was still embryonic, placing headphones on my bump and playing tracks to him. When he arrived early, I joked that he wanted to arrive in time to watch Morrissey at Glastonbury. He did. It was on the TV and he was more interested in being fed (and to be fair, basically unable to focus), but he was listening. I asked him the other day whether he liked Morrissey’s music. He asked if he was the one who did the advert music for Morrissons. I despaired. Then, last night in the car, Morrissey Threw “his” Arms Around Paris and The Boy, without prompting, pronounced that it was good. The clouds lifted, the rain cleared and we basked in the glow of a new morn. Well, not quite, but it was a moment to remember.

I have some original Smiths vinyl sitting in my loft. I also have a record player (remember them - the pure pleasure of putting on an album and placing the needle, carefully, and listening to the clicks and background noise as it moved towards the first track - ah!). However, of late, I have been listening to my music on computer and whilst I’ll happily re-order other albums in playlist, dropping tracks that I never quite “got”, The Smiths are still played in their original form. My brain rejects any new formations - and I’ve even had issues with some of the recent compilation albums, expecting track a, whilst track b appears.

Anyway, I digress. Saturday is about me, The Smiffs and rather more vodka than would be recommended by the Chief Medical Officer. It will come at the end of a week where I:

* briefed - and then re-briefed - politicians in Wales so new to their roles that they had trouble getting to grips with the basics of health policy.

* spent a day in London trying to persuade people that Wales was important - and its views as relevant as those of the rest of the UK.

* watched a debate that I had influenced and felt, despite the final vote, that I had got a few people to understand the points I was trying to make.

* tried to make sense of policy in Wales on research and development, which is different to the UK and not in a positive way.

* had to face my ex- for the first time in nearly two-years (well, that’s later today and he might not turn up, but it’s not the point and I haven’t slept properly for 10 days).

So, if the vodka flows, if the dancing is wild and if the singing is off-key, I think I deserve some latitude. It’s been a tough week already - and who knows how I’ll feel by tonight.

My ex- didn’t like The Smiths. Perhaps I should have realised back then, but what difference would it have made? None.