It was great being an 80s kid!

For some unknown reason, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm listening to the rock chart on Kerrang! (Incidentally, that exclamation mark is VERY important to Kerrang! My friend Dan works there and it's always included, even if it's not an exclamatorily suitable situation.)

They've just played Free - All Right Now and forgetting the fact that it's a brilliant song, I was blown away because it transported me straight back to the late 80s and my life revolving around the only four TV channels available at that point.

You couldn't flick, you couldn't pause, you couldn't fast-forward. As a resuly, the adverts were addictive - we'd even sing the jingles in the playground. If you like me were a kid in the 80s, you already know where I'm going next.

80s telly ads, Free and All Right Now, the opening guitar riff - oh yes, we're transported straight back to that trusty Greyhound bus driving through America's dusty interstate roads, with the impossibly cool and beautiful blond/(e) strangers meeting and bonding over a piece of Wrigleys Spearmint Gum.

That, my friend, is the power of music and advertising. It's got to be at least 18 years since I last saw that advert, but one chord of All Right Now and I'm straight back there.

Every girl wanted to be the shimmering blonde. Every boy wanted the chance to nonchelantly tear their gum wrapper in half and give it to the girl of their dreams, so that one day they could casually saunter into a random diner and reconnect the pieces. Is this where Elizabeth Duke got the idea for those half coin friendship necklaces that were all over penpals like a rash between 86 and 94?

For me and my friends, back in 1988 or thereabouts, it was the epitome of all that was romantic and dreamy. Forget X Factor or becoming the next Pussycat Doll, if you'd given me a slot on Jim'll Fix It as the star of fantasy remake of the ad with me as the girl and Marc-Paul Gosselaar (a.k.a. Zac from Saved By The Bell) as the boy... (so what if I knew the exact spelling of his real name without googling it?!) I would have died happy.

Not so easily pleased nowadays - although I do hear on the grapevine Jimmy's making a comeback and looking for people who never had their dreams fixed first time round...