Why London should aspire to be more Nashville

IT'S not to say I felt like I was walking the plank exactly but last week I stepped aboard a flight to Nashville and did wonder if it was an entirely prudent move.

- David Ellis

Anxiety crunched like heavy gravel in my stomach as I wearily eyed my colleague Josh Barrie across the plane. I'm an angel but he's a wrong'un and a bad influence to boot. We'd sworn that whoever made it back in one piece would write the other's obituary.

In fact, the trip passed almost without incident, if you exclude the time I walked out of a honky tonk to find a new pal quite literally fighting racists alarming - or the night we thought all Americans dressed the same, only in the sober light of day realising that we'd gone to the same bar twice via different entrances. Ah, bourbon.