The Thoughts of Captain Autumn

Twenty five years after we first made the trip, a bepaunched gathering of the grey and balding descended on Oxford's New Theatre on Saturday night to see the latest incarnation of Level 42. Would they deliver the greatest hits routine which has become distinctly stale in recent years, or would the return to the fold of original keyboard player Mike Lindup prove reinvigorating?

When Mark King meandered on, looking more than ever like Mel Smith, and launched into 'Fashion Fever' - the most populist track from their most populist album - it seemed likely that a run through the FM gold repertoire might be in order. Early choices of hits like 'Leaving Me Now' (albeit with the frisson of its famous piano outro being played by the elegant Lindup) and 'Running In The Family' suggested likewise. But then the band wrenched itself from the comfort zone with some rarely heard gems. The selection of 'The Machine Stops', apparently due to a fans' website vote, was followed by the seductive 'Romance' from the neglected 'Forever Now' album, King in his exchanges with the audience sounding gratified that the band had been asked to move off the beaten track. Less predictable still was when a couple of songs later the epic 'Man' was given a rare outing. As the show drew towards its climax Lindup, until then a subdued, almost tangential figure looking less like a pop star than an interior designer, took his only lead vocal of the night with the soaring 'Starchild', before the singalong 'Lessons In Love' surprisingly segued into a storming 'Dive Into The Sun' from 2006 - a finale which belied King's early rallying cry that the setlist would include nothing but oldies.

Encores of 'The Chinese Way' and 'Hot Water' were to be anticipated, but sandwiched between them the eight minute instrumental 'The Pursuit Of Accidents' was as unexpected as it was welcome. If Level 42 can continue to juggle the demands of filling theatres with revisiting the arcane reaches of their back catalogue, then there's life in the old dog yet.

Am I the only person to understand the reality of why the crowd started booing Ashley Cole on Saturday? It can be explained in four simple words.

Everybody hates Ashley Cole.

OK, so it's possible a few Chelsea fans don't, although I'd hazard a guess most of them do as well. Certainly pretty much everybody else does. If it's not the tawdry way he left Arsenal, bemoaning his plight only earning however many tens of thousands a week it was (which while making him no better or worse than hundreds of other footballers didn't exactly endear him to those of us who earn less in a year than he did every few days), there's the on-field petulance, the self-important autobiography, and for most red-blooded men the inexplicable cheating on his not unattractive wife. This is a man who seems to live by the mantra "I've got it all, but I want more". Little wonder, then, that given the opportunity to vent their resentment, disapproval and, yes, jealousy, thousands of England fans watching their team labour to victory over a thoroughly inexperienced side ranked 120 places below them took it in spades. They weren't booing the pass. They weren't booing the performance. They were booing the man.

Then again, maybe it's just me. I'm often astonished that there are people in the world who don't consider Robbie Savage to be the footballing devil incarnate.