I made no special note of the anniversary of the downing of the Twin Towers in New York because it was well and truly covered elsewhere, for better or worse. I do, of course, recall where I was and what I was doing at the time and even though I am a critic of American foreign policy, this act was wicked in the extreme.

I had just finished teaching an evening class in Sanda and had sat down to watch the news. Sure enough, CNN already had their cameras trained on one burning tower (though they did not know why as yet) when a plane hove into view and hit the other. Just like that. It was an awful event, hatched in the minds of religious lunatics, and the repercussions are with us to this day. US foreign policy continues to be a seemingly incompetent mess and the whole region of the Middle East is much the worse off for it.

September 11 is also the day that my friend Robert Mumford went missing in 2007. It was no coincidence timing wise - Robert was a fan of the US military and the shemozzle that was the Iraq conflict would have weighed heavily upon him. He had other issues too and perhaps his life had hit an impossibly downward spiral. I wish I had been there for him, something I regret to this day.

Robert would have been overjoyed, had he lived, because The Beach Boys catalogue of music keeps expanding. Most of this is arcana for fans - out-takes, backing vocals, conversations in the studio, alternate endings, live recordings etc, and he would have revelled in it. Truly, I can hear his voice full of a teenage enthusiasm even now, for no detail, no matter how obscure, was beyond his purvey, when it came to The Beach Boys.

Rest in Peace, my friend.