For most of us, the crosses we bear are private ones. You know, the things you wish you’d never done but for whatever reason did and although whatever it was is long forgotten by everyone else, it’s still burned into the back of your mind like a brand (in the traditional sense of the word).

Some of us though, have at least some of our crosses in the public domain, brought up from time to time by journalists or others wanting to create a story out of nothing. You know the sort of thing – weren’t you the one who was caught sleeping with x or didn’t you have that novelty hit y?

Sometimes, what someone considers to be a cross is, quite simply only a cross to them – I was always upset that Edwyn Collins considered “Rip it up” to be a cross – it wasn’t until he released “I’ve never known a girl like you before” that he started to play Rip it up again because he was so wounded by the tag of “one hit wonder”….at least, that’s what he said at the time. To me that’s a great shame because the song was, and is and indeed always will be in my view, a fine song worthy of every moment of air time or stage time it gets.

For me though, the one that sticks in my mind is “Toast” by the Streetband. It was the b side of a long forgotten single (in the days when singles had not only a tangible form, but sides too) but was picked up and played by a Radio 1 DJ then became a huge hit. Years ago, I knew many of the musicians who were responsible for that song and they certainly considered it a cross to bear, given that it was never intended to be anything other than a filler and the endeavours of the band were only ever considered either in the light of that song, or because it was one of Paul Young’s first bands.

Still, every time I take a piece of toast out of the toaster, my mind still thinks of # “brown bread, white bread, all sorts of wholemeal bread, it comes in funny packages with writing on the side but it doesn’t matter which one you choose….” La la la.

I wonder if now, with the passage of time, the members of the Streetband look back on Toast with fondness or if they still regard it as a cross. I wonder if their grandchildren (I feel certain that some of them will have grandchildren by now) think their granddad was cool because he had a hit single with Toast or if they think it’s really naff? I wonder if they cringe if they hear it or hear it mentioned or if they smile?

Now where’s the butter? ………

TOAST, a little piece of TOAST