It could have been caused by a change in my medication, or perhaps by a joke played on me by my house boy Juan: whatever the reason, I came to my senses last Saturday eve in a rather rough hotel near the port.
I found myself mid-conversation with a man from the community board; I was clutching a commemorative 1953 Coronation soup ladle, and an owner's manual for a Mark II Zephyr.
The remnants of a chocolate lamington had glued together the third and fourth fingers of my left hand.
I was confused and struck with the deepest irritation already, when a local young persons' rock music band began making the most awful racket.
A mass of balding and overweight men (and women) were (I think) dancing, and the whole affair was becoming painfully ridiculous when sparkling lights behind my eyes and an incessant screaming in my ears commenced.
Crowds of Buddhist monks wearing overalls and calling ''long live the golden parachutes'' were marching towards a dam overflowing with candelabras that melted into a pool filled with the screams of dying men - yes: I was having a flashback to the '60s.
My 60s, of course, not the 1960s.
It is, however, quite a coincidence the 1960s have come up, because today's column is about a legendary figure of the decade.
Jimi Hendrix: The Guitar Hero broadcasts on the Arts Channel on March 2 at 8.30pm.
Jimi, of course, despite coming from a decade that put paid to the urbane sophistication, suave dress sense and strict table manners of the 1950s, was cool.
He played the guitar, made noises that were pleasing to the ear, and looked terrific.
Jimi Hendrix: The Guitar Hero doesn't really do him justice.
The show is yet another in a never-ending stream of cheap documentaries made up of famous and less famous people being interviewed on a subject.
So in The Guitar Hero we hear from a bunch of elderly rock stars (the film was made in 2009) including Eric Clapton, Eric Burdon and Mick Taylor.
Worse still, we are forced to listen to a member of hideous progressive art-rock band Yes, and another from hideous progressive art-rock band Pink Floyd, burbling on about Jimi - who cares what they think, for God's sake?
The only high point of the show is the brilliant Lemmy from Motorhead discussing what Jimi might have ended up doing if he hadn't died in 1970.
''He got this electric orchestra into his head ... with 20 guitar players, five drummers - it would have been f***ing horrendous.''
Most infuriatingly, in a documentary about Jimi Hendrix, we hear just snippets of his music, and see just brief clips of his performances.
Listen to a CD instead.
- Charles Loughrey
