I'm too old for nightclubs. I'm the wrong age to be invited to many weddings. And yet I still love dancing: sociably, in public spaces, with all the happy communality and shared, channelled emotion that goes with the territory.
In the face of such diminishing opportunites, pragmatism has forced my hand.
For if there's nowhere else left for me to shake my ever-thickening tushie, then I shall just have to create my own space - 8 metres high and 1.7 metres wide - right in the heart of London's evening rush hour.
I'm under no delusions, though. My dancing style is most kindly described as "enthusiastic", and I'm certainly not attempting to turn myself into an object of wonder and desire (although a little touch of both would lift my spirits enormously).
Instead, my aim is to dance - how can I put this? - with honesty. "Like there's nobody watching", as the saying goes. I'll be the random stranger that you see in the crowd: lost in his own little space, oblivious to the world beyond his headphones.
So far, so self-indulgent. For what is dancing, if not a social act?
(Besides, if nobody else was listening, then I'd just be a self-indulgent berk, pleasuring himself on a perch.)
With this in mind, I invite you all to dance along with me (on the given signal at the top of the hour), by streaming or downloading the mix that I have parked at http://tinyurl.com/plinthmix
And if you're able to visit me in person - your MP3 player of choice pre-loaded in readiness for an hour's worth of honest-to-goodness jiggling - then that would be just marvellous.
