Bob Scott stayed at our old mudbrick holiday home in Central Otago once. We told him all the stories about the place, the true and the possibly rumour-has-it true. A week later he was back with a song on a cassette. The Ballad Of The Railway Hotel sits up there in Central by the stereo in the lounge. It makes the walls ring when we play it.

Other people would bring a bottle of wine or after-dinner chocolate. But Bob writes songs. He told the Otago Daily Times in the 1980s he'd written a thousand, 'written' being when he'd recorded them on tape and copied the words and chord changes into his songwriting book. Some of the other Dunedin musicians thought a thousand was too many. Some didn't think anyone could write a thousand songs. Bob stopped filling in his book in 1992. There were nearly 1500 in there by then. And he hasn't let up since. He reckons he must have reached two thousand by now. That's a lot of songs Jimmy.

Bob collects things. He's a good reference for local music, he's done the big family tree, all the band members in tiny print, and he has live tapes, posters and memorabilia from all over the world. Look around the walls… weather centres with little people popping out of them from Switzerland and Germany, heaps of model aeroplanes, miniature soccer games, barometers, stringed instruments, many of his simple yet slightly eerie paintings… and a gold record. That'll be from The Clean. You half expect little people to pop out of that one too.

Bob has a nine year-old daughter Brydie and lives in Port Chalmers with his partner Justine and eighteen month old Polly. He teaches part-time at the local primary school and yes he's written songs for them too, one about dinosaurs, and another about ants. He's also teaching a few people the guitar, and he wishes he had more time to play soccer. A hard-tackling sweeper as a lad, Bob's number was dialled first when musicians were putting their social teams together.

But now the sweeper has moved up front. Solo album. Twenty years in the game. It must be good.

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