I'm on holiday with my partner and our kids. It's a city with deep canals set into a concrete landscape - perhaps like the south bank in London. The water looks fairly clean - like a swimming pool. The canals are wide enough for yacht and large speedboats which shoot past, gleamy white, roughing up the water. A few of us get into the water wearing wetsuits to take pictures of something. It's incredibly dangerous - I almost get run down by a huge yacht that almost squashes me against the side of the canal. I get out of the water and meet a girl who has had more success taking photos in the water than me. She shows me her camera - an ingenious device - that looks like a donut that you hold in one hand, giving you more ability to swim. My partner walks over, suspicious of this stranger. Later we are standing on the walkway beside the canal in a crowd of about 200 people. We are watching Neil Young playing an acoustic set on a raft. Everyone is astonished because this gig seems unplanned, and we feel very lucky to catch it. Later, one of Neil Young's entourage asks me if I could go and buy some more guitar strings for Neil Young. I do, feeling honoured, and I return to give them to him in person on the canal-side. "Thanks" he says, looking busy, "Here's $10. Is that enough?". "yep". Later, one of the entourage asks me if I would give Neil a lift in my small motorboat. Neil Young has morphed into Nick Cave - taller, thinner but just as scary. Nick and his wife climb into my boat, where my partner and my eldest daughter are already sitting. There's not much conversation. The crowd watches as we set off down the canal. Five minutes later we pull over and Nick Cave and his wife climb out. "Thanks - here..." He offers me $10. I take it, confused.