It must have been a posh girl who drew Van Morrison to Cyprus Avenue.

Last night I was in Belfast talking about Uncommon People in a pub called The Dark Horse at the Cathedral Quarter Festival.

After we'd finished local music boffin Stuart Baile took me on a quick tour of Van Morrison's Belfast. We went past the modest terraced house on Hyndford Street where he grew up, through the Hollow, the small park round the back of the house named in "Brown Eyed Girl", and up to Cyprus Avenue (above), a broad thoroughfare with beautiful old stone houses either side.

Cyprus Avenue is clearly a cut above. There's probably a Cyprus Avenue near where you live, the faintest dropping of the name of which would send clear messages to the people you grew up with.

Stuart and I were picturing Morrison as a young teenager taking the long way back from school to have an excuse to dawdle down Cyprus Avenue. Maybe it was in the hope of seeing some posh girl living in one of the grand houses.

Always seems to me one of the most powerful things that drove people to want to be rock stars: the desire to impress posh girls.