It could have been funny. Hell, it was funny. But the fact that the irony was entirely lost on this over-larded lost soul, complete with pink day-glo leg warmers, did not bode well. The 80s was always a decade best viewed through the prism of irony and it suddenly felt like this was going to be a long, long weekend. I was in a large booking hall waiting to embark the impressively imposing cruise ship Navigator of the Seas for a taste of Floating Festivals' “Throwback – the 80s Festival at Sea”.

I had been promised three nights of classic 80s memorabilia – and performances by big-name acts including the Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Erasure's Andy Bell and Captain Sensible.

I'd always been wary of acts which need to put the name of the band before the artist – it seemed like something from my mum's generation, and seriously if you didn't clock who Andy Bell was in the 1980s then you really weren't paying attention – but by any measure it was an impressive enough line up of names.

And I imagined it would be interesting to see which 80s poppets had returned to their careers as plasterers and hod-carriers after their 15 minutes in the TOTP limelight – and indeed whether they should have stayed there.

In truth, scrolling down the weekend itinerary my eye was drawn less by the big names and more by the 80s flotsam and jetsam, big-haired DJ Pat Sharpe... a puzzle how he was ever so popular at the time and complete bloody mystery as to how he is still around 30 years later.