“We can take about eight wheelchair users,” he says, “and it’s near the bar and cloaks.” However, the only entrance is down a dark side alley and up a rickety ramp Reluctantly, Kamran and Rudi decide against going in. The band has started and they’re not keen to go through all the hassle. “They’re lovely guys,” says Rudi, “and I often go, but I do get sick of always going in the back entrance along with the tradesmen. “I’ve been mugged twice and pushed over in my chair,” he says. Indeed, we are accosted several times as we walk along the patchwork of broken pavement with its obstacle course of barriers, roadworks, cones and bin bags.10.40pm: arrive Shepherd’s Bush Empire. We’ve been turned away from the jazz club but we’re still keen on trying to hear some music, so we head for the Empire theatre on Shepherd’s Bush Green, a favourite venue of Rudi’s.

After negotiating kerbs with some difficulty, we find a cash dispenser, which although at the right height, exposes Kamran to attack, being unlit and hidden behind a pillar. “You get it all the time – name- calling, rudeness, talking over your head,” chips in Kamran. “You just learn to put it to the back of your mind, but you do feel particularly vulnerable getting into your car with your back to the pavement.” “Especially round here,” agrees Rudi. “Shepherd’s Bush is a nightmare.”9.45pm: arrive at Blue Jay jazz club The Blue Jay is a nightmare too, we discover. A narrow door leads straight on to two flights of rickety stairs into a basement.

While Rudi and Kamran sit in the rain on the doorstep I go in to hunt down the manager, Brian Lucas. “I knew this would happen to me some day,” he says, clasping his hands Upstairs he surveys the scene. “If our bouncers were here you could be lifted down,” he says. When I ask what he intends to do about the situation, Mr Lucas blanches: “It’s very difficult, we’re a new club … come back another night and we’ll carry you down.”Politely, both Rudi and Kamran decline his offer.

“It’s utterly humiliating – and dangerous – to be carried,” explains Kamran afterwards. When he went to Hertford University to do business studies, he was carried – and dropped – by well-meaning students. “I saw a poor woman dropped off the steps of a BA plane,” recounts Rudi. “Not only do you risk injury, there are health and safety considerations, too. How do you get out of a basement in a fire if you’ve been lifted down like a sack of potatoes?”10.15pm: leave jazz club without getting in Before we try anywhere else, Kamran needs cash. “Is he sitting in his wheelchair?” one says to me while Rudi turns the key. Rudi answers their questions confidently and with humour, and they melt into the night.