Is This The Life

It started one Thursday. It was lunchtime. Aldgate. A work colleague gorging on sushi was highlighting his relief that both his children were appearing in the same nativity play at school. It meant that he only need to sit through one school performance rather than two. I’ve never had kids, so I have never had to ride the emotional gauntlet of a school performance for a loved one. I’m sure it has its rewards. I have no doubt. Pride. Passion. The desire to show support for offspring whether they or the play is good, bad or indifferent. It’s a rites of passage thing. But. I think it is safe to say, they must be pretty painful to sit through. The missed lines. The lack of emotion in delivery. The embarrassment and the crying. Regardless, I do recall sitting through other school class performances twice a year. Generally, my memories involve having a numb or – worse – sore arse from sitting cross legged on polished, parquet flooring for what seemed like days. I do not have an...

A few nights ago I was reminded of something from 30 years ago. Nothing unusual in that, I guess. Unless you are under the age of thirty three. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s I was in a band. Not a successful band. Not a band that played to thousands of adoring fans, night after night. We didn’t even play to adoring fans, occasionally. We didn’t play live. We didn’t have any adoring fans. But, I was in a band, none the less. The band was called ‘Mystery Incorporated’. The name was taken from Scooby Doo.  In case you didn’t know, the ‘gang’ in the cartoon were called ‘Mystery Incorporated’, hence they drove around in the ‘Mystery Mobile’. Certainly they were on a non-Hanna Barbera endorsed album called ‘Scooby Doo and The Snowman Mystery’ that I owned as a child. It is this album and the opening theme that inspired our band's name: Anyway. Back to the band. It wasn’t a big band. Just the two of us. Me and James. Duo. We wrote songs. Some we...