The problem with playing my entire record collection before forty is the fact that honour dictates that I actually play every item. And playing includes listening - not just putting them on the stereo with the volume pianissimo and then sneaking upstairs to lie in the bath and 'sing' fortissimo.
You've guessed it - it's Phil Collins time. In my defence it is a Scotch tape, with the tracks listed in my brother-in-law's handwriting.
It's so frustrating because some of the songs are quite good, even very good eg One More Night, Separate Lives, even In the Air Tonight. But there is something about the singer that just grates. He should so have stayed as a drummer. And some of the songs are, to put it mildly, dire - Don't Lose My Number, Do You Remember? And the cover versions - Can't Hurry Love, Groovy Kind of Love - are poor imitations of better versions.
I ought to bin this tape. It will never be played again, except if I repeat this ridiculous stunt, but it just goes again my grain to bin any records, tapes, CDs until and unless they are broken, at which point they get replaced.
I worked with this guy, we'll call him Bob, because that was his name. He was such a weird guy. When Nicky, divorced with a child, announced her engagement, Bob said, "Nicky's very lucky to find a man, being that she has a child..." He used to bring his girlfriend along to the post-Christmas lunch drink - which nobody else did, not even people whose partners were colleagues, except for a quick drink on being collected. Everyone used to studiously avoid Catherine, and I ended up being lumbered with her.
One year stands out; she was awaiting the results of a mammogram, having found a lump. Now I'm not a heartless cow, I can't just stand there and say "I really don't give a toss," as she chooses me as a shoulder to cry on. Even though I was, unsurprisingly, inebriated, and just wanted to lark and josh around with the lads.
They always pontificated on how much they disagreed with marriage, and how they thought that having children was an act of irresponsibility. A few months after I left that workplace, I heard they had had a hurried marriage because he had accidentally got her up the duff.
One year he told us all, smugly, how he was taking Catherine to a Phil Collins concert as a surprise for Valentine's Day. He sat there expectantly, as we were supposed to say, "Oh Bob! That's so romantic! What an amazing guy you are." His face fell as we shifted uncomfortably with looks of disbelief verging on the repulsed
You know, this 'music' is really bad. And being 'live' there is soundtrack of people cheering.
The only consolation is that this isn't a video tape...
