Tuesday singalong

Music for pleasure

We really do have conversations like this while we're cleaning our teeth...

"Did I dream this or did Max Bygraves die recently?"

"I don't know. Are you sure it was Max Bygraves?"

"No, that's why I was asking."

"Was it the other bloke, the one with the jumper?"

"Val Doonican?" 

"No. The Christmas one."

"Perry Como?"

"No. The other one."

"What other one?" 

"Is Val Doonican dead then?" 

"I don't know. I'll have to look it up on the 'net." 

Pumpkins to you, too, madam

Well-heeled couple and their unruly children mooching round St Ann's Square. Children accosting strangers in the dark and yelling: "Trick or treat!" I explain, gently, to one child that it isn't Halloween yet. "You're nine days early," I say.

Yummy-Mummy-manquée looks daggers at me. "Don't deprive them of their childhood! They should have something more than just a skinny frappucino with pistachio syrup and a harlequinade of gaily-coloured crushed macaroons! Look at Rosy-Chi-Chi's creative wearing of an off-the-peg Halloween urchin costume straight from Guardianista Pre-Loved Tat. Give them some money you unfeeling swine!"

Fuck off lady, I can't be doing with it.

I gave a pound to a beggar at the bottom of Deansgate.