I was out with Ronnie, Stephen, Julie, Jean and Bernard at the British Legion pub tonight watching some singers do their thing. This one woman really fancied herself as a proper singer and took herself MUCH too seriously. Her first song was quite nicely done but that's where it started to go wrong for her. Her second song went something like this:

[piano intro]
"A chair is still a chair.... even when someone isn't sitting there.... a chair is still a chair.... no sorry can we stop? I've done it wrong. Start again please" (slightly flustered at this stage).

We chunner amongst ourselves at how terrible those lyrics are. I mean, who writes a song where the first line is pondering the existence of a chair? She signals for the piano man to start the song again:

[piano intro for second time]
"A chair is still a chair... even when someone isn't sitting there... a room is still a room... even when the chair isn't there.... no I'm sorry I've done it wrong again.... [then for some strange reason she melodramatically but very seriously says] I'm sorry but this time last week I was in bed with gastric flu and I've not come round fully from it yet"

There was some awkwardness in the air as this "has been" singer struggled to keep her act together but then Steven shouts out in an exasperated northern accent "will somebody get her a chair". I spent the next 10 minutes crying with laughter as did several of our party. We were very rude actually but I just couldn't hold it in. One of two of the other people in the audience also sniggered but they mostly either bit their lip or frowned at us for belly laughing at her expense - whoops!

[piano intro for third time]
"A chair is still a chair... even when someone isn't sitting there... a room is still a room.... even when there's no-one there... [she got it all right from that point on]

ho hum

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