II – Golf, Gigs and Gin

1. Tell your audience to shut up if they’re not listening.

Gig at a golf club dinner this evening with my parents’ choir – Otto Voce – who are, as one member put it:

“…four couples who have fun singing, and sometimes have fun with each other”.

Stuck at the end of a long room with 140 hungry golfers getting started on the gin, it wasn’t a surprise that the ‘audience’ started chatting during the first set, thinking we were background music. We all felt very disheartened.

For the second set, (which involved solos from myself, the wonderful soprano Els Janes and the classy piano/sax duo Chris Roe and Tom Griffiths), we moved the keyboard and mic to the centre of the room. With a lot of support from the parents, I stood up to the mic, no plan for words, but with the determination to make them listen. I demanded their attention because “I’m going to sing now” and proceeded to say myself and the other three ‘younsters’ were “offspring of the choir… so they weren’t joking when they said they had fun with each other… Although hopefully that was a long time ago and only once…” Looking Mum and Dad in the eye after that one wasn’t easy….

Next thing I knew, I had asked who had got a hole-in-one that weekend. Of course, it was the jolly middle-aged Social Captain, and I told him to meet me at the bar after the singing. He took my joke to heart and at the end of the set, grabbed me for a hug in front of the whole crowd (including my old primary school teacher and dentist), took me to the bar and ordered the bar man to make me whatever I wanted…!

Still, the audience were attentive for the rest of the evening and although some dignity lost, Otto Voce sounded beautiful and a gin and tonic was gained!

2. Keep your balls together.

This was the conclusion from our epic family game of croquet (Uncle Julian and I were victorious). For more information on the advanced rules of croquet, please see me.

3. Lonyo – Summer of Love.

Rediscovered this track on Radio 1 this weekend; there’s some sort of scrunchy chord in there that I can’t get enough of.