Connections and the Couch.

When I was a kid my parents liked Nat King Cole, and dear old Nat was a regular visitor on Sunday.

(For some reason, music in the house was an almost exclusively Sunday phenomenon. That’s odd, isn’t it, given that my mother was a fairly accomplished soprano? You’d think she would have had music playing much of the time. Not so. And she once said to me ‘I don’t know where you get your love of music from. You father wasn’t musical at all.’ It didn’t seem to have occurred to her that maybe I got it from the distaff side. I gather her mother, my grandma, was a bit of a singer too, although her style was more the bawdy music hall stuff. Grandma was a bit bawdy generally by all accounts, and there’s some dark stuff there I’d rather not go into.)

So, back to Nat. I never liked him at the time, probably because he made his appearances between late Sunday morning and early Sunday afternoon. Such an unfortunate accident of timing meant that I associated him with canned rice pudding and Sunday school, neither of which gave me a reason to savour getting out of bed on Sunday. The only thing that achieved that feat was the prospect of having bacon, grilled cheese and hot tomatoes rolled in Staffordshire oatcakes for breakfast. And even that was a mixed blessing because I had to cycle two miles in all weathers to fetch the oatcakes. Two miles seems a long way when it’s raining, you haven’t quite woken up yet, and you’re only eight.

But then times changed, life moved on, and now I’m a bit of a fan of the old crooner. I haven’t had canned rice pudding for a very long time, and I haven’t been to Sunday school for even longer. The association est disparu.

Why the French expression?

‘I wanted to sound pretentious.’

Why?

‘So people will find me objectionable and won’t talk to me.’

Why don’t you want people to talk to you?

‘Because I feel obliged to talk back.’

Is that a bad thing?

‘Sometimes.’

But not always?

‘No.’

So it doesn’t apply to everybody?

‘No.’

OK. Carry on.

What more is there to say? Have some nice Nat and some nifty dancing to go with it.

I've a horrible feeling I've posted this video before. Please excuse me. Blame the stresses; blame the Sunday school; blame grandma. Blame whatever you like.