It ain’t over till the pudding crawls

Thursday July 21, 2005

Driving back home across the country roads early this afternoon there came over the radio news of what was reported as being ‘a number of incidents’ on London’s underground transport system. Oh dear. I turned up the volume and listened to the story break. From ‘incident’ it mutated into ‘possible hoax’. Then to ‘failed attempt’. A bus was added to the list of three tube locations. More breaking news: ‘small explosions’ no fatalities, one non-fatal injury, possibly related.

During the course of the day more and more detail was added until it became clear that this was a failed terrorist attack by another four young men with warped minds. They’ll be caught. Hundreds of eye witnesses saw them as they ran away. Some tried to intervene, to catch them, without success so far as we know, though there is an open report that the police have arrested two young men. The CCTV tapes are being examined. They’ll catch the blighters.

This isn’t funny. London was brought to a halt, again. People were frightened and distressed, again. It’ll take a while for things to settle but it was clear by the end of the day as the story unfolded that most Londoners, while shaken, are getting down to the business of their days once more. It’s a pattern through which we’ve lived before, repeatedly.

There is an upside, quite apart from the great good fortune that no-one was seriously hurt in any physical way. These misguided criminals are groomed for success, not failure, and they expected to die. When they are interviewed, they will be a goldmine of information, as is the forensic information from the failed devices.

Hey ho. It’s not over yet.

Towards the very end of the day came one eye witness account that I found funny. I suspect there’s a strong element of the Londoner in me still, with a Londoner’s sense of humour, tempered in the fire of the Blitz and the IRA bombings, so it’s the kind of funny other people may not find amusing.

It seems this little old lady, on one of the tube trains affected, witnessed a young man switch his backpack to his front, fling himself to the floor, and lay there spread-eagled over it, shouting something she couldn’t understand. There was a small puff of smoke. The young man lay there dazed. The lady, bless her, went over to him and asked: “Are you alright, duck?”

I’m sorry. I found myself chuckling over that, and then laughing heartily. To me, it has all the elements of a Whitehall Farce, or the short comedies from Abbott and Costello. I don’t know whether I ought to react like that. Perhaps not. But then, us Londoners, as my dad used to say, would laugh to see a pudding crawl.

 

The hardest lesson

Wednesday July 20, 2005

A lot has changed in the almost sixty years that have elapsed since the event I described in yesterday’s entry. Not all of it for the better.

I suppose I ought to clear up a few matters arising. Had I gone home that night in tears, stammering out an account of the encounter, my father would have been out in the street, hunting the bloke down. He’d have been closely followed by my mother, brandishing the big stick with a nail through it she kept handy for the defence of her family. Not that she ever needed it, but then the sight of my mother wielding that big stick would frighten off even the most ill-intentioned of intruders. She was a fierce lady.

Apart from an interview with the local bobby, that’d have been the end of it, chances are. Except of course that, when we got home, I’d probably have received a not-so-mild beating ‘just to teach me a lesson’. I’d have remembered that lesson, and I truly don’t think I’d have had such a pain-free transition into adolescence and on into adult-hood if that had been the way of it. Like as not I’d have developed an aversion to people I didn’t know, turned in on myself, and ended up a miserable old man instead of the happy old geezer I have become.

But it didn’t happen like that. My parents knew full well that something odd had happened that night but judged, rightly so in my view, that since I was in no way hurt or upset by it, least said soonest mended. I’m eternally grateful to them for their good sense.

As to the bloke himself, I shall say nothing further on him. From later knowledge I’m convinced it was a one-off stupidity committed by a lonely young man, a stranger in a foreign land. He became a worthy and well-respected man and I sincerely hope that this one event didn’t blight his life any more than it blighted mine. It’s worth remembering that those were the days when such an offence, had it gone on to prosecution, would have resulted in his being confined to a lunatic asylum for the rest of his life. Not just that, but it was not uncommon for the same fate to be visited upon the victim. Back then, society believed in tidying these matters up, finally, and ruthlessly.

All that was over half a century ago. An awful lot of received wisdom has flowed under the bridge since then, replacing the old-fashioned kind when people thought about these things instead of resorting, mindless, to the repetition of the mess of standard pseudo-psychological babble that has grown up around the subject. I shudder to think of the way my small, insignificant encounter would be treated today.

I have a problem with received wisdom, quite disconnected from the subject of child abuse. I’m as instinct-driven on that subject as anyone, my fingers itching to reach for the castration irons at the very thought of it. Fortunately my powers of reason have not been entirely overcome and obliterated by received wisdom. I’d take some time for calm, collected thought before condemning anyone, and much longer still before undertaking any form of punishment.

See, my problem with received wisdom, of which I’ve seen so much in that intervening half-century, is simple. Simplistic, even. How come, if we’ve received so much wisdom, the world isn’t a much better place at fundamental levels?

As a society we have grown to accept hasty judgement and instant, severe punishment as the desirable norm. That’s not an improvement, not at any level.

We stamp all over the planet, meting out instant, severe punishment on the basis of hasty, ill-considered judgement, with the most appalling and devastating of consequences. Look at Afghanistan. Look at Iraq. Get out the history books and look at Vietnam… For local, small results of the culture of received wisdom look around at the poor souls in our own society who’ve been blighted by hasty judgement and indiscriminate punishment. It’s not a pleasant thing to do.

Some experts on the world stage have declared that we are already engaged in the early stages of the Third World War. They may be right. Time will tell.

Right or not, I think that the culture of received wisdom, of knee-jerk reactions, and pre-formulated judgement is doing fundamental harm to us all, personally, locally and at a world level.

Do I have a solution? Yes, as a matter of fact I do. It’s time we looked once more at our approach, and adopted slower, older forms of wisdom. In biblical terms, God reserved vengeance to Himself but gave us the grace of sharing the virtue of forgiveness with Him. Don’t look to punish, look to heal. Reverting to that practice is the easiest, surest cure for the ills of the world, at all levels. And, sadly, the hardest lesson to learn.

 

Every little detail

Tuesday July 19, 2005

A happy, rather odd day, when the weather broke, a strong, cooling wind came up, and Dolly and I were much more comfortable than of late.

When I woke I did my morning stretches, found my body just a little less willing than my spirit and announced to a distinctly disinterested Dolly that I had no intention of going out anywhere.

“I pushed it enough yesterday, Dolly,” I said. “Today I think I deserve a bit of a rest.”

“Tell me about it,” Dolly’s body language said as she groomed herself after a hearty breakfast, getting ready for a hard day’s sleep.

So I did my morning essentials, including a phone call to the Ford dealer to tell them I want to take up the three-year GAP insurance offer when I collect the new car in a few day’s time. Then I looked at the pile of paper I have to search through and put in order before I can call the Council to tell them I’m living here on my own now and that I want the additional Council Tax deduction for sole occupancy. Needs doing, but it’s a task that didn’t fit in with the general concept of a rest day. I’ll do that tomorrow.

To the piano for a grimly diligent practice session—six times round Mr Smallwood’s Daily Exercises, followed by three Furry Lizas—and then, as a small reward, several tries at I’ve got to sing a torch song, doing well enough on the singing to feel quite good about it but failing satisfactorily to work out a piano accompaniment. There’s a trick to this self-accompaniment thing that I haven’t discovered yet. When I do, I shall work at it, hard.

Another good stretch, followed by lunch and my afternoon siesta. The temperature had dropped noticeably by this time, quite sufficient to warrant turning off the bedroom fan and pulling the cover over myself.

When I woke, it was to find the wind dropping away rapidly and the sky filling with black clouds.

“Whoops, Dolly,” I said. “I think I’d better get this coffee down quick and go cut the grass.”

She wasn’t much interested. Oh, she graced me with one open eye from the heap of tangled flotaki that is a sleeping Dolly, and there was more affection than scorn in her expression, but she didn’t answer, and didn’t move.

Outside I discovered that the wind had blown over the young photinia tree in its pot by the front of the house. What to do? The rather lovely, vigorous thing has grown too tall for the pot but is already far too heavy for me to contemplate repotting. It’s destined to be planted out when we get our next garden. I need to think hard about this but, for the moment, I righted it, tied a loose loop of soft cord around the upper trunk and attached that to the wall. I think the best plan, soon as I can, is to make a timber surround for the pot, fill the space in between with sand or compost, and leave a proper repotting for Graham when he comes home in October.

Then I straightened up, looked at the sky, and decided that a rapid grass cutting really was called for. It wanted another day before it really needed doing so it was an easy job, requiring only two rests while working, and one afterwards. As I sat down outside the kitchen door to finish off the large mug of coffee I’d made to replenish my liquid levels during my breaks, I looked at the sky, to see scudding fleets of heavy black clouds massing overhead. I felt terribly virtuous having done the right thing by my lawns. There was a very brief spatter of rain, evaporating almost instantly as the drops hit the pavement, and then it stopped, the sky cleared, and there was no sign of rain to be seen once more.

“Darn it,” I said to a passing magpie. “That’ll teach me.”

Magpies don’t speak of course, unlike ravens, but it’d probably have replied along the lines of “Nevermore” as it flew on to whatever mischief was in its wicked little mind.

By the time I’d washed up the pangs of hunger hit me so I slung an early dinner together and pigged out on pork, potatoes and green vegetables. Shortly after that someone notched the gravity switch up to max. and there was nothing for it but to take myself off for another sleep.

I knew it was foolish. I should have fought and won the battle with heavy eyelids. Couldn’t for the life of me see any reason to fight it, though, so I stretched out on the bed, Dolly interrupted her sleep to join me, and we went on to sleep solidly right through from just after seven to about half-past midnight. That’s about a full night’s worth of sleep for me and I found myself bright as a button in the small hours. Again.

“Oh well, Dolly,” I said. “We’ll just have to start tomorrow early.”

The day’s account should end there, of course, but the combination of a good, restful sleep and the quiet of the very early morning hit me and, for no discernible reason, I came suddenly to remember an event from my very early boyhood, one I’ve not documented before. I’ve learned that, when these memories come visiting, I need to write them down right away or they will evaporate, perhaps never to return.

So, I settled down to write the following little story.

The sensitive souls among my readers might find the story uncomfortable, touching gently as it does on the subject of child abuse. So, if you feel you may be among that number, please say “Goodnight, Gracie,” and stop reading now. There’ll be another entry and like as not another story tomorrow. There almost always is.

It was one of those dark evenings in late autumn sometime in the cold, grey years closely following on WWII. Least, they tell us it was cold and grey but, as a boy somewhere between six and nine years of age, I hadn’t known much else. To me it was a leaf-kicking, frosty evening when the street lamps shone and the shadows were thick and exciting. I don’t remember what game it was my mates and I were playing. Could have been Cops and Robbers. Might have been Cowboys and Indians. Could even have been Kill Hitler. Who knows?

It doesn’t matter at this remove. I do remember we were having a good, all kids together harmless bit of fun in the hour or so of grace before we had to go back home. It was much like many other street-playing evenings, so my memory tells me, in a childhood that was filled with such happy times.

If I were to walk back there I could probably place the scene pretty accurately, within a house or two of the row that lined the suburban road. The pollarded plane trees are probably gone now, and the friendly old silver-painted street lamps have likely been replaced by concrete pillars topped with a safe sodium glare, but I reckon I could pick out the spot. Close enough, anyway.

From the dark at the top of the road a tall man came walking towards us. We thought nothing of it, moving aside when he reached us, giving him a cheery “Wotcher, Mister” as he passed.

Except that he didn’t pass. He stopped, smiled, and returned the greeting in a soft, well-educated voice. One with a pronounced foreign accent. The other boys drew back, leaving me to face him. I was a tough little blighter back then. I’d survived the war, and neither shadows nor strangers held any fear for me.

It was a brief, harmless conversation and I remember nothing of it except his enquiry: “Are you boys wearing underpants?”

The other boys pulled further away.

“No,” I said, speaking for myself. “Can’t afford ’em.”

“Let me feel,” he said.

He pulled his glove off and slipped his hand down the front of my short grey flannel trousers. Nothing special. Certainly nothing sexual. Just a quick investigative intrusion, much as I’d had of doctors and nurses all my short life.

“See,” I said as he withdrew his hand. “Told you so.”

I don’t remember his reply. I do remember him smiling again, saying thank you, and handing me a silver sixpence for my trouble. And then off he went down the street, walking from pool to pool of soft lamplight and through the intervening lakes of shadow, round the corner and off out of sight.

“Cor,” said my best friend as the other boys gathered round me. “That was wierd.”

“Nah,” I said. “T’weren’t nuffin. And he gave me a tanner, too. Look!”

“You gonna share it?”

“Nope. I copped the feel. I keep the sixpence.”

There ensued one of those friendly tussles, not quite fights, that kids find such fun. I held on to my sixpence, though and soon enough the game got boring, the cold crept further out of the darkness, and we all went off to our homes, another day’s fun safely accomplished.

I shoved the sixpence surreptitiously into my moneybox but not expertly enough to escape the sharp eye of my mother.

“Where’d you get that, Johnny?” she demanded.

“Oh, some bloke give it me.”

“What for?”

“Dunno. Some grown ups are funny.”

I turned to my train set and began to play quietly under the sitting room table. The warm light from the electric light in the centre of the ceiling filled the room, a small coal fire flickered in the hearth, my father sat reading his Daily Express, handing me the page with the Rupert Bear cartoon on it, and my mother returned to whatever it was she had been doing. My baby brother probably gurgled. He did a lot of that. Hateful little brat he was then, and grew up no better, either.

And, as small boys do, I forgot the whole thing, the encounter in the lamplight, the sixpence, and everything else except the imaginary journey me and my Hornby engine were taking.

It ought all to have ended there, but it didn’t. There was a loud knocking on the front door and my father, grumbling, went to see who it was. A couple of minutes later he ushered a police constable and the parents of two of my mates into the room.

“Did you speak to a man out in the street, Johnny?” my dad asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Nice bloke.”

“Did he do anything to you?” asked the policeman.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, did he touch you in any way?”

I’d already sensed that this was trouble. Any cockney kid has an instinct about trouble. Something to be avoided at all costs.

“Nope,” I answered, brightly. “He gave me a tanner, though.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope. Why?”

“Never you mind. I think we’d better have a word outside, Mr Bailey. You stay there, Sonny Jim.”

And off they all went, my mother and father, the policemen, and the two other parents. A hushed conversation took place outside the front door, one which, to my frustration, I couldn’t hear no matter how hard I pressed my ear to the inside of the door.

“What was all that about?” I asked when my mother and father came back alone.

“Sounds like some of your mates have been telling fibs to their mums and dads,” my father said. “Are you sure nothing bad happened with that bloke?”

“‘Course I’m sure,” I said. “Just a bloke.”

“You stick to that, Johnny,” he said, exchanging a look with my mother. “We don’t want any fuss. Some people get worked up about nothing at all.”

“And you’d better put that sixpence in the collection box on Sunday,” said my mother.

“Alright, Mum,” I said, my fingers firmly crossed behind my back.

And the whole thing was forgotten. I didn’t put the sixpence in the box of course. No cockney kid would have and I certainly didn’t.

There was some whispered comparison of notes between parents over the next few days, but the affair soon fell away for lack of further information. The policeman reappeared the next evening, with one of his mates, and walked up and down the street a couple of times before returning to the warmth of the local cop shop. They repeated the exercise each evening for a couple of further nights, closed the book on the incident, and our street returned to more important issues, like how to feed a young family on a ration insufficient to keep a grown man happy in the ‘good old days before the war’.

I forgot it, too. Oh, years later, it’s popped into my mind now and again, and this evening the whole thing came alive for me once more, perhaps more vividly than ever before. Can’t say it was a major component in my formative years. Just one of those many things that make up the adventures of a small boy on his journey into adulthood.

So, then. The questions. And the hindsight, too, I suppose.

Did they find and punish the offender? No. So far as I know they did try but, in the face of my refusal to say anything, far less identify the bloke, they were on a hiding to nothing. The other boys were too far away to be able to describe him, I imagine, even if they were fool enough to blab to adults about it.

Should they have made more effort to find him? I don’t think so. No lasting good ever comes of a witch hunt. I didn’t think so as a small boy, and I know so now.

Did you know who it was? Not at the time. Shortly afterwards I did, when I saw him in another context. I could have given a sound, accurate description on the night but I didn’t, wouldn’t, and I’m glad about that.

Do you think he should have been punished? No. Didn’t then, and don’t now. It would have destroyed his life. He went on to become a hard-working and dedicated professional man in our town, married, and had several children all of whom went on to similar worthwhile things. He was in his late twenties when the incident took place. His disappearance into the shady world of the ‘sexual offender’ would have been a great loss. As I knew him in later years, in a professional relationship, he was a religious man, in a practical fashion. Any question of punishment or its justification is, so far as I’m concerned, a matter between him and his God.

Would you identify him now? Certainly not. He’s long since dead and nothing worth having would come of it.

Be honest, now. Did it do you any harm? I’ll try. No, I really don’t think it did. I wasn’t frightened by the encounter, and would like as not have forgotten it entirely if it hadn’t been for the fuss made by my foolish pals and their equally foolish parents. I didn’t feel and cannot remember any real sexual content in it. My sexual orientation was already firmly established at that time, and experimented with, and I was happy with it. I was an imaginative child and had my share of nightmares, still do. But this event didn’t and never has figured in them. Not at all. No, honest, I don’t think it harmed me in any way.

Do you have any regrets about it? No. I think I behaved wisely at the time. Wisdom wasn’t one of my main characteristics, then or now, but I’m glad I had the good sense to do what I did in this instance.

Is there a moral to the story? No, of course not. It was just an event, one of those things that happens. No great significance.

Why do you tell the story now, then? Because telling stories is one of the things I do.

What did you buy with the sixpence? Now, that’s a really silly question. You don’t expect me to remember every little detail, do you?

 

It has air conditioning, too

Monday July 18, 2005

Graham was right of course. So was I, though I reckon I had the harder job of it. All he had to do was to be right. I had the job of checking every car in our price range and zeroing in on the right choice.

So, it had to be a Fiesta. I did a jolly good deal, swapping the old Fiesta for a brand new Fiesta 1.4 Zetec Climate. All the specification I wanted except for automatic transmission. It’ll be stick shift for for me for another few years, I’m afraid. Britain hasn’t really caught on to automatic transmission yet, except on big cars. Oh, it’s available on smaller models, but at an extra cost. A big extra cost.

But, it has good, highly effective, low-CFC re-circulating air-conditioning. And I am so looking forward to that.

Actually, I was sold the minute I sat in the driver’s seat, adjusted it for height and rake, tilted the steering wheel to the angle I find most comfortable, adjusted the mirrors (all electric, heated) and turned the key in the ignition. Clever design. Has all the wrap-around snug feel of being in the pilot’s seat of a small modern jetplane. The drive was superb, tight, controllable, plenty of power but docile as a kitten after a big meal when simply pootling along.

I walked away from it in the dealer’s yard, with regret, thinking that it’d be over budget, out of reach, and resigning myself to a nice nearly-new alternative. The salesman went away to consult with his boss, leaving me with a fair-to-average cup of coffee in a large saleroom empty excpet for gleaming new automobiles and one gasping-hot old poet almost but not quite completely out of his element.

To my great delight, when he returned he told me I could have a new one, exactly the same as the one I’d just driven, to the same specification but in ‘moondust silver’ and with a slightly newer level of trim. We shook hands, I slapped my bank card on the counter for the deposit, he disappeared again, to return with the forms and all the details, completely satisfactory. So, ignoring the pounding of my heart, I signed on the dotted lines, and committed.

“When will it be ready?” I asked.

“End of this week, beginning of next. I’ll put the chasers on for you.”

“Fine. Can’t be soon enough for me now that I’ve made my mind up.”

Twelve years ago, when I bought the little blue Ford, that was it. Today, you have to have a meeting with a Ford UK business manager before they’ll let you go. By video conference, yet.

“Hi, Gareth,” I said, breezing in to the private consulting room and taking a seat on the sofa in front of the screen and camera.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“How do you mean?”

“Video conferencing.”

“Oh. Yeah. I worked in computers all my life. I was one of the people who invented this.”

“Ah.”

I do like being ahead of the game.

So, anyway, Gareth and I went through all the fine print of the financial side, much curtailed because I’m paying cash, and the protection required by law in favour of the consumer, and to detect money-laundering. I have one decision to take before collecting the new car and paying the balance and that’s whether or not to opt for an additional bit of insurance, called ‘Guaranteed Asset Protection’ which, for a single up-front premium, means that the write-off payment made by my insurers in the event of a serious accident will be made up immediately and without question by UK Ford to the full amount I paid originally. This guarantee last for three years and, given the design of modern cars with all their crumple-zones and the current standard of British Driving Lunacy, appeals greatly. I shall consult my pillow on that one.

When I told him the news Graham was surprised and delighted. I got a well done! which was greatly appreciated. Dolly seemed happy enough, too, when I told her that our trip down to Somerset would be in a reliable car, with lovely cool airconditioning.

And then, completely and utterly knackered by my day’s work, I toddled off for a late and extended siesta.

I got it done, though. And that in spite of it being yet another stinking hot day when all my instincts urged me to stay home in the cool.

Ok. Here’s to another decade of trouble-free motoring. I shall be in the region of seventy-six years of age when the new car comes to the end of its maximum practical life and I need once more to face the problem of choosing another new car. I’ll tackle that one when, and if, I come to it.

Oh. Did I mention? The new car has air conditioning, too.

 

…just like the pilot’s seat in a small jetplane

 

The little silver Ford

 

If Noel Coward could do it…

Sunday July 17, 2005

“My brain hurts!” I wailed into the telephone.

“Why? What have you been up to?”

“Researching cars. I hate cars. I’d quite forgotten how much I hate cars.”

“What have you looked at, then?”

“Ford, Citroen, Renault, Suzuki…”

“And?”

“Each time I locate a model I like the sound of I read the reviews and discover the snags. So, rather than evaluating cars, I’m evaluating snags. And I don’t like it.”

“Forget it, then. Do what you did last time and buy a Fiesta.”

“That’s probably the best approach. But I have to go through the motions.”

“You’re just a glutton for punishment.”

“True. Unhelpful, but true. Anyway, how’s tricks down in Somerset?”

And so the conversation turned to more pleasant, everyday matters. When I put the phone down I felt better but the problem hadn’t gone away.

The truth of it is that I have almost zero interest in cars. Cars are the main love of many people, and general motors the mainstay of conversation after sex, politics and houses. Hey ho. Seems at the moment I’m doomed to be concerned with houses and cars, circumstances being what they are. Should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose. I was brought up never to discuss sex and politics in public so at least I’m free of those concerns.

See, a car is, ultimately, boring. I have one, can’t manage out in the sticks without one, but I have absolutely no interest in them beyond that. Nasty, smelly, noisy, polluting money-pits, that what cars have always been to me. My own car, the little blue Ford, has been a faithful servant but I don’t think of it as a personality, just a convenience. I shall be sad when I lock the door for the last time and walk away from it, but truth to tell, within a week I’ll have forgotten it. And within a fortnight the new one, whatever it may be, will have started accumulating dust and dirt just like the old one. I don’t believe in cleaning cars. Gives them ideas above their station, does excessive cleaning.

Even so, as the evening cooled down after another stinking hot day, I opened up the garage, and set to the task of cleaning the inside of the little blue Ford. Tomorrow, or the day after, I shall put it through the car wash and go off to buy a car. The book value of the old one is just about zero now, certainly not justifying a proper valeting, but I do need for honour’s sake to be able to screw a bit of cash from the dealer for it, and to be able to drive it onto his forecourt, leave it there, and drive away in the new one.

In a couple of weeks it’ll all be over. Can’t wait.

After my shower I sat down to the piano and fumbled through another of those old songs we used to sing. Singing is good. Singing raises the spirits. Especially if you’re the one doing the singing, belting out the words regardless of quality. Too late to do anything about the quality, so I concentrate on the quantity these days. A sort of ‘never mind the quality, feel the volume’ approach to singing. Just as well my study is out of earshot of neighbours.

It’s a good old song, though:

 

Flee as a bird to your mountain, thou who art weary of sin; Go to the clear flowing fountain where you may wash and be clean. Haste, then, th’avenger is near thee; call, and the Saviour will hear thee; He on His bosom will bear thee; O thou who art weary of sin, O thou who art weary of sin.   He will protect thee forever, wipe every falling tear; He will forsake thee, O never, sheltered so tenderly there. Haste, then, the hours are flying, spend not the moments in sighing, Cease from your sorrow and crying: The Saviour will wipe every tear, The Saviuor will wipe every tear.   Mrs Mary S.B. Dana (1810-1883)

 

You can really let rip on these old ‘uns, can’t you. I think I may give the Victorian tear-jerkers a miss from now on, though, and turn to some good, sigh-raising Torch Songs. The Sally Army may think they have better tunes than the Devil, who am I to judge, but I have a fancy to try my hand and my cracked voice at something a bit more sinful, like, for instance:

 

I’ve got to sing a torch song   I’ve got to sing a torch song, For that’s the way I feel; When I feel a thing, Then I can sing,  It must be real. I couldn’t sing a gay song, It wouldn’t be sincere, I could never croon A happy tune Without a tear. I have my dreams, but one by one, They vanish in the sky; I try to smile and face the sun, But romance passes by. I’ve got to sing a torch song To someone far apart, For the torch I bear Is burning there, Right in my heart.   Dubin &amp. Warren, from Gold Diggers of 1933

 

Well, if Noel Coward could do it…