Elbow (not broken) and other tales

Having a broken leg can lead to interesting and diverse conversations

At lunch last week one of my colleagues was relating a tale about her little boy, who is about 7 or 8 I think. Anyway, she was telling him off in the supermarket for some misdemeanour when the little lad wailed back loudly "No please mummy, please don't break my other leg!" Karen said you could hear the waves of silence radiating around the store. Wonderful killer line, for which even under severe later cross-examination he refused to reveal his source. 

And that story led on to this one from another colleague. His sons' primary school thought it would be a good idea to raise money for comic relief if all the little ones told their favourite jokes in public to the parents. Of course, this was always going to be excruciating torment as the world's worst jokes are re-told by the worst joke tellers. But also of course not all little kids really understand jokes. So one little lad who had obviously heard the usual formula of "What do you get if you cross....etc", as meaning it must be a joke  related what he obviously heard at home

Qn    "What do you get if you don't eat your breakfast?"

As    "A slap"

Cue much embarrassed sniggering, and no doubt just embarrassed silence from his parents.

Now here of course is a situation where being a city lawyer helps. Mark was too busy to be able to attend the two hour torture session of juvenile humour. Oh, did I say 2 hours? Only if you had an older child, as the really little ones had their own show before hand. So a suitably wide spread of offspring and you could enjoy 4 hours. Unfortunately, Mark's wife doesn't work and they have 3 sons. I believe she is entering therapy now...

Even as a kid I can remember how awful other kids shows were. Especially the violin recitals. Let's face it, in these straitened financial times, we shouldn't be lobbing expensive cruise missiles into Libya. Just parachute the under 8s strings orchestra into Gaddafi's compound. See how long it takes a violin rehearsal to winkle out the old bloodsucking dictator. But then that namby pamby lot at the UN would never sanction such a thing. Effective, but too cruel and no doubt against the Geneva Convention.

Just got back from very nice weekend with friends in Cheshire. Nice to be fed and watered and generally pampered.  But hard to resist eating and drinking too much, especially as it was their daughter's birthday. (Worrying that she was happy for me to crash her birthday weekend.) At least my present seemed to go down well, a sapphire necklace (well it was her 16th and so I hardly felt I could get away with another Linkin' Park cd) BUT down was the operative word. As she tried to put it on she lost grip on the whole thing and it disappeared entirely down her cleavage. Couldn't have scripted it better for a Carry On film. There just isn't a graceful way to retrieve a delicate piece of jewellery from there.

Anyway, I made it back last night in time to get a cab to the O2 to see Elbow. Very well organised and helpful there. Got a lift up to the first tier and was able to swap my ticket for one in the back row - so I didn't need to go down any steps. Cost me a small fortune in cab fares, but then to put it into perspective, the lady who sat next to me had flown in from Portugal especially for the gig! (and her companion had just broken her leg - yes we were in crocks row.) But brilliant concert and Guy Garvey was on top form as genial front man. Can't believe the band I used to see in pretty small venues has sold out a 20,000 arena 2 nights running. But fair play, their "overnight" success has taken them 20 years.