🍻 Thoughts from the Potting Shed 🍻

By Virgil Twobyfour
Part-Time Ponderer, Full-Time Spectator

Well, I have decided that tonight - come what may, upturned tea trays or rampaging goose-orchestra notwithstanding - I shall don my slightly-less-dusty-than-usual cardigan and venture along to the Dog & Fax for their monthly Open Mic Night. It has been too long since I witnessed the peculiar parade of what passes for entertainment in these parts.

Over the years I have seen all manner of brave (or perhaps bewildered) souls mount that tiny stage. One fellow, with a face like a thoughtfully dropped turnip, attempted to recite the shipping forecast as a rap. It was hypnotic, in a strange way - particularly when he rhymed “Fisher” with “My disher.” Another time, a folk singer appeared bearing an instrument he insisted was an “auto-lute-ophone.” It had seven strings, two knobs, a feather duster on one end and a squeaky hinge on the other. No one could quite tell if it was a musical instrument or a rehabilitated cheese grater, but by the third chorus of his ballad about sheep who only dance backwards, nobody seemed to mind.

And let us not forget the belly dancer with an armful of tambourines, whose entire routine was upstaged by Old Mrs Glibber accidentally sneezing so violently that her false teeth skittered across the floor and into someone’s pint. The look on the poor girl’s face was most educational.

Then there was the amateur magician who invited a volunteer onto the stage and promptly made him disappear. The vanished fellow - one Mr Prangle - was last heard sighing from a cupboard and last seen some months later trying to buy a sausage roll at the far end of the next village. Mrs Prangle is holding out hope that, eventually, he’ll remember to come home in time for Christmas. Or at least send a postcard.

Of course, when I was a boy, the entertainment was of a more traditional sort. A rousing sing-along to “The Lincolnshire Poacher,” someone balancing spoons on their nose while someone else played a concertina with one foot, and - if one was very lucky - a dog of uncertain pedigree doing a little jig. Back then, nobody thought to call it an “act.” It was just what happened if you left uncles unattended after one too many pints of scrumpy.

Still, I find myself looking forward to tonight - to seeing what new peculiar talents will emerge like reluctant cabbages after rain. Who knows what marvels might grace the stage? Perhaps someone will read aloud from the village telephone directory in a stirring baritone. Perhaps someone will whistle the entire symphony of chimes from the church clock (it’s been stuck at 3:42 for years and plays “Greensleeves” backwards). Or maybe someone will appear with a mysterious trunk labelled “Dangerous - Do Not Open,” and then proceed to do exactly that while humming the theme to Crossroads.

Regardless of what oddness or minor catastrophe befalls, I shall sip my ginger beer and clap heartily at the appropriate intervals. Because there is something rather splendid - even vital - in watching one’s neighbours brave the limelight and emerge a little dazed but mostly triumphant. And if all else fails, I can offer them a boiled sweet afterwards and gently assure them that, yes, Mrs Prangle’s husband is bound to turn up eventually.

Your ever-encouraging and lightly bewildered neighbour,
Virgil 🎻