Counting down in public
When I lived in Jerusalem, I used to take the bus everywhere - something you can't easily do in Saffaland.

Normally, I'd travel with my headphones firmly screwed into my lugs in order to get a bit of peace before starting the day job (running youth groups for 12-year-old protomarxists). On one occasion, Europe's hit "The Final Countdown" popped up on my iPod's shuffle doodah. This is my favourite party song, to my eternal shame.

It was 6.30AM and my brain was in blinky-light, glass-is-half-empty mode. As the first bars of the song came through, my eyes closed, my legs unfolded and my arms raised into the "drunken white boy airguitar" posture.

Then the vocals started and I was off. Gyrating like a fucked washing machine, I played the jesus out of that air guitar. I swear, I was channeling Freddie Mercury and Joey Tempest at the same time.

"This is great," I thought, "these people love me, I just made their lives better".

Grinning, I opened my eyes and looked around, thinking I'd see a sea (ha ha) of happy faces. Instead, I was met with shock, horror and the unmistakable sound of old Russian immigrants grumbling.

It was then that I realised I'd been tunelessly yelling a song that no one understood, and I couldn't hear them trying to shut me up, owing to in-ear headphones and my eyes being shit (and shut).

Oh, the shame...
(Tiktock Beating off flamers with a shitty stick, Thu 27 Jan 2011, 16:10, Reply)