I apologise, I really do

Was through at the baptism of our good mates' baby today. For a heathen agnostic like myself it's quite weird to set foot inside a church for a proper sevice. My only brushes with religion in recent years have been various weddings, which everyone knows don't really count.

I managed to resist the urge for a well-timed heckle during one particularly dry piece of sermonising. I also successfully stifled my guffaws at a reading that included a line to the effect of "Jesus bade the children come to him, so that he could touch them". Innocent paediatricians have been burned-out of housing estates in Portsmouth by raging yokels for a lot less than that.

Anyway, it wasn't actually that bad. It was dry inside the cathedral and the choir and organ music were rather good. Cannae beat a wee blast of Mozart on the big pipes. Does anyone else find though, that these days you've lost the power of song? Seems like when I was a kid I was pitch-perfect singin' some dogma-tinted weirdness all the doo-long-day. Now I couldn't carry a tune if it was wrapped in a blanket. Especially during unfamiliar songs, by the time I find the right register to stop fearfully miming along and actually let a weak, strangulated croak escapy my larynx, the hymn is generally well into its final stanza.

But never mind all that. Went round to our friends' house afterward for a glass o' bubbly and some scran. I was dressed fairly smartly if I say so myself, sporting a new pair of trousers I bought a couple of weeks ago. Now I might add that these breeks could in no way be construed as tight. No sir, not from any aspect. Indeed, I had rather swithered about buying them at all, as I reckoned they might be a tad on the baggy side.

The living room was relatively crowded with genteel, middle aged friends and family so I steadied my plate of salad and sarnies and made to sit cross-legged on the floor. In a nanosec, those wooly grey bastards let out a rasp and split from crotch to left knee. To paraphrase the earlier sermon, thank Christ I was wearing underpants! My hairy white thigh was more than embarrasing enough.

At least I was among friends and didn't have to catch a train home or anything. Gave everyone a good laugh too.

I safety-pinned it so I didn't get arrested on the short walk to the car.



A tune for today:
Levi Stubbs' Tears - Billy Bragg
see what I did there? ;-)