We had a lovely evening with lots of tunes and the singing was mostly left to Dick, Dave and Rosie because Steve had a bug (& sent his apologies) and Karen's sore throat and croaky voice meant she couldn't sing.  It was great to see occasional regulars Roger R, Paul (melodeon) and Tony H (accordian).

Delia helped out the singing with the lovely 3 Knights from Spain, which apparently used to be a skipping song.  We look forward to hearing more songs from her.  Stuart bravely tried to remember a Vin Garbutt song about the oil industry after hearing Dave's Oil song but unfortunately had to give up because of a short burst of song from one of the locals (!) in the bar which completely put him off his stride.  The local responded appropriately when asked to be quiet but the damage had been done - memory being a fragile thing! 

It was lovely to hear some more of Dave's own songs - he most have written a lot now - e.g. The Albatross.  Vicky (who was too poorly to come out) will be very disappointed to hear she missed Dave singing the Egg-sized Man (exciseman) song and there was some hilarity as the shaky eggs appeared.  Roger R (who sang the lovely Fred Astaire by Clive Gregson) came for part of the evening and was then replaced by John.  Both these boys gave us some humour - Roger gave us something about the Bush in Australia - was it really called that?  about women - and John gave us his own monologue Scarborough Unfair about the Orpheus Choir's trip where 2/3 of the members got the noro virus at the hotel and the event culminated in the bus driver also succombing - very funny!  Humour was also supplied by Dick (the Portuguese and man in the Moon), Rosie (Norfolk's Can't Do Nothing Anymore)  and by Dave's Smoking and Drinking song about the man who squanders what's left of his money after dedicating the rest of his purchasing power to smoking, drinking, gambling and women!

We had some wonderful tunes from Tony (TH), Paul, Roger M (RM), Dave (DH) and Alan & Rosie (A&R)- some of which were - polkas Cap Bings, Peg Ryan, Maids of Ardagh (A&R), Oranges in Bloom, 7 Stars (swiftly adjusted to G so the melodeons & concertina could join in ), Jack Robinson (RM), The Kelso, Linda McFarlane (Paul), Asley's Ride, Buttered Peas, Cotillion, Lamoreisse (?) (TH), Old Tom (DH).

One of the highlights of the evening was Rosie singing Across the Universe which had featured heavily on the radio as it was 40 years old this week and had apparently been played in unison by NASA and many radio stations across the world - some sign of international cooperation being possible then!  Alan postured that it may or may not be coincidental that the Beatle's Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died Tues 5th Feb aged 91.

We look forward to having Steve and Karen back with some of their songs next week - they are missed on the choruses as well as for their own songs.  At TJ O'Reilly's next week, at The Prince Albert the week after that.....see you there

PS = there is a tune session on Mon 11th Feb in the bar at The Seven Stars, Knowl Hill.