No can do

My first job with a proper company (for which read “a company that there was a vague chance my Mum and Dad had ever heard of”) involved handling publicity for a television channel. Life was never dull there, it has to be said. My first staff-only Christmas party made national headlines after another TV channel was pulled off air by drunken revellers messing around among the cables and switches of the transmission suite. Rumours that one reader of this blog cycled a BMX naked through the office (and was woken up the next morning under his desk, and covered in promotional posters) are not entirely wide of the mark.

To be fair, we were all young, foolish and impressionable, and the availability of free drink at showbiz parties led to a number of embarrassing moments for everyone over the course of a few years. I once knocked over a DJ’s decks at a party attended by all the great and good of the British press, causing the music to screech to a halt much to the displeasure of at least one national newspaper editor. I can’t even begin to describe the reaction when I knocked the decks over again ten minutes later.

For some reason though, the occasion that always sticks with me is the time I spent what seemed like an eternity telling Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates fame) that I was a huge fan of the band and that I owned everything that they’d ever recorded. I didn’t even have one of their singles, let alone the complete Hall & Oates oeuvre, so I have no idea what was going through my mind. But I must have been a little too convincing, as after about ten minutes of Brit Out Of Water-style sycophancy, I noticed Daryl nervously looking over my shoulder in an attempt to attract the attention of anyone who might be able to rescue him from the grip of someone who clearly had stalkerish tendencies. Even writing this now, I feel the shame come flooding back.

Now Daryl’s having the last laugh though. The Special One and I have been moving house for the last few days, surrounded by boxes and making impromptu trips to DIY shopshome improvement stores like Lowe’s in order to get things for my new ‘man shed’. And wherever I go, whether it’s a coffee shop or a department store, I swear that the only piece of music I hear is “Kiss On My List” by Hall & Oates. I must have heard it six times in the last three days, creating the worst earworm in the history of earworms.

Personally I think Daryl Hall has found out where I’m living, and is following me around with a copy of the band’s greatest hits in his pocket. He’s waited for his revenge, and now he’s slowly going to send me insane.

Still, at least it’s not REO Speedwagon, eh?

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