"Oh I say it's tough, I have had enough..."

I've said it before, and I shall say it again (Yes. You certainly, tediously have - Ed.): you can keep your fairytales of Noo Yawk, or "It's Chriiiiiistmas" Sladeisms - the finest, most emotive festive pop song of all is...
Well...
You just can't beat a lyric like:
"Dub-a-dub-a-dum-dum,
Dub-a-dub-a-dum,
Dub-a-dum-dum
Dub-a-dum
Dub-a-dub-a-dum...
Dub-a-dub-a-dum-dum,
Dub-a-dub-a-dum,
Dub-a-dum-dum
Dub-a-dum
Dub-a-dub-a-dum..."

That is, a Christmas classic that very nearly wasn't a Christmas song at all.

Oh, and which I dutifully massacred tonight, at The Dignity's final pre-Christmas Sunday-night-is-music-night Night, along with "Blue Christmas" (and, er, less festively, The Feeling's Supertramptastic "Fill My Little World" and my own notatalltastic "The Morning After"...)

Well, I got through 'em all, and the Jona Lewie closer, eventually realising the whoops and cheers from the corner were more to do with the folks on the foosball table than my own renditions and reception...

Ah, if only I'd had the appropriate, accompanying Sally Army band for said "Stop The Cavalry"...

Ah (again), that reminds me... Perhaps it was sound enough, how I managed to (just about) remember all appropriate lyrics, when for the past nine days the only songs heading relentlessly around my head have been "A Bushell And A Peck" and "Follow The Fold" from Guys And Dolls, nine days after oh-so-belatedly seeing the West End production with EastEnders rapist Trevor in the strangely-under-singing Sinatra role, an understudy looking like Stephen Mangan in Marlon's, hugworthy ex-Emmerdale redhead Amy Nuttall banishing all pretty thought of Jean Simmons and Nineties-teen-obsession Samantha Janus a-choo-choo-chooing sexily as Miss Adelaide...

Ah yes, the Sally Army. Might have done mightily fine tonight, but perhaps I have finally banished "Follow The Fold" from mind (".. stray no more. stray no more - put down the bottle and we'll say no more..."...? Hm...)

I realise I haven't kept up to my own schedule and reviewed my own, latest-before-tonight's-latest-one gig, at the Fiddlers Elbow a few Sundays ago (not actually Kentish Town, more Chalk Farm but even perhaps, that magical Camden...) Well, it went okay, and I got through a few old songs, a few hesitant new'uns, and covers of "Every Night" by Sir Macca, and "I Must Be In Love" by The, er, Rutles...

And a good-ish-enough time was had by all. I hope. Should really head back there, in fact, at least for the stunning and friendly Russian barmaid, and maybe for such bands as whose names were pasted over the walls (alongside my own, happily-correctly-spelled) including the appallingly-titled Conspiracy Of Flightless and the intriguingly-monikered Drink-Fuelled Violence...

God bless us, every one.