The hills are alive, with the sound of tutting...

See?  SEE?  Music will always ALWAYS make you feel better!

I have just stumbled on the phenomenon of the Complaints Choir. And it's a fascinating thing.  It seems that all you have to do is get together with a few tra-la-la-ing friends, a piano (or accordion if you are east of Prague), find a bit of space in a street, on a roof top, in a theatre and so on...and then you all sing heartily about things that annoy you.

I have found quite a bit of diversion this evening in looking around the performances of international complaints choirs, and discovering what's bugging them.  The Germans are annoyed by a road and complex tax calculations. The Russians about queues and salaries, the Finns about trees being chopped down for loo paper (when there STILL isn't enough loo paper, they warble) and the Chicagoans about all the single men being insane.  The Hungarians seem to me to be having the most fun with their rousing recitals about the annoyingness of Hungary (and why us foreignors use the word goulash. Well, hold on a moment here,  I thought it was Hungarian; it sounds Hungarian...maybe I'll write a song about sneaky words which sound Hungarian and aren't, and sing it right back atcha...) but that the Hungarians would have the most fun is no surprise, as I have long been of the suspicion that the Hungarians ALWAYS have a lot more fun than us (and that's another post).

Of COURSE we have one here and of course it's in Birmingham.  I wondered at first whether that might be in Alabama, but no, the first line of Sung-Brummy makes it very clear where they are... They don't seem to be enjoying themselves - Birmingham's changed, you know, and they don't get paid enough, they sing-  but I hope they are having some fun really, as the whole thing strikes me as a splendid idea.

So much is being said recently about the physical and psychological benefits of singing, and herewith a triple whammy.  You get together with a whole lot of other people (check), get to sing your head off with no real requirement for Talent Proper (check) and you get to let a few moans out into the open (check).

All I need now is for a Proper Psychologist to say it's a great thing, and I'd try and get one going myself.  Why does my milkman sometimes come at 9am when it's too late for cereal and coffee?  Why does he sometimes come at 5am and clash around and  make the dog bark?  Why do people get prosecuted for fighting off burglars in their own homes?  We didn't vote for Gordon, why is he there?  Why does the place round the corner think it can charge 4 quid for two foul tomatoes stuffed with a lump of feta and doused in tabasco?  And so on and so on...

Am off to the piano to compose.