Yesterday I went to have my nails done in one of my sporadic ‘yikes! I really need to get myself looking normal’ grooming fits. The ‘technician’ [for fuck’s sake] soon struck up a conversation with me about the music station playing, Magic TV.
I am a bit of a fan of Magic FM, often tuning it in on a Sunday morning, or when I am having a relaxing evening bath, or other occasions when the frenetic pace of Xfm, with their playlists of The Kaiser Chiefs et al seems inappropriate, or the calming drone of ‘Women’s Hour’ a tad soporific. I am not a fan, however, of dull, forced conversations, and have been known to spend a whole two hours glowering from under my fringe at hairdressers attempting to strike up a conversation with me with such original gems as ‘Are you going anywhere nice on your holidays?’, ‘Got any plans for the weekend?’ and ‘Weather looks like its going to turn out nice.’
I tried to let her outpouring of banality wash over me (under normal circumstances I would have been digging my finger nails into my palms in exasperation), and was struggling to contort my face into something resembling friendly attentiveness, when she commented on a Bryan Ferry song, saying ‘Now, play your average Will Young song in 25 years time and no one will feel this sort of nostalgia’. As she paused for breath, the song came to an end to be replaced by an ad for that little twat of a Crazy Frog.
I took the opportunity to vent some of the spleen and spume some of the bile her wittering had caused to build up, by directing it instead at the television, commenting that while I didn’t know how the cacophony could have outsold Coldplay four to one, I didn’t think much to Coldplay’s offering anyway. Her response caused me to have to exercise such control over my facial expression that my hands shook with laughter, and I still have a little chip mark in my otherwise immaculate ‘Notting Hill’ coloured nails.
‘It’s because most of our youngsters are listening to this that they’re all on ASBOs’, she said. ‘Take those kids who hung [sic] that boy up in Yorkshire….’ I blocked out her voice by paying full attention to the amphibian oddity.
I am so glad to see that, despite being bombarded with such music, my technician has managed to keep her powers of reasoning intact. The moral fabric of our society is safe.