In the Saturday before the Saturday before last’s paper – look, I’m a slow reader, I’m not ashamed to admit it (to be absolutely honest, I’m still getting through colour supplements dating back to 1991 [and apparently there’s this thing coming called the Internet, have you heard about it?]) - we were given fifteen suggestions for simple steps to happiness.
They ranged from ideas that were impractical but not completely without sense – ‘Next time you want to take a photograph, draw it instead’ (it makes you really see properly and thus, apparently, realise how incredible the world is) – through to the fringes of the psycho-babble world. They then veered briefly into something very like obscenity, before ending up with this, (my favourite) - the frankly mad:
‘Sing a loud song while putting petrol in your car. People will walk past and smile at you.’
No, look, feel free. Yes, I know I was the one that spotted it, but go ahead and give it a whirl. I really, really do not mind if you try it out before me.
Let me know how it goes though.
Would the song need to praise Mother Earth for blessing us with her bounteous harvest of petroleum?
ReplyDeleteI would choose Arthur Brown's 'Fire':
ReplyDeleteI am the god of hell fire, and I bring you
Fire, I'll take you to burn
Fire, I'll take you to learn
I'll see you burn.
Sure to raise a smile.
I whistle loudly and elaborately while filling my tank (diesel) all the time. Usually Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. And if there are any fetching lasses a-passin' by I give them a nod and a wink to boot, by thunder I do.
ReplyDeleteGadjo - have to look in the Soviet Army songbook for that one, I think;
ReplyDeleteGaw - I had been toying with James Taylor's Fire and Rain or Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash, but yours is the inspired choice;
Brit - v interested to hear what reception you get
Well I haven't been arrested yet.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. All the fetching lasses seem to give me a wide berth when I sing at the petrol pumps, although I once scored with Mattinata while changing the oil.
ReplyDelete