Memorable moments: The urinal overture

A couple of years ago, I went to watch a Nirvana cover band with a group of my hiking friends. Among us was Srini, a wonderful chap originally from India. Srini is a brilliant man, but as English is not his first language, his phrasing can occasionally take a detour into the unintentionally hilarious.

The band was incredible—pure, high-octane energy. The lead singer was giving it his all, thrashing around the stage until the sweat was literally dripping off him. When the band took a well-earned ten-minute break, the venue was buzzing.

Srini headed off to the loo and found himself standing at the urinal right next to the lead singer. The performer was still panting, drenched in the after-effects of a frantic set. Srini, being the friendly soul he is, wanted to acknowledge the man’s Herculean effort. He intended to say something sympathetic like, "Wow, you must be thirsty!"

Instead, he turned to the singer and asked in a polite, conversational tone:

"Hi, are you feeling thirsty?"

In the dimly lit, sweat-soaked atmosphere of a pub bathroom, the phrasing landed with a very different resonance than Srini intended. The lead singer froze, clearly convinced he was being hit on in the middle of a private moment.

He didn't stick around to discuss his hydration levels. He made a bewildered, hasty retreat, leaving Srini standing there, entirely unaware that he had just accidentally auditioned for the role of the band’s most forward groupie.

Memorable moments: The grocer’s growl

In my neighborhood, there is a local grocer I visit almost every day. It’s run by a delightful Greek family—Vula, Steve, and their two sons, Dennis and Peter. They are the salt of the earth. Dennis, in particular, has always struck me as a gentle, quiet soul. He has a peaceful vibe and, notably, even less hair than I do.

When my friend Yogi and I heard that Dennis was the lead vocalist for a band, we were charmed. We imagined a night of smooth crooning or perhaps some laid-back, chilled-out acoustic numbers in accordance with his mellow personality. We decided to head down to the local pub to support him and the family.

We walked into the back room where the performance was starting. Vula, Steve, and Peter were already there, beaming with pride. Dennis stepped up to the microphone, took a deep breath, and suddenly:

"RAAAAAGH!!!!!"

He let out a guttural, earth-shaking bellow like a demented beast from the underworld. The band crashed in with a deafening, distorted roar that felt like a physical blow to the chest. It turns out Dennis isn't a crooner; he’s the frontman for a high-octane Death Metal band.

The room transformed instantly into a sea of pumping vitality. The audience began thrashing and headbanging in a synchronized frenzy, and within sixty seconds, my ears were ringing with the force of a jet engine.

I beat a hasty retreat to the toilets, grabbed two massive wads of tissue paper, and performed a quick "field dressing" on my ears and Yogi’s to filter the noise down to a survivable level.

Once the initial shock wore off and the volume was somewhat muffled by the toilet paper, I actually started to get into it. There was an incredible, raw energy to the performance.

Now, whenever I go into the shop, I see Dennis in a completely different light. As he gently weighs my tomatoes and asks about my day, I can’t help but smile, knowing that beneath that calm, bald exterior lies a man who spends his weekends screaming into the abyss—and that the abyss, quite clearly, screams back. It’s a beautiful reminder that you should never judge a man by his apron; he might just be a grocery clerk by day and a demonic deity by night.

Memorable moments: The logistical symphony

One evening, Ivor and I went to watch his little daughter perform at a school music evening. It was one of those classic parental milestones, but the physics of the event were spectacularly skewed.

When it was her turn, she appeared on stage looking tiny and delicate—followed by an adult lugging a cello that was quite clearly three times her size. It looked less like a musical instrument and more like a large wooden wardrobe she was expected to wrestle into submission.

What followed was a masterclass in slow-motion preparation. It took a solid twenty minutes of intense focus just to get the logistics right: the chair was adjusted, the music stand was maneuvered, the endpin was stabbed into the floor, and she spent an eternity shifting into the "exactly right" anatomical position to accommodate the giant mahogany beast.

Finally, after the Herculean setup was complete, she took a breath, gave what seemed like exactly three deliberate strokes of the bow, and... it was over. The performance lasted about thirty seconds. The ratio of "preparation" to "actual music" was mathematically absurd.

But she was absolutely adorable, and despite the comical brevity of the piece, Ivor was beaming. He was the picture of the proud father, unmoved by the fact that the setup had taken forty times longer than the symphony.

Watching Ivor that night, I realized that pride has nothing to do with the length of the performance. It’s about the twenty minutes of watching someone you love negotiate a truce with a giant wooden beast for the sake of three perfect notes.

Memorable moments: The profane pharaoh

At school, it was boys only—so naturally, boys had to play the female roles. For reasons no one ever fully explained, I became the go-to woman.

I played everything from anxious mothers to dramatic widows, but the peak was an elderly spinster on a plane who foils a hijacking attempt. I studied my gran for days—her posture, her voice, the way she pursed her lips at mild disapproval. It worked. I won the annual acting award.

But by my final year, I’d had enough.

“Bugger this,” I thought. “I want a masculine role.”

We were doing Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, and I went straight for Pharaoh—the Elvis-style showstopper. Pelvic thrusts. Swagger. Power. Redemption.

Opening night: I cycled onto stage in padded cycling shorts (for reasons that made sense at the time), grabbed the microphone, and launched into full Elvis mode. The thrusts were… enhanced. The crowd loved it. Slight complication: my gran was in the second row, witnessing the entire evolution of her observational study in reverse.

But it was a triumph. Overnight, I went from deeply uncool to oddly legendary among the younger boys.

Then came the final night.

I cycled on. Big entrance. Huge energy. Grabbed the wired microphone… and nothing.

Silence.

Without thinking, I whispered loudly, “Switch on the effing microphone!”

At which exact moment… it switched on.

My voice boomed through the entire hall.

There was a stunned pause.

Then the biggest laugh of the entire show.

I set out to prove I was a man's man; I ended up proving that if you’re going to swear in front of your grandmother, you might as well do it in padded bike shorts with a backing band.