Chopin 'n' Chips

This week my daughter will sit her grade 2 piano exam. Thankfully for her, she has inherited none of the musical abilities of her parents, so stands a good chance of passing.

She has learned to play on an old, but very nice piano that we inherited from her grandfather. She has persevered bravely with her practice, as the piano now desperately needs tuning again. For some reason, I’ve been putting off getting a tuner to come round, mainly, I think, due to a strange experience I had the last time it was tuned.

I can only describe it as surreal. It started normally enough, if a little busy in the Bogsey household. We were getting some lights fitted in the kitchen by an electrician who was a friend’s partner. On the same day, I had arranged for the piano to be tuned. Keen to have some lunch, but unable to access the kitchen, I had hit upon the great idea of visiting the local chippy, an idea which had gone down well with the electrician.

So, I found myself sitting down to a chip butty lunch with an electrician, his head covered in plaster dust – either that or a very bad case of dandruff. It was at this point that the piano tuner finished his work, and decided to enjoy the results with an impressive recital. It could so easily have been the start of a gay porn movie – “My, what a big toolbox you have…do you want to use the back door?” etc.

Which reminds me of when Mrs B and I were explaining what ‘gay’ means to my son, who was just six at the time, but not too young, we thought, for a bit of birds and bees / ying and yang / how's your father straightforward sex education. Taking it all in, he paused a while and with a cheeky grin asked “So, does that mean Homer Simpson is a homer-sexual?”