The teacher that ran our school football team was ahead of his times; he made us warm up before a match. We would do stretches and shuttle runs. Our opponents would mock us for this ridiculous new science. Nowadays only a fool doesn’t warm up. Even our five-a-side team of crocks bend their arthritic bones before an important fixture.
It’s not just sports that you need to prepare your organs for the big event. Vocalists have to exercise their tonsils by tuning up with a scale of doh, ray, me, fah, soh, la, ti (at this point the joker in the band will stand on the singer’s toes) DO-TOH.
Old cars had to be warmed up. You had to choke them.
Even writing blogs needs a warming hand. Your fingers hover over that big, empty page like a skier at the top of the piste. 1,2,3 you’re off, banging the keys until you reach the bottom.
Sometimes you make gold, other times…
Boadicea's Chariot 
“Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re a fool in love
Sometimes you’re the louisville slugger
Sometimes you’re the ball
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you’re going lose it all”
The Bug
© M. Knopfler
OZ
Cracking song/video, OZ. I know you’re a big fan of “The Straits”. Let’s get it on the record that The “Knopfler” is one of the multitude of famous Weegies that inhabit this planet.
Was that a head start or a drawback? 😎
JW – As a birthday gift the NSW took me up to Lisbon one hot summer evening last year to see the man live at the Parque das Poetas in Oeiras. We had VIP seats centre of the arena eight rows back from the stage and it was one of the best evenings ever. Oddly enough, in my younger days I always had MK down as being Geordie, but I excused the Weegie bit and still do because he really is a bit good.
I am holding my breath for an appearance by Gilmour and/or Waters at the MEO arena on the banks of the Tejo. Both together would be more than a bit special and I would crawl all the way from The Cave to get there.
OZ
OK, Royalist laddie, you’re right – but his Mum was English, his Dad was Hungarian, and they moved back to England when he was 7, so not much of Glasgie rubbed off on him, thank the Lord.
Only kidding. 🙂
Now that’s what you call a birthday present, OZ. Smashing. Gilmour’s last release, Rattle That Lock, was a fine record.
OK, now onto Bearsy.
Us backwater chappies have to grab any tenuous link to fame to big up our city. Of course, we still have the Young brothers of AC/DC to brag about, no matter what you might say. They kick with the right foot.