I Will Survive

While commenting on Mr Angry's blog today, I managed to confuse Richard Herring with Stewart Lee. It's an easy mistake to make, especially since they used to have their own TV show, Herring and Lee or something like that.

It appears that I am not alone; many people complain that they still can't tell Ant from Dec (Ant's the one on the left), Dick from Dom (pass) or Sonny from Cher (eek!).


I've done a lot worse. There's a work-related one that I can't tell you about, but let's say the bloke didn't take too kindly to being referred to as Judith Chalmers. In fairness, at that time we'd never met face-to-face.

Then there was the time I catalogued a workmate's record collection on the pooter for him and in thanks he taped a few selected albums for me. I thought, "I like that fit bird off Fleetwood Mac. Now is she Lindsey Buckingham or Stevie Nicks?" They'd both joined the band at about the same time and without a copy of Melody Maker to hand, I honestly didn't know which one was which.

Let's see. Lindsay Wagner is definitely a bird
and Stevie Wonder is a bloke.
But he's blind, so he might just think he's a bloke and really be a bird. Hmmm. Well, you can probably guess what happened next, but in order to pad this out a bit, I'll tell you anyway. I asked him to tape that Lindsey Buckingham, who I really fancy. So at a stroke I labelled myself as a rampant homosexualist¹ and wasted several minutes of my life listening to a really crap album.

Changing the subject only slightly, I do know a bloke who is even less conversant with the modern music scene, man, than what I am. He likes Baroque and Vivaldi and crap like that. Just mention crumhorn or lute within his hearing and he goes all wobbly-kneed. Chaucer's Bitch would probably like him. But he claims to know knothing about popular beat combos, so I asked him if he was conversant with the work of:

• Slow Patrol? Nope.
• The Artex Monkeys? Doesn't ring a bell.
• Acorn? Who?
• The Kaiser Chefs? Uh...no.
• Sierra? Sorry.
• Take That? Take What?
• Fergie? Ah, Prince Andrew's ex?

Finally, in desperation, I said, "Surely you've heard of Simon and Garfunkel?"

"Oh, yes, I've heard of him."

Sigh.

¹Maybe I am a gay? After all, I quite like the Hot Lesbian Action in this Janeway/Seven of Nine clip. Yeah, baby, yeah!