Pop Shield

It’s Wednesday afternoon at the Nations Favourite. It’s been an eccentric environment today, as ever it is. I enjoy my first ice cream of the season, bought by Suzy Travel who has just been ‘wadded up big time’ by Dave Wrong. Next door Bette Wilde has just won five thousand on the lottery.

At the end of my show, I catch the lift from the top floor. Halfway down the lift doors are held open by a tall man I don’t recognise but he seems pretty friendly. ”You in or out?” I quip. ”In!” he replies, “but I got a few more for you! You’re not in a hurry, are you?”

“Of course not” I reply.

“Say, are you Little Sister or Nates Fave?” He asks, stalling for time. ”Actually both” I reply, “I’m an engineer, so I get around.”

“Oh great!” he says. Whereupon a hoard (perhaps ‘a flight case’ is the collective term?) of ageing US country musicians plus their entourage pile into the lift. I suspect it’s The Falcons. From the look of them, they’ve seen a bottle of whiskey or two in their lifetimes.

The doors close. “Hey everyone!” says the tall guy. ”We’re riding here today with a bona fide corporation engineer!” By their expressions, they, quite understandably, don’t look overly impressed. But there’s possibly plastic surgery involved here, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. In any case, they offer to me their hands of friendship. Unfortunately, there really isn’t enough elbow room in here for me to be shaking hands with everyone but hey, this is happening. I do my best in view of the fact that I’m being introduced to some potentially reluctant Falcons in a small packed moving box which is short on cat-swinging space.

The tall guy is unstoppable. “Meet The Falcons! This is Tommy T. Engine! And here’s Jeff James!”

A very short man in the party stares straight ahead of him. This happens to be at my chest. It’s not helping matters. I probably haven’t felt quite this awkward at work since the day that I inadvertently embroiled Martin Larsen in small-talk about my dad’s toilet-reading habits. Or the time I had to carry The Jones’ Brothers guitar out onto the street right behind them into a sea of fans and paps then someone let off a stink bomb. Or when I was quietly trying to calibrate some audio kit in a communal area and – the next thing you know – I’m inexplicably having to escort the brat child of glamour model Syria to the fifth-floor men’s toilets. Whereupon he audibly starts kicking off in there on his own and I’m not entirely sure whether to go in…oh dear, the list is endless…

Anyway. Back to the story. We’ve reached the ground floor and The Falcons gesture to me to step out first even though I’m at the back of the lift. And I’m out. I manage to disentangle myself from the party and bid them all good evening.

The Nations Favourite elevator. You can check out, but you can never leave…