If I should die..........

There’s a programme on BBC Radio 4 which has been running week in week out since 1942! If you are reading this in the UK you’ll know what I’m referring to, (no, not the Sooty Show!).  It’s called Desert Island Discs. For the uninitiated, each week a personality / celebrity / boffin /  star / politician /chav / really nice person has to choose the eight pieces of music they’d most like to have with them if they found themselves alone on a deserted palm fringed hump of sand in the middle of the ocean. Such practicalities as an electrical supply and a convenient gramophone are overlooked, but this is after all a fantasy. The thing is, such a catastrophic event is hardly likely to befall the great and the good who weekly state their carefully selected preferences. The nearest I came to it, was when my hired rowing boat developed a leak and I had to make for the little island in the middle of the pond much to the chagrin of the resident duck and his good lady drake. If I’d suddenly played them eight tunes they'd have thought I was quackers!

There is however one event which will befall us all, and one at which pieces of music are almost certainly going to play a part. I refer of course to our funeral. No doubt our friends and family think they know where our taste lies in matters musical, and it is more than likely that they’ll accidentally on purpose miss out the tunes that don’t float their boat. But I honestly feel that as it’s our last time at a family get together, we should at least be allowed to choose the farewell tracks. Let’s face it, getting them to appreciate them when we were living was difficult enough; just for once we’ll have a captive audience and the upper hand, so they’ll simply have to listen like it or not! So I think everybody should put together a list of bits of music, no matter how much you think it might bore the pants off those present. After all it’s your last chance to take centre stage, so go for it! You could be ploughed down by a bus tomorrow.

I suppose I should have given a little thought to the task before telling you about it, so I’ll beg your forbearance as I go through my record collection to find a few tracks which will send me on my way rejoicing, and remind others how lucky they are that I am finally setting off to that great music hall in the sky.

As they say in those tacky low budget adverts, watch this space! I'll be picking out a few of my favourites, so why don't you join me in this final act of unadulterated indulgence!