Miners' Gala, Bastille Day, and much more

Glamorgan: Derek's cricket team

A better turn-out this week, thanks in large part to the entourages brought by new regular, Joe and old friend, Jan. An encounter with a globe artichoke caused me to be slightly later than I like to be, but not so late as to miss Mike's opening song, Derby Ram.

Derek was the first to find a date-appropriate song, pointing out that if she were present, Pat would no doubt be the first to shout out that 12 July is the day of the Durham Miners' Gala (correctly pronounced "gay-lah"). In recognition of the date he, Derek, sang Jock Purdon's The Cotia banner.

We were pleased to see Paul and Carl for the third time in four weeks - keep it up lads. Paul entertained us with his own guitar compositions, as usual most without title, although "OFG - Old, fat and grey - self portrait" made a reappearance.

Carl demonstrated his impressive guitar playing, both instrumentally, as in his own Rosa, composed while in Portugal and showing flamenco influences, and accompanying his singing, as in David Gates' If. He also joined Joe in an excellent, considering it was unrehearsed, jazzy version of Summertime. The answer to how this club got away with Summertime twice in three weeks when it is one of Maggie S's least favourite songs is that both times she was well out of the room at the time. There were threats to sing it again, or to perform her other pet-hate, Danny boy, but luckily they did not come to fruition.

Joe's other contribution of the evening was his a song he wrote himself, called Immodium, sung as a duet with Mike to the tune of Fields of Athenry.

Colin had mentioned that he was grateful to Gary for his first song, and had just started to sing it: Don Freed's Being a pirate, when Gary himself walked in to the room. When Colin had finished the verses he had gleaned from Mudcat, Gary asked why he has missed out the last verse. Gary proceeded to sing the verse which was absent from the website: "Being a pirate is all fun and games, 'til somebody loses a head...". Jan and her friend both claimed innocence and asked to be told what the "wotsit" cited in one verse as a missing member might be. Gary quickly came up with an alternative verse about losing a "thing", saying that "wotsit" was clearly a euphemism for that. The angelic ladies still claimed confusion, and the matter was allowed to rest.

Simon, like Derek, came up with a vaguely date appropriate song, pointing out that Monday would be 14 July: Bastille Day. Since he has only one French song worth singing, he sang Chevalier de la table ronde.

Occasional visitor, and old friend of the club, Jan's first song was Bonnie Koloc's Roll me on the water. More of Jan later in this report.

As has happened for the last few weeks, at the start of this week's session, Derek asked Simon to keep an eye on his iPhone for results of Glamorgan's 20:20 cricket match. Despite growing up in Suffolk, apparently Derek has supported Glamorgan since the age of 5, more in hope than expectation, it would seem. Anyway, after a loss, and an abandonment without a ball bowled (due to rain), in recent weeks, this week was a win for Derek's team against Surrey, by four whole runs! "A famous win", as it was described on the web; "a miracle" as it was described by Derek. To mark the occasion, Gary sang Roy Harper's When an old cricketer leaves the crease.

On Jan's request and, it seemed, with some trepidation, Mike attempted, and triumphed with Leon Rosselson's World turned upside down.

The awards for lowering the tone this week have to go to Derek, for Ned Flanagan's gander, and to Jan, for the closing song. To be fair though, it was only after much pleading and cajoling that Jan sang The chastity belt.

Here's a selection of these and other songs sung during the session.

(Number of people present - 15, of which 9 performed)