Voicemale - Not the Chairmans Blog lll

Stop Press; there's good news & there's bad news.

Good news is: its not true after all, Voicemale CAN organise a p*** up in a brewery, two breweries in fact, with a few well-chosen pubs on the way.

Bad news: There's no bog on the bus! Nonetheless, well done Paul and his team for their hard work, at least 20 of us are already salivating over the prospect of 12 hours of non stop drinking/singing.

Well then, numbers were considerably down to only 19 last night, a litany of excuses flooded in on Wednesday, at least 2 members confessed to be in London which I consider simply not good enough. I counted a full house of Bases at 6 including our newest member Malcolm , (and welcome back Will), 5 Baris, 7 Tunes, including Mike J nursing a thumb encased in plaster by French Medics (French Dressing perhaps?) And one Solo Mio Tenor, Nigel. We hammered away at "You Mariners all" for a good ¾ hour of fine tuning in preparation for the 1st gig at Alnwick Brewery, and by the end I think we cracked it.

"Now is the Cool of the Day" chorus proved deceptively complex ( sorry Tens & Baris), and there still remains the absence of the fabled verses Jon insists he will introduce to us sometime. Roll on That Day. We finished off on "Martin Said" where we the tunes were actually castigated for being "too precious", not "raucous enough".And just where does one go to practice raucousness? What a dedicated lot we are I thought as I stumbled through the back door last night, trying desperately not to wake the dog or Eleanor; we rush out to get to the church on time, we spend a couple of hours all giving it our all, succumb to the temptations of the dreaded drink and wend our weary way back through the vagaries of the British winter (stair rods on the 697 last night) to end up in our beds around Midnight. All in the cause of VM.

Off to get out of my PJs now, see you in a couple of weeks time.

Martin.