The painful saga of Big Mac and The Dooleys

I couldn’t tell you at the time, on account of the local constabulary continuing to investigate whether or not it was assault occasioning actual – even, dare I say it, grievous – bodily harm, or just an unfortunate misunderstanding. But at least I can now report that Big Mac has officially been cleared of any criminal charges. The incident in question came about one boozy-ish afternoon just before Christmas when the conversation somehow got round to 80s pop music.  Now, I have to confess that that particular topic is not my eversuch favourite, and it’s one I must admit to having only limited knowledge of for the simple reason that post-1984 my girls refused to watch ‘Top of the Pops’ with me any more as they’d had enough of their particular top of the pops (geddit?) shouting at the telly and describing what was coming out of it as ‘boom-boom songs and jungle tunes’ (except when Pan’s People came on:  then I went strangely quiet for some reason that I can no longer quite recall).  Anyway, Big Mac was in on the round-robin – and that always makes for an interesting session.  See, while Big Mac is borderline nut-case when sober, three pints of Black Rat propels him deeply into the realms of the psychopathic.  I had to look away when a response from the other side of the bar was seen by Big Mac as an invite rather than an innocent answer to a request for everyone to state the name of their favourite song from the period:  as I recall it, mine was something from Dire Straits, while this other feller’s was – unhappily for him and quoted verbatim – ‘Lift me Up by The Dooleys’.   Oooofff…!!!   They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder:  beauteous this was NOT…

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