Friday Fun 21

Have I ever mentioned that I don't like lieder? I think I was over-exposed to ‘Vilja’ as a child and someone standing up to sing with a piano accompaniment now has me leaping for the off button before they've got the first note out (OK, Kit and the Widow excepted). I was genuinely heartbroken when Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau died as I knew it would launch a year-long lieder-fest on Radio 3. But, whether sung in English or German, they're still dire Victorian parlour songs.

I'm a placid soul (no giggling at the back!) and there are few things that have me leaping for the radio with a mallet, but the sentence that begins, "...and now on Radio 3 it's Private Passi..." rarely manages to make it to a full stop and similarly with the Navy Lark on Radio 4 Extra and the Swingle Singers anywhere.

However, with the growth of nostalgia my other bête noir occasionally pops up and brings with it a spasm of radio-smashing rage verging almost on the murderous. Yes, it is the existential horror that was the theme tune to Sing Something Simple. And I'm not alone, a whole generation of adults around my age confess to being deeply scarred by the experience of being forced to listen to it as a child - there's probably a support group out there somewhere. One blogger said, "...the most depressing radio show was, undoubtably, “Sing Something Simple“, which used to come on…Radio 2: if you’ve never heard it, consider yourself lucky. It involved a choir singing depressing songs...accompanied by Jack Emblow’s accordion. Someone said: “hearing ‘Sing Something Simple’ was the first time I realised that – one day – I would die”." Another reviewer said, "Christ it was depressing - but in a comforting way. Like shingles, or Crohn's disease."

Anyway, I won't subject you to any of those, instead you have Fascinating Aida's take on lieder but it's much funnier than the real thing.