Patsy Crawford scribbling away

I’m listening to the Trout Quintet on a CD player that’s so tinny I feel I should apologise to Franz Schubert every time I put it on.

Funny name, Trout Quintet.

The piece has a grander title with numbers and letters attached and the word opus thrown in but no-one takes much notice of that.

Were it not for my tinny CD player, Classic FM and the local radio station I’d have gone mad by now.

One more mention of Covid over the airwaves and I would have been off to the wood heap to grab the axe and do serious damage to the radio.

But common sense has prevailed.

Switching off the station that’s banging on and on about Covid has become the preferred option.

Enough is enough.

Every man, woman, child and their dog in Australia must by now be so up to speed on every aspect of this damn virus they could knock out their own daily bulletin.

There’s nothing for it but to get those knobbly fingers on the dial, twiddle along to 96.9 or 93.3 or one of those stations that broadcast in a one-kilometre radius from a shed up the bush, and let the music rip.

You can dodge the early morning regurgitations of Covidspeak very nicely with a quick sprint to Classic FM when all the bum-tit-tit stuff is being played.

It’s wall to wall overtures you can hum along with.

Bit of sing-along opera thrown in.

Plenty of scope for releasing your inner Carmen or pretending you’re Escamillo the toreador.

You might even muster enough enthusiasm to do a little dance or stamp your feet in vixen-like tempestuousness.

Hells bells, there’s every chance of becoming so suffused in Spanish fervour you’ll go all bull-fighter and flourish the tea-towel at the fridge.

Then it’s off to all the fun of the local radio station.

The programming here is so fabulously eclectic there’s something for everyone.

Tchaikovsky gets a belting, as does Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup. Johnny Cash is on every playlist in town and so is Aretha Franklin.

But who’d have thought Madonna trilling Like a Virgin could segue so brilliantly into Chad Morgan’s snaggle-toothed rendition of The Sheik From Scrubby Creek.

Touch of programming genius, that.

Basically all you have to do is tune in and hang around.

Sooner or later The Stranglers will come along. The Bee Gees will be there. And someone singing My Way. That one should have been shoved in the Only At Funerals box years ago.

And it’s worth wading through all her syrupy corn-patch ditties because you know eventually Dolly will get to Jolene.

What a song.

Amid this embarrassment of musical riches there’s not a c-word to be heard.

Spot on.

We’ve had our needles, we’ve put on our masks, we’ve pirouetted around each other in the shops, all we need now is one daily Covid bulletin and we can get back to singing along with Abba.

Altogether now.

‘Can you hear the drums Fernando...’