Posting in the name of

Firstly, let me congratulate you all. Yes, you. All of you. Every single one of you. Well, every single one of you who bought ‘Killing in the name of’. Not only have you reaffirmed my faith in music – as a musician, it’s important to feel there are people out there who want to hear real music rather than the plastic pre-packed string-cheese variety pedalled by Simon Cowell, possible the only organ-grinder to also play the role of monkey – but you’ve given me opportunity to feel like I’m 15 and standing in the crowd at Reading watching RATM at their heights.

But where was I? Ah yes, Christmas cards.

Living in a small close, it’s inevitable that you’re going to get someone else’s post from time to time. It’s not the postman’s fault. The fact that most streets are now laid out using such unfathomable mathematics with even numbers on the left, odds to the right, and prime numbers down a separate lane unless they add up to 30, mean that you need Rain Man to find a specific house in less than 30 minutes.

This means that every now and then you’ll see people nipping across the road a few minutes after the postman’s gone and putting a letter or two into the correct house.

But then there are the nomadic letters. The ones that seem to zig-zag their way down the street like a drunk on his way home on New Year’s eve. Every step of the way gets a new little note scribbled on the front in different shades of black and blue and a myriad of calligraphy as the list of attempted deliveries grows.

Then, all of a sudden the music to this game of pass-the-parcel stops and it lands on your doorstep.

I looked over the front of the letter. It had made a kamikaze trip to end up on my doorstep, via numbers 44, 42, 49, and now some helpful person had written ‘try 46’. This letter hadn’t just arrived here by accident, someone had suggested it was for me.

Then I noticed the names, ‘Morris and Vicky’. At first I thought they must have noticed that two people live here, and that was that. But then the thought occurred, do they think we look like a Morris and a Vicky? The lovely Sarah doesn’t come off too bad in that deal, ‘Vicky’s a perfectly acceptable name. But I’m Morris? Morris suggests I blunder around in a Leyland Princess like Terry Scott in Terry and June. Morris suggests I’m on the committee at the bowls club. Morris suggests I spend my Saturday afternoons shouting, ‘jolly good show’ at the cricket. It suggests I’m on the planning committee of some society or another. Or that I have an interest in collectible corn flake packets from the years 1972-76, excluding special editions.

I know no one is ever going to guess my name, but still…