It's one of life's underrated arts, a bit of improvisation.
It comes to mind now after last night's talk at the Chudleigh Literary Festival (my thanks to all who came along for laughing at the right points in the performance, and being so kind and welcoming.)
I enjoyed myself, and felt the talk went well (hope you did too, if you were there!), but it was particularly noteworthy for two of the oddest interruptions I've ever experienced.
The first was the arrival of a large dog, who came bounding in the entrance to the marquee, sniffed around at a few people, chairs etc., frolicked a little, and was then retrieved by his flustered owner.
And there was me hoping it was someone else coming to hear me...
Well, I managed to move on from that rather bizarre interlude, and a few minutes later came the next ....
... a mobile phone burbling out loudly with a ring tone which was none other than The Archers.
I must confess, I found myself at rather a loss to know what to say. What can you do in situations such as those but ride with them and laugh along with everyone else? In fact, I'm still giggling now. It was quite an achievement to get through the rest of the event.
It all served to remind me of an occasion at work (day job work), where a man strolled up to me for a chat. That, in itself, isn't unusual, but what stuck in my mind was that he did so while I was live on air.
It took a few seconds to explain that I wasn't being rude, but really couldn't speak to him at that moment. And he was kind enough to understand. But I was sure I could hear the laughter around the region, and all directed at me.
Such is life. I suppose it would be dull if it all went the way we expected - it certainly doesn't for me, or for poor Dan in the tvdetective books. But then again, I wouldn't mind if it just occasionally ran according to my plans! Just once or twice...
Right, time for a favourite Hall tune, but first a quick answer to a question. I received an email last week asking how many of my top songs I planned to list here?
(Don't forget, if you've got a question about the tvdetective books, or any area of my writing, you can get in touch via the contact page - www.thetvdetective.com/contact.html )
I hadn't considered before, but have decided around a hundred will be it. I average about two blogs a week, so that's a year's worth of songs and it feels right.
Back then to this ramble's choice, and today it's Pulp and Common People, because of that fantastic video, but also as there's a bit of fine improvisation in the song in what Jarvis decides to show his new found friend. It's a wonderful piece of work all round, and always makes me smile.