Bananas with Bill, Barry and Raby

This is a true story about the utter joy in finding something unexpected, in a place that you know so very well and which, despite expectations, has concealed a secret over the decades.

But, since it is N's birthday, let's start a little earlier this morning. On the way to school, she was teaching us how to make bananas. This is a complex process, involving pre-heating your imaginary oven to precisely 304 (don't ask me which scale), gathering leaves (imaginary, and of various colours), beating them into a mould (I'm going to stop saying 'imaginary' now) with a variety of implements (wooden platter, sharp knife, etc), adding some gravel and weeds and then baking the whole thing for precisely ten seconds.

You might think this explains why she doesn't eat bananas whereas, in fact, the truth is far worse.

Let's back up a little further.

Raby

Many years ago, before N was even born, there was a sign. No, not that sort of sign.

There was a sign by the library in the Barbican inviting people to speak to a careers advisor called Raby Clingbine. Frankly, I didn't believe that name. Google doesn't seem to believe in it either. Hot news! Google has found the elusive person part-way down this webpage. (Yes, I appreciate that it's dated 2008 but I haven't been looking on a daily basis.)

Anyway, not thinking for a moment that it could be a real person - especially as the sign had gone by the next time I visited, making me wonder whether I'd imagined the whole thing, the name became the first choice when trying to put a random name onto a random person. (Everyone does this, right?)

So we had a little song, about a character (called Raby Clingbine) who ate a banana, which caused his ears to fall off and a variety of other complaints. The punchline was about bananas being made of leather. It made sense at the time.

The whole thing was sung in a demented-rumba style, complete with ching-chika-chika-CHING and chromatic bass riffs joining the lines and so on. A bit like this (from about thirty seconds, if you're short on time):

...but, clearly, with wholly original melody and lyrics.

Bill

We now need to go back (or forward - look it up if you're bothered) to Bill Bailey's wonderfully excellent BBC series entitled, one hopes rhetorically, "Is It Bill Bailey?". I believe it was.

(I also believe that it's a crime against comedy (and against his income) that people are still being deprived of the opportunity to buy a copy of the whole series on DVD, so the only winners are Google for selling advertising space alongside the many clips on YouTube.)

So, while exploring the contribution that cockneys have made to popular music, Bill considers the use of the classic turn-around, the 'have a banana'. And now you can give some clicks to Google:

Time permitting, I'll remove this sentence and tell you whereabouts in the clip you can fast-forward to if you're short on time.

He doesn't explain the origin of the 'have a banana' motif but does successfully discover it in all sorts of unexpected places. Speaking of which...

Barry

My parents own a copy of the vinyl album Manilow Magic, a veritable smorgasbord of thumping great Barry tunes which was part of the soundtrack of my early (and maybe mid) childhood. If this link still works, you can pick it up for a pound (plus £1.26 shipping).

We played that record a lot. Especially Copacabana which, although it's a tragic story of murder, alcoholism and wasted lives, is a groovingly splendid melange of disco, latin percussion and wailing backing singers.

I thought I knew the song thoroughly. I was wrong.

And so, this morning, at 8.45am, walking back from school, my MP3-playing phone scooped around its storage for random content and, wonderfully, produced Copacabana. And, at 8.48am, I heard this:

Yes, in the middle of the disco-tragedy-instrumental-wailing middle section, Barry got a bunch of singers (who probably knew better) to sing 'Have a banana'.

And this morning it literally (not literally meaning metaphorically - the real, classic 'literally' meaning, well, literally) made me stop in my tracks. I didn't quite punch the air but it was a close-run thing.

In conclusion

Look through the places and objects that you think you know well - for they contain many surprises that you may find quite delightful.


P.S. Legal disclaimer

If my appropriating fifteen seconds of Copacabana is deemed to constitute intellectual property theft, then I will, of course, be happy to take down the offending item. In mitigation, it will not satisfy anyone searching for the song and they would probably be drawn to the Amazon listing and therefore purchase the item. (I know, it's second-hand so only the seller will make anything from the whole sorry business but you can't have everything.)

P.P.S. Those aren't pyramids

They're the roofs of various blocks of flats. I couldn't figure out how to insert audio so I added a photo I'd taken and called it a video.

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