There’s a school of thought that says that everybody, no matter what sort of life you’re born into nor how lazy you are, has a talent for something. But what if that something came and went in a fleeting moment, without you having time to bottle it and take it to the world? What then of life?
Many moons ago, when I was a callow youth, I discovered that I could play the Spring movement from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on the Trimfone. (Remember when phones had buttons that played different notes?) Encouraged by my workmates, I rang Chris Evans, who was building his career at the time with a cult weekend show on Radio London. Chris invited me to perform live on the radio, and on the strength of my virtuoso Vivaldi performance, he gave me my own weekly slot under the name of Tim and his Trimfone.
It lasted about 10 weeks, playing a different tune each week, culminating in a rousing rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, performed on a payphone just outside Battersea Park during a Sunday morning five-a-side competition. Chris and his team were singing along in the studio, there was talk of taking the act on the road, I felt I had the world at my feet… and then some faceless bureaucrat decided that phone buttons should all play the same note, and a promising musical career was cruelly cut short. Meanwhile, Chris Evans went on to become the highest paid man in entertainment.
I recount this story not because I’m bitter – you know, stardom, adulation, sex appeal, fabulous wealth… who needs it? – but because it stands as a lasting illustration of the fickle finger of fate at work. In a parallel universe, the Trimfone would have replaced the electric guitar as the primary instrument of popular music, there would have been a songbook, a chat show, possibly a telecoms-based travel series. Life could have been oh so different.
After years spent coming to terms with my loss, and thinking I had laid it to rest, I was reminded of the whole Trimfone episode this week in another twist of fate. I received a message in response to last week’s word (Sinus) from my old friend and, you might say, mentor Blimp – the one who had encouraged me to call the show in the first place. I haven’t seen Blimp for years. He emigrated to the US and now lives somewhere exotic like Belize (exactly like Belize actually – he lives in Belize).
Out of nowhere, Blimp messaged me from far away across the Atlantic Ocean because he read something I had written and it resonated with him. Blimp was (and I presume still is) a very good drinker but he too has started suffering with the nasty ‘sinus inflammation after not drinking enough’ condition that I mentioned last week. No-one is safe!
He added that he hoped it wasn’t affecting my Trimfone playing, which was nice, albeit painful. But what a chance discovery! I always think long and hard before publishing my personal medical problems, but I’m glad I did in this instance. Had I not, Blimp and I would both be labouring on, thinking we were alone with our affliction, whereas now, even thousands of miles apart, we can take comfort in our shared suffering.
We may even form a support group. Working title: the Sinus Pain In Low Level Alcohol Guzzling Enterprise (SPILLAGE), if anyone else out there is interested.
