NEEDLE TIME

It will surprise no one who knows me to learn that, as a child I was talkative--- No! I was mind-numbingly loquacious!

I remember watching some workman and plaguing them with endless questions until one of them was finally driven to ask, “When you were a baby, did your mum have you inoculated with a gramophone needle?”

I suppose it must have seemed like it! But, as a joke, it was totally of its time and will be inexplicable to anyone younger than Methuselah! What the Hell’s a gramophone, let alone a gramophone NEEDLE?!

Today, I guess, it would be a case of asking: “When you were a baby, did you swallow your mum’s iPod?”