Sentence The Sixtyfirst
It was a simple error, the mishearing of words spoken over a poor telephone connection but, like so many simple errors – like that which resulted in the Charge of The Light Brigade – it's ramifications - like the ripples from a pebble casually cast into a pool – spread far and wide: “my name is Albert and I run the Ali Baba's Shop, an Oriental Emporium and specialist dealers in all sorts of richly bejewelled and colourful caparisons for women, and certain men, not afraid to stand out from the crowd, in the Grassmarket, and I want to enter our singing group, made up of myself and three of my assistants, for Hughie Green's Opportunity Knocks Show, being broadcast this Sunday at the Playhouse Theatre,” and as luck would have it, Hughie Green himself had taken that call, though suffering from a heady cold and he asked the caller to repeat the name of the group; all went smoothly and uneventfully, until the moment when the lights dimmed, the group took their places indicated by young Martin, the Floor Manager, the lights burst on them, dazzling the four singers highlighted in the chiaroscuro effect the director liked to create; Hughie Green, because of the cold he was still suffering from had decided to abandon his usual prolegomenon, simply announcing that, for these four young men from Edinburgh, Tonight, Opportunity Knocks, and as the opening bars of Swannee River rose through the Theatre and the four men began to sing, Al, overcome by the unreality of the place he found himself in, failed to notice the Announcement card for
Act #7 - Mr Ali's Barbershop Quartet – they swept the board, rose through further heats and at length won the Grand Finals, and he still hadn't registered the name bestowed on them, but, as the concept swept through Scotland, Great Britain and the whole World, and Barbershop Quartets soared in popularity, multiplying exponentially, his own group, amateurs all, couldn't compete with the professionally trained singers who soon outstripped them, but he never said a word until, just before he passed away, a couple of years ago, he told his step-daughters, how the name mistakenly picked up by Hughie Green through the telephone and his muffled hearing, had been feloniously copyrighted and patented by one Martin Elginbrod, who was at the time a student working as a temporary Floor Manger for STV on that night's show, who had since earned Millions, if not Billions from it, and whose son, the present holder of the name, was still milking it, while he, Albert O'Hooligan had received not one brown penny, but the girls must swear on their Sainted Mother's life and soul, that they would see to it that the Elginbrod's were made to pay, and Bunty and Dixie, without a moment's hesitation, did so swear!
It was a simple error, the mishearing of words spoken over a poor telephone connection but, like so many simple errors – like that which resulted in the Charge of The Light Brigade – it's ramifications - like the ripples from a pebble casually cast into a pool – spread far and wide: “my name is Albert and I run the Ali Baba's Shop, an Oriental Emporium and specialist dealers in all sorts of richly bejewelled and colourful caparisons for women, and certain men, not afraid to stand out from the crowd, in the Grassmarket, and I want to enter our singing group, made up of myself and three of my assistants, for Hughie Green's Opportunity Knocks Show, being broadcast this Sunday at the Playhouse Theatre,” and as luck would have it, Hughie Green himself had taken that call, though suffering from a heady cold and he asked the caller to repeat the name of the group; all went smoothly and uneventfully, until the moment when the lights dimmed, the group took their places indicated by young Martin, the Floor Manager, the lights burst on them, dazzling the four singers highlighted in the chiaroscuro effect the director liked to create; Hughie Green, because of the cold he was still suffering from had decided to abandon his usual prolegomenon, simply announcing that, for these four young men from Edinburgh, Tonight, Opportunity Knocks, and as the opening bars of Swannee River rose through the Theatre and the four men began to sing, Al, overcome by the unreality of the place he found himself in, failed to notice the Announcement card for
Act #7 - Mr Ali's Barbershop Quartet – they swept the board, rose through further heats and at length won the Grand Finals, and he still hadn't registered the name bestowed on them, but, as the concept swept through Scotland, Great Britain and the whole World, and Barbershop Quartets soared in popularity, multiplying exponentially, his own group, amateurs all, couldn't compete with the professionally trained singers who soon outstripped them, but he never said a word until, just before he passed away, a couple of years ago, he told his step-daughters, how the name mistakenly picked up by Hughie Green through the telephone and his muffled hearing, had been feloniously copyrighted and patented by one Martin Elginbrod, who was at the time a student working as a temporary Floor Manger for STV on that night's show, who had since earned Millions, if not Billions from it, and whose son, the present holder of the name, was still milking it, while he, Albert O'Hooligan had received not one brown penny, but the girls must swear on their Sainted Mother's life and soul, that they would see to it that the Elginbrod's were made to pay, and Bunty and Dixie, without a moment's hesitation, did so swear!
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