A tale of two (different) Tonys

Spent Sunday away from television, newspapers, TV and all other forms of media.

Excellent.

I went with a few friends to the annual procession at Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell was London’s ‘Little Italy’ for many years, stretching right back to Victorian times. There are far fewer people of Italian descent around there now but St Peters Church is still a social hub and once a year everyone meets up to drag a few statues around the neighbourhood, eat ciabattas, find out who’s died and check out what everyone is wearing. It’s been going on for about 120 years.

Anyway, my father contributed to the finest exchange of dialogue of the day.

Years ago now he used to derive much innocent amusement from making fun of one of his regular customer’s musical ambitions, a bloke called Tony Hadley. Every day, my Dad would devise fiendishly witty comments about cats being tortured, that sort of thing.

This probably explains why my Dad never pursued a successful career as a talent scout. Tony’s band, Spandau Ballet, started to chart and he spent the next couple of decades doing quite nicely, thank you very much.

Becoming an international pop star meant Tony stopped coming to the shop to buy sandwiches but he and my Dad bumped briefly into each other a couple of times over the years.

Being a relatively local lad, Tony and his family turned up at the Clerkenwell procession yesterday, where he ran into my Dad, who is confusingly also called Tony …

Tony H: 'Hello Tony'

Tony Z: 'Hello Tone. What you been up to?'

Tony H: 'Well, I sang at the Albert Hall last week ... Still got the cafe?'

Tony Z: 'Yup'

I guess you had to be there …

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Fantastic, my first post in ages without mentioning anything about a certain current police investigation. Well, except for that last sentence.