Ringo

I'm back. Just to ease myself in gently... The FT's review tells us that 'The very best of Ringo' contains 6 tracks from his 1973 LP, with the rest being essentially padding. I remember that record when it first came out, especially "You're sixteen".  After the exuberance of the early Beatles, we were left with the leching drool of a dirty old man: "You walked out of my dreams / Into my car ... You're sixteen / You're beautiful / And You're mine."

Actually, my favourite was "Yellow Submarine", not for any particular merit of the song, but for a couple of amusing things it gave rise to.

There was a BBC comedy show about 20 years ago (Radio-Active, "the first national local radio" ?). One of the sketches featured a phone-in quiz, where huge prizes are offered, obviously with the intention of them never being won. The "competition" is to guess the name of a (pop) song from its intro. "Here's the next one". A few moments silence. Chuckles from the 'jock'. Some smart alec comes on the line: "Beatles, Yellow Submarine". As we know, the song does indeed go straight in, without any intro: "In the town where I was born / Lived a man..." Embarrassed pause. "Sorry, wrong. It was Yellow Submarine by The Beatles."

And that's not even to mention the version that football crowds used to sing.