Welcome. Recently some friends have been misbehaving and philandering with other rambunctious students. It made me curious as to whether I could betray something I loved. The closest example I could find was my decision to leave – *sob story warning* – BBC Radio 5Live.
She was just too ‘mainstream’ and formulaic, her plethora of NHS statistics scared me. So, I twisted my radio knob, drove in tears along the DAB Digital Motorway and arrived at Radio 6 Music, who had always had a thing for my ears. She was exciting and promised me the world. I wanted to discover her self-professed ‘alternative spirit’.
However, it seems that, after a week’s listening, the ‘alternative’ she promised actually translated to ‘the same songs but on alternative days and with different mixes to surprise you’. She’s as diverse as a Durham college. Or a Tulisa album. Perhaps I’m being unfair, there’re endless artists I’d never heard of, and the presenters are vaguely ethereal.
Maybe I just preferred the chase and excitement of misleading 5Live and wasn’t ready for a full commitment to 6Music. Either way, I’m now stuck doing the dishes with 5Live shouting furiously in my ear and am banned from driving to any other radio stations until I think about what I’ve done.
The next instalment of the Malbecs I hear you cry! Alright, calm down…
…But who could have stolen the watch?
The breaking news that evening was of an island and its unwelcome visitor, a tsunami. Malbec wondered if it was a result of Mrs Malbec moving heaven, the earth and the sofa slightly to the left to find the watch but they had had no luck. They tried the phones. ‘Lost Property Inc.’ were busy moving to a new location. ‘Lost&Found & Sons’ were soul searching on their gap year and couldn’t find it in themselves to tell him where it was. Meanwhile ‘Toys R’ Us’ were having a sale on crayons and plastic wagons. Not the time, Malbec reminded himself.
This ordeal reminded him of the search he underwent to find his father. Clement Malbec had taken their pursuit of the family tree very literally and had comfortably settled in the alcove of a Canadian maple, starting a family with some squirrels who had just taken scholarships at Yale’s Hispanic department.
Malbec deemed it best to wait until the morning to search. His favourite saying was ‘sleep never sleeps’, which was either very profound or a pseudo-Welsh street name; tonight he felt philosophical and decided to indulge his thoughts.
Sleeping was difficult tonight. For as long as he could remember Malbec had been unable to stand or lay upright after a particularly nasty allergic reaction, one day he walked into the school canteen and realised that nuts were dangerously allergic to him. The reaction was so severe he was stuck permanently in the very early stages of a cartwheel. To this day he recalls his most traumatic experiences was trying to pose in front of the leaning tower of Pisa holding a pistachio flavoured ice cream. At this thought and with great difficulty, Malbec slid into sleep…