Monday 30 November 2020

Don't hold your breath

When Donald Trump got hired four years ago, I trudged out to my favourite neighbourhood Hades coffee shop to numb myself with chocolate and caffeine

Four years later, I was sitting in my favourite coffee shop in Victoria about 8:30 on a November Saturday morning. I needed to check something on my phone, and was ambushed by my FaceBook feed. 

I texted elder daughter in England: BBC is saying that Biden got it. She confirmed that CNN was saying the same thing, and I staggered over to the counter to gasp at the barista: "BBC and CNN are saying that Joe Biden has won the American election." 

She said something like "Thank goodness!", and outside, a car flew down Cook Street, honking like a wedding day.
I found myself fighting back tears; it's like I've been braced and tensed since November 2016, and could finally breathe. 

Of course, this doesn't solve everything. However, this latest Randy Rainbow offering is fiendishly clever, and parodies one of the most fiendishly difficult Sondheim songs. Which is saying something. And here is the song on which the parody is based, sung, in this instance, by the late great Madeleine Kahn. Don't hold your breath.