Have you been out today?

So anyway, a week or so ago, probably after listening to some of The Magnetic Fields' excellent 69 Love Songs, it occurred to me that I'd really like to get a ukulele. Not a George Formby-style banjo ukulele you understand but an Oliver Hardy singing Honolulu Baby-style ukulele, the sort that looks like an acoustic guitar that's shrunk in the wash. That, I thought to myself, would be a quirky and individual thing to do (in a self-consciously attention-seeking and rather pathetic sort of way). Then later that same day there was a report on Radio 4's Today programme featuring The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and rattling on about how ukuleles are the coming trend and soon every home will have one. Darn.

Still want one though. But I should probably try to resist the temptation of the rather gorgeous hand-made shiny nickel-plated resonator kind. For now at least.