Every so often Leftwing Idiot goes off to host comedy disco nights with our friends Cassetteboy (there are two of them). In an effort to avoid losing his voice half-way through a show, he’s started doing vocal warm-up exercises from a CD.

The exercises are led by a chirpy-sounding American who gets Leftwing Idiot to do all sorts of ridiculous things with his voice. The other morning I could hear him practising in the other room and as he went through the exercises I started ‘neighing’ along with them like a horse, followed quickly by ‘baaing’ like sheep. I could hear him laughing as he tried to concentrate.

Maybe there’s an untapped market for Tourettes-style voice warm-ups, though on second thoughts, I don’t imagine there’d much evidence to support the vocal benefits of ‘Biscuits’ or assorted farmyard sounds.