Not Missing Missy

This (as Eddie Izzard would say) is a true story…

About a year before we met, The Lovely S and I were listening to the same radio programme.

In fact we were listening to the same record and, as we heard it, we probably had the same thought in our little fluffy heads.

Look, between the two of us we have a pair of Batchelors’ degrees and a Masters, whilst in the ‘pending’ bin we have a postgraduate professional qualification and another Batchelors, so I think I’m allowed to be slightly Mickey-taking about the content of our heads.

Anyway.

How can I be so positive that my (at the time still unmet) bride-to-be and I were listening to the same radio programme whilst having the same thought?

Jonathon Woss.

JW occasionally slips in to his wadio radio show tracks that don’t make the normal playlists.

And on the Saturday in question he played an absolutely stunning record.

I remember…

I was driving in to the centre of Birmingham, it was a particularly warm and sunny early May Saturday.

Within 30 seconds of the track starting I’d jammed the radio volume right up and pulled the car in to the side of the road.

There I sat, outside the fruit market, listening; doing nothing but sitting very still and very quiet, listening.

The track electrified me.

As it ended I scrabbled around in the car for a pen and paper whilst praying that JW would be an efficient radio professional (for a change!) and back-announce some kind of information about the song.

Like a pair of daytime audio thieves my ears gleefully snatched the name of the singer and album from the radio loudspeakers.

I finished the drive in to The Bullring.

HMV.

‘Have you got… ‘

She looked; computerised and ‘fiched records.

‘Nope, it’s not even in our catalogue.’

Meaning; it really must be crap if we don’t have any record of it.

Dashed across The Bullring to Virgin.

‘Have you got… ‘

He looked; computerised and paper-based searches.

‘Ah, well it’s an import, see. We could get it for you but to be honest you’d be better off buying it over the internet.’

How is it possible to be extremely grateful and bitterly disappointed at the same time?

I ordered the album that night.

Three weeks later it was delivered by a Channel Islands-based importer.

And it’s been in my iPod playlist ever since.

And then, just under a year ago, I met The Lovely S.

We discovered a shared liking for a particular artist – she’d discovered the singer while living in Australia; I owned one of her albums.

A few weeks ago we were driving somewhere when The Lovely S said, ‘You know, I heard this track on Jonathon Woss’ wadio show… ‘

Bolt, blue.

But…

How is it possible to not love someone who loves Missy Higgins?