Dos

It's not an age thing. I've never been able to hold a proper conversation in a crowded pub, even in my twenties. Worse when it's a small group of people sitting round a table. The added distance, measured in inches only, may as well be yards (substitute centimetres and metres if you were born after 1970). Still worse if there's live music playing. Even if, like last night, the music is good.

So we sat there, listening to the lively Portuguese salsa music, and watching the lips move on the people we were supposedly conversing with, trying not to be eaten up by the ubersoft couches in one of the little alcoves, and trying to judge when was the right time to laugh, or nod, or just look attentive. We probably looked like we'd escaped from somewhere clinical. Or that we weren't interested. Which wasn't true at all. The odd word that reached us tantalisingly across the table, fighting and clawing its way to our ears desperate to be heard - epée... choreography... joey... tequila - all sounded like the bones of a fascinating story. But there was no meat. No organs. And no sense at all. So like the carcass of the Christmas turkey picked clean before you press it into the kitchen bin, the conversation was never going to fly.

When live bands do a sound check prior to striking up for their first number, it's traditional to use the word "two" to allow the sound man to set the right level on the mic. That word is chosen because it embodies, in one short simple syllable, everything the engineer needs. The 'plosive' of the initial 't', the transition from 't' to 'oo' and the bass note of the 'oo' itself gives a dynamic soundwave perfectly suited to a mic check.

Only this was a Portuguese band. So their lead singer said "Dos" into the mic a few times, which didn't serve the purpose half as well, but provided a comic touch for anyone with a sense of irony. And that was us as we knocked back the last of our drinks and left the rest of our small group to flap their gums at each other. Dois povos, wending our quiet way out through the hubbub. Boa noite!