The Seven Year Tich.


Why is part of my brain taken up with how Tich of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich spells his name, when it could be reserved for something useful?

You may wonder why this is on my mind, with good reason. Yesterday, I wrote a joke about the obscure band in a friend’s Christmas card – my references are niche – and as I did, I thought to myself, “I’m sure he doesn’t put a second T in it.”

I faltered before committing the moniker (not Monica) to paper so I could do a quick Google and, lo and behold, I was right; I know my Sixties Wiltshire-based trivia.



The strange thing is that while I’m hugely into music from the era and known to go on about it (to the irritation of everyone around me), the work of DDDBMT largely passed me by. I know little-to-nothing about them, save the formation of their excessively lettered name. I can’t help but feel that this usually useless piece of information was gleaned and stored away at the expense of something else.

I even have an inkling of what might be lost. I was watching Home Alone last night (after TichGate) - and as Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern shimmied along a rope out of Culkin's upstairs window in the hope of capturing him in his treehouse, I turned to my wife and said, “Surely they'd know that could only make them very…”

It took ten minutes to establish the word I was hunting for was ‘vulnerable’. I need to adjust my verbal priorities.

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