My good friend Tony Markey came to my studio to do a vocal session today.

Tony is not around a great deal because he spends 3 months at a time singing on a cruise ship and 3 months at home.

When I say "singing" I have to point out that Tony is not the kind of guy to just do anything simple. He's actually entertainments manager and probably loads of other stuff as well. He was telling me that in lifeboat drill he sits in seat number two next to the captain which means if the captain is incapacitated then he is in charge of the vessel.

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We all know that singing in the Northern Clubs can be a risky business but I learned today that it's just a walk in the park compared to singing on a cruise ship. At the end of the session we were just chatting and then Tony says something like "and then we were attacked by pirates". Hang on, I say, your weren't on board the ship that hit the news recently. It turns out indeed he was. Now I know Tony's singing can come in for a bit of criticism but I think it's going a bit over the top for two boats to appear and suddenly splatter the vessel with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades !

Tony's defence could have been to sing at them which would have been enough to repel any boarders but he decided to go a bit further and on the captains orders pulled out the audio device that is apparently a non military ships only defence. This fires a burst of powerful frequency which shatters the eardrums of the target and renders them pretty incapable of piracy. Tony fired this thing and scored a direct hit on one of the boats. If this seems a bit harsh, consider this, perhaps these Somalis attacked due to Tony's singing (it's not unheard of). Well he's done them a favour by rendering them incapable of hearing his vocals or indeed anything at all.

Tony has promised a pic of a shell embedded in the boat next to his bonce which I'll publish here if he sends it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4409662.stm