Many years ago Declan Affley was performing in a folk club in Hobart. He was having mic trouble; the mic was without a windshield and was popping some of his percussives during his singing. The young lad who was looking after the sound gear, which wasn't very sophisticated, rummaged around in the box of spare bits and pieces and rushed to the stage while Declan was introducing his next song, fitted a windshield over the mic and retreated into the audience.

The popping shield was tubular (to fit the mic) and coloured yellow. Without missing a beat in his intro Declan expostulated against its colour, drawing comparisons to stripes down local politician's backs and their lack of courage over environmental issues to do with Tasmania's mania for building dams in wilderness areas.

While he was doing this the young lad was again rummaging through the box and came to the stage and replaced the yellow windshield with a black one, identically shaped. Seamlessly Declan remonstrated against having "to sing through a blackshirt condom" commenting on the political nastiness of such blackshirts. During this the young lad was again rummaging through the box and came to the stage and replaced the black windshield with a red one, identically shaped. Declan eyed this with a beaming smile and thanked the lad for producing "a condom acceptable to the masses, with the same colour as the flag" and started singing the parody of the Red Flag where "the working class can kiss my arse, I've got the foreman's job at last."

I dare say there were some courtship rituals going on among the rest of the audience but, given the nature of most of the songs that night I suspect the rituals were largely traditional; mine were.

Cheers, Rowan