Grown man still needs little song to remember alphabet

A FULLY-GROWN adult can only remember what order letters go in by singing the A-B-C song he was taught in nursery. 

Tom Booker, aged 38, is a solicitor with three children and a detached house, but can regularly be found singing the children’s song under his breath when trying to find files.

Wife Carolyn said: “He thinks he’s doing it in his head, but we can all hear him. It’s like the house is haunted by the ghost of a Victorian child.

“He doesn’t use his fingers for adding up. He can even multiply numbers without chanting his full times tables. But when it comes to achieving functional literacy, he uses a jingle for five-year-olds.

“Between that and him singing Happy Birthday twice every time he washes his hands, it’s like an episode of Sesame Street in here.”

Booker said: “It’s not that I don’t know the alphabet. It’s just that when I need to know whether N comes before M, I have a melodic mnemonic device that employs a jaunty little tune.

“Wait, the tune’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? My God, I’ve been singing it 34 years and never realised. I really am thick as shit.”

How to exercise through a cold, dark, horrible winter lockdown

TAKING up running isn’t so attractive when it’s pissing with rain and freezing, but you’ve never been this fat. So how can you emerge from lockdown healthy? 

Joe f**king Wicks

Yes, his famous PE classes are coming back, meaning you can exercise without setting foot outside your living room. Unfortunately, his chirpy demeanour will be unbearable now the novelty’s worn off, and you’ll end up red-faced and breathing raggedly from screaming ‘It’s alright for you with your big living room!’

Ice skating

Not the Dancing On Ice kind, but the routine walk to Tesco that becomes a death-defying slide down an ungritted pavement that you’d better hope you get through without a broken ankle or you’ll spend nine hours in A&E boosting your viral load.

Lift household items

Did you know that lifting pounds of flour or litres of milk can increase your muscle mass? And if you lift them in the right order, you’ll end up with a lovely cake mixture to pop in the oven. Lifting bottles of wine straight to your mouth works too.

Buy a treadmill

There’s only one way to exercise, and that’s throwing money at it. So now gyms are closed get a large, expensive piece of equipment, preferably with a monthly subscription. You’ll only use it once but it’s great for hanging wet washing on.

Crying and rocking

You can burn around 100 calories per day by fidgeting, so if you schedule in an hour’s weeping while rocking back and forth every day then you’ll have toned thighs, strong triceps and absolutely jacked tear ducts by spring.