the corner office

It's Sunday night, I'm sitting alone in the lounge, mindlessly switching through YouTube music videos on the TV. The Algorithm offers me something, nothing like what I'm currently watching: a grainy video of an old Oscar Peterson performance. I'm not a huge jazz fan, a few CDs in the collection, but that's about it. But I know Oscar Peterson and I've actually seen this video before, many many years ago. So I start watching it.

The video is some way in, and I hear a noise behind me as my youngest comes down the stairs, behind me and into the kitchen. I hear rummaging.

He emerges and is soon behind me again, just as Peterson's getting to an energetic part. Hands ablur and sweat pouring, walking bass at full sprint, he is, as the parlance goes, even for pianists, shredding.

"This is good" my son says.

"Ah, you like it?" I reply, "His name is Oscar Peterson and he's a famous Canadian jazz pian.."

"No, I mean my food," as the kid heads up the stairs, eating an unbuttered slice of bread.

(It was Hovis Seed Sensations, which I have to admit, is also one of my favourites.)