The Littlest Doctor

Minnie played her guitar for Charlie. The piece she is learning appears to consist only of the note E played several times over. Charlie was unimpressed.

"It's teaching her to read music," I told him.

This impressed him even less. To Charlie, music is something that flows from your fingers, through your ears, into the depths of your very soul. Ink and paper have nothing to do with it.

He disappeared up into the loft. I hoped he might be having a tidy-up, or getting a head-start on finding the Christmas decorations, but no. He came back down holding his old guitar, a black and silver electric Cumulonimbus with customised pick-ups.

Charlie used to play lead guitar in a band in his youth. He called himself The Doctor. All the members of the band called themselves The Doctor, with the result that the name of the band varied from "The Three Doctors", "The Five Doctors" and even "The Ten Doctors" as members came and went. I never heard them, but apparently they were very loud. Simon Cowell went to one of their earliest gigs, and had to be taken home and put to bed in a dark room.

Charlie spent the afternoon teaching Minnie to go ChungaChungaCunga ChungaChungaChunga ChungaChungaChunga ChungaChungaChunga to Led Zeppelin with the pickups turned up to eleven. I had one of my headaches and had to lie in a dark room until tea-time.

It seems to have fired Minnie's enthusiasm for the guitar. And although it's hard on my nerves, I must admit it's the LingQ way. Minnie will have a lot of fun playing the guitar badly while she learns, almost unconsciously, to play well. I just can't imagine what Mrs. Sponge will have to say at Minnie's next lesson, when instead of "Fairy Footsteps on the E-string" Minnie is going ChungaChungaChunga along with Led Zep.

With any luck Mrs Sponge won't notice the writing on the back of the Cumulonimbus either. It seems that Charlie got every musician he ever met to sign his guitar, and some of the language they used are way beyond Key Stage 2 vocabulary. Some of them were even people I've heard of. If those Sex Pistols autographs are genuine, it could be worth a fortune. Charlie would be furious if his old guitar got confiscated and put up for sale on eBay.