Ten things that don’t have names but ought to, sort of thing.

1/ The peculiar non-language spoken by singers and soundmen.

Soundman: What would you like in your monitors?
Singer: I want to soar like a sparrow hawk.
Soundman: Would some reverb help?
Singer: Mmm… could you make it a little less bosky?

A dialect of this is spoken by directors and film crews.

2/ The noise made by audiences at folk festivals when a guitarist unplugs his lead and there is a loud click through the PA. A sort of collective moo without the m.

3/ A tear in the fabric of space and time caused by a drummer finishing four bars before the rest of the band and his subsequent panicky efforts to cover up his blunder. See also – band stops, drummer carries on.

4/ The crick in your neck you get after a week on tour due to sleeping on unfamiliar pillows.

5/ The Bury/Bury St Edmunds gig mistake. It is more common than you think. A boon to taxi drivers in Manchester and East Anglia.

6/ The people who sit in complete darkness for an hour and a half in theatres between the doors opening and the band coming on.

7/ The idiotic wave you give to a complete stranger before realising that they are waving at someone behind you. I did this only this morning and then foolishly went a step further. “How are you doing?” the waver shouted, a little loudly I thought. Being a good social animal I replied in kind. “I’M DOING OK!” I yelled, startling him. “What on earth is this arse doing?” I could see him thinking, as if I was a buffoon who felt it necessary to periodically blurt out my current emotional status.

8/ The fact that the more loud and aggressive a band is on stage the more civilised and gentle they are in real life and vice versa. I have seen Motorhead playing Scrabble and watched China Crisis doing things that would make Nero want to call it an early night.

9/ The ghastly moment at midnight in a BBC studio in Birmingham when you are being interviewed by an ex Tory minister and you realise, to your horror, that there is an air of sexual tension in the room.

10/ The special form of music created by telling everyone except for one member of the band that the first song in the set tonight is now in the key of E instead of F.

The best suggestions for names for the above things will be embossed on to a commemorative pommel and displayed somewhere or other.