Maybe the song sums up the 70s even better then

Yes, it’s ‘AND I can’t cope’, and it’s also ‘THE father’, same as in American Pie.

But funnily enough the only word I’d never got before is ‘phone’. Wow, it’s ‘phone’. Wish I understood that line.

I agree with Simon about the scenario, and I also like to muse that out of the motley gang of four of them on the imaginary train, some of them may believe they are gunning for one person, some for another.

No coincidence that at the end of each week’s Crackerjack, Glaze, Maclean, Stewart et al used to ‘murder’ current chart hits. Friday about half past five throughout the mid to late 70s was the time the music died, just after the Cabbage Game. Only yesterday I was remembering their quite unforgettable version of Pilot’s “January,” for the obvious reasons.

In the second phase of play (the pull back and reveal phase) NB, well, pulls back to reveal his Crackerjack credentials and play on the fact Don McLean is both the name of perma-gurning doppelganger of window cleaning Antipodean Mr Cave and deformed thumb tattooed sentimentalist.

The gift is in knowing the knowing audience will indeed know he has plagiarised Don Mclean`s lyrics and the joke is subtly rendered. Unlike the sledgehammer approach we are using to dissect the frog here. Barry Cryer`s joke springs to mind.

To my mind he is clearly referring to the erstwhile Crackerjack ‘funny man’ as Nigel pronounces it in the song as “McCLEAN” (which is how he was introduced on the show, if memory serves); whereas the American Pie man was always to my knowledge pronounced “mcLANE”. Anyone else care to back me up on this?

Having said that I can see why Nige would think there were merits in killing both of em!

Oh and by the way surely there’s a “But” before ‘I cant cope…’ ?

Just wanted to say this has long been one of my faves, I like that apart from the Mickey Most bit at the end, it’s almost as serious as Soft Verges, well almost.

Is there anything as depressing an image as who or what a ‘Factory Prankster of the Year’ would be like?

The Allotments pun, so so clever, is it borrowed or purloined from somewhere or an original NB witticism?

And the ‘weird’ musing, almost like a call to arms for all the pedants on here.