It could be argued The Beatles were quite good at pop music

HOW distressing to read about the suicide of a man who couldn’t get a song out of his head. Ma heid’s full of songs by wispy Norwegian singer Aurora at the moment, but that’s no bad thing. They give me hope, which alert readers will know is a concept that I have trouble grasping.

Sir Paul McCartney, who played bass in The Beatles, incidentally, once said he knew he had a hit on this hands when he heard the windowcleaner whistling it.

The song lodges in the grey, pulsating brain like an invading cultural force. Thought about too deeply, these “ear-worms” could be considered disturbing.

One of many disturbing aspects of last week’s vexatious column was my list of favourite bands’ music that I’d keep when throwing away all my other possessions, perhaps in future when “death cleaning” in preparation for my demise or, perhaps, a fate worse than death, deciding to spend the rest of my life in a camper van.

Of course, as soon as the list was set down in pixels of stone, I thought of many favourite bands that I’d omitted, most notably The Beatles. Perhaps they were just too obvious, though it seemed afterwards particularly and typically dim of me given that once, on a local BBC Radio music show, I had named Revolver as my favourite album of all time.

Not only that but I have a Sergeant Pepper wind-up clock in my kitchen and also, just the other day, was delighted to rediscover, among my many Beatles books, a signed memoir (written with Ian Forsyth) of the great Johnny Gentle, recalling his 1960 tour of dance halls in north-east Scotland when he was backed by… The Beatles!

I’d the privilege of meeting Johnny at a Beatles Convention in Liverpool, which I’d been ordered to attend in the line of duty and which was one of those rare occasions when I thought: “You know, sometimes I could almost enjoy my job.”

Again, I don’t want to sound controversial but one thing I firmly believe about The Beatles: they wrote some quite good songs.

Returning to the brain for the moment, more troublesome for me than songs are lines from comedy that tend to stick in the bonce and beg for an opportunity to be used in reality-style life. Thus:

Female friend: “Gosh, that actor looks well hung.”

Your hero (peevishly, after Basil Fawlty): “Yes, he should be.”

At the start of lockdown, I binge-watched weird and wonderful Scottish comedy series Burnistoun, and now keep having to avoid adding the word “anyway” in churlish tones at the end of sentences in the manner of the nutty brother in the ice cream van. Supermarket queuer: “I say, you’re standing a bit close, aren’t you?” Controversial columnist: “What’s it got to do with you, ennyway?”

Worse still, though such things never happen to me nowadays, I imagine having an important meeting with top executives, which goes well… until the end.

We all get up to leave and, inspired by Burnistoun, I start shouting: “Up eh road! Up eh road!” I keep thinking this at the end of encounters with friends or when taking my leave after talking to neighbours.

One day, I fear, it’s going to come blurting out, and people will avoid me even more than they do already.

Not in my night sky

DR Paul Daniels is arguably an expert on the subject, being president of the Federation of Astronomical Societies and a vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society.

It’s his view that the proliferation of satellites bunged up yonder by Dumbo sapiens could ruin the night sky for both professional and amateur stargazers.

Various organisations, such as OneWeb, in which the UK is investing considerably, SpaceX, Amazon and Facebook are between them planning to launch nearly 200,000 satellites into the big, black yonder.

Already, there are around 5,000 satellites in orbit, 3,050 of which are just floating junk.

You can imagine that among those against the proliferation will be decent rate-paying aliens, unable to fly their UFOs through all the satellites.

In related news, meanwhile, a former US military intelligence adviser has argued that alien craft are on a “reconnaissance mission”, prompting influential science journal The Daily Star to claim they are creating “a Google Map-style chart of the universe”.

Christopher Mellon says in a forthcoming Sky History documentary: “I don’t think these things are ours.”

This chimes in with the fears of a US intelligence chief who wants details released of mysterious aircraft sightings. Senator Marco Rubio said: “There are things flying over US bases and you don’t know what they are ’cause they’re not yours.”

He added that he’d prefer them to be alien rather than Russian or Chinese. Meanwhile, SpaceX boss Elon Musk has claimed the pyramids weren’t built by Egyptians but by aliens. Egyptians archaeologists have hit back, saying the claim was “complete hallucination”.

Ooter space: there’s never a quiet moment. Indeed, it’s all hotting up cosmos-side. Mark my words: the truth is oot there. Let’s hope it stays there.