Could you be as cool as this man ...

Anyone know who it is ?
Yes, you at the back ?
No ?

Have a look at the video then.

Bobby Darin of course.
Coolness personified.

I dance like that when I'm drunk.
It embarasses the children.
Which is my job as a dad of course.

Anyway,
Frank Sinatra.
What ?

Yes its a tenuous link, but still, we're there now.
Frank Sinatra.

Have I ever mentioned that Frank Sinatra was my dad ?
No ?
How did I miss that one then.

Let me explain.

I grew up in the 1950's in a house full of music. No-one played a musical instrument but my dad sang, and sang, and sang. He sang in pubs, clubs, wherever they'd let him sing. He sang in the bath, in the car, in the garden, he sang for almost every minute of his waking life and when we were older he would not go for a drink with me and Ned unless there was a "turn" on at the pub or at the very least someone who could play the piano so that he could get up and sing.

In fact the pubs that allowed singers to get up and accompany their pianists were his favourites and he knew every pub piano in Leeds - the pianist would only have to start to say, "does anyone have a singing voice ?" and he'd be stood at the side of the piano before he'd finished saying the word "does".

We also had the radio on in our house - constantly, in fact I don't think anyone ever switched it off.

A great big super modern thing in beige and yellow plastic with wire feet and handles that you could pick it up (two handed) with and a great big dial on the front with the names of every European capital city on it so that you could tune in to their short wave broadcasts, which we never did.

The radio was always tuned to The BBC Light Programme, the one that mainly played music for my dads generation, music from the 40's and 50's, big band stuff, swing, jazz, and the crooners. My dad had grown up listening to Sinatra and his like, and knew all of his songs and wasn't afraid to sing them in pubs - "Lady is a tramp" and "That old Black Magic" being his favourite or if he could find a pianist who knew the tune, "All or nothing".

So there I was as a young child, two or three years old, pre-Beatles, indoctrinated into the swing and crooners sound and at the same time as I was listening to the BBC plum-in-mouth presenter speaking of a "Frank" on the radio singing "All or nothing", here was my dad, who I knew was also called Frank, singing "All or nothing" in our front room, and when we went on holiday he'd sing "All or nothing" in the talent conpetitions too, and of course he'd win the competitions, what with him being Frank Sinatra and all, it was almost dishonest for him to enter actually.

And later in his life when he went to live in Benidorm, he'd be out every night in the showbars singing Sinatra songs and when me and Ned went to visit him we'd feel obliged to go into his favourite bars and sit there and listen to him belt out a few tunes for his adoring old lady audience and instead of being embarassed about having a singing dad like we used to be when we were kids, we'd actually be just a tad proud of him, it takes balls to get up and sing like Sinatra or Darin in a bar, swaying your hips, clicking your non-mic-holding fingers casually by your side and ad-libbing with the words like you'd been doing it all your life - which he had.

Of course there was the unfortunate incident in one Benidorm bar when I wasn't with my dad but my wifes uncle instead and he introduced me to the owner of the place as "Franks lad", the pillock switched the microphone on, handed it to me and announced me as the next "turn" assuming that I'd be a singer too, nothing could be further from the truth actually and fortunately for me and the audience I'd remembered where the door to the street was.

I do look cool on the dance floor though - in my head anyway.
The offspring don't necessarily agree with that summary though.