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A new enforcement team has been established in Jersey to track down and eliminate one of the biggest threats to our health and safety during the pandemic: singing.
Units from the Contact Tracing Team, Honorary and States Police are patrolling the island to check if any islander’s regular speech pattern becomes augmented by sustained tonality, rhythm, and other conscious vocal techniques.
They will use advanced listening equipment that can detect if air passing over someone’s larynx is amplified and coordinated to such an extent that it may constitute arranged musical tones.
The MoD-developed technology can even detect singing over the sound of a shower, flush of a toilet or lawnmower. With no need for a warrant, the team can then storm any premise to ensure that droplets escaping from a rousing rendition of My Way, Wonderwall or a bad attempt at Nessun Dorma don’t lead to the transmission of any deadly coronavirus.
One of the first Islanders arrested was 80-year-old Edith de la Haye, who now faces an £800 penalty or two weeks at HMP La Moye.
“As normal, I was in church at Bethlehem in St. Mary on Sunday when we played ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness’,” recalled the life-long Methodist. “Well, it’s such a rousing hymn that I’ve enjoyed since I was a child, I allowed myself a quiet singalong.
“But when I reached ‘Morning by Morning New Mercies I See’, a blacked-out team of Honorary special forces, wearing respirators and throwing tear gas, smashed through the Bosdet-designed stained-glass windows after hanging from ropes attached to Apache helicopters.
“‘Lord unto me!’ I exclaimed, which apparently got me £100 added to my fine.”
Not everyone has been so rebellious as Mrs de la Haye. Wanting to stick by the rules, the Jersey Green Room Club is carrying on with its Christmas production of ‘Humming in the Rain’.
“It’s not quite the same,” conceded club member Will O’Twanky, who is playing principal character Don Lockdown. “We’ve had to scale it back and I’m not sure our renditions of ‘Don’t Make 'em Laugh’ and ‘Moses Supposes Mass Retail Closures’ will go down too well.”
Mr O’Twanky admitted that the club’s planned production of Les Misérables next year, with its adapted songs ‘I Sneezed a Sneeze’, ‘Empty Chairs in Empty Cinemas’ and ‘Do You Hear the People Hum?’ is unlikely to go ahead.
Elsewhere, another platoon of Honoraries recently stormed a clandestine meeting of the Jersey Gilbert and Sullivan Society after someone reported seeing three little maids, five naval officers, two pirates, seven gondoliers and a yeoman of the guard duck into a side alley off Sand Street.
“We followed these people as far as we could without being spotted then set up our listening equipment,” said Centenier Denis Le Brocq. “Agast, we heard one of their number - who claimed to be the very model of a modern Major-General - rallying his troops. So all units swept in and arrested the fifth columnists before they could turn into a rollicking band.”
Speaking afterwards from a prison cell, exclusively to News Eye, G&S Society spokesman Barry Tone said: “We’re being classed as felons in our employment.”
“Our employment,” emphasised fellow society members, sharing his cell.
“They think we are maturing felonious little plans,” he continued. “But in fact, our capacity for innocent enjoyment.”
“-cent enjoyment,” said his colleagues.
“Is just as great as any honest man’s”.
“Honest man’s,” added his fellow inmates.
Asked later if he was angry at the police’s actions, Mr Tone was magnanimous in his response: “When an Honorary’s duty to be done, to be done, a Centenier’s lot is not a happy one. Haaaapppppyyyy onnnneeee.”
The incarceration of the G&S Society means that The Harmony Men now top the list of Jersey’s Most Wanted.
Meanwhile, the Government has produced a Top 10 list of acceptable songs that people can safely hum to, which will not incur the wrath of the zero-tolerance anti-singing authorities. They are:
The Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister duet in this classic power ballad as they endeavour to sound convincing in a Facebook press conference while reading the lyrics for the first time from an auto cue.
The Deputy Medical Officer of Health goes Gothic post-punk as he tries to encourage us to wear black masks with black eyeliner and a black jumper.
The story of a young woman who cleverly avoids following isolation rules by posting about it on social media.
A classic 80s floor-filler which will encourage you to grab a dance partner whether they’re displaying flu-like symptoms or not.
A disco anthem that you’ll want to listen to at home again and again, while you wait for your test results.
Stir up your social activism by listening to this coded song that 35,000 other Islanders have already downloaded.
At the time, everyone thought that, with the lead singer / guitarist’s promising track record, this band would be better than it was.
A song from the ironically called ‘Environment’ Minister, who would actually prefer to build homes than manage the population.
A debut from this academic songwriter from Imperial College whose half-baked coronavirus model predicted that most of us should have been dead by now.
A country classic from Guernsey about the law of unintended consequences and what happens when you introduce half-arsed electoral reform on the hoof. A salutary lesson for everyone over here.
Listen to Charlie Parker’s favourite tune, with all proceeds from sales going, as of yesterday, to charity.
