Conductor

It's too easy to make jokes about conductors - so here goes: what on earth do they actually do? They're not even playing an instrument for gawd's sake. If they're there to keep time why not build a six foot metronome and be done with it? I guess they must be important because all orchestras have them - but then again, we all have an appendix and they're pretty useless. Plus your appendix isn't a pompous bully preying on the pretty girls in the strings section - and you don't have to call your appendix 'maestro' (unless you're really weird).

When you think about it, we're all conductors in our own time, so to speak: alone, or in a nightclub environment, we like to jig around to music, using our hands and fingers to indicate rising crescendos or flag up important musical moments (hands up who plays air piano to the three descending chords in 'Dancing Queen'?). Still, imagine getting paid to do it, with a stick? I could do that. No problem. And I've got a dinner jacket. But I bet I couldn't - not really. You see conducting is a bit like witchcraft: you can't teach it, it's shrouded in mystery and you always wear black. Then I remembered: my cousin, Dan, has been a conductor for the last ten years. He could give me the inside! So I called him up. He told me how tiring it was, especially as you're on your feet all day, and how people can be rude. Finally I asked him what the hardest part of his job was. "When people don't have the right fare," he said. "Oh," said I. "I thought you were a musical conductor." "Nah," said Dan. "I gave that up years ago."