A upbeat story for the end of the week

The theme of this story is "My greatest moment involving music". I wrote it as a fill-in post for a blogger when he was on holiday, but he never used it (sufferin' succotash!). Never one to throw anything away that can be recycled, I present it here for your reading pleasure. Enjoy...


Once upon a time, in 1996, I was in Charing Cross Library*, central London, looking for the Blade Runner soundtrack CD when I caught sight of an attractive girl browsing the library computer for something. It looked like she was on the Manic Street Preachers page. As she made her way to the counter, I took my CD and joined her there.

"Oh," she said, looking at my Manic Street Preachers T-shirt, "did you go and see them last night?"

"No," I replied, "the night before."

"I was there too," she countered, enthusiastically. "Great, wasn't it?"

Then the counter guy asked her what she was looking for. She told him The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers, on tape. (Tape, eh?)

He typed some stuff and told her it should be in, according to the computer, but that it's not.

"Okay, thanks," she said, and walked off, saying bye to me as she went.

I paused. It seemed like a long time, but I suppose it was only a few seconds really. "Hold on!"

She stopped, and I walked over to her. "I can tape it for you if you like."

We arranged for her to call me at work a couple of days later, from which point we could arrange to meet up and I'd give her the tape.

And you know what? Reader, I married her.

* NOTE: No, the gorgeous library pictured above is not Charing Cross Library; it's the library at La Real Academia de la Lengua, in Madrid, apparently.