In the Dire Straits song Money for Nothing, the workman person in whose voice the song is written complains that the worst the musicians they see on MTV might suffer would be a blister on their thumb. By that reckoning, I’ve well and truly arrived. I did a short set today as part of my role as a professional musician and, afterwards, I realised I, too, had a blister on my thumb.

It was for the Thursday club at church, our weekly group for more senior citizens. I joined them for their Christmas lunch but provided the after dinner entertainment in return. Armed with my trusty ukulele, I performed the ‘turducken’ Christmas set I derived a few years ago for the ukulele club I used to go to when I worked at the University of Oxford. It’s a turducken set because, although it plays the whole of The Twelve Days of Christmas, before it gets to the end, it stuffs in a whole host of other Christmas tunes, from carols, modern classics like White Christmas and, of course, Merry Christmas Everybody.

Unamplified and solo (we used to do this with about 6-10 of us playing together), I might have slightly overdone on the thumb strumming. I’ll have to give the thumb a rest for a day or two; fortunately, I’ve still got the other nine digits fully operational.