Karaoke fever at the Hear and Now bar

10:46am Tuesday 8th January 2002

Karaoke. The mere mention of this form of musical entertainment sends shivers down my spine.

I'll never forget the night my friends thought it would be fun to put my name forward to sing Gloria Gaynor 'I Will Survive'. Needless to say I wasn't crowned the Queen of Disco and certainly didn't survive.

Despite this fear of ever singing again in public I made a visit to High Wycombe's Here and Now Bar on Wednesday night for an evening of karaoke style singing.

It was the first night and word had spread that karaoke was in town. The bar was packed full of enthusiastic hopefuls ready to show-off their talent. There was a definite fascination with the songlist booklets as groups of friends became very animated. They would eagerly read what was on offer and then fall into heated discussions about which song they'd choose, and who would sing it. I must admit, I had to stifle the temptation to get up there and sing after reading the songlist.

However, I sat tight and enjoyed 1 cringingly sometimes 1 listening to the brave participants get up there and belt out their favourite song.

The karaoke compere did well to keep the momentum going in between acts and the bar's plasma screens transmitted the lyrics - so it was quite easy to mumble along to the songs too.

It was good night's entertainment, but I'll need a few more visits before I get over my fear of singing.