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Why I have no choice but to join your table, by the creepy old man in the pub

GOOD evening, is this chair taken? I don’t need it for my own table, I’m joining yours for the evening. Here’s why.

You’ve got a relationship that needs ruining

You both look very happy, and if I may say so you’ve done very well for yourself. Allow me to point out your partner’s many desirable physical attributes which you will never be able to admire again without my lecherous face leering in your mind. I hope this doesn’t prompt your eventual break-up but if it does here’s my number, sweetheart.

Staring is best done up close

When I was doing my intrusive staring from across the bar you were able to avoid my lewd gaze by pretending to be fascinated by the label of your beer bottle. There’s no escape from my ogling now I’m only a foot away though. Don’t worry, I’ll ask a series of probing questions to distract from my darting looks at your chest and crotch.

You need educating

I couldn’t help but overhear the hushed conversation you and your friends were having about the state of the world. Allow me to educate you about culture, politics, religion and sexuality with a rambling monologue of ill-informed opinions scraped from the Daily Express comments section. No, there will be no pauses to change topic or escape to the toilet.

I’m lonely

Please don’t get up and leave. I’m such a sad, lonely old man who has no option but to seek solace in the company of attractive young people such as yourselves. Ignore the messages and missed calls from my wife asking me where I am, they’re from scammers who are trying to steal my pension. Although if she comes in here tell her it wasn’t me on the fruit machine.

I’ve made a personal revelation

If it looks like you’ve reached the limit of my ramblings, I’ll lock you in as you reach for your coats by making a wild personal discovery. You can’t leave me after I just remembered I ran over a guy in 1978 and never stopped to check if he was okay. That’s right, sit back down. We’re in this together until last orders.

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Rita Ora and other singers who have brutally murdered innocent songs

GOOD cover versions are classics in their own right, or there are these travesties that make even the originals unlistenable: 

All Saints – Under the Bridge

The Red Hot Chili Peppers original is their only decent track, detailing Anthony Kiedis’s poignant descent into heroin addiction. All Saints hit their own rock bottom by recording this breathy cover packed with choppy sampling. Their attempt to look urban and edgy in the video is about as convincing as your aunt wearing a baseball cap sideways.

Rita Ora – Running Up That Hill

So wildly removed from the original that you question if she’s actually heard Kate Bush’s, version, or is familiar with the phrase ‘less is more’ If this had been in Stranger Things then being disembowelled by the Demigorgon would come as a release.

Katie Price and Peter Andre – A Whole New World

Peter Andre can carry a tune, but their all-encompassing 00s celebrity means that Katie Price elbowed in on his gig to voice Princess Jasmine, but with massive jugs. Did the couple have compromising material of studio executives? Were the US Army searching for new tracks to use at Guantanamo Bay? Why else would this exist?

t.A.T.u – How Soon Is Now? 

The widespread feeling in 2002 that Russian schoolgirl lesbians could do no wrong was almost immediately dispelled by this novelty act’s second single, a Smiths cover that is at once too faithful to be interesting and too different to ever be loved. Probably responsible for David Cameron discovering The Smiths. That’s how worthless it was.

Ronan Keating – Fairytale of New York

In a twisted way it’s marvellous that a seminal work by one of Ireland’s greatest songwriters was covered by one of its most anodyne singers. Utterly devoid of the raw energy that made the original so beloved, Keating delivers the vocals with the enfeebled strain of a man whose Christmas has delivered no hardship greater than running out of Sellotape. At least Moya Brennan doesn’t sing the bad word.

One Direction – One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)

Not content with ruining one classic song, Harry Styles and the boys he never calls these days decided to wreck two. Somehow worse than the sum of its parts, this mash-up of Blondie and The Undertones has a suitably egregious video complete with David Cameron cameo. All the money it raised for Comic Relief should be burnt.

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