The morning after the night before, there are usually a few clues to tell you whether or not you've overdone things in terms of the consumption of units of alcohol. At one end of the spectrum is waking up in a strange house or suburb or city with no recollection of how you got there; or in the holding cell of a police station with the name "Rosalita" tattooed above your heart and strange bruises about the rest of your person. At the other end of the spectrum is simply waking up feeling just that little bit seedy and in need of a glass of water.
At the lower end of the spectrum, for me, is the phenomenon of waking up with a song, or a phrase from a song, stuck in my head. I don't normally wake up with a song in my head (because I don't normally wake up after having had a few wines too many) but every now and then I do and it is a sure sign that I over-indulged, just a teensy bit, the night before.
I don't know why this is the case. I certainly don't know if this is normal. For all I know this may be an underlying symptom of some kind of greater psychological malady and in the days that follow the publication of this column I will receive partial diagnoses and offers of treatment from health professionals who work with the bewildered. I certainly hope not.
Normally I wouldn't talk about such a personal phenomenon except for the fact the other morning, after a wine or two too many while watching the Blues/Highlanders game on television, the song I woke up to the next morning was Boney M's Rasputin.
To say I was mortified at having Rasputin stuck in my head is something of an understatement. It was a far-from-ideal start to the day. But the deeply mystifying (and troubling) thing about waking up to the phrase "Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine" on a loop in my brain was not knowing how it got there in the first place.
