Count Basie wasn’t a real Count obviously.
No. But his affected title did assist me in a rather sticky situation. I was sending regular missives to my mother informing her that I was working for a large American company that exported around the world but she was eager for more specifics. She wanted to know who I was working with and what duties I performed. I could hardly tell her I worked with Fats Domino or Little Richard, so Count Basie was a godsend. I wrote to my mother and told her I spent the day working closely with a man high up in the company who was a Count.
That’s very cunning.
I assisted the Count all day while he worked through a lot of numbers and I helped him with some vital paperwork which required my expertise. Which was technically true, the numbers he was working through were musical numbers and the paperwork involved him hurling sheet music to the floor which I would dutifully pick up. And I was able to tell her I was moving up in the company because the studio we recorded Atomic Mr Basie in was on one of the higher floors.
So she had reconciled herself to your new career by this stage?
Well, she wasn’t happy about me being in America, or “the colonies” as she called them. She was concerned I didn’t have access to proper tea or The Times but I assured her I was surviving more than adequately and hadn’t “gone native” by drinking coffee from polystyrene or developing an interest in baseball, which seemed to mollify her to a certain degree. Although I must confess that in my more devilish moods I was sorely tempted to conclude a conversation with a cheery “see ya later” which I had heard being used by studio technicians and I thought was charming in a rustic sort of way.
What impact would that have had on your mother?
Death I should imagine. It might have been more than her poor old heart could have handled. At the very least it would have been a faint and a prolonged coma. So you can see why I resisted the impulse. Harmless fun is one thing but there’s nothing like a potential fatality to curb an impish tendency.
I’ve never understood the difference between a count and a viscount.
Along with several other aspects of the peerage system, I shouldn’t wonder.
…can you explain the difference?
Does it matter?
I suppose not.
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