Following this week’s news that Englebert Humperdinck is to represent the UK in this year’s Eurovsion Song Contest I decided to type his name into predictive text on my smartphone, which replaced his forename with the mysterious combination “Engle Beet”, but remarkably seemed to recognise Humperdinck! This led me to pose the question – why would whoever’s job it is to decide which words should be included in predictive text include “Humperdinck?!” And – if it is considered that this is a sufficiently commonly texted word – why doesn’t the phone also recognise “Englebert”? Is there a more famous Mr or Ms H who I’ve forgotten about?!
My clues to this morning’s song that was Acceptable in the 80s – a UK top 40 hit single that you probably hadn’t heard in a while – were that the title of the song is something an obsessed fan might have said to Marlene Deitrich; and that, although they were one hit wonders, this group were passionate about their music.*
*Acceptable in the 80s was I’m in love with a German film star by the Passions.
