Retrospective: Odd Harmonies

It was back in the little apartment we rented in Paris, in the Marais - great place to be, by the way: right by the river, lots of halal eateries. Basically it was a one-bedroom flat, but there was a sturdy sofa bed in the front room for the girls and they enjoyed having the living-room to themselves, with tv, DVD player and the like, once Noi and I had taken off to the land of nod. I suspect our nieces had a few late night sessions.

I was the first to wake in the morning, to do the dawn prayer. Then I would use all my powers of persuasion to get Fafa up to do the same. Noi and Fifi weren't able to do prayers for the few days we were there. Once Fafa had prayed she took herself back to her bed for a few extra zzzzzzzzs. (That kid can really sleep.) So I'd be left with a bit of time on my hands and not much to do except read and listen to a bit of music. I'd start with some fairly tranquil stuff so the girls could sleep on, but gradually put on some more lively sounds as the morning truly arrived. Still it took a long time to stir the troops.

After I'd bought the Fripp and Eno Equatorial Stars album that became the first choice in the earliest hours - slow, trance-like, drifting: no sleeper could protest. One morning, as the CD was playing, I turned on my mobile phone. I'm no great lover of these generally pernicious devices and had mine turned resolutely off for most of our time in Europe. I was simply checking for anyone who might have tried to make contact in the last day or so.

The most extraordinary thing happened. As you no doubt know, most of these phones seem to come with a little bit of start-up music. Mine being manufactured by Nokia plays that nah-nah-naah-nah-naah phrase, a sound that gets increasingly irritating the more I hear it. But not this morning. The phone certainly played its ditty, but this time in the most magical synchronisation, rhythmically and harmonically with the cunning musical stylings of our ambient heroes. It seemed like business as usual on the Equatorial Stars front - I didn't know the music well enough to be aware that Eno had not deliberately incorporated the Nokia tune in its textures as a kind of joke. But the irritating ditty was now revealed, in its utterly-transformed-yet-the-same form, as one of the great motifs of our time.

And instantly it was gone, never to be recaptured. Spooky.