do not sing. Not for anyone. Not on any occasion. Not even in the shower.

Not even the teacher glaring at me over her glasses at reading corner, which I attend with my 2-year old friend, Luca, on a Monday morning, can get me to participate in one single ‘eeh-aai-eeh-aai-oh’.

Because my high school choir teacher told me I was tone-deaf.

I suffered this ordeal during a St 7 choir audition. All the other impressionable 14year olds lined up and sang together. The teacher paused in front of each one and declared you either a member or non-member of the elite Hoërskool Alberton choir.

She listened to me, and not only declared me a non-member (to my horror as I had sang in choirs up to then), but she also added injury to insult by saying, ‘Hmm, pity. You have such a strong voice, but you are utterly tone-deaf!’

That was the last day, 24 years ago to be precise, that I sang out loud or even wanted to sing out loud. That is until I heard Adele sing.

She performed an hour long gig at the 2011 iTunes Festival and some kind soul, illegally I might add, posted the whole concert in HD on Youtube! Be warned it will eat up your bandwidth as it is just under 900MB, but so worth it.

Put a move on it if you want to see it as iTunes will certainly remove it as soon as they know of its existence.