h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today I completed my quest to whistle while running every parkrun in Hampshire.

<BB<

Great breath control---you should take up voice.

Did you actually manage a tune or was it just a dying kettle?

I whistle tunes, not just make a noise. I like to start off with Sport Aid's 'Running all over the World' and then 'Keep On Running', and then follow up with The Proclaimers '500 Miles' or Snow Patrol's 'Run'. Then after Fleetwood Mac's 'Don't Stop' it is time for the power ballads such as 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now' and 'Don't Stop Me Now' and if it is a 2-lap course obviously at the end of lap one it is time for 'Livin' on a Prayer' with the chorus hopefully coinciding with the start of lap 2. Then 'Band on the Run', 'Run for Your Life' by The Beatles and 'Eye of the Tiger' and Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain'. By the final lap (if it is three lap) it is time to engender a sense of communal accomplishment with 'We All Stand Together', 'With a Little Help From My Friends' and 'We are the Champions' to finish.

<BB<

Most Parkrunners I've ever seen would whistle "Walk Awhile With Me" by Fairport Convention.

A very impressive repertoire of tunes, there.

I was impressed even by your two-note 'hello' when I was looking completely the wrong way as you approached the other day, so I must make a request for a Queen song next time we meet

I tested my whistle and I can just about make a sound, but the note I can make wouldn't be found on any keyboard, I suspect...

Well done on becoming a Champshire!

I didn't realise I was whistling when I saw you – but whistling is a habit. I started whistling when I had my paper round 2 or 3 decades ago. As I always whistled while cycling and I still cycle most days, it just came naturally to whistle while running. After all, everyone's got to breathe and I breathe through my mouth when running anyway, so if air is passing through my mouth I might as well make it musical. The trick is to whistle on both the inhales and the exhales, but I don't think it is any harder than breathing silently.
(I try not to whistle as I approach people as someone once thought I was treating them as a - rest assured I am not a farmer and have never owned a and have never specifically whistled at one.)

<BB<

I appreciated the notes on approach, and didn't think you were whistling at a - I heard the 'hello' and thought: that was a tuneful sound and <BB< is good at whistling so it must be him I still jumped anyway, because I had been expecting you to arrive from the other direction, but it could have been worse!

You have had a lot of practice to hone your I see

I was approaching from the other direction but didn't spot you and the sign until I'd gone right by, and so circled back a bit. 'Twas the rain getting in the way, you see…

<BB<

I'm a huge admirer of the skill of whistling, which I cannot do at all. Not a note. Not ever.

So, how about producing a video of this talent? Post fame awaits, such as it is...

I can't even *watch* videos online most of the time, let alone try to make one. I'm not sure how well whistling would record on a microphone any way…?

<BB<

Get together with Sasha on it. Sasha's really good at video production. It'd be worth a bit of experimentation, anyhow.

Your wish is our command A87934134

Mrs Hoggett wishes to convey her extreme amusement at this video. At first, she didn't believe it was someone whistling. She admired this skill.

At least, before the drama unfolded on my lap... Siskiyou came over to investigate the whistling, and Abby, as per normal, decided that she needed to lunge, snarl, and bark at S... Siskiyou being a shepherd/dingo mix, and Abby being a chihuahua

Sometimes I worry that the ancient art of whistling is dying out. You see young people out and about today and they're not whistling, they're listening to headphones and relying on gadgets to make music for them rather than creating it themselves.

<BB<

Explain to me again that link you made between ‘whistling’ and ‘making music’.

If the thumping noise played in clubs and the atonal pan pipes belted out in shopping centres counts broadly as 'music' , whistling must too. At least there's an intention to convey a tune. Now pucker up and blow

<BB<

I think all your examples would lie outside my Venn circle of music, but within the circumscribed one of ‘noise’.

'Atonal pan pipes'? I want to hear this. Can you supply this need, please?

As Merle Hazard sings, 'Gimme That Ol' Atonal Music'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzodB0Sp6ZI

Don't click on that link if you're not fond of satirical bluegrass, but I could imagine BB whistling it.