...or rather there would be, if he had a girlfriend. He does at times come pretty close to having a halo, something which usually strikes me after he's lost his tenth game of pool in succession and he's still grinning.

We were playing last night, and he was telling me about the night out he had on Tuesday (very social animal, is Niall) at the Ship Inn on Frenchgate.

'So anyway, I was just in there, like, having a quiet pint [trans. 'rubbing the regulars up the wrong way'] and I saw this lass. Nice girl like. So I said to myself, I said, "Niall, this feels right. let's go for it." So I did. And - get this, right - I did all right. Do you know what my chat up line was? Eh?'

I indicated that no, I didn't. Knowing a little of Niall's techniques for dealing with the opposite sex, I tensed up the old stomach muscles in the expectation they were about to be put to work retaining my most recent meal.

'I said, "it's really nice to see a woman" - I said woman, not girl, that's important you know, Bill - "it's really nice to see a woman who doesn't need makeup to help her natural beauty shine through."'

'That's lovely. What happened next?'

'We chatted. Her name's Nikki. You know, we were just matey like. Honest, being straight with each other. Then as she was about to go I told her I found her very attractive and asked for her number.'

'And?'

'Well, she doesn't actually have a mobile' - there's a surprise, Niall - 'but she promised to give me a call. What do you reckon? Did I do all right?'

'You did all right. Now play your shot.' We carried on in silence for a while From the furrowing of his brow, I could tell that Niall was thinking hard about something.

'Mind you, she's big.'

'Big?'

'Big.'

'Like, big big?'

'Big.' More silence, a couple more shots. Niall's been out with some plus-size ladies before and never really passed comment on their dimensions - he's fond of saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So his reservations about Nikki's physical charms suggest that the beholder had better have eyes like a fish if he's going to stand any chance of taking her in without actually swivelling his head. Still, Niall and Nikki. It has a certain ring to it.

Before meeting Niall I'd been down at Castle Beecroft seeing how Sab is getting on with the piano part for Alcohol. She's singing it as a kind of farewell spot at Yarm School speech day. She was doing all right, but suffers some the problems of the classicist trying to play anything other than classical music - she struggles to relax into what she's playing and generally worries about the whole improvisation thing. But she's determined to be a better jazz. blues and pop pianist, and she's got the determination and talent to do it. Guess all she needs to do is practise.