‘Wally uses his telescopes and radio antennas to find them and he posts his findings on astronomical noticeboards. He’s made a few fantastic finds over the years, including three old American spy satellites that, while officially designated in the 1990s as dead, were still working. They were still emitting encrypted signals long after they shouldn’t have been. He informed the American government and they weren’t very happy about it at all. He got a tax audit the next year which kind of fuelled his paranoid tendencies.’

Jack smiled. ‘I like old Wally. He’s an odd duck, for sure, a bit of a dreamer. But the world’s a better place with him in it, which is why I like to check on him from time to time. Be a good neighbour.’

Of course, Wally had been delighted to see them—‘Jack! Little Lily! Sit down! Lemme get you both a cuppa!’—and they’d stayed with him all afternoon.

‘Say, Lily,’ Wally said at one point, ‘do you like classical music?’

Lily screwed up her nose. ‘You mean, like, Bach and Beethoven?’

‘Yeah.’

‘No, not really. It’s kinda old and stuffy. I prefer pop music.’

Wally looked horrified. ‘Now, love, I reckon you just haven’t heard the right classical music, is all.’

He heaved his big beer gut from his chair and waddled over to a collection of vinyl records on a shelf, picked one and placed it on an old-school turntable.

The music began playing. The famous first notes of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Piano Concerto No.1’.

Baa-bum-bum-bum.

Baa-bum-bum-bum.

…only to suddenly be replaced by a series of boppy synthesised drumbeats.

Jack smiled to himself as he recognised the tune.

It wasn’t exactly what professors at highbrow conservatories of music taught as ‘classical’. But then…

Wally sat down beside Lily and with a grin a mile wide, started enthusiastically tapping his foot and banging his hand on his thigh in time to the music.

‘Isn’t it great?’ he said, raising his voice.

To her credit, Lily listened…

…and she started bobbing her head, too.

Wally was delighted. ‘See! You just haven’t listened to the right classical music. This track, Lily my girl, is called “Hooked on Classics” and it’s a dead-set ripper in the world of classical music. You won’t find a better tune.’

Jack was well aware of the tune.

With its cheerful mix of catchy synth and famous orchestral music, ‘Hooked on Classics’ had been a surprise hit in the early 1980s, climbing into the top ten on popular music charts all over the world alongside the likes of Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Physical’ and Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’.

Of course, music snobs decried it. But like it or not, ‘Hooked on Classics’ had introduced a whole generation of young people to classical music, evidently including Wally Ferguson.

After a time, Lily went to play outside and Jack and Wally chatted about his astronomical observations.

‘I hear more and more Chinese signals,’ Wally reported. ‘China is sending all kinds of satellites up into orbit these days. A lot of them are emitting signals that are seriously encrypted, too.’