Jack Penate - Second Minute Or Hour

Jack Penate can't wait another second, minute or hour. He's tapped his feet as much as his ankles can take and his shoes are beginning to rub the back of his heels. He's read all of the magazines piled next to potted plants in the waiting room, his brain awash with yachting clubs and driven to distraction by high performance sports cars. He's tolerated the ridiculous computer composed salsa jingle irking his ear on the phone line from a stuffy office in Bangladesh for as long as he can. His call will be redirected as soon as an operator becomes available.

Or rather, Jack is simply just tired of wasting time. Because time is of the essence, and every second, minute and hour is an opportunity to be clutched; a moment in which to sing and to dance; to live and to love. Every hour passed waiting on the absent object of his affections is a song unwritten, every minute a photograph undeveloped, every second a dancefloor emptied.

And so, 'Second, Minute, or Hour' is the time told by heartbeat, every movement of the small hand pulsing life into Jack's urgent tales of lovelorn and loss. Not one solitary second of the song's one hundred and eighty is squandered; nor a grain of sand allowed to slip through hourglass fingers. Instead they are seized and treated to lashings of sun kissed jangling guitars, hip thrusting bass grooves and the soulful lamenting of Clapham's very own artist-soon-to-be-compared-to-Prince.

Patience is a virtue, or so they say. Whoever 'they' are is anyone's guess – but I for one am willing to bet that they're still on the end of that phoneline to their insurance company. Their call is in a queue of three, it will be redirected as soon as an operator becomes available.

Jack Shankly