NOT content with trying to get us to eat raw fish for our tea, the Japanese are also responsible for the introduction of karaoke machines.

While in years gone by pub regulars might have gathered around a battered old piano for a sing-song, by the early Eighties, karaoke (Japanese for 'empty orchestra') machines had arrived in Glasgow.

Never in the history of popular music had so many innocent songs been murdered by cloth-eared, tone-deaf would-be Frank Sinatras and Patsy Clines.

Who's Sorry Now? Indeed!

These regulars at Glasgow's Shawfield Bar were on-song in 1984 and, judging by the high-kicks and the straw boater, we can only imagine that Frank Sinatra's New York, New York was taking its weekly Saturday night shoeing from the cats' chorus.