Along with Max Bygraves and Barry Manilow, Des O'Connor completed the trinity of easy targets beloved to British light entertainment comedians in the seventies and eighties. Their dogma was such that just typing their names causes me to smirk in pre-judgement without them having to so much as open their mouths. Ah but whatever the rights and wrongs of this, I'm not about to launch a re-appraisal of defence of any of them. I'll leave that for someone else. And anyway, in the case of Des and on the evidence of 'I Pretend', I couldn't if I wanted to.It's the same old story, another lover has gone, but this time rather than try and win her back or hit the bottle in anguished heartbreak, Des is the archetypical polite Englishman, finding spineless virtue in not making a fuss ("Wish I knew exactly what I'd done. If there's someone else I'll set you free now, guess I've lost and he has won") and happy to queue 'till something better comes along as he sits in his chair and pretends she's still there with him. The fire of love does not exactly burn strongly in Mr O'Connor and he sings this with the personality and conviction of the speaking clock, a lo-fat 'ho-hum' of ambivalence suggestive of an innate boringness that could lie at the root of "exactly what" he's done to see her off - i.e. nothing, now or ever. "One day our love must end, till then I'll just pretend"; good luck with that Des, you big loser.
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