I was reminded the other night of the amazing phenomenon whereby in a pub, restaurant or mess dinner, there can be a loud general hubbub, but just as some poor sod says something ballsacheingly embarassing if taken out of context, the hubbub just happens to take a lull and the whole company hears the said embarassing comment.
The incident which brought this to mind was on Saturday night about 9 o'clock in a noisy pub in the Lake District with 2 well-oiled rugby teams making a hell of a lot of 'hubbub'. Unfortunately, all the guys seemed to stop for breath together just as some poor lass at the bar was saying to her chum "I suppose I could always sell my body." 15 minutes later after many ribald offers and much laughter, the pub returned to general hubbub.
A few years ago I was at a dinner for about 25 officers with the Colonel presiding. A gang of us subalterns were trying to explain this particular manifestation of "Sod's Law" to a Major who had never heard of this phenomenon before and wouldn't believe it.
The conversation went on for about 20 minutes with the Major eventually getting quite terse as he felt we were talking utter b0ll0cks. Sensing blood, after much discreet kicking under the table, the exasperated Major eventually blurted out (with sound effects):
hubbub, hubbub, hubbub, "So just because I was to say..." hubbub "something like...." silence "the Colonel's a w@anker ..." absolute silence!
After watching him try to explain to the Colonel for 5 (hilarious for us but ballsacheingly embarassing for him) minutes we coughed to the Colonel that it had been a set up.
He still had to buy the first round in the bar though.