Ukuleles are not cool.  Since seeing Tiny Tim warble his way among the tulips, I have had a hatred for the thing bordering on the unnatural.




How anyone can feel otherwise is a mystery.  Yet they do.  Ukulele sales have boomed in Britain, outpacing keyboards and guitars.   What accounts for this?  Michael White at The Telegraph blames The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain and says their attacks on Beethoven coupled with online tutorials for how to do the same are the problem.  "In another context you would call it grooming", he writes.   Oh my.  That will get him some phone calls.

In fairness, to ukulele's, perhaps White just needs to see people who are better at it.  As seen at a TED conference, Jake Shimabukuro is not lame at all: