Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Oval...

When I was a child, I was traumatised by that music.

You know what I’m talking about. The scariest four chords in film music. “Duuuu-du! Duuuuuu-du!” Accompanied by a black, triangular fin through the inky midnight waves, and a lot of frenzied thrashing about in the water. The movie that had generations of children afraid to step into the bath let alone the sea. The fact that only well-hard plankton and an occasional star fish dare to dwell in the cold waters around Cramond beach was totally lost on me. Catch me in the water??? Not a hope in Hades!

I often wondered if I should sue my father for mental cruelty. He had an old VCR recording of Jaws made in the early 1980s, and thought it quite amusing to wait until I was in bed, open every door in the house and then turn the volume up as loudly as possible.

“Duuuuuu-du!”

That theme by John Williams really has come to signify approaching menace. For the first part of the very successful original film, the music was the shark. I have a love-hate relationship with Jaws. Even although I think it a magnificent film – the original blockbuster, you might say – I remember the effect it had on me as a child, and it still has me picking my feet off the carpet when it comes on the TV! And don’t mention the bit where the head falls out the boat...

I’m reminded of all this because yesterday, to escape the political hoo-ha of the Cameron/Clegg ‘marriage of convenience’ I watched Jaws 3 for the first time in 15 years. Good god was it awful! Really rubbish shark. Terrible storyline. And tonight as an even more dubious treat I have the delight of watching Jaws 4, which comes with an especially rubbery shark and an even more shoddy script than its predecessor!

The premise is, as usual, there’s a shark swimming along the Florida coast. But this is no ordinary shark: this is a shark about 100 meters in length, and its heading straight for the relatives of the late Chief Brody in the original film. It’s seriously narked with life, and thinks it’s time that it hunts down the people who have dared to make its existence a misery. It is one incredibly angry fish. Cue more carnage and severed limbs.

You’re probably wondering where this story is going.

I just can’t help wondering if, at any point over the last eight or so years, Gus Fraser has heard the Jaws theme in his head whenever Ramps has gone out to bat against Middlesex...

“Duuuuu-du.”