There's an old man snoring somewhere RIGHT NOW

You’ve probably heard Rihanna’s latest single so many times that you want to jab yourself in the temples with said umbrella until you render yourself thoroughly dead. I’ve not listened to the radio, been in a shop or been party to digital television viewing for some time, and am therefore completely out of touch with the chart offerings of today. It is for this reason that ‘Umbrella’ is relatively new to my unfashionable ears and my, it’s a corker. I’m a big fan of Rhianna and her ambiguous and vacant-yet-beautiful face, but she should lose the obligatory and entirely unnecessary rap intro/solo if she’s to remain in my favour. Off you pop, Jay-Zzzz. You were good, once.

Anyone who has had to share an umbrella will know that they’re about as romantic as waking up next to a man wearing verruca socks on BOTH his feet. Rhianna evidently hasn’t ever resided in South Wales. Umbrellas may be a novelty in the Caribbean, LOVEY, but they’re a necessity round these parts. One minute you’re strolling along arm-in-arm with a beau; the next minute a gust of wind attacks you and there are prongs EVERYWHERE and a film of red is obscuring your vision and there’s bits of your face on the pavement AND all you can hear is the echoic screams of passers by. Brollies are evil incarnate. There’s also the power struggle between holder and holdee. Height differences only worsen this potentially relationship-crushing activity.

Oh, I don’t like umbrellas. I wish I was a duck. Scrap that, ducks are wank. I wish I was coated in Teflon, or Clingfilm, or grout. That way I wouldn’t have to bother walking around with such preposterous contraptions on the many occasions when precipitation dilutes the perennial dullness of the Welsh skies.

Let’s assume here, that she’s referring to a figurative rain shelter as opposed to the canopy of doom that we here in (Great) Britain have to contend with on an all-too-regular basis. Would Rihanna grant you hypothetical refuge from the allegorical rain under her metaphorical umbrella?

Probably.

In the hair-frizzing, ankle-soaking, disappointly cold real world, she’d almost certainly tell you to 'FUCK OFF AND BUY YOUR OWN FUCKING UMBRELLA-ELLA-ELLA-ELLA', and you'd put your hood up and try not to let her see you sobbing furiously into the lining of the flimsy cag-in-a-bag you purchased in the Millets' sale because you knew it'd come in handy one day.

Sorry, did I ruin that song for you? I'd better not dissect Whitney Houston's 'It's not Right (But it's OK)' then. Suffice to say: she'll not eat the skin of her baked sweet potato ever again.