It's the club that dare not speak its name... Until now.

Once a week, they clamber up from the life that's been bringing them down and get up on stage, or at least on to a raised area of a dance floor, to take part in a bit of good old fashioned karaoke.

This week, I learnt that the word karaoke translates from the Japanese meaning empty orchestra.

And there's undoubtedly something echoingly empty about karaoke life.

Trust me, I sing at the karaoke too.

I've been warbling along to ill-tuned backing tracks in a number of pubs far and wide for more than 10 years. During my time clutching a mic full of other people's spit, I've learned that no matter where you go, karaoke-goers are often the same. It's an Unspoken Karaoke Club.

Unspoken until now, anyway.

The Unspoken Karaoke Club has its key members.

There's the bloke that sings Tom Jones or Meat Loaf with all of the passion and seriousness of the stars themselves.He shows up with his bored looking wife, or on his own. He's brought his own pen to write down his requests. He's poised and ready to perform. His time is now.

The unwritten rules dictate that without these staple characters, karaoke would have packed its bags and fled for Japan years ago. The pizzazz of the party, the cherry on the sundae of the Unspoken Karaoke Club is Someone's Mum. Someone's Mum comes to karaoke with her husband or her friends.

You'll never find Someone's Mum singing with anyone else. For one night only, for as long as Black Velvet by Alannah Myles plays out, the stage is hers and hers alone, an escape from monotony and a chance to relive a former life.

It may be that Someone's Mum will not sing with another mum, but the Sisters are quite the opposite. Without one another, the Sisters would not sing at all.

They're a group of girls, not necessarily related, that sing empowering songs with all of the enthusiasm that you can expect from a Bacardi Breezer-fuelled bunch. Sometimes they'll sing It's Raining Men. If they're feeling fruity, you'll hear Lady Marmalade.

Someone will kick the mic stand over and someone might be found crying in the loos later in the evening. Sisters are not necessarily doing it for themselves, but they're doing it and that's all that matters. As well as these stalwarts, you have the typical smatter of smaller groups.

The couple that sing Summer Nights, the guy that has been forced to sing Aqua's Barbie Girl by his lager swilling pals and the wallflower whose incredible rendition of I Will Always Love You blows you clean over.

The Unspoken Karaoke Club is both everything that's great and everything that's awful about British pub entertainment.

So where does that leave me?

I hop up on stage and do my best Rihanna or Iron Maiden. In those moments I feel that, for just a moment, I'm the rock star I was destined to be when I was born into council estate obscurity.

Beneath those three flashing disco lights, clutching a pint of cider, we can all be exactly who we want to be.

Even if our orchestras are indeed empty.