Mama Mia

Sorry about the missing blog last week but I’ve just got back from a week long trip with my bucket and spade to the seaside in Portugal. The weather there was magnificent; in fact I lay awake marvelling at the magnificent lightning, listening to the magnificent thunder and watching the magnificent, teeming, rain only this morning before I left.

Portugal, or more specifically The Algarve, seems to be where British golfers, with more money than sense, selflessly go to give their friends and partners a break. It’s a kind of care home for the terminally nylon waterproofed which gives their golf widows temporary respite from embarrassment and the chance to enjoy life back home.

Every Winter and Spring, the airport at Faro gets filled with middle aged men watching their golf clubs go round on carousels while discussing the merits of tartan socks and Pringle jumpers in neon colours. Here in the UK, sadly, they’d be laughed at but in the Algarve, a bit like lady boys in a Thailand dance club, they can all congregate for mutual support and to share stories.

I love sport, and I’ve played rugby, football and tennis with various degrees of failure and an extraordinary lack of success. But golf has escaped me and, after a lot of thought, I think I know why. It’s because it’s not really a sport, is it?

Fat men with shoes that resemble gangster’s spats left over from the Valentine’s Day Massacre perspire as they push themselves out of a seat on a motorised buggy, remove the woollen pom pom covers that were “hand” knitted by large machines in the Third World and bought as a Christmas present for their clubs, and then hack the fairway to death before jumping back aboard and repairing to the “Ninenteenth” hole for a lager shandy and discussion of their latest cholesterol level checks. It’s not quite up there with Sir Chris Hoy and his miles of cycling each day while dragging Ben Nevis behind for resistance work is it?

But, as a round of golf in the Algarve can cost around a hundred pounds, the locals stifle their laughter and welcome the thousands of Euros that these weekend walkers and wide waisted wastrels bring in hotel fees, refusing to sneer at the procession of pink sweatered dodgy salesmen showing their passports to the girls at check in and quipping “my ‘phone number’s on there too”. My how we all laughed in the Easyjet queue each time we heard it, over and over, and over.

This week, then, you won’t be surprised to learn I didn’t go to Portugal for the golf but, instead, I went for a holiday, to do some business, and also to take my mum and dad for a well earned break.

My mum is someone everyone should take on holiday because she guarantees a laugh in restaurants, or just about anywhere really. She’ll turn down the waiters’ offers of fresh fish as she doesn’t like the bones, shellfish is a non starter as she’s scared of food poisoning, steak is out as she says she can’t chew it if it’s tough, and spaghetti stays on the starting blocks as it makes a mess. “So, what would you like then?”, the waiters will say in exasperation. “Oh,” my Mum will reply with a smile, “I’m not fussy, I’ll eat anything”.

She has a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time which surprised a very kind waiter this trip who said, in a broken accent, not to hesitate and to ask him anything at all as he’d lived in Britain for a while and was proud to say his English was very good. As he turned round my mum said, very loudly, “What did he say? I couldn’t understand a word.”

In fairness, this may have something to do with the fact she wears a hearing aid and it may also have something to do with the fact that she’d worn it in the shower before coming out. “It’s not working now”, she said. “Full of water”. I asked for a look and discovered the real reason. She had forgotten to turn it on.

Mum has an affinity with toilets and will always have a holiday adventure connected with porcelain. A few years ago, on a trip to Italy with my Dad, she disappeared for ages to the ladies’ toilet leaving him to get more and more anxious as the minutes ticked away. When he eventually set off in search of her, my mum was laughing her head off. She’d desperately gone to the loo and, after the initial relief, had panicked as she realised she’d rushed without checking if the lid was up. It wasn’t!

On this trip, as we settled in to a cosy café after a long walk, she disappeared to the toilets for some considerable time and, as my dad and I speculated on whether she’d repeated the Italian trick, she arrived back saying she’d had a shock. A man had come in to the ladies toilet. When we discovered that she’d gone to the gents by mistake, she admitted she thought it was a bit different from usual and had wondered about the large wash hand basin on the wall and why she couldn’t get the water to run. That, we explained, was a urinal.

Now it’s back to reality with a week’s worth of bills and other post piled up, including various holiday brochures and special offers. There’s even one advertising a golfing holiday to Spain. If you’re going on that one then don’t bother to ask if I’m free to join you. But my mum, on the other hand, is always up for a holiday.

My Kinda Life

www.paulcoia.com

I’m going to Portugal for a week’s holiday on Saturday and I want you all to say to yourself “that’s nice, Paul deserves a bit of a break”, because when I mentioned my vacation to a pal the other day he laughed and said “but your whole life’s a holiday”.

I guess I can’t complain about “my life” as I am indeed lucky, but a continual holiday? It’s hard work looking this good and being so popular, and you don’t want to know the frustrations I’ve had over past two weeks just going about my business. Actually, if you’re reading this blog, then perhaps you do.

I’ve interviewed a lot of celebrities over the past few weeks and I guess the knack is to make them feel appreciated and loved so that they relax and “give good interview”. The only way to do this, apart from my natural charm and charisma of course, is to show the interviewee respect by doing a lot of homework on them. There can be nothing more brain numbing than getting asked the same questions day after day.

The young actress Kristen Stewart, from the new mega successful movie Twilight, has said that she kept getting asked “What’s it like to kiss a vampire?” on the movie’s publicity tour, and it made her want to scream so much that when someone actually asked a novel or interesting question her brain had shut down and couldn’t cope.

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Hugh Cornwell who wrote all the big hits for The Stranglers and now has a new album out. The last time I interviewed Hugh and the rest of the band I found them impossible to cope with and many swear words hit the airwaves of Glasgow, so much so that I was fired from presenting that particular show. This time, I studiously listened to the CD and did my research hoping to make amends, only to find as he arrived that I’d left all my hard worked questions at home. I rang my wife Debbie and asked her to email the notes but, as she makes Wilma Flintstone look at one with technology, I gave up and had to wing it. “I like the album’s diversity”, I started and soon cringed as Hugh came right back with “Really? Can you expand on that because I don’t think it’s diverse at all”.

I then interviewed singer Will Young for a network radio piece that was to be spread over five days, so you’d think his record company would appreciate the publicity and just let us get on with it. But no, they told me I had five minutes to do the whole thing. I was on the point of walking away when they relented, grudgingly, and upped our time to ten, constantly breaking in on my headphones to tell me to hurry up. Not at all relaxing.

The same happened with Mr T, my hero from The A Team, who I was asked to talk to last week. The PR people from Snickers had flown him over and said I could have five minutes. How kind. We started, only for them to interrupt as he and I discussed cancer, saying I was getting too personal. Credit Mr T who told them to shut up and promised they’d send me some Snicker bars for their bad manners. I’m still waiting.

Next day it was Michael Ball who is starring in Hairspray in the West End and has a new album out. I asked him to prove he really was partly Welsh and he sang their national anthem right through. Not being Welsh myself, it could have been Esperanto or Saturday Night Geordie he was singing, but the tune was right and the words seemed to scan.

Mick Taylor, the former Rolling Stones guitarist was next up but, despite all my homework, he appeared with someone I’d never heard of and I had to interview them together. As I staggered to the end, pretending I knew Mick’s friend, I was coincidentally forced to rush off to interview former Rolling Stones’ squeeze Marianne Faithfull, so Mick asked me to give her his love and say he’d been to a recent gig of hers in Holland. I later passed on his kisses and hugs to Ms Faithfull and told her he’d been to her gig. “What a lovely man he is, but why didn’t he come backstage and say hello?”, she asked. As she smiled, she then said in her husky, very upper crust, English accent, “what a c**t”.

Simply Red were on the agenda for interview the next day but, as Mick Hucknall’s in South America, the time difference meant me hanging around our studios till nine at night waiting for his call. I read all the papers, watched TV and wrote my autobiography in three volumes waiting for the call that never came. Mick had been given the wrong number and I went home empty handed.

I realise that detailing these banal frustrations of the past two weeks shows that I don’t have enough to worry about but I also hope it shows I’m not permanently on holiday. Every night while you are out clubbing or drinking champagne with super models, I’m at home researching for an interview and hoping not to put my foot in it. Along with all these interviews, throw in a daily radio show, my coaching of executives, flying off to record TV pilots in Sweden and waddling round the gym when I can get the time, and I hope you agree I really do need a wee holiday.

If you fancy taking over while I’m away then let me know, but don’t get too comfortable. When I return I want my job back because, the truth is, despite smelly old PR people and record company jobsworths, I’m having a ball.

War

www.paulcoia.com

Last weekend I flew to place I love. Stockholm is the home of snow and thermal underwear at this time of year and my pampered, hot blooded, body was dragged shivering over there to record a TV show.

The week before I arrived the temperatures had dropped to minus fifteen degrees, so you can see why The Swedes have to be ever more inventive in keeping themselves amused over winter and trying to keep up their spirits. When the killjoys banned smoking in public spaces, for example, the Scandinavians quickly found a way round this inconvenience and they can now get their nicotine fix without anyone knowing about it. And it’s all thanks to tea bags.

In Sweden, men and women carry small round tin cans in their pockets filled with little, rectangular tea bags which are stuffed with tobacco. They don’t boil them up with a kettle full of hot water however but, instead, stuff them whole and entire in their mouths and lay them over the top gum so that the area below their nose bulges out like a bad day at the dentist. They all look like they have a hair lip.

I can’t tell you how surprising it is the first time to see men taking out their used, saliva filled old tea bags while talking to you and stuffing a new one in there without breaking their conversational flow. Perhaps “surprising” isn’t the right word, but I’m trying to be polite here.

Anyway, brown teeth, cancerous gums and breath like the remnants of a trawlerman’s pipe doesn’t stop the Swedes from being very nice and kind and I looked forward to meeting many of them at dinner on Saturday evening. But, as we drove to the restaurant, the streets of Stockholm were deserted, almost as if the population knew I was coming and had decided to hide.

You may think I’m exaggerating but I promise you that the roads looked as if they’d been closed by a film company who were shooting Armageddon 2, all the bars were empty and the restaurants seemed filled with only echoing footsteps. Sweden had stayed at home on Saturday night and it was very eerie.

I later found out that the reason the capital was emptier than Paris Hilton’s head was because of a TV show. Everyone was at home watching A Song For Europe.

In the UK we find that completely unbelievable, but it’s true. Now I realise that for those of you reading this outside Europe the joys of A Song For Europe are a land of ecstasy and passion yet to be explored, so let me explain. And please don’t snigger.

Each year the countries that make up the continent of Europe recognise that there hasn’t been a Europe wide war since the nineteen forties so, like weekend warriors who dress up and recreate battles of the past, they remind themselves of the good old days by trying to beat the living daylights out of other countries by hurling unsettling and dangerous songs at each other.

The battlefield is usually a concert venue somewhere in Yugoslavia or Scandinavia and the event is hosted by two borderline local care in the community presenters who watch as each country’s songs explode on stage, the collateral damage inflicted on our ears leading to casualties on a massive scale, and you can almost hear shouts of “Incoming, Incoming” as one dreadful sheep herder after another takes to the stage to sing songs about the glories of cheese or inter marrying, with a chorus along the lines of “Fa, la la, la la, la lee”, while his partner plays a solo on the accordion.

In case you think I’m looking down on the whole event let me state clearly that, in this annual war, Britain bravely conjures up the Churchill spirit and gallantly loses every time. And we lose big. We can’t even win a song contest where being bad is good. We’re so bad, we’re just bad.

Our entry this year has been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber who has put together some off cuts from Cats or Phantom of the Opera and given these to Diane Warren, an American who has written more hit songs for Celine Dion and others than I have acne scars. She’s a star and should be above all this, but I can only assume Webber has threatened to kill her cats as she’s flown over to the UK and has had to adapt to the musical trench warfare. Webber and Warren have both now given us a song that is so bad it would have been removed by the publishers from a “My First Piano Book”, and I can promise you that kids would turn their noses up at any kindergarten recital and refuse to bang their tambourine and xylophones to this one.

Last year we came last, as we did in 2003, but at least we’re not political losers. Georgia has selected as its entry this year a disco band called 3G who echo the sentiments of their whole country by taking a swipe at the event’s hosts this year. Quite what Russia’s head Vladimir Putin will make of their song We Don’t Want A Put In, where they manage to rhyme Put In with Shoot ‘em, is anyone’s guess.

Countries vote tactically for other, friendly, countries and so Norway’s entry, a band called Wig Wam who look like Seventies glam rockers led by a transsexual fat lady with big sunglasses, came to Stockholm to beg for votes, saying the Swedish entry has no chance.

And this is just the start. The contest isn’t until May but before then, if I’m exposed to much more of this Eurovision stuff, I’ll have to take up smoking to calm my nerves. Or chewing tea bags.

The Name Of The Game

www.paulcoia.com

I came home from work yesterday in floods of tears and asked my wife to console me. So she hit me over the head with an Xbox.

Yes, I know that didn’t really happen but I thought that, after last week’s serious tone, I’d lighten the mood this week by starting with a joke, no matter how weak. In truth there’s been a lot of jokes and fun around these past seven days and it’s been reminding me of carefree, credit crunchless, times.

I once worked with a producer called Josephine King, which is not, in itself, worthy of comment but, as she preferred to be called Jo, making her Jo King, I’ll mention it anyway as it’s a very silly name and gives problems on the old credibility scale. I was reminded of her this week when a baby clothesware retailer released details of stupid names given to kids and I was intrigued to find that some people hate their parents because of the name they were given at birth.

A lady with the surname Snokars was relieved to get married and change her name after years of being teased. When you realise her full name was Norma Snokars and you say her name out loud while thinking of her very large assets, you understand why.

The survey also had a Justin Case, a lady named Barb Dwyer and a poor, picked on man called Stan Still. Joining them were Terry Bull, Paige Turner and Ana Sasin.

Remember, these aren’t characters from a comic or a bad children’s joke book. These people had to go through life carrying these names and leaving themselves open to mockery at all times. Job interviews must have been excruciating, business cards an embarrassment and name plaques an invitation to any graffiti artist. How these people ever get a date is way beyond my understanding.

Stan Still used to be in the RAF and he says his life was made a misery. His commanding officer used to shout “Stan Still, get a move on”, and roll about laughing. But 51 year old Rose Bush says her name has been nothing but fun and that she always gets comments that are positive. Whether she’s ever met Alastair Phid I don’t know, but a Rose Bush and an A Phid don’t normally get along famously.

Some names make it difficult for kids to consider any other career. In the States there’s a Dr Leslie Doctor, a Dr Thomas Surgeon and a dentist in San Francisco called Les Plack. Canada has a member of the forestry board called Tim Burr and in Scotland there’s a textile lady with the name Annette Curtin. And in England – you can Google them if you think I’m making this up – a young couple, known as Susan and Robert Mee, have problems. Sue Mee is a lawyer and Rob Mee is a banker.

Some titles, of course, don’t look silly in their own language but seem ridiculous elsewhere. Lotte Flack lives blissfully in Germany unaware of the lot of flack she’d get in Britain, and Mr Willy Dangles, who works for the HSBC Bank in France will probably never know the stick he gets from his UK colleagues behind his back. The Frenchman Olivier Moron gets no ridicule at home but has a miserable time from the moment he arrives at any English speaking border, and I have no idea if the American ambassador to Denmark has any embarrassing problems that could get in the way of his diplomatic meetings, but I do know his name is Dick Swett. He once ran for the Senate in America where his campaigners turned down the slogan “No one can lick Swett”. Wisely.

With some other names you have to work hard to understand why the person concerned says they get such a terrible time. A girl named Jenny Taylor says she is always being picked on for her name and I genuinely couldn’t understand why until I said her name out loud and instantly understood.

As if all this nonsense isn’t enough to cheer anyone up this week, I’ve discovered a web site called Ancestry.com which contains over eighty three million records of American citizens who have passed on to that celestial place where names mean nothing. Using a search engine on the site you can waste many hours at work finding ridiculous, but real, names and wondering about their lives. It could become a new internet phenomenon.

Being a boy, of course, I had to search the rude ones first and I found a Julius Pooh, who lived in Sussex, New Jersey, a Mae Bumm who died in 1993 and lived her life in happy ignorance of immature British schoolboy humour in Newtown Pennsylvania, and I can only hope that transport being what it was in the Nineteen Twenties, the Chicago resident named Miss Fartt didn’t get about much. Her first name, should you wish to check up for yourself, was Fannie.

On this wonderful site, my silliness also led me to great Americans like Ruperta Colon, Willie Manky, Frank Twitt and just under three hundred and twenty four thousand lives blighted by the real, and wonderful, name Donald Duk.

So, that’s how I’ve spent this week, cheering myself up by laughing at others. Not very laudable, I know, but fun nonetheless. Occasionally I have found myself pausing and sympathising, especially over a name I found that’s been attached to over four hundred and seventy three thousand Americans who went to their graves not knowing that, one day, someone would bring shame on their name. That moniker, should you wish to check it out on Ancestry.com, is Paul Coia.

Now that really IS a silly name.