Don't Look Back In Anger

As 2011 starts full of promise and hopes, it’s time to look back on 2010 and, as always, my own take on the year’s events.

January
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced full body scanners for British airports. As he was the first “customer” to try the new device, it was finally confirmed that everyone could see through him, though he’s a bit fuzzy, lightweight and clearly has nothing of value.

February
Chelsea FC refused to discuss their married captain John Terry’s infidelity after he admitted showing his little Wiki to an underwear model, Vanessa Perroncel, prior to playing away from home. She later sold her story detailing Terry’s weak tackle and dribbling skill. His dribbling led to the new phrase “Wiki Leaks”.

March

Following the death of their president, Poland declared a week of mourning. Property speculators in Wimbledon, Hampstead and Chelsea declared a week of mourning also as the building and plumbing industry ground to a halt.

April
An ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano stopped flights all over Europe and brought airports to a standstill. Within ten days Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester airports were moving again, while Heathrow announced that they hoped to start operating again sometime in 2014.

May

Everyone became very excited when it was announced that the General Election in Britain had ended with a Hung Parliament. Months later everyone was very disappointed when it was discovered that members of Parliament hadn’t actually been hung.

June
Italian Fabio Capello failed miserably as England coach during the world cup when his team were humiliated by Germany. Scottish football fans have now nicknamed him the Tally Ho, Ho, Ho.

July
Cheryl Cole collapses and is rushed to hospital with malaria (mal-aria being Latin for bad singing). After repeated tests she is discharged and vacates her hospital bed. Husband Ashley says it’s not the first time she’s given up her bed for others.

August
Tony Blair announced he was donating all profits from his newly published memoirs to the Royal British Legion. The Legion gratefully spent all the money on a pencil and a fun sized Snicker bar.

September
Young David Miliband lost the leadership battle for the Labour Party after being beaten by his even younger brother Ed. In retaliation David hid Ed’s homework, put spiders in his bed, wiped his bottom with Ed’s school cap and told reporters that he wets the bed.

October
33 Chilean miners were released after spending 68 days cut off from the world, hundreds of feet underground, in a collapsed mine. The newly freed men were told that Piers Morgan had asked to do an interview with them and immediately asked to go back underground.

November
Prince William announced he is getting married next year to his girlfriend Kate Middleton. In his congratulatory email to Kate, John Terry wished her all the best and asked for her ‘phone number.

December
Prince Charles and The Duchess Of Cornwall are pictured looking scared after demonstrators surround their car. The nation is angry and upset with quotes like “typical students” and “can’t get anything right” bandied around after it’s announced the couple were unhurt.

Here’s to a great new year for you all, full of good health and good love in 2011.

Happy New Year.

Give A Little Love

I gave blood the other day. Donating blood is something I’ve done every six months for about twelve years and, as anyone who does it regularly knows, it’s no big deal. So no sermon from me, just do it if you can.

This time I couldn’t make it to my usual donation venue so I had to go to a local town hall which I guess is like a thousand town halls around the country, a place millions have visited. Bit musty smelling, cold and with all the sophistication of someone running in Ugg boots. But it was an adventure for me as I have never been in one in my life.
The nearest I’ve come to a town hall was picking up a charity cheque years ago from Glasgow’s City Chambers where, as I left, a drunk recognised me and asked how I was. After politely replying, I asked after his well being in return. He said “mind your own effin’ business.”

I don’t attend political meetings or Women’s Institute jam sales, and I’ve never had to go to my town hall to complain as we aren’t harassed by undesirables living next door to us – tho’ our neighbours are, of course - so I had no idea what the place was like.

As I got through the blood donation bit much quicker than expected, I went for a wander to see what else was happening and, believe me or not, it was a fascinating place. Perhaps I should get out more but I was excited. The first room I came to had a notice that said, simply, “Healing”. I know I shouldn’t have been nosey but, well, you would wouldn’t you? I couldn’t help myself. Inside were strange looking people dressed as the cast of Hair or Godspell and laying hands on people.

Men were having hands laid on backs while bent over and touching their toes, and various women seemed to have others placing hands near their heads as if to get rid of an ache or tension, and it all looked comically serious. I mean why go to medical school for five years when you can cure everything from halitosis to gout simply by having warm hands?

But then I saw a woman having hands placed near her stomach. She was obviously in pain and I guess had come because the doctors couldn’t help. The look of belief and hope in her face was haunting and all sorts of things ran through my head. Suddenly this room became a very moving place to look at and I was being insensitive and intruding. I moved on.

The next room had something called a Zumba class. Not knowing my Zumba from my Simba or indeed my Zebra, I couldn’t imagine what animal husbandry was going on in there. But I discovered Zumba is a kind of exercise set to Gloria Estefan music. It looked great fun and I might be tempted to join a class even though the room next door was probably closer to my skill and fitness level. In there they were having a tea dance with lots of polite old people swirling round the floor slowly, as if speed might take their dentures flying.

I could have shown off and danced like Fred and Ginger but, if I’m honest, it would have been closer to Fred Flintstone and the ginger one from Harry Potter so, again, I moved on.

Carrying on my tour of the town hall I found a museum staffed by local ladies, a Christmas card sale, an exhibition of paintings, and a small coffee shop. This place was like the Tardis and contained a whole soap opera’s variety of life. It was brilliant.

So I think I’ve now found a new idea for a book. How about a day in the life of the town hall? I’ll pick a day next summer and get around as many of these halls as I can, taking photos and interviewing the people who are using the facilities. Why is she giving blood? What’s the story behind her tummy and the laying of hands? Who’s at the tea dance? Why is she giving up her free time to guide people round display cabinets of local maps and photos? Why am I so uninteresting I have to live through other’s lives?

Without these places what would people do? For some it must be the highlight of the week, something they look forward to for days. I came out to the town hall car park filled with enthusiasm and bonhomie, thinking what a great day it was.

And found I had a parking ticket.

A very Happy Christmas to you and yours.

Wait A Minute Mister Postman

I got round to writing my Christmas cards this week, a task I try to put off each year as long as possible. It starts out well and I’m full of the festive spirit with a Christmas CD playing and some mince pies beside me but, by the time I’ve got to the “D”s in my address book, Shane McGowan and Kirsty McColl are singing “Merry Christmas your arse, I pray God it’s our last” and the mince pies have gone as quickly as my enthusiasm.

To spice things up this year, I’m thinking of putting one of these “round robin” letters in my cards. You know the kind of thing.....”We’ve had a great year with Jim getting promoted to section head of pest control and me getting my varicose veins done. Little Betty has had a fun year at school, winning the sports prize......etc, etc”.

I think the idea is that you are supposed to boast but not too obviously, so, exclusively for you, here’s the letter I’m thinking of putting in all our cards this year. Have a read and let me know if you think it’s a “goer”.

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Christmas 2010

Dear Friends.

As we come to the end of another year, we’re finding here that so much has happened in the Coia household in 2010 we thought we’d keep you updated on what life’s been like.

Our daughters, Annalie and Luisa, have had an exciting year. Luisa has just started at Oxford University doing her PhD in advanced mathematical astronomy and celestial physics, which we think is amazing for a thirteen year old. She will carry on as captain of the Great Britain ladies’ netball team and is still finding time to give regular guitar lessons to Eric Clapton. A joint concert is planned for the Albert Hall in May.

Annalie turned sixteen this year and continues to win prizes for her ground breaking work pioneering anaesthetic free heart surgery on the Space Station where lack of gravity is causing major problems with her hair straighteners. She is due back on earth in time to deliver her latest paper on Vascular Surgical Advances In 3D Laser Technology to the Royal College of Surgeons in fluent English, Russian, Italian, Gaelic, Serbo Croat and American Gangster Rap.

Debbie, meantime, had a very moving reunion this year when we all went to visit her in rehab. Her friends Ron Bacardi and Johnnie Walker have been sent packing and she is now fighting fit - in fact she’s fighting with her nurses, doctors, psychiatrist and anyone who visits. She should be out by February as she is to sing Aida at Covent Garden – that’s the tube station, where she will be busking.

Paul had his eyes lasered this year after misreading the hospital surgery consent form for what he thought was to be his Glandular Realignment. The subsequent Gender Realignment operation went well, even if it was unexpected, and he is now, at last, shaving. He also finally got rid of the haemorrhoids, which was a silly name for a backing group anyway.

Meantime, our cat Molly has had a fantastic year too. We don’t wish to appear boastful but she became the first feline in history to be awarded Best Of Breed at Crufts.

All the Coias wish you a very Happy Christmas and, at the close of the year as we think of you all, we will all raise a glass or two.

Apart from Debbie of course.

Please Release Me

Being stuck at home because of the bad weather this week, I watched more television than is probably good for me. The adverts on daytime TV seemed not to be aimed at me, or anyone else normal, but rather at women with the mental age of Fozzie Bear.

An alien watching these would assume all British women have flatulence and streaming underarm sweat that, should it be harnessed as wave power, could keep the national grid going. These poor women in the adverts are constantly bloated and tripping over holes in the pavement and needing to sue someone, but they smile through it all because the answer to all their problems seems to be yoghurt which has the restorative powers of penicillin, faith healing and voodoo. If only Florence Nightingale had eaten enough Activia she would still be with us and running the NHS.

So, the TV drove me mad, and coupled with the usual seasonal viruses and colds made me start to feel giddy. Watching the white stuff fall outside I felt like a mini me living in a snow globe. If only that giant would stop picking up my house and shaking me.

But I was not so dizzy as to miss one really terrible show on the BBC. Having battled to get my own TV formats on air I know how difficult it is to get funding and convince the powers that be to let your show on air so I congratulate anyone who can do it. However, this week I watched what must be the most ridiculous reality show ever. It was called Young Plumber Of The Year.

Who on earth came up with this idea, and how did they manage to sell it?

The answer to the first question is simple. The person who devised this is the same person who came up with Young Fishmonger Of The Year and Young Butcher Of The Year, each of which, unbelievably, will appear later in this series. I not only applaud his tenacity and work rate in getting these ideas accepted by the BBC, I also applaud the carers who let him in to the community for his short period of work experience. But enough’s enough. Get him back in before he causes more harm.

Make no mistake. Young Plumber Of The Year was bad. Really, really bad. The sort of telly that would have John Logie Baird and Lord Reith travelling to a Zurich clinic begging for the ultimate injection but slitting each others’ wrists on the way just to make sure.

Four finalists had to weld bends in water pipes against the clock, losing marks for scorching or leaving drips of solder which are called “Snot”, according to a badly preserved judge who, we were told, ran his own profitable plumbing company. He looked like a preserved Sixties era Beatle wearing a late Seventies suit, and I’m guessing he was in his Eighties or Nineties.

The show moved on to tasks such as clearing blocked toilets, a re enactment I'm guessing of the initial production meeting when the idea was pitched.

My kids also caught a lot of rotten telly as they were off school. I found them watching something about a single, teenaged mum on MTV and they tell me the station also carries shows called Sixteen And Pregnant, Teen Mum, Pregnant Teen Mum, and others. My thirteen year old daughter Luisa tells me there’s now so many of these programmes that, genuinely, a Facebook network has been set up called “If I’m Teenage And Pregnant How Come I Get A Slap Not A TV Show.”

Coming next on the BBC, Young Pole Dancer Of The Year? Or how about Young Bloated Yoghurt Addict Of the Year? And how long till some clever clogs TV producer comes up with Young Teenage Mum Of The Year? Please God make this bad weather go away.

You Always Hurt The One You Love

I’ve been laughing this week at how television producers are supposedly staring horrified at a big middle finger being waved in their direction by the public. The great cities of Britain may be bankrupt, we may have more pram faces per square metre than an American trailer park, and now there’s posh student demonstrators fighting for skinny cappuccinos at university , but we’re not daft. According to the story, we’ve woken up.

For a few years now we’ve all bought in to voting for the best talent on reality shows so that we can pick a star. But now the TV companies have had our money and smiled at our gullibility, it’s our turn to have a laugh. Or is it?

Anne Widdicombe, a woman with the coordination and dancing technique of a rhinoceros in labour, is hopeless as a dancer and has the grace of a tractor with three wheels, yet she’s never in the bottom two on Strictly Come Dancing. Why? Because we’re told the public now knows it can wave that middle finger at the producers, and by voting in someone who has no right to be there it’s a big “up yours” to the TV bosses.

Then, viewers of I’m A Celebrity decided not to play the role thrust on them and instead voted, night after night, for Gillian McKeith to face spiders, snakes and drowning, forgetting to share the torture around because they just don’t like her. It is, of course, bullying and viewers should be ashamed unless, perhaps, they were trying to save her from spending more time with Lembit Opik. The producers could do nothing about it and had to refund callers after McKeith’s amateur dramatics and hammy fainting spell. She now says she’s pregnant, making every male contestant happy he was asked to the naked jungle rather than the naked conception.

And week after week Wagner was voted through on the X Factor, not because he can sing (he can’t) and not because he’s nice (he’s not) but, according to journalists, because the public wanted to show Simon Cowell who’s boss. As the good singers bite the dust, we were told that Cowell must be tense as he faces the real prospect of jaded viewers voting for Wagner to win and an album being released that no one will buy apart from farmers keen to scare pests and wild animals.

Also, the public at last turned on Cheryl Cole. She publicly upbraided Wagner for remarks he made to a reporter but she’s a professional who knows how the press works, while he doesn’t. She’s had years of dealing with sneaky reporters who lie to get a story, but he hasn’t. She knows about being constantly misquoted, yet he doesn’t. But she still went ahead and tried the character assassination bit on him.

The bully girl tactics were not fair, the viewers didn’t like it and hundreds have complained. Perhaps she’ll soon be Cheryl Dole.

But I’m not buying any of this. The great British unwashed, myself included, simply vote for whoever’s made them laugh. And anyway, no matter what happens, these shows just get more publicity and more viewers every week as these silly stories gain press coverage, so the thought of Cowell, or any other producer, getting worried is just plain daft.

However, sometimes the public CAN BE nasty, can’t they?

I was in W.H. Smith this week and had to wait while staff tried to find something for a woman in front of me. Eventually a young assistant told her, apologetically, that he’d checked with head office and she had actually ordered on line so the item would be delivered to her address as she had requested, not to the store. She flew in to a rage and asked for the manager, then told him the assistant had called her a liar.

Feeling sorry for the young bloke, I told the manager that he had been perfectly polite throughout and had not used that word at all. The customer then shouted to me to mind my own “effin’” business and I have rarely heard language like the invective she hurled at me. But that was OK, after all I’m from Glasgow where we call that “love talk”. But it was her departing remark that really hurt. Looking over her shoulder as she fled she muttered “Bloody Dale Winton lookalike.”

Now that hurt. What do the public know anyway?

Money, Money, Money

Listen up folks because I’m going to give you a sure fire tip this week on how to make money. Guaranteed!

But first, say what you like about the X Factor, and I frequently do, it does turn kids on to great songs they would otherwise know nothing about. I’ve just walked in on my sixteen year old daughter downloading Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse Of The Heart. The last time Bonnie was fashionable Moses was giving swimming lessons in the Red Sea, and I guess modern poseurs would rather own up to downloading naked photos of Alan Tichmarsh than her tunes.

But thanks To the X Factor, according to my kids their dad’s record collection is hip again, apart from my Stars On 45 albums which will have to wait a few years yet – say till hell freezes over or Simon Cowell shops in Primark.

On X Factor in the past two weeks they’ve been singing Bonnie’s songs alongside Bob Dylan’s stuff as done by Adele, and even some tunes by Kim Wilde. I’ve never met Bob Dylan, though I have met Adele, Bonnie Tyler and Kim Wilde, so whenever an oldie becomes fashionable again my kids ask if I have a personal anecdote about the singer they can take in to school. I’m their own Google for embarrassing stories.

I wasn’t sure whether to share with them the true story of meeting Bonnie Tyler in a busy club where she greeted me by lifting up her T shirt up to show the bare chest she was so proud of. I later discovered she did this a lot as her party trick. I wondered whether to tell them about Kim Wilde believing in flying saucers, or that Adele told me the songs she wrote after her last big album were so bad she won’t ever let anyone hear them? In the end I made up some harmless stories and my kids went away happy.

I’m pleased that they seem to have a healthy distrust of celebrity hype and know a PR stunt when they see one. This week I overheard one of them expressing surprise at all the publicity surrounding Prince William and Kate Middleton’s engagement. To them it’s just a balding bloke marrying posh totty, and they genuinely can’t understand why it makes the newspapers. Sure, they were excited when Cheryl Cole said recently that she’d passed her tests at school, but they’re also cynical enough to say it was probably eye tests.

So, when we all get that public holiday for the new royal wedding, my youngsters, and I guess millions more, will be ignoring the marriage of the pretend pilot and the unemployed girl with the long hair and instead spend the day downloading songs.

Which is fine, but I’d rather they were out earning money. And this brings me to where we started. A cast iron way of earning money.

William and Kate are getting married in a hurry because they’ve been told London cannot cope with a third major event in 2012 as we already have the Olympics and also The Queens Diamond Jubilee to contend with. And here’s another thing, there’s going to be a real shortage of something. Is it public transport? Police? Security barriers? No. It’s mobile toilets.

Seriously, London does not have enough toilet facilities to cope with the tourists who will flock to see the Games and the Jubilee in two years’ time.

So, if you want to make money, buy up every single Portaloo you can find, or start making some in your back garden now. Maybe Blue Peter can do a piece on how to make one out of washing up bottles and doilies. In two years time you will be able to charge whatever you want for them and make a fortune.

Mind you I’m not sure what we do with a mountain of portable toilets after the festivities. Perhaps a belated wedding present for the happy couple? That’s a lot of thrones to sit on.

Drop The Pilot

It may be my age but my wife now believes I’m more Slipperman than Superman. However, for those of you sensible souls who believe the latter, you may want to cover your eyes and avoid disappointment as I have something momentous to share. The news is it suddenly struck me this week that I won’t live forever.

I know. A life without Paul Coia wittering on each week would be unthinkable but, dear friends, as sure as night follows day and chavs follow Jeremy Kyle, the time will come.

The revelation hit me at about thirty thousand feet up in the air on a British Airways flight to Switzerland last Monday when a bit of turbulence turned in to a very frightening rollercoaster as my body plummeted quickly to twenty five thousand feet while my stomach stayed miles above. I fly more often than Clark Kent but it was the first time I’d seen the calm, normally reassuring, air crew look as if a blind dentist was approaching them with a power drill from the Argos catalogue.

I first flew when I was seventeen and I guess over the years I have collected more air miles than a flock of migrating swallows, but even I had never been this scared in a plane before, at least not since a bald steward passed me his ‘phone number hidden in a clotted cream tea. I smiled and got extra cream back then but there was no hope of even a tea biscuit this time as everything was locked down – apart from my stomach.

I won’t say my life flashed before me but I did feel tearfully grateful after we landed, but then reflective and pensive, and this sad melancholy and realisation of the transience of life was fed later in the week by a couple of further events.

Firstly I cleared out an untidy box I keep in my office. The box was full of old cheque books and pens but also some fun memorabilia like my cloakroom ticket from 10 Downing Street and a hand rolled cigarette given to me by Peter Cook. The carton was also filled with obsolete currencies from countries I’d visited years ago and photos of a slim me before I swallowed a baby elephant. Also there, however, were about a dozen cards sent by friends and relatives following the deaths of my aunts, uncles and old friends.

I found it incredibly sad reading through them all and remembering those who have gone before, but I am pleased I hung on to them as it’s important to keep these things to remind ourselves that we are the sum of all these people who have influenced us one way or another.

The second history lesson that fed my wistful mood this week was when a friend emailed me some photos from my last day on a TV show called Pebble Mill At One. The friend, who I remember as a cheerful, barking mad, woman has now had a change of career and is a vicar. I bet she’s great at it too.

Looking at the photos and remembering all the old faces (none older than mine) made me initially hanker for those times to come back. I can’t remember then having any worries at all. I was a happy idiot blundering through life and taking no responsibility because I lived life as if it was a comedy show. But what happened to all those bright faces in the photos? Did they accomplish what they dreamed of? Did life treat them well? Did I treat them well?

So, it’s been a week of reflection for me and perhaps a bit depressing, but those who know me know I don’t do depressing. I’m always up. So, what can I take away that’s positive?

Rededicate myself to making the most of every day, look after family and friends, and contact old mates who I’ve lost touch with? Most definitely. But it’s more than that. I think I’ve also learned never to eat a fried breakfast before flying again.

Here Comes The Sun

I’m just back from a week at the small tumbledown shack we own in Portugal.

I had hoped for a few late Autumn rays of sunshine but we actually had seven days of blistering sunshine, with temperatures around 28 degrees in the shade. For any garlic avoiders out there who stick resolutely to buying wine by the pint and weighing themselves in stones because going metric means they’ll be forced to turn French, 28 degrees Celcius is around 82 degrees Fahrenheit. In. The. Shade!

I learned a lot this week in Portugal. For instance I now know that if you want to burgle a house you should grab a flight to Ireland as soon as possible as no one is there; they’re all on holiday in the Algarve.

Looking along the lines of beach residents with their mops of red hair and carcasses framed by milky skin steadily being chickenpoxed by ever more pushy freckles, I found myself whistling Enya hits and hoping for a fiddle player to come out of the water playing Riverdance tunes. I understand all of his countrymen wanting to escape Bono, but all at the same time?

The plane from Gatwick was populated with, how shall I say this tactfully, fat people. Somewhere in Essex there is a doctor who encourages men to grow their beer bellies until they reach a certain massive size, and they are then rewarded on prizegiving night with a Chelsea shirt, one earring, and a Thompson’s holiday voucher. They were all very friendly and I feel I know all their children very well, at least by name, as I enjoyed choruses of “Madison, stop that”, or “Tequila, leave Britney alone”, or “where’s Dwaine and Dakota?” My favourite was “Rihanna leave Shaneesha’s fags alone.” It was like a roll call on the X Factor.

The guy who looks after our little place in the sun is called Herman, a Dutch man of around seventy who has travelled the world in the merchant navy, but despite his love of other countries, and his mastery of several languages, he has never forgiven the Germans for one particular aggressive act during the war. Was it the invasion of Poland? Mocking the Treaty of Versailles? The invention of the doodlebug? No. They stole his bike.

Our gardener, Frank, however, is from Munich and thus you can imagine how they get on together. Frank is a bit of a hippy with a bandana and a ponytail which flutters behind him as he rides the hills on his prized Harley Davidson. I expect to hear any day that Herman has nicked it in revenge.

I knew that Frank had been a successful businessman in Germany and had given the rat race up to live at a more modest pace in the Portuguese sunshine, but I discovered this week for the first time that he very nearly became a world champion at martial arts. He made the final a few years ago and, in front of global TV coverage, lasted all of five seconds. “It was unfortunate. My opponent kicked me in the balls”.

Frank then retired from competition nursing a couple of grudges and taught ladies of the oldest profession how to defend themselves, until their pimps offered him money to stop.

So you see just a week in Portugal is like a year anywhere else. From airport to holiday home and back the people are colourful and interesting, and you get more sunshine than a decade of UK summers.

It’s time to start planning the next visit. Just so long as Shaneesha and her sister are sitting on another plane. You can get too much of a good thing
................................................

The great Glasgow actor Gerard Kelly died this week. Gerard was known for his roles as Jimmy in Eastenders, camp producer Bunny in the Ricky Gervais’ comedy Extras and, following years of his TV comedy hit City Lights, he became the prince of panto every winter in Glasgow.

Two months ago I compered a charity show in a packed Glasgow theatre that saw Gerard bring the house down with his brand of comedy. He was always polite and generous with his public, constantly smiling and genuinely seeming to have a ball. When I asked him that night how things were going he replied that he was “still getting away with it”, which is the mark of a humble man.

He will be missed.

Relax

Today I had a day off from work, which for me is a huge event.

I had been looking forward to this day for months, imagining what I would do with all the spare time and how I would treat it as a mini holiday. Perhaps I’d get a haircut and a quiet read in a coffee shop and finally finish The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest – if I had remembered how to read.

Since I left my radio job a couple of weeks ago, within ten hours of coming off air I was on a plane to Dubai working my sweaty socks off for six days. Last time there I spotted a shopping mall with a full size jumbo jet, a five story fish tank in which shoppers can dive to take photos, and a mock up of an operating theatre and law court. This time was even more surprising.

It wasn’t that this mall in the desert had a full size ski slope with a hotel whose balconies opened on to the real snow. No, even more exciting was that this one had a shop for chocolate tasting. Right up my Quality Street!

After the choc fest I then flew back to London and straight in to hosting a conference and then off to Dorset to work till yesterday, so I have not had time to actually change those sweaty socks, never mind relax.

Today was going to be brilliant, full of stuff that I wanted to do for myself, without even a slight whiff of work, or indeed socks. And guess what? I spent the whole day at my desk catching up on paper work.

Working hard is all very well but then invoices have to be written, books balanced, post that’s been lying for months had to be opened, and I discovered from a letter written by my MP that there’s been an election and we have a coalition government. When did that happen? Next they’ll tell me that the Barack Obama guy became president.

If we live in the age of paperless offices and computerised lives, how come my desk is still covered in more paper than a bride with a confetti fetish? Where does it all come from?

Looking at it all I grudgingly might admit I make a rod for my own back by being so anal about keeping accounts and correspondence. I call it professional but you’d call it obsessive. I truly wish I was one of those people who throw stuff in the bin and only worry when the bailiffs knock on the door. A pal of mine is like that and when the debt collectors turned up on his doorstep he greeted them with “Trick Or Treat?” and offered each an orange and a bag of crisps. He never lost his sense of humour though he did lose his car, his house and his wife.

In the pile of paperwork today I found bank statements, grocery bills, receipts, invites to buy plants, discounts on vitamins, a new calendar, the kids’ mobile phone bills, invitations to Christmas parties and a begging letter. I really must remember to send that soon, it took me ages to write.

So that was my day off that never was. I think I’ve forgotten how to relax and just chill, the joy of just slobbing about doing nothing. I need to see a shrink, and I bet next time I’m in Dubai there will be a shopping mall with loads of them open for business.

If they do chocolate tasting as well, I’m making an appointment.

Now I Can

As someone with a very big mouth, I’m rarely stuck for words. I usually have some rubbish joke handy whenever I get embarrassed and then make a quick exit, rarely with grace.

But Simon May, the charming man who wrote the theme tune to Eastenders and produced the world wide hit Knock On Wood for Amii Stewart, said something to me this week that I found myself floundering with.

I had no reply when we met, shook hands, and he said with a big smile, “I read your blog”.

People tell me that writing here each week is pointless unless people actually read the stuff, but I suppose I’ve always thought of my blog as my diary and that I’ll look back on all the instalments in later life and remember, while shuddering. Many people have told me privately that they follow my bad typing here, but this is the first time it’s been said in front of other people and, if I’m honest, I was more than a bit embarrassed. Writing a blog is a bit like passing wind or picking our nose in so far as many of us do it but we don’t tell others. I felt I had a dirty secret that had suddenly been exposed.

So I think I’m going to have to give up this blog lark now that I know for definite that people actually read it. I mean, aren’t I supposed to keep some mystique? Do you guys now know all my secrets? I think you probably do, apart from the big one about......well, let’s leave that for another day.

You certainly know that this is the end of my first week after having my eyes lasered. I had thought about doing this for years and had finally overcome my handicap of fear and taken the plunge, laid down on the surgery table, and watched lights go off in my head like a bad acid trip. I hasten to add that I’ve never actually done acid but I imagine it’s like having a barcode scanner run across your eyes while fireworks go off. It’s brilliant.

I can now see.

I can finally tell that the scary giant my kids told me about who stands at the bottom of our garden is just an oak tree, that the very large mark on my bathroom mirror when I shave is actually my nose, and that those cute chubby cheeks I kiss every night as I say goodnight to my wife is actually...... well..... I’ve just found out she started sleeping with her head at the bottom of the bed six months ago.

Reading is still blurry but I’m told that takes a few weeks to settle. So I am very happy indeed not to have to read any newspapers for a while, and the kids have said they’ll start bringing their report cards home now.

This week I leave Smooth Radio London after two years, and it’s been a blast. They say you should leave when things are no longer fun but I’ve had friendship, support, emails, texts and calls that have made me very proud. I’ve also interviewed innumerable stars who have submitted with good grace, and I've been to many great theatre nights and brilliant gigs. I have been very lucky.

It will leave me with more freedom, much more money from better paid work, and more interesting foreign travel, but I can’t believe it will leave me with more fun. But things move on and I’ll have more time to write.

So I guess I’ll keep the blog going. Just so long as Simon May doesn’t tell anyone.

I Can't See Clearly Now

With TV now going high definition, and with 3D the new big thing, I thought it best to upgrade my eyesight – I mean what use is spending money on the best quality TV picture to see Scotland losing at football, or gasping at the gore in True Blood, with eyes like mine?

I sit there squinting and wondering whether I’m watching Big Brother or a wild life programme, and I can’t tell if Britain’s Next Top Model is a guy or a girl, and that’s only if I happen, by chance, to be facing the right way and I’m looking at the set instead of the door.

Sometimes I’ve found myself wondering why London’s Burning or Towering Inferno is going on a tad long before I’m told I’m actually looking at the fireplace. I’ve never had great eyesight but now it has deteriorated so much even Mister Magoo would be embarrassed.

So, after years of talking about it, I’m actually getting my eyes lasered. I don’t expect too much, just twenty twenty sight and the power of X Ray vision.

I’ve been thinking about this for years and I’ve bored the pants off every optometrist and optician at every party. When they see me coming now they change their job description to jet pilot and, as I can’t see their faces properly, I never know if we’ve met before.

At least they can get away with saying they’re jet pilots. With my sight I wouldn’t be allowed to pilot an elevator, and I’m also colour blind which means I can’t even qualify to fly Easyjet . It also explains my taste in clothes.

Am I scared? Well put it this way. If scared were fat, I’d be Eamonn Holmes in a fat suit listening to the Fatback Band. But you have to suffer for beauty, right?

So, on Friday morning, after I finish doing the Breakfast show, I’m going to the Laser Vision surgery and putting myself in the hands of David Allamby. He seems a nice bloke and his hands don’t shake too much so what have I got to lose?

Next week I’ll report on how I get on. That’s if I can see the computer keyboard. If the blog reads something like “Caf*jd thh%ruu$ 8hgnaplw’’ then you’ll know I might need some further work. And if you see me with my shades on indoors I’m not being cool. Just careful.

Best stay off the roads for a while.

Sweets For My Sweet

I spent last weekend up in Glasgow looking for a few days of peace but working my buns off instead on various projects before settling on Saturday evening for a good old fashioned fish supper from the local chippie.

Now the Glasgow diet is a bit like The X Factor – bad for you, tasteless in some places, sickly sweet in others, but ultimately irresistible. However, even I was surprised when one youngster ordered his Saturday dinner. “Chips with cheese and curry sauce”, he said before adding as an afterthought “and a deep fried pizza on top.”

Tony, the shop owner, has now stopped doing deep fried Mars bars after a harrowing incident when three teenagers recently ordered “a deep fried Mars, same for a Twix, and a deep fried Toffee Crisp as well.” The Toffee Crisp exploded sending fat everywhere and I have a picture in my head of three teenagers licking the walls.

Having been brought up on that diet you can see why chocolate features so heavily in my life. I recently wrote a blog complaining that I have to hide chocolate from my wife who steals it and then lies that she has no clue what I’m going on about.

Debbie then posted her blog on her QVC web page and was inundated with women backing her and saying that, as we’re married, what’s mine is hers. She asked me to write a reply, so this week I’ve put this on her page. I’m expecting the sisterhood to torch my car any day now.

Reply

I recently came across an animated movie, made in 1998 by an American called Bill Plympton, which seems to sum up my life. I’m not recommending the plot as it is ridiculous, with an everyday normal bloke gaining special powers after two birds fly in to his satellite dish while making love.

So, as I don’t have special powers, how does this film sum up my life? Well, partly because every day I wake up wishing I had the super power to hide chocolate successfully, but mainly because of the movie’s title – I Married A Strange Person.

As readers of Debbie’s blog know she has no willpower whatsoever when eating chocolate and I have to hide the stuff as an act of charity. It’s not that I want it all for myself you understand. I’m simply stopping her ruining her teeth and ballooning to the size of a small village – like Manchester.

After Debbie told of my secret, the reaction and comments posted on her blog would have hurt me deeply if I had feelings. My obvious charity work in keeping my wife slim and healthy is going unmarked by you all, ‘though I did notice that all the comments came from the (un)fair sex.

So I’ve now changed my hiding places and, so far, Debbie’s none the wiser. Trust me that this way is better as we can now enjoy some chocolate when watching TV rather than the cupboard being bare and us making do with Ryvita or, if I’m very lucky, the special treat of a girly apple.

If you study the bible closely you’ll find, as many scholars already have, that Adam took the apple in the first place simply to dip it in a QVC chocolate fountain that Richard Jackson had left as a feature in the Garden Of Eden. Women have been getting men in to trouble ever since.

If you don’t believe me that I’m the good guy in all this then all I ask is that you put my case to any male partners or friends you have.

Debbie appreciated your support but I’m the injured party and it’s not fair. I know, of course, that I am the mature one in this dispute and that I have to take the moral high ground and behave sensibly. I do have a proper sense of perspective on all this.

Or so my divorce lawyer tells me anyway.

Men at work?

My apologies for not writing a blog over the past couple of weeks but a lot has happened. Holland lost the world cup, Andy Murray lost Wimbledon, Cheryl Cole lost the contents of her stomach and Mel Gibson lost, well, it.

The French also lost out, losing the right to cover their heads. I know this was aimed at muslim women, but a rule is a rule so where does this leave bald French men, astronauts and bee keepers?

Oh, I almost forgot something else that was lost. I lost my job.

In the grand scheme of things being told the radio station where you work is closing down isn’t up there in the devastation charts with the four horsemen of the apocalypse giving away free war and pestilence - though an empty wallet may mean I’ll be grateful for a deep fried locust or two soon - but it does take your eye off the ball for a bit doesn’t it?

It seems that in the modern advertising environment radio just doesn’t work anymore as a business that employs any actual people. Stations, including the one I work for, are closing down across Britain faster than Usain Bolt with an upset tummy and a toilet at the finishing line. We’ll leave details of his following wind for another day.

The doom merchants suggest that in the age of MP3 players, free music streaming and music video on the move, the game may not quite be over for radio but the ball has certainly burst and the parkie is starting to lock the gates. So, how did we come to this?

At the risk of sounding older than Joan Rivers first Botox, radio only has itself to blame. It simply all sounds the same. The same style, the same songs, the same repetition. Try to step out of line and suggest anything different and you can almost hear the outraged echoes of the workhouse where Oliver Twist has just asked for more.

Over the past few years as radio has grown in the UK, a line of wise consultants have been employed – called wise consultants as they were probably trained by Ernie Wise as it turns out – and they’ve given the same advice to each station before taking the money and scarpering off, leaving their customers following their advice with bland faith and falling off a cliff. Not that the consultants would advise you to have anything to do with Cliff of course.

It means that the only way now to get people to tune in to your station, as opposed to every other station which is doing the same thing, is to spend mountains of money on advertising and then give away millions in cash and prizes. For the moment times have never been better for listeners who can be bothered entering competitions and soon one lucky winner will win a radio station or, as it’s known in the business, an empty building.

Apparently the future is digital and we’ll all forgive the changes once everyone stops resisting and buys a DAB radio. This is like spending money on a Sinclair C5 or an iPhone 4. In other words it just doesn’t work. I have a digital radio and it’s as much use as an MP3 of a mime artist performing opera.

So I guess I’ll now have to retrain for another job. Maybe as a mattress tester or a politician, or perhaps as a radio consultant. If I’m going to be a layabout I might as well get paid for it.

The Kids Are Alright

I missed the part in the marriage vows that said “forsaking all other hobbies, interests and pastimes till death do you part”, so this becoming a butler and chauffeur thing for my kids came as a big surprise to me.

Last weekend was devoted to my kids’ usual request for me to do a “Robert De Niro”. In this re enactment I find it easy to look fed up as I drive round all day providing a taxi service for them. Unlike Travis Bickle, however, I don’t get the satisfaction of killing anyone for ruining my days off.

First up was daughter number one, Annalie, who was going off hiking and camping in order to get her Duke Of Edinburgh Silver award. This is set up to give youngsters a sense of responsibility and survival and involves hiking for nine hours a day with only a compass and map for guidance. I wasn’t sure the message had quite got through as I ended up collecting three of my daughter’s friends who couldn’t find their way to the starting line, one of them turning up with a helium balloon attached to her rucksack announcing her sixteenth birthday.

As the chatter in the car turned to the birthday girl’s new hair dye job and how many of them had shaved their legs, I thought how proud I was that my daughter is a bit more sensible and rugged. She looks like she could eat the countryside up whole. But as I dropped them off Annalie asked her friend if she thought she’d brought enough make up and then enquired where she could plug in her hair dryer. Had she asked where the bar was I just know it would have been a nail bar.

Arriving back from the camp site it was time to be taxi driver to daughter number two, Luisa, who was being Confirmed. Various far flung family members had arrived for her big day and she decided to relax by watching television. She announced to us during a commercial break that she had decided she’d just seen what she wanted for her upcoming birthday. Looking at a cute tiny dog playing with a toilet roll she said, “I want a Durex puppy.”

Picking myself up off the ceiling I asked if that’s what she really meant and, after she’d repeated it, I explained that while Durex did make something that wiped up silly little mistakes, it was an all together different product. “Of course”, she knowingly told us. “Silly me. Durex make paint, don’t they?”

Please God she’ll believe that for many years to come.

After the ceremony where, incidentally, eighty kids and adults were confirmed in a ceremony lasting slightly longer than the War of the Roses, we all came back for a cordon bleu dinner cooked by me. And let me tell you, cooking for fifteen people is not easy when you only have a barbecue big enough for six. Fortunately, God realised this and gave us beer which means everyone forgets whether they’ve actually eaten or not. I usually just fire up the barbie, place a few dirty dishes on the table, and then start by asking everyone if they want more. They look at the plates and usually slur “no thanks, I’m stuffed.” Sometimes I’ve been known to get away without actually cooking one single sausage.

Now, at last, I have a few hours off and then it’s the kids’ birthdays, both this week. More running around daft, more barbecues, more make up tips, more tantrums and hairdryers.

In my next life I’m putting my foot down. We’re having boys.

The Games People Play

I live near Wimbledon, the town where for the next two weeks all the residents pull together to put on a posh face for the tourists. For fourteen days no one hangs out their washing or goes shopping in their curlers, door handles are polished till they shine brighter than a Channel Four newscaster’s tie, people get their cats and dogs permed, some wife swapping stops, and the local yobs are sent off on work experience with Club 18-30 tour guides in Ayia Napa.

It’s the annual bar and restaurant crawl known as the All England Lawn Tennis Championship where men who really should know better dig out their straw hats and striped blazers and sit around drinking Pimms while looking at the legs of pretty, tanned, visitors.

In Wimbledon suntans are nothing new – we’ve had sunbeds mandatorily installed on all street corners and in all public toilets, libraries, delicatessens and bijou coffee shops since Queen Victoria first looked pale – but this time of year the tourists remind us that other countries really do know what the actual sun is as we watch the rain stream down incessantly on Centre Court’s new, designer, roof.

I feel especially sorry for our American visitors. Fancy knowing two thirds of the world doesn’t like you and the other third are back at home in The States. They gave us Apple and Microsoft, we gave them BP. We gave them tennis and they embraced it, they gave us baseball and we ignored it and then called it Rounders and organised leagues of drunken office workers to play it over summer in public parks before falling down drunk and snogging each other.

Our lack of gratitude gets worse. They sent us Hollywood and we gave them Piers Morgan. If any Americans are reading this incidentally then please believe me that we really do think it is better to give than to receive, so please keep the present and don’t send it back for exchange or refund as a refusal often offends.

For some reason, the colours of the Wimbledon Championship seem to have been replaced in the village this year by flags from sponsors Evian, who have picked a colour of pink left over from a Mary Kate and Ashley sleepover pyjama pack. It now looks as if Wimbledon village is ready for the tennis tournament but also London’s gay pride march if it gets re routed by mistake.

I spoke to Tim Henman this week who says Wimbledon is the best tournament in the world, and he should know, but he’s not one of the locals who can’t park anywhere or finds roads suddenly changed to decorative one way systems. Anywhere else, flowers on lamp posts mean some accident has occurred but here it means bespoke flower arrangements in All England colours with ribbons fluttering in the hailstones.

The locals canot wait for the tournament to be over. Apart from the restaurants and bar owners we all think it’s a pain, but it’s our pain so we’ll leave you thinking we love it as we keep up the pretence of being posh.

But let me let you in on a secret. Come to Wimbledon over the next couple of weeks and you’ll think we all live in a perfumed garden eating the Queen’s venison stuffed with champagne soaked strawberries accompanied by cream from a sacred cow, but the reality is that for the other fifty weeks of the year we let our expensively coloured hair down and behave like a bad episode of Eastenders. We’re as common as muck.

That’s exclusive organic muck, of course. From cashmere goats.

Bad

Last Thursday was a very important day for one of the listeners to my radio show. He wrote to tell me that his favourite star was going to make a comeback on June 10th and announce a series of concerts. Problem is that his favourite star is Michael Jackson.

His information came from an impeccable source and I’m sure that even now he’s contacting the White House and demanding to speak to his pal Obama as he says it was the American President who told him of the upcoming gigs.

Now there’s nothing wrong with living in hope that your favourite singer will come out of hiding to make a comeback, but there must be a stage where common sense kicks in. I could believe that Kurt Cobain is about to announce a series of comeback gigs with Glen Miller as musical director and James Dean selling the T shirts but I’d know deep down that it wasn’t actually going to happen – even if Barack called me at home personally.

There are some comebacks from the dead that I would kill for, like Angel Delight for dessert, Charlotte coming back to her web, and my sex appeal rising again like Lazarus, but I know it ain’t going to happen – not even to celebrate the first anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death.

According to internet theories Michael was either killed by a new experimental bio chemical weapon, had actually died years before after recording his album Bad and had been replaced by an impostor, was killed by the CIA firing an electro magnetic pulse at him because he knew something about Afghanistan, or is hiding out with Janis Joplin on a farm. Next we’ll be hearing that Dan Brown is a great writer and Last Of The Summer Wine is actually funny.

Crackpot theories are great and good fun, but they leave the embarrassment of explaining after the deadline why nothing has actually happened. I know that if I wrote back to my listener and asked what went wrong he’d say that it’s been postponed because Michael’s had to take Sheargar to the vet or has gone on a cruise on the Marie Celeste, and in his mind it will make sense. Good for him. Whatever gets you through.

The list of the more bizarre internet theories that people believe includes the “fact” that Diana told her lady in waiting that the Royal Family were reptilian aliens and could shapeshift. If that were true why wouldn’t Prince Edward shapeshift his head in to one with hair?

David Icke, former BBC sports reporter, believes we’re controlled by dinosaur aliens who need human blood to survive. So how come the blood banks don’t get raided weekly by Barney and his mates keen on a picnic?

Some believe the moon landings were faked because the foreground and background look the same in most photos. But that’s what you get on the moon – lots of barren ground and a big black sky behind. What were they expecting? Perhaps a cyclist or two? Maybe an ice cream van passing behind some trees?

Typing the letters NYC in to your computer’s wingding font brings up the characters of a Skull and Crossbones, The Star Of David and a thumbs up sign – go on, try it - so you can imagine what the anoraks make of that.

I think I prefer my route where things just happen without any logical reason rather than some grim conspiratorial fiction. That’s why we have words like serendipity, chance and luck.

As we get ready for even more conspiracy theories on Jackson’s anniversary, I’ll be reading Gullible’s Travels rather than Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing Kelly Rowland of destiny's Child this week. For the radio interview click here, and for the video interview click here.

You Little Thief

I wish to report a crime.

Regular readers will know that I was stuck in Dubai recently when the Icelandic volcano erupted, and while stealing ten days of my life is a crime in itself, it just got worse this week in a mini crime wave mystery that Sherlock Holmes himself would have found taxing.

After I returned home from the Middle East, the company I was working for in Dubai very kindly sent me a box of luxury chocolates as a “thank you”, and if you know anything about me then you will realise that presenting me with chocolate is like giving me gold wrapped in hundred pound notes inside Louis Vuitton himself.

To say I like chocolate is like saying Lionel Messi is fond of a kick about, Simon Cowell likes mirrors, or Romeo had a wee bit of a fancy for Juliet. If I ever find a magic lamp then the genie will be busy turning the world’s glaciers in to Walnut Whips and the seas in to melted chocolate, and global warming will lead to nothing more sinister than hot chocolate on tap everywhere.

I get this small weakness, or very great talent as I prefer to call it, from my Mum who has a sweet tooth bigger than a giant vampire dragon’s fang. Unfortunately, the older I get the more attached I get to chocolate which, now that I think of it, is fair as it seems to be getting more attached to me - especially around the waist and chins.

Anyway, back to the crime I want to report. This box of chocolates from Dubai was very expensive and only available in the Middle East. The individual pieces were thick and crunchy and promised luxurious melting experiences on my tongue so, of course, I hid the box in a place at home where it would never be found. Or so I thought.

You’re ahead of me now, aren’t you?

At the weekend I was watching TV and said to my wife we should eat the chocolates just to make the evening complete. I searched every hidey hole I have in the house and couldn’t find them and, when I asked, Debbie and the kids insisted they hadn’t seen them. Debbie even swore blind that she knew nothing about them and I never had them in the first place.

Then today I found the box hidden behind a bag of flour in a cupboard in our utility room. And the box was empty!

Actually, to be truthful, it wasn’t completely empty as it had two and a half chocolates remaining. I challenged my wife who burst out laughing and said she’d started on them when I was on a trip two weeks ago and just couldn’t stop. The half of one chocolate remaining was because she didn’t like it and hoped, if I ever found out, that having a half would mollify me. The remaining two were on the execution list but she hadn’t had time to polish them off before I found them. I was desolate.

When your wife lies to you about something as serious as this you know that trust has gone forever and the divorce court beckons.

I suggested to my lawyer that stealing and lying about chocolate were grounds for divorce, but he seems not to understand and has informed me it would have to be something less important, like adultery.

So, adultery it is. I just have to find a chocolate lover who wants to join me.

Sorry I'm A Lady

“Wanted. Toff with common touch. No sense of humour needed but should be able to make small talk and pretend to be interested in people. Opportunity to collect lots of air miles. Starting salary ridiculously high. Must be eccentric. Dressing up box provided.”

I imagine that’s how the Royal Family might advertise a job if they run out of blood ties to keep the circus going. It’s a peculiar vocation, isn’t it, but the perks outweigh having to sit through the Royal Variety Performance once a year.

Having a name like Fergie is a lot to live up to. Sir Alex Ferguson fronts one of the world’s most successful soccer teams, Stacy Ferguson fronts the Black Eyed Peas and, and Sarah, Duchess of Debt, has more front than all of them put together. She’s just been caught by a newspaper with her hands in the collecting box.

I was not surprised when Sarah Ferguson was discovered begging money in return for favours. There’s a word for that. I even expected to find that she’s in debt again having squandered her money on high living. There’s a word for that too. And let’s face it, she’s not the brightest disco ball in the Royal ballroom so it won’t be the last time we raise our eyes at her silliness.

But unlike the bloke who licked her toes I can’t seem to put my tongue on the proper word for what she did next. Having decided that even by her standards she had gone too far, Fergie chose to go on the Oprah Winfrey show in America to apologise. Now forgive me if I’m missing something but as she tried to sell the British Royal Family down the river should she not have apologised here? Is that not like burgling your neighbour’s house and then scarpering to the next county and shouting “sorry” across two motorways while miles away and safe?

Can someone not take her aside and teach her to be a grown up? Maybe insist she won’t get ice cream for tea, will be grounded, sent her to her bedroom and have the TV and Facebook taken away for a week. It works in our house.

I’ve met many members of the Royal Family and they have been unfailingly courteous and pleasant, but I wouldn’t have their job for all the money in the world. I mean, fancy having to be pleasant to me? And, despite what cynics may say, some of them work very hard. Sometimes an hour a day.

Problem with Fergie is that once the dressing up box was taken away, her sense of purpose went too. Not for her a job as a barista in Starbucks or jumping out from behind bushes in B&Q car park asking if you want your car washed. She borrows a limousine each day and pays a cab driver to sit up front as if playing at being Princess in the school play.

But if she really wants to be seen as being classy she has to learn that you apologise to the person you've offended, not to their mates.

Fergie, my dear, being First Class is not just about turning left on a plane. It’s about so much more.
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After chasing her for months I had the great song writer Ingrid Michaelson in for an interview and session this week. If you’d like to see her sing the song Parachute, the hit that she wrote for Cheryl Cole, then click here. You'll never want to hear Cheryl's version again.

Party Fears Two

Good music engages the emotions. Listening to Nessun Dorma will probably make your spine tingle if it’s sung properly, when Walking On Sunshine comes on the radio everyone seems to smile, and hearing Dance With My Father will either make you cry or throw up depending on how much cynicism you have in the bank.

But even rubbish music forces emotions to the surface. Don’t you want to kill when you hear something you really hate the sound of? Top Of The World by the Carpenters induces in me the desire to walk to the North Pole and throw myself off, while I frequently want to cut Simon Cowell’s digits off every time I find he’s had a hand in some new hit.

I remember hearing the song Fight For The Right To Party and thinking it was so, so wrong and getting wound up as I would personally fight for the right to avoid party invites and just stay in while catching up on my recordings of Gray’s Anatomy with a box of chocolates and a disconnected ‘phone. If I were a politician I’d certainly strive for peace, especially when the TV is on, but I’d also ban parties.

I’m sure the only reason that political groupings are known as the Labour Party or the Conservative Party is because no one has a good time, they all want to go home, and they’re fed up listening to boring people droning on at great length. Like smoked fish, smelly feet and new underwear, I like to think parties are for other people.

Occasionally I demur, like last Saturday when our neighbours invited us over for a farewell get together as they’re emigrating to France. I knew it would be a night to remember when I saw Richard Drummie from the band Go West doing Greek dancing to the Zorba tune followed by our host performing a country and western line dance send up.

But I really knew the rest would be a night to forget when I mistook Rosé wine for Rosé liquer and had a large tumbler full. My legs went wobbly, closely followed by my speech.

Before losing all sense in my legs and head I passed through that smiley phase where all the world was my best friend and I spotted all the familiar types that congregate at any party. There are the wallflowers like me who stand around failing to look cool alongside the guys who have never grown up and try desperately to give off the vibe that they’ve had more women than the Sugababes. Unfortunately, as they stroke their mane and admire their mullet in the mirror, the rest of us regret that none of these women was a hairdresser.

Then there’s the networker who hands his business card around hoping his new internet business selling paper craft models of the Titanic will take off, and the outrageous woman who gets louder as she drinks and then dances as if her life depends on it while cackling at any casual remark as if Billy Connolly personally had delivered it in her ear. Next time I’ll leave her at home.

I did have a good time even though my head felt every last drop of that liquer the next day, and I’m very grateful that anyone wants to invite me to their party, even if I secretly know it’s only as a “plus one” for Debbie.

But I think I’m with my daughter who said after her first day at school, “I’ve done that now. Can we do something else tomorrow?”

The Eye Of The Tiger

Last Saturday I compered a charity concert in my home town of Glasgow. I felt straight at home as my cab driver beamed “You’re Paul Coia. Nice to see you.” And then, because it’s Glasgow, came the put down line as he said, “ I thought you were dead.” Brilliant.

Afterwards I was sitting in a mini bus, squeezed between singers Midge Ure and Jim Diamond, when actor Tony Roper in the front seat said “I looked at the line up tonight and couldn’t believe I was on stage with you lot.” Then Midge said the same followed by Marti Pellow and Graeme Clarke of Wet Wet Wet from the back seat. In a night devoid of ego, along with Paolo Nutini and many others, we had gathered to honour an old colleague of mine who is suffering from ill health.

Tiger Tim is the only man I know who could have got all these people to drop what they were doing and turn up for him. Midge, originator of Band Aid with Bob Geldof, sang his number one hits like Vienna, Jim sang his number one I Should have Known Better, The Wets sang their number one record breaker Love Is All Around and Paolo sang around five numbers that are currently making him a superstar all over the world. Paul McCartney even recorded a message for the evening.

So what makes Tiger Tim special enough that so many people made such a huge effort? Well, it’s because he is completely, one hundred per cent, bonkers. A nutcase. A sink plunger short of a Dalek. A legend in his own diary.

I once asked colleagues at Radio Clyde to record a story about their favourite Christmas. Tim delivered his well after everyone else so I had to take him at his word that it was ok. I put it straight out on air to find he had recorded it after the Christmas lunch, was drunk, had exposed his bottom to passers by, and was then sick all over someone’s desk. His last words were “There’s a piece of carrot coming down my nose.” I though my career was over.

Tim would always make a point of dropping in to the studio when any of us were doing interviews, dropping a few remarks - and then dropping his trousers. Annie Lennox walked out early in fits of giggles, and Rod Stewart and other big names had to carry on as if it was an everyday occurrence. Often he would walk in to the news studio while the journalist was reading the headlines and wee in the waste bucket very loudly to put them off.

When I was at school, he had a big recording contract, supported David Cassidy in stadium gigs, hosted TV shows and made fortunes. One theatre boss told me that Tim used to come off stage and tickle Cinderella’s ponies in such a way that they took to the stage showing graphically just how excited they were to be in panto. Kids were confused, parents were irate, but it just encouraged him more. One night the ponies remained untouched and Tim could be found nowhere. Someone broke in to his dressing room to find him naked and handcuffed to the sink, laughing his head off.

He is a real one off. A unique talent, and one that will never be replaced as he heads for a well earned rest and his personal battle with his illness. Marti Pellow may be about to tour with George Benson, Midge Ure may be about to finish off his Ultravox reunion dates, and Paolo will pick up the rest of his world tour. But none of them will enjoy themselves, or laugh as much, as much as they did on Saturday.

And it’s all thanks to the one, unique, completely bonkers, Tiger Tim.

Strangers In The NIght

What a day Friday was. We woke to find that the UK had scored an own goal, with none of our political party leaders winning enough votes to get promoted to captain of the first team and help Great Britain escape relegation. We’re in a bigger mess than this metaphor.

Now we have rival Westminster squad players, who detest each other, pretending to be pals and practising moves on the training pitch while communicating through gritted teeth. A bit like what it must be like to play for Liverpool.

Coming home from work on Friday, the election was all people spoke about on the trains.

I wear fancy clothes about as frequently as Greece wins the lottery but I had a nice new suit on as I had been hosting an awards event. Fellow travellers must have confused my smart clothing with my intelligence, asking me for my opinions on politics on two or three occasions. As Cameron and Clegg now know, if the election did nothing else it made strangers talk to one another.

In my suit I looked professional, I guess, but if I expected anything from others I suppose it would have been someone assuming my mum had dressed me up for my First Communion and slipping a fiver in my pocket, or people mistaking me for a Jehovah’s Witness who’d lost his way (geographically, not spiritually). I wasn’t prepared for what really did happen.

As I got on the escalator at Waterloo, the lady in front turned around to me and said “I was looking at you on the Tube train and I thought ‘what a lovely suit’ so I’d just like to compliment you. You really carry it off.”

And yes, before you ask, she was fully sighted, was not wearing sunglasses or drooling, was unrelated to me and was not trying to be funny.

I’m telling you this not just because I am being more boastful than usual, nor am I revealing it because I only get compliments about every time Andrew Lloyd Webber wins Britain’s Next Top Model, but I’m sharing because I realised what was really great. A complete stranger had risked ridicule and rebuff just to be nice, without worrying that it would be misconstrued. Her very small act of kindness made me feel good all the way home.

So Friday was a good day to talk to strangers, whether in politics or in railway stations. But why is it that we rarely compliment people or talk to each other any more? Is it because we’re so used to emails and texts that we’ve forgotten how to speak? Without putting LOL or OMG or LMAO in every sentence or drawing a smiley face in the air, can we no longer communicate?

Some strangers should be avoided of course. Like the family who moved in around the corner from us and have a drummer in the family who practises non stop. Being American they only know one rhythm which is a cross between a marching band and My Sharona. Try listening to that all day long and you would compliment anyone with a shotgun and the neighbour’s address.

I do try complimenting my wife if she is looking extra specially pretty, but it apparently comes out wrong. I say “Wow, you’re dressed up” and then she looks cross and shouts, “Do you mean ‘You’re looking nice, darling?’”. To me they’re one and the same, but not to her.

Friday has made me resolve to work harder on complimenting people and being nice. I know the difference the lady at Waterloo station made to my day so it’s time now for me to approach strangers armed only with nice things to say.

If I’m arrested for harassment, your Honour, this week’s blog is my alibi.

Swear To God

Who, apart from someone with no friends, would want to go in to politics?

Any time I say this to friends who are journalists they tell me I should be less cynical and more interested as these things determine the future of the country and the world my kids will live in. I’ll then say something like “fine, why don’t you get involved, run for Parliament, and make a difference?”. And that’s when they shut up. They deny it but they treat politics as a sport, like sitting in the Coliseum watching the lions get religion. They won’t admit it’s easy just to be an opinionated spectator.

Occasionally, though, politics gets interesting even for me. One of the surprising things about our Prime Minister’s huge gaffe last week, when he made rude remarks about a senior citizen who had questioned him about immigration, seems to have gone completely unremarked upon and I’m sure it says too much about me that I have noticed.

As Gordon landed himself in the Brown stuff while forgetting he had a microphone on, he laid in to his team for allowing him to encounter an actual real person. He thought he was speaking in private at the time while, as you know, a TV microphone picked it up. But here’s the thing. While undeniably angry, Gordon Brown didn’t use one single swear word.

The next time he speaks to an ordinary person it will be to answer the question “How much bubble wrap would you like for the packing cases sir?”, and he might well use some choice words then.

If you or I were under pressure and losing ground in the polls for the country’s biggest job, we would have lost it completely and thrown in a few choice words that only dockers and verbally challenged premier league footballers would understand. A good sweary word here and there when you’re angry makes life easier doesn’t it?

I remember my then five year old daughter coming home from school and confiding she had learned a bad word which she said was the rudest word in the world. My wife and I were horrified, of course and asked her what it was. She looked coy and then said it was “the ‘F’ word”. I tried to look unflustered while telling her never to use it as it was a very bad word indeed but she chuckled, as if she had discovered the biggest secret in the world.

Over the next few days we debated whether we’d chosen the right school for her and whether we should perhaps move her up a notch or two to a nearby Borstal or get her to board at a local boozer instead. It was a further three days before she told us what the word was as she proudly shouted it out with a smile on her face. It was ‘Fart’.

They say swearing is the last refuge of those who have limited vocabulary but you only have to watch the TV show In The Loop to see that’s not true. It’s about a fictional political spin doctor, and his creative use of swear words is almost Shakespearean in invention.

When told by a department head that she should have been informed about a colleague’s appearance on television as it “falls well within my purview”, head of spin Malcolm Tucker looks at her coldly and says “Within your 'purview'? Where do you think you are? Some f**king Regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some f**king Jane f**king Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your ........”.

Now if that’s not creative, I don’t know what is, and I personally wish the real world of politics was as creative.

A few colourful and inventive uses of expletives might have had our Prime Minister winning voters the length and breadth of the country.

Back Home

It felt a bit like a Hollywood movie last week with volcanic ash menacingly making its way across Europe. If the Russians wanted to invade then that was the time to do it as Wing Commander Johnny Hero sipped tea and James Bond remained stuck at his skiing chalet waiting for it to blow over.

I still think it was an insurance scam by the government of Iceland as Jeremy Clarkson visited and was allowed to smoke as much as he wanted. Hot air and a packet of Woodbines is a lethal combination, but the get out for insurers is that Clarkson will boast to everyone that, as he did it, it must be an "act of God".

When things erupted, so to speak, I was stuck in Dubai on business and unable to get home so I managed a few days sight seeing. I realise you have no sympathy and there are worse places to be stuck. I could have been held in Kazakhstan or Croydon.
They love being biggest and best in Dubai. It's home to the world’s tallest building, where I sat in a restaurant with the world’s best food and watched the world’s tallest fountains go off every fifteen minutes, choreographed to the world’s worst music.

Where other schools would employ former Raith Rovers second eleven players as football coaches, one school here has ex England midfielder Carlton Palmer. Dubai - never knowingly understated.

Armani has a hotel here though Giorgio himself couldn’t make the opening because of the travel chaos, there’s Dolce and Gabanna and Chanel, as well as McDonalds and Costa. But that’s just where the fun starts. Look further and you’ll find outlets that reflect the Arab love of the gaudy. Shops like ‘You Bring It We Bling It’, a place where you can get anything from your mobile phone to your wife blinged with diamante or Swarovsky. Stupidly I had my underpants done. Now I know what having piles must be like.

I visited The Palm, a reclaimed area where the footballers have bought their holiday homes. It is a man made island in the shape of a palm tree with the Atlantis, a castle like hotel, at the end and having a foyer which is underwater. I was mesmerised looking through the floor to ceiling glass walls at giant fish and sharks swimming around a recreation of a sunken city. Wait till Dubai realises they can open the world’s biggest dentist waiting room here.

I spent some time in what’s billed as the world’s biggest shopping mall. There’s the front half of a full sized aeroplane here for kids to virtually fly, an operating theatre for them to play doctors and nurses, a university for them to graduate, and a law court in which to play lawyers and bad guys. There’s also an ice rink, a twenty screen cinema complex, and another floor to ceiling aquarium but with a cage for shoppers to be lowered in for photo opportunities as they swim with sharks. Beats the wet fish counter at the Wimbledon Waitrose.

Here I bought some sweatshirts for the kids but extra small size of course. Dubai does everything bigger

Perhaps what sums up Dubai best for me was a letter published last Tuesday in the local newspaper 7 Days. It mentioned the world’s biggest travel chaos caused by the world’s biggest ash cloud with the world's greatest publicity from the world’s largest currently erupting volcano.

The letter ended, “when can we get one?”.

Secret Lovers

I’m going to tell you a secret this week. In fact I’m going to tell you several.

Secrets are in the news as it has been shown that one in five men keep secret bank accounts that their wives know nothing about. The smiley, innocent side of me says that this is fine as the men are obviously doing it as a nice surprise, but the cynical, and let’s face it, more sensible side of me says two things – first, how sneaky and underhand of them, and second I thought I was the only one doing this.

My secret bank account isn’t meant to be underhand, it’s there just for emergencies. And don’t rat on me to the tax man. It's not that much but you just never know when you’ll need a few million here and there do you?

This week I asked my listeners on Smooth Radio to text me, under reassurance of anonymity, telling me the secrets that they keep from their partners. And, my goodness, what a lot of secrets there were.

One man in Liverpool has yet to tell his wife that he sees dead people everywhere. He says he also neglected to tell her that he fancies Judith Kepple off TV’s Eggheads. I’m guessing here, but I think he’s kept quiet because he’s scared his wife might think he’s mad. I mean who on earth fancies Judith Kepple?

There were plenty of naughty secrets revealed on the texts too, like the woman who confessed that she had been seeing a married circuit judge for the past year, and yet another who told me that her husband doesn’t know she’s been having a string of affairs throughout their eleven years of marriage. Her reason? “Men just fascinate me”. This confession led, of course, to plenty of requests from male listeners asking for her number.

Our listeners must be a wealthy lot as one had kept secret from her partner that she owns three racehorses, while another had fixed a date for her marriage to her future husband without telling him she had just inherited three million pounds. A male listener in Birmingham kept secret from his wife that he had been betting successfully on horses throughout their twenty three years marriage and had a small fortune in a secret bank account. Well he did keep it secret until just after they divorced, and he then took great pleasure in telling her and showing the pass book.

And it seemed that more women had secrets than men. A lady from Bolton hated her husband’s snobbery so much she bought cheap ketchup and kept refilling the expensive Heinz bottle all the years they were together without him noticing, another encouraged her dog to wee regularly on her husband’s prize pumpkins, and yet another confessed she hadn’t told her partner that she had been abducted by aliens a few years ago. Then a Manchester woman said her husband thought she didn’t know that he dressed in her clothes when she was out. What he doesn’t know is that she does know, and that she’s about to serve divorce papers.

My favourite secret, though, was also the nicest. A male listener told me he has been buying up shares in his company without telling his wife so that when they retire he can sell them and give her a surprise nest egg. He can’t wait to see her face.

Secrets are probably not a good idea but they don’t have to be nasty, do they?

American Pie

I spent part of Easter Sunday catching up on the last episode of series one of Glee. As an admission designed to shatter any image I might have of being macho, I realise this is up there with being word perfect in Judy Garland’s role in Meet Me In St Louis, having posters on my wall of Audrey Hepburn, and just slightly behind choosing Elton John, Ricky Martin, Edith Piaf and Tinkerbell as my all time fantasy band. But I can’t help it. I love it.

Poor old America gets some really bad programmes on television, as we do, but we’re lucky in the UK as we usually get the best of their stuff because that’s what sells abroad. I exempt from this, of course, anything with the word “Model” in it and everything that includes Paris Hilton.

My weekly viewing seems more and more to lean towards Americana with my faves including Mad Men, Glee and True Blood along with comedies like 30 Rock, Modern Family and Fox News. Except, of course, Fox News is supposed to be serious.

Being a news anchor is one of the cheesiest, most shameful jobs in television when you take yourself seriously and, my goodness, they take themselves seriously on American News. The bad acting as they read distressing stories, the forced, unfunny jollity between co anchors as they fill between stories, and the over rehearsed questions and answers with reporters live from a scene, are beyond parody. These nylon headed tailor’s dummies make a fortune and are hammier than Animal Farm during Pork Festival week.

Think of the worst programme idea you can come up with and it’s already been done in America. Just this year “One Thousand Ways To Lie”, an American show where people share the biggest lies they have ever told, was cancelled after just one outing. “The Will”, a show that followed bereaved families attending the reading of loved ones’ wills, premiered in December and was cancelled after the pilot. Also cancelled after just a few shows this month were Past Lives, a detective story based on reincarnation, and Ruby And The Rockits, in which David Cassidy played a “past it” pop star.

But all these lasted longer than a show called Blonde Charity Mafia which followed three blonde twenty somethings who think work is something servants do to feel useful. These princesses worship the Bank Of Daddy and were such poor company the networks hid their embarrassment and it never aired at all. Ditto with Our Little Genius, where child prodigies competed for money by answering questions like “name five Trojan asteroids around Neptune”. No one understood the questions, no one liked the kids.

But before we all start to feel sanctimonious we must remember that because we get a filtered version of American TV, they also get an unrepresentatively good version of ours. They watch The Office or whatever and think all our TV is like that, blissfully unaware of Nick Knowles, My Family, or Last Of The Summer Wine.

We saw off Michael Winner’s Dinners, but you may think a country that allows Ian Wright on Channel Five, or Amanda Holden on anything, or lets Jeremy Kyle earn a living rather than putting him in a cage with Loose Women and a pride of starving lions, is in no position to comment at all.

You may think that. I of course couldn’t possibly comment.

Hey Fatty Bum Bum

With an election approaching, I’ve been chewing things over a bit this week like a cow with more stomachs than it knows what to do with. I’m bored with politics so I turned my thoughts to what I would do as Prime Minister and how I would stamp out obesity. I think I’ve found an answer which is simplicity itself - just as well with my limited brain.

I’m probably a little obsessed just now with exercise as I mentioned last week that I’ve been going daily to the local gym for a blast of cycling, running, sit ups and gossip, and it that has been exhausting. Well, the exercise has been tiring, but coming up with new gossip every day for all the gym buddies and Wimbledon wives is absolutely knackering, let me tell you.

My weight, however, has not been falling off fast enough through diet or exercise so, like a latter day Tony Blair, I have been on the lookout for a third way, and now I think I have it. I will share it with you, but I don’t want my idea stolen and put in some Paul McKenna self help book – he has more money than a Banker celebrating a Lottery win – so I am sharing this for free.

We stayed overnight at a hotel in the countryside on Friday and they gave us a breakfast which was probably left over from the last Apollo moon landing with milk, spoon and cornflakes all contained in a small, shakeable, tub. Very healthy but at times like this I wish I had a gerbil to feed. So we went next door where they had a restaurant run by a gourmet cook who was possibly on the short side, and this Little Chef served porridge that made me feel as if Pavarotti was hiding in my lower intestines. With food very much on my mind then I set off and I noticed Mother Nature giving me the answer to the world’s weight problem.

As I drove I noticed fields filled with sheep, and I idly wondered if I could find one who was not eating. For mile after mile, sheep after sheep, not one of them stopped munching. You never see a sheep just looking around or shooting the breeze with his mates and yet you never see a fat sheep either. So I asked myself Why?

Anyone else would have come to the conclusion that it is because they only eat grass, but not me. I knew the real reason. You never notice fat sheep because we always assume their bulk is down to their wool needing to be sheared off. In other words sheep are masters of disguise by hiding their obesity cleverly under a blanket of wool. Again, someone else would say this means we should all wear baggy clothes, but what happens in the changing rooms at the gym? People would see your playdoh tum and bum then wouldn’t they?

The simple answer for us is to do what sheep do. You never see sheep shaving or using a razor under their arms or on their legs. Sheep just let the wool grow, and that is what we should do. No more epilating, no more razors or special creams. Let’s all grow long beards to hide our double chins. Let’s all encourage hairy legs and other bits to hide our excess flab.

Of course chewing gum would be a thing of the past - I’m told lambs don’t appreciate the smell of mint - but, let’s face it, it’s a small price to pay.

If we all live like sheep, our confidence will be higher. Mortgages will be history as we all commune together, fitness trainers will have to retrain as hairdressers, January’s Fitness DVDs will be obsolete, and every TV programme will be presented by The Hairy Bikers.

And politics and elections will be a thing of the past.

Holiday

I’ve just had a week off from work and I would love to tell you that my plan of having seven days of debauchery, lying in bed till the afternoon, getting up to have a breakfast of chocolate Easter eggs and then lying around catching up on unwatched Desperate Housewives episodes, came true. But it didn’t.

Life, sadly, doesn’t turn out the lazy way we plan, unless you’re a WAG or a politician. When the first WAG becomes an MP then the game really will be up.

I had written down loads of things to catch up and do this week, and by the weekend I had accomplished most of the important stuff on the list. I had written my quarterly fan letter to the VAT man, a distant bloke who seems never to give any love back despite the money I send him, I renewed my house insurance so my collection of single socks and dead plants are once again protected, I caught up on a few new albums, and I even dropped in on my daughter’s dance class to watch her end of term display. Being the only person not wearing a bra in the room I felt completely out of place and I waited expectantly for my Billy Elliot moment when I would suddenly jump up and join in. To my daughter’s relief, it didn’t arrive.

Last time I watched her perform it was like looking at a class of seals tapping their flippers in time to a beat that was in their heads but not on the CD. This time was magical. Suddenly they had evolved into mini grownups who actually looked like they could stay on their feet and knew that “coordination” wasn’t the street with the Rovers Return pub. I was very proud.

After the dancing I even managed to get out in my garden, although the word “garden” at the moment seems an exaggeration as it has as much colour as an X ray – unless you count the lovely green moss growing in the brown grass and spreading its joy on the patio.

Our plot is around half an acre which is large compared to a window box but small when next to, say, Beth Ditto’s drawers. It’s big enough to warrant me being out there every weekend from now till winter and I did really enjoy the first weeding, clearing and backache.

If you’re thinking “how sad that in his life that passes for fun” then you don’t understand my neighbourhood. Over the garden walls you can catch up on the gossip from the past few months while everyone has been shut indoors, and a quick try out on the kids’ trampoline means I can see what others are having for their tea or what they’re watching on telly. One neighbour even told me he’d seen things from his trampoline that would make my hair curl, and then he shut up before expanding further. I think he suddenly realised he’d seen them going on in my house.

Talking of expanding further, my proudest achievement this week is that I have finally got around to doing something about my waistline, by going back to the gym. I managed five trips this week to do cycling, running, sit ups, weights and the recovery hot chocolate, and I am now officially obsessed with exercise again.

In my mind the pounds are coming off, I no longer look pregnant, I’ll soon be able to squeeze back in to my XXXL pants again, and elasticated waistbands and smocks will be a thing of the past. I’ll even be able to throw away my new T shirt which Debbie uses as a Slanket.

Having a week off is fun. Why don’t we do it every week?

Mother Of Mine

Well we can put the rhubarb wine away now as that’s another Mother’s Day over. It’s a day that should be filled with joy and happiness. The most important bit of that sentence, of course is, SHOULD BE, because for me it’s a day when just about everything that can go wrong usually does.

As I leave it too late to book a nice restaurant, and the days of getting away with McDonalds and a free toy seem to have paled for my wife, the whole Mother’s Day thing is a minefield.

First up my own mum told me, as she does every year, that she didn’t want me to waste money on a present, which is very kind but leaves me every year asking “but does she mean it?”. She says that flowers just die and chocolates make her fat, but if I sent her paper roses and a box of Diet Chef meals she just might be offended, no?

This year she excelled herself with a new one. After the usual pleas for no presents to be sent she said, “And I don’t need a card either - I’ve still got the one you sent last year”. So I was then faced with a double whammy of potential minefields. So what to do?

I turned to friends who told me the solution was to send her a poem that I should write myself. I tried constructing a work of art but it all looked like a Christmas cracker insert and I couldn’t get anything to rhyme in a way that my mum would have liked. Poems are easy when they’re about girlfriends as you can always get something romantic to go with their name, but unfortunately I couldn’t get away from rhyming Mum with Bum.

In the end I decided to send something that would remind her of how important and indispensible she has been in my life. I sent her my washing.

Here in my own home we are past the stage of our kids making necklaces from sweeties and painting the word Mum on stones from the garden and calling them paperweights. The kids are a bit more mature now, even if their Dad isn’t, so they bought Mum a teapot and made a card.

I booked a restaurant which was great for atmosphere and food tho’ I could have done without the kid with the hula hoop knocking dishes over and generally confusing the dining table with a Tumble Tots picnic.

I also got the flowers. The last bunch of roses I bought was for our wedding anniversary and they died quicker than the smile on a flying ant in a room full of spiders. So I had to source these ones with all the care and research of Doctor Who looking for a heart surgeon. I’ve noticed, by the way, that the good doctor, the man with two hearts who should be able to give twice the love, gets rid of his companions before they get too close. Saves on poems and dodgy roses.

He’s not daft as it also means he’ll never have a mother in law to worry about, wondering if Mother’s Day falls on the same date on Earth as on Gallifrey or Mars. In fairness mine never says “don’t send me anything” but we still have to make sure she gets a call.

Marriage should come with a warning. Get hitched, have babies by all means. But they don’t tell you when you get married that you’ll end up with three Mothers’ Days to worry about do they?

I Go Ape

I sang a duet with multiple Grammy award winner Neil Sedaka this week.

As he has a new musical about his life story being premiered I was lucky enough to meet and interview him again and, as we chatted afterwards, I mentioned a favourite song of mine that he’d written years ago. Unfortunately it’s not a song he sings often and he’d forgotten the words, so I sang them for him and his eyes lit up as he joined in. Of course I should have told him to butt out, one singer one song and all that, but I figured “well if he’s enjoying it let him have his moment”. Having duetted with Elton John, Carole King and others, he probably saw this as something his career had been building towards.

Over the years many have fought to sing with me – at least I think they have as fighting usually breaks out when I sing - and I’ve lost count of the number of times folk have shouted at me the title of that classic Joe Dolce song “Shaddup Ya Face”, presumably expecting me to burst in to song with them. Simon Cowell even told me I could win the X Factor and he rated my voice. Actually, what he said was “your voice is X rated”, but I knew what he meant.

Whoever is behind the publicity for Cowell’s various money making projects is doing their job too well just now as I’m suffering from Cowell fatigue every time I look in the papers or on television. Even his partners in crime are so horribly over exposed that I find myself wishing Piers Morgan would join all the other great British piers and catch fire before falling in to the sea.

Then there’s Cheryl and Ashley, toughening it out in their Cole bunker and only coming out when there’s an emergency like an album to plug or a party to attend. As journalists try to unearth ever more dirt on them they make it impossible for me to go anywhere without wanting to scream for sanity, and I cannot bear Brat King Cole and his missus any more.

That’s why I was delighted this week to come across a web site called Happy News Dot Com. It sets out to show only the good news from around the world, and this week it featured the warming tale of Grace Groner, an American lady who died aged 100. She had lived all her life in a tiny house and bought all her clothes from car boot sales yet, in her will this week, she left her former college a surprise seven million dollars.

Then there was the story of two eight year old boys in Australia who saved a man from drowning, a diver who wrestled a Frisbee ring from around a suffocating shark’s throat, and the tale of a dog collar and lead, billed as “once belonging to Charles Dickens”, being auctioned off for twelve thousand dollars. I’m hoping that it actually belonged to Charles Dickens’s dog rather than to the writer himself.

But no matter how hard I looked amongst the good news stories, I couldn’t see any sign of my duet with Neil Sedaka. I should email them with the background and suggest an uplifting headline like “Old Man Made Very Happy”.

Or perhaps I’m being selfish. Maybe the headline should be about Sedaka instead of me.