Perhaps it’s because I’m fed up with the cold weather, or maybe it’s a result of losing weight – 14 pounds in four weeks since you so kindly ask – but I’ve decided to do a Spring clean and tone up of my record collection.
Having been in radio for so many years you can imagine the amount of excess vinyl weight I’ve accumulated, but it breaks my heart to throw some of the old stuff out. My kids watched me work while looking down their noses, as if I was clearing out a collection of rusty cannon balls, or anti scurvy medicine, or old copies of the Magna Carta. For them vinyl is as prehistoric and unwanted as a Sky TV football host.
Mind you, my daughter Annalie loved hearing the original Broadway album from Dreamgirls and told her sister that she wants a track played at her funeral. She chose the song I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.
Why I’ve kept some of the stuff I will never know. If I list some of the records I’m throwing out I risk my image going down quicker than my waist line. I was embarrassed to come across an album by Aneka who had a brief fling with the charts many years ago. Mary Sanderson changed her name to go with the image on her number one hit Japanese Boy which is featured on the album alongside embarrassingly titled songs like Tu Whit Tu Whoo and the crassly named Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang. Mary had been singing Scottish folk songs pretty successfully, but now here she was dressed like a geisha in my mum’s dressing gown with chopsticks in her hair and a look put together by the Fortune Cookie takeaway.
I also found an album by Dollar, a duo who made a couple of good singles and an awful lot of bad ones. Even worse it was placed next to an LP by Guys And Dolls, the band they once featured in alongside Bruce Forsyth’s daughter Julie. On the album Julie looks about twenty years old. Today, the baby she had while in the group, is thirty one years old and Julie now presents anti ageing reports for TV’s This Morning. The album’s got to go, right?
Well, no. I made the mistake of looking on You Tube and saw their reunion gig from 2008 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd1pG_ChaqA&feature=related ) and it made me nostalgic and want to hold on to it. But The Aneka album went to the binmen, didn’t it? Well, again,no. There’s a fun song on there about a backing singer so I kept it.
And this is the problem. I keep finding reasons to hang on to stuff I should throw out, although I definitely binned the Boney M album, the double gatefold LP from Milli Vanilli and everything by Barry Manilow and Julio Iglesias. I also tearfully bade farewell to a collection by a band called Jigsaw who had a few hits despite sounding like falsetto choir boys who have had their undercarriage nailed to the pews.
I’ve also discovered some rarities I’d forgotten I had. One album is filled with an interview by Paul McCartney recorded in 1980, and another discovery was a collection of conversations between John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded for Playboy magazine. Basically they talk rubbish, as you would expect, but I’m not going to part with it. Then there’s Paul Simon’s gig in Central Park featuring on the cover the worst wig this side of Julie Forsyth’s dad. And how about a vinyl copy of Sinatra singing New York on a record shaped like an apple?
I also came across a collection by a guy called Bryn Haworth called Grand Arrival. I’ve hung on to this not because it’s a great album but because it reminds me of how gullible I can be. When I interviewed him, Bryn told me it was the best interview he’d ever done and he couldn’t wait to meet me again. Next time he visited the radio station I walked up to him all smiles, to be asked “and who are you?”. He had no recollection of me at all.
So I’m now faced with a pile of stuff to throw out including The Nolans, Paul Nicholas, Kelly Marie, Stars On 45 and the ones above. You name it, I’ll shame it. Problem is, I’m too embarrassed to take them to the charity shop in case anyone sees me.
If you tell anyone about my shame I won’t just send the heavies round, I’ll do much, much worse. I’ll say I’m looking after them for you.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Laughing Gnome
Go for a job interview and you will be asked a load of questions designed to find out about your personality and whether you will fit in to the company culture. One London Bank for instance asks candidates to imagine they are a small pencil inside a stoppered bottle and then asks them to describe how they would escape.
Other commonly used questions, and I am not making this up, are “What colour car do you drive”, “What day of the week would you like to be”, “Why do bananas not have legs” and “How do you get along with your mum”.
The silly thing about all this is that once you know the whole canon of really stupid questions that lazy HR people fall back on, you can manipulate them. For instance a pal of mine was prepared for being asked, “What would you do if we don’t give you the position”. His reply was, “What would you do if I turned down the position?” He not only got the job but was instrumental in getting these so called psychometric tests banned years later from his company. Another pal was asked, “Can you cope with change” to which he replied “Of course, I used to be a woman.” Did he get the job? You bet.
As someone who works for himself I have never had to face these stupid questions, and I sympathise if you have, but I would like to suggest, from my position of ignorance, that they should be replaced by just one question. “Do you have a sense of humour?”
As far as I can see your sense of humour tells everyone a lot about you, and I couldn’t bear to have a friend who took themselves too seriously. Whenever I’ve worked alongside a colleague who cannot take a bit of a ribbing I have distanced myself instantly and have never subsequently warmed to them.
But having a sense of humour isn’t quite the whole story is it? It’s the type of humour that says so much about you. Do you like gentle jokes or sarcastic put downs? For instance which of these appeals to you more?
a) I made a chicken salad yesterday. You know what? He didn’t even thank me.
b) American football players protect themselves with a cheap piece of plastic in their shorts. They call it a sports guard. Here, British football players also place their privates in cheap plastic. They call it Katie Price.
Joke A is in the style of the more gentle, Tim Vine, approach to humour while B comes from the Frankie Boyle “no hold barred” type. If you prefer the former then my guess is you’re a nice person who gets along with people, while if the latter is more your thing then I think you’re probably edgier and definitely able to give as good as you get. But whichever appeals, at least you can get along with folk.
The reason I am thinking about this whole humour thing is the Ricky Gervais “disaster” at the Golden Globes. He compered the event and upset people by slating or “roasting” celebrity guests, mentioning their drinking habits, bad movies or weird cults. Americans hated his sarcasm and thought he went too far while Brits hated his smugness and the fact that he just wasn’t very funny. Frankie Boyle is also suffering this backlash with his TV show being dropped because we can forgive bad taste but cannot forgive someone just not being funny.
What really, really annoyed middle America however was Ricky Gervais’ last line when he thanked all the organisers and “God for making me an atheist”. Now that’s a very old, old joke. The original, which was around when Noah first skipped wood work class at school, has even been available as a T shirt slogan for many years (check out http://www.lushtshirts.co.uk/thank-god-im-an-atheist-p-413.html). So why the fuss?
Probably because Americans just don’t do jokes about God, and also because it’s a tired old gag, a sign to some of a man losing his powers or just being lazy in his preparation.
But who would you rather work for? Someone who is unwilling to make a gag for fear of upsetting people or someone who makes folk laugh but occasionally gets it badly wrong?
I know who I’d rather be with, and I bet Ricky Gervais has never had a psychometric test in his life.
Other commonly used questions, and I am not making this up, are “What colour car do you drive”, “What day of the week would you like to be”, “Why do bananas not have legs” and “How do you get along with your mum”.
The silly thing about all this is that once you know the whole canon of really stupid questions that lazy HR people fall back on, you can manipulate them. For instance a pal of mine was prepared for being asked, “What would you do if we don’t give you the position”. His reply was, “What would you do if I turned down the position?” He not only got the job but was instrumental in getting these so called psychometric tests banned years later from his company. Another pal was asked, “Can you cope with change” to which he replied “Of course, I used to be a woman.” Did he get the job? You bet.
As someone who works for himself I have never had to face these stupid questions, and I sympathise if you have, but I would like to suggest, from my position of ignorance, that they should be replaced by just one question. “Do you have a sense of humour?”
As far as I can see your sense of humour tells everyone a lot about you, and I couldn’t bear to have a friend who took themselves too seriously. Whenever I’ve worked alongside a colleague who cannot take a bit of a ribbing I have distanced myself instantly and have never subsequently warmed to them.
But having a sense of humour isn’t quite the whole story is it? It’s the type of humour that says so much about you. Do you like gentle jokes or sarcastic put downs? For instance which of these appeals to you more?
a) I made a chicken salad yesterday. You know what? He didn’t even thank me.
b) American football players protect themselves with a cheap piece of plastic in their shorts. They call it a sports guard. Here, British football players also place their privates in cheap plastic. They call it Katie Price.
Joke A is in the style of the more gentle, Tim Vine, approach to humour while B comes from the Frankie Boyle “no hold barred” type. If you prefer the former then my guess is you’re a nice person who gets along with people, while if the latter is more your thing then I think you’re probably edgier and definitely able to give as good as you get. But whichever appeals, at least you can get along with folk.
The reason I am thinking about this whole humour thing is the Ricky Gervais “disaster” at the Golden Globes. He compered the event and upset people by slating or “roasting” celebrity guests, mentioning their drinking habits, bad movies or weird cults. Americans hated his sarcasm and thought he went too far while Brits hated his smugness and the fact that he just wasn’t very funny. Frankie Boyle is also suffering this backlash with his TV show being dropped because we can forgive bad taste but cannot forgive someone just not being funny.
What really, really annoyed middle America however was Ricky Gervais’ last line when he thanked all the organisers and “God for making me an atheist”. Now that’s a very old, old joke. The original, which was around when Noah first skipped wood work class at school, has even been available as a T shirt slogan for many years (check out http://www.lushtshirts.co.uk/thank-god-im-an-atheist-p-413.html). So why the fuss?
Probably because Americans just don’t do jokes about God, and also because it’s a tired old gag, a sign to some of a man losing his powers or just being lazy in his preparation.
But who would you rather work for? Someone who is unwilling to make a gag for fear of upsetting people or someone who makes folk laugh but occasionally gets it badly wrong?
I know who I’d rather be with, and I bet Ricky Gervais has never had a psychometric test in his life.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Rage Against The Machine
I’m always jealous of people who say they only need six hours sleep every night. I’m also envious of anyone who says they need eight hours or even ten, because my answer when someone asks how many hours sleep I need is always “one more”.
I am hopeless at getting out of bed in the morning and was tempted at Christmas to get one of these bed shaker alarms. The idea is that, as well as the alarm ringing, a vibrator under your pillow goes off shaking you awake. I’m naturally distrustful of things that vibrate in the bedroom but I borrowed one of these iLuv clocks from a pal. At seven a.m. the alarm rang, and then the shaking started and entered my dreams, so that in my dopey state I was sure I was in an earthquake. I dozily took the proper course of action during a ground tremor and decided to sleep through the whole event.
So Technology has yet to come up with the alarm clock that works for me. I will probably have to employ a butler to throw water in my face, set the bed on fire and then threaten to kill all my chocolate reindeer, one by one, until I get up.
But last week in Las Vegas a new alarm was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics show, and this one won’t let me off the hook. I can’t wait for it and I just hope Technology doesn’t let me down again. The new alarm goes off in the morning at the appointed time and won’t stop until you switch it off. So far so normal, except this one has wheels and goes for a random spin around your bedroom while it’s ringing so that you have to get up, find it, and then switch it off.
As the Vegas show proved, Technology moves at an incredible pace. I was watching an old episode of Friends this week and Rachel and Ross were talking to each other on mobile ‘phones which were probably cutting edge when the show was recorded but, by today’s standards, looked to be roughly the size of Bradford.
Don’t get me wrong, with an anatomy like mine, the drive to make people appreciate ever smaller things is something I welcome and I love technology that works, and makes life better. I just don’t blindly buy every new trend. The iPad, for instance, seems just a toy or, at best, a giant mobile ‘phone that doesn’t actually make calls, Twitter seems designed for observations on life that I’d be embarrassed to find in a fortune cookie, and 3D television has as much chance of succeeding as Justin Bieber has of me ever buying a concert ticket. And don’t get me started on DAB radio, in fact no one seems able to get the public started on DAB radio anyway, do they?
For some people, technology takes the place of proper social interaction, hence the reason that Facebook is so popular and why people deliberately take wrong turnings in their car so that the Sat Nav will talk to them. For some guys I know it’s the only time in the day any woman will speak to them.
I call this reliance on the latest “must have” gadget the Device Vice.
My kids are addicted to Facebook and texts, and their thank you letters for Christmas presents were mainly sent by email this year. But this blind following of technology can get silly. My oldest daughter, Annalie, was babysitting this week and didn’t ring us to let us know when the couple would be back and she would get home. We called her on their landline and she apologised saying her mobile phone had run out of power. “So why didn’t you call us on the landline?” we asked. The answer was that she’d forgotten it even existed. And I’m not making this up.
Some technology is about as popular as a Dennis Waterman album and those early adopters must feel really, really stupid now. Remember HD DVD? How about Beanz, the internet currency that flopped? Or Smart Appliances, fridges that would automatically order eggs and milk when they ran low? What about Virtual Reality, Speech Recognition or GPS collars for dogs? All about as useless as acne in a beauty salon.
However, the new alarm clock on wheels really excites me and if it works then I’ll confidently say that I’m back in love with technology. But for the moment, like Rachel and Ross, we’re on a break.
I am hopeless at getting out of bed in the morning and was tempted at Christmas to get one of these bed shaker alarms. The idea is that, as well as the alarm ringing, a vibrator under your pillow goes off shaking you awake. I’m naturally distrustful of things that vibrate in the bedroom but I borrowed one of these iLuv clocks from a pal. At seven a.m. the alarm rang, and then the shaking started and entered my dreams, so that in my dopey state I was sure I was in an earthquake. I dozily took the proper course of action during a ground tremor and decided to sleep through the whole event.
So Technology has yet to come up with the alarm clock that works for me. I will probably have to employ a butler to throw water in my face, set the bed on fire and then threaten to kill all my chocolate reindeer, one by one, until I get up.
But last week in Las Vegas a new alarm was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics show, and this one won’t let me off the hook. I can’t wait for it and I just hope Technology doesn’t let me down again. The new alarm goes off in the morning at the appointed time and won’t stop until you switch it off. So far so normal, except this one has wheels and goes for a random spin around your bedroom while it’s ringing so that you have to get up, find it, and then switch it off.
As the Vegas show proved, Technology moves at an incredible pace. I was watching an old episode of Friends this week and Rachel and Ross were talking to each other on mobile ‘phones which were probably cutting edge when the show was recorded but, by today’s standards, looked to be roughly the size of Bradford.
Don’t get me wrong, with an anatomy like mine, the drive to make people appreciate ever smaller things is something I welcome and I love technology that works, and makes life better. I just don’t blindly buy every new trend. The iPad, for instance, seems just a toy or, at best, a giant mobile ‘phone that doesn’t actually make calls, Twitter seems designed for observations on life that I’d be embarrassed to find in a fortune cookie, and 3D television has as much chance of succeeding as Justin Bieber has of me ever buying a concert ticket. And don’t get me started on DAB radio, in fact no one seems able to get the public started on DAB radio anyway, do they?
For some people, technology takes the place of proper social interaction, hence the reason that Facebook is so popular and why people deliberately take wrong turnings in their car so that the Sat Nav will talk to them. For some guys I know it’s the only time in the day any woman will speak to them.
I call this reliance on the latest “must have” gadget the Device Vice.
My kids are addicted to Facebook and texts, and their thank you letters for Christmas presents were mainly sent by email this year. But this blind following of technology can get silly. My oldest daughter, Annalie, was babysitting this week and didn’t ring us to let us know when the couple would be back and she would get home. We called her on their landline and she apologised saying her mobile phone had run out of power. “So why didn’t you call us on the landline?” we asked. The answer was that she’d forgotten it even existed. And I’m not making this up.
Some technology is about as popular as a Dennis Waterman album and those early adopters must feel really, really stupid now. Remember HD DVD? How about Beanz, the internet currency that flopped? Or Smart Appliances, fridges that would automatically order eggs and milk when they ran low? What about Virtual Reality, Speech Recognition or GPS collars for dogs? All about as useless as acne in a beauty salon.
However, the new alarm clock on wheels really excites me and if it works then I’ll confidently say that I’m back in love with technology. But for the moment, like Rachel and Ross, we’re on a break.
Monday, January 10, 2011
He Aint Heavy, He's My Reflection
I went for a check up before Christmas – full top to toe medical – and while it wasn’t up there with Syd James in Carry On Doctor, it really was a laugh. Watching the confusion on the nurse’s face as she tested my eyes (I hadn’t told her I’d just had them lasered) had me inwardly giggling, and I enjoyed her best impression of an undertaker’s voice as she solemnly told me she had bad news for me. I am colour blind.
Having known this since I was about five years old, and having had it confirmed for many years in my choice of co ordinating knitwear that doesn’t, I kept a straight face and asked how it would impact on my life. She frowned and did that nodding, reassuring thing health professionals do when they tell you the last few months of your life won’t be as bad as expected because they’ll be there to hold your hand.
She summoned up courage and told me, seriously, that I could never be a pilot.
Bang goes that job at Easyjet then. What a bummer. According to the Colorblinder web site I also can’t become an astronaut, a graphic designer, firefighter, train driver, flower arranger or interior designer. I suspect, however, that I’m fully qualified to design the Everton “away” shirt.
One thing I wish I hadn’t found out from the medical though was just how much weight I need to lose. You may well have thought you saw me last week on ITV, but that was a documentary called Britain’s Fattest Man. According to the doctor, I’m not far off. I was prepared to be told to shed five or six pounds but he told me I need to get rid of TWENTY FIVE pounds of hard earned lard as soon as I can.
So, I joined a new class at the gym on Monday and met a very kind Polish instructor who taught us how to strengthen our tummies. As we were doing her exercises, she came up and whispered “pull in your tummy when you’re doing it”. Readers, I WAS pulling in my tummy. I made an extra special effort and sucked it in till it felt that it was sticking through my spine, but she said simply “right, start pulling it in now.” It’s official. I’m obese.
I’ve discovered a web site called My Fitness Pal which allows you to key in how much weight you want to lose, plus your daily food intake, and then tells you when you’ll reach your goal. In my case October 2037. I also key in what exercise I’ve done, and the site tells me how many calories I’ve “bought back”, with my sit ups and running, so I can have a treat. It’s a bit like being at school and I’m determined to be teacher’s pet.
Overall, apart from my weight, the medical went well, especially for the doctor who spent a long time examining places even my wife doesn’t want to know about. By the way, what is the form for conversation while a doctor fondles your dangly bits? I wanted to burst into He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands, but I worried that he was inwardly singing that Jennifer Paige hit “Crush”.
All was good with my cholesterol level which was lower than my voice after the doctor had finished fondling, my heart and lungs are healthier than expected, and my hearing is just perfect for ignoring my wife when she’s nagging or telling me to empty the dishwasher.
The diet is going well and I’ve lost seven pounds in a week of watching what I eat and doing lots of gym work. By the end of the year I should have drastically reduced my waist line to merely “fat” but for the moment I take consolation where I can. I even think I spotted some old pals I haven’t seen for ages today. My knees.
Having known this since I was about five years old, and having had it confirmed for many years in my choice of co ordinating knitwear that doesn’t, I kept a straight face and asked how it would impact on my life. She frowned and did that nodding, reassuring thing health professionals do when they tell you the last few months of your life won’t be as bad as expected because they’ll be there to hold your hand.
She summoned up courage and told me, seriously, that I could never be a pilot.
Bang goes that job at Easyjet then. What a bummer. According to the Colorblinder web site I also can’t become an astronaut, a graphic designer, firefighter, train driver, flower arranger or interior designer. I suspect, however, that I’m fully qualified to design the Everton “away” shirt.
One thing I wish I hadn’t found out from the medical though was just how much weight I need to lose. You may well have thought you saw me last week on ITV, but that was a documentary called Britain’s Fattest Man. According to the doctor, I’m not far off. I was prepared to be told to shed five or six pounds but he told me I need to get rid of TWENTY FIVE pounds of hard earned lard as soon as I can.
So, I joined a new class at the gym on Monday and met a very kind Polish instructor who taught us how to strengthen our tummies. As we were doing her exercises, she came up and whispered “pull in your tummy when you’re doing it”. Readers, I WAS pulling in my tummy. I made an extra special effort and sucked it in till it felt that it was sticking through my spine, but she said simply “right, start pulling it in now.” It’s official. I’m obese.
I’ve discovered a web site called My Fitness Pal which allows you to key in how much weight you want to lose, plus your daily food intake, and then tells you when you’ll reach your goal. In my case October 2037. I also key in what exercise I’ve done, and the site tells me how many calories I’ve “bought back”, with my sit ups and running, so I can have a treat. It’s a bit like being at school and I’m determined to be teacher’s pet.
Overall, apart from my weight, the medical went well, especially for the doctor who spent a long time examining places even my wife doesn’t want to know about. By the way, what is the form for conversation while a doctor fondles your dangly bits? I wanted to burst into He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands, but I worried that he was inwardly singing that Jennifer Paige hit “Crush”.
All was good with my cholesterol level which was lower than my voice after the doctor had finished fondling, my heart and lungs are healthier than expected, and my hearing is just perfect for ignoring my wife when she’s nagging or telling me to empty the dishwasher.
The diet is going well and I’ve lost seven pounds in a week of watching what I eat and doing lots of gym work. By the end of the year I should have drastically reduced my waist line to merely “fat” but for the moment I take consolation where I can. I even think I spotted some old pals I haven’t seen for ages today. My knees.
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