www.paulcoia.com
As 2008 comes to a close here’s my annual, tongue in cheek, look back at the year gone by.
January
Paul Burrell, former butler to Princess Diana, stole a march on the Press when he sneaked out of the inquest into her death. He also stole a cloakroom ticket, two ashtrays and a letter from the canteen lady. After his testimony Burrell’s hard earned reputation was ruined when someone thought they spotted him telling the truth.
February
Britney Spears was sectioned for the second time in a month after bizarre behaviour led to her being separated from her kids. She shouted at the judge after the verdict but was spared prosecution when it was later proved that she had mimed.
March
Windsor Castle played host to French leader Nicholas Sarkozy and his glamorous, beautiful wife as well as the glitterati with their glamorous, beautiful wives. Also in attendance were Prince Charles and his glamorous, beautiful, er, mum.
Heather Mills divorced Paul McCartney after being divorced from reality for years.
April
As the Olympic flame made its way to Beijing it passed through the streets of London. With London’s no smoking policy, various public spirited citizens mobbed the runners in a friendly attempt to put it out.
John Prescott revealed he had spent ten years as a bulimic. The forgetful politician ate as much as he wanted but couldn’t remember what to do after that.
May
A Letter to The Guardian newspaper reported that since Boris Johnson had been in power as London’s mayor the sun had shone continuously. He responded that it temporarily disappeared each time he sat down.
June
Zimbabwe held an election to tell Robert Mugabe that he is a tyrant, a corrupt despot and that he should go. He thanked everyone for their vote of confidence and the wave of love, and said he will be glad to stay on for ever.
Children were confused when newspapers were filled with pictures of Mr Potato Head getting married. Parents tried to explain that it was actually a footballer named Wayne Rooney.
July
After years of waiting and lack of success, Britain celebrated it’s biggest ever triumph at Wimbledon as several families managed to sneak in for nothing.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested on a Belgrade bus. Next time he promises to pay the fare.
August
The Olympics went out on a high with fireworks and record breaking ceremonies as organisers decided that, in these cash strapped times, there is no point in having any form of spectacle, or indeed transport, at the next Olympic finals in London.
Paris Hilton, when asked about rumours she will be backed by an anonymous donor to run for President, said she finds it hard to swallow. Several hundred American males begged to differ.
September
Sarah Palin, a potential American vice president, said she likes to hunt moose. The Spice Girls went in to hiding.
Banks went in to meltdown, financial analysts and investors committed suicide, and companies went bust as Simon Cowell moved his accounts overseas.
October
As Madonna and Guy Ritchie said they would divorce, the singer reflected that she’s gained so much from each of her marriages and announced a “thank you” gig exclusively for all her previous husbands. She booked Madison Square Gardens, with the overflow to be seated in the car park.
November
Barack Obama is elected as the next President of The United States. Outgoing George Bush says he will do all he can to make Obama’s start in office as easy as possible. He then gives away all America’s money to car salesmen.
Lewis Hamilton becomes the youngest champion in history to win the world bragging rights for sleeping with one of the Pussycat Dolls.
December
Sarah Symonds says she’s had an affair with chef Gordon Ramsay following a previous affair with Jeffrey Archer. She believes her lovers are getting progressively better looking. Andrew Lloyd Webber worried he’s next on the list.
Protestors block Stansted airport as hundreds of flights are cancelled. Budget airline Ryanair cancels fifty two flights costing around three pounds seventy in lost ticket revenue. “There was very little information”, said a Ryanair spokesman. “Now he knows how it feels”, says every Ryanair customer.
That’s it for 2008. Have a very Happy Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year. See you in 2009.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas (W)Rapping
I felt the suffocating panic of Christmas looming this week as more and more cards arrived through the letter box from the usual mixture of nice people, daft people, local Indian takeaways and my newspaper delivery girl who, though I’ve never met her, wants me to have Season’s Greetings.
Once upon a time you knew where you were with Christmas cards as they all had a ‘Happy Christmas’ inside, but we now are so wary of upsetting everyone from Zoroastrans to people who don’t want to smile, that we now avoid the mention of Christmas and happiness to avoid any offence. I received a double whammy today with a Season’s Greetings inside a card that wished me a Happy Winterval on the front.
So what is a Season’s Greeting? Would a quick “My it’s cold” do the trick, or is it “I see fuel bills are up?”. There’s also “Got to pay my tax next month”. All these are greetings used frequently at this time of year so it seems to me that Season’s Greetings is a useless non message meaning either nothing at all or, in the case of my newspaper girl, “Don’t forget to tip”.
With all these cards I had to admit that putting Christmas off was no longer an option and I needed to face up to the annual climb in to the loft for the decorations. So, we now have our tree up, the wreath’s on the door with a few sweeties stuck in just in case anyone’s late and confused for Halloween, and my desk is covered in boxes of Christmas cards as I agonise over who will get the whole Bethlehem and Three Wise Men scenario, and who receives Santa relieving himself behind someone’s chimney.
I also started my Christmas shopping and more or less finished it on the same day. But before you despise me for being a right little clever clogs, the truth is I had already done most of my annual present buying online – everyone is getting Viagra, their bank details sent to Nigeria, and a degree from some American university this year – but I had to go out and get one or two personal items.
I knew that the shops would be busy so I was ready for the long queues in some stores which seemed to be selling off their stock, their premises, their staff and their future by desperately throwing stuff at us, most of which looked as if it had first seen the shelves when Santa was an elf. I didn’t know whether to join in and scramble around for bargains as it seemed to be dancing on the graves of the staff who were doing their best to look cheerful, but in the end the bad angel overcame the good one on the other shoulder and I filled my basket.
Joining the lines to pay, I waited for just under an hour in a shop I’ve always liked and I stood chatting to fellow waiters as we made the most of our time. It was a bit like being locked together in a broken down lift but without the worry of enclosed spaces. Or flatulence. After fifty five minutes of pleasant banter we reached the till and, as I went to get my wallet, I discovered I’d left it in my car. I could have cried.
There was one bit of light relief however as, after I came back and rejoined the line, a six or seven year old boy was misbehaving in front of me and, despite pleas from his mum, he just carried on pulling Christmas decorations off the shelves, dancing around madly and colliding with other shoppers while generally being a nuisance. His dad finally managed to control him with a line I wished I’d thought of when my kids were a bit younger. “Stop mucking about”, he said, “or I’ll phone Santa and tell him we’ve moved house”. He was good as gold after that.
As a youngster I loved the wonder of Woolworths, especially on Easter Monday when their Easter eggs were reduced to half price, so I took a nostalgic trip this week to look at their beautiful Christmas decorations hanging from the store’s ceiling. As I read them – Closing Down Sale, Fifty Per Cent Off, We’re All Doomed, Got A Job Going? – I hunted around for one last bargain. If I’d had a couple of pounds more in my wallet I would have taken the special offer of Buy One Store Get One Free, but opted instead for some chocolate.
For some reason, probably one of taste, amongst the rows of empty shelves they still have lots of pink, fluffy, artificial Christmas trees for sale and you can even buy pink fluffy logs to place around them. But, don’t go redecorating just to fit around the pink fluff when you proudly place it in your lounge. Remember, a log is for Christmas, not just for life.
I’m one of the world’s optimists but even I found the Woolworth’s receipts a bit hopeful. Bearing in mind they’re closing after Christmas and going to the great shopping mall in the sky, the receipt I was given proudly boasted that “Christmas gift returns will be refunded from December 28th.”
Christmas shopping has to be done right. It should be done in groups so you can share the pain and, after a few stores, it’s time for a coffee break to regroup, cross things off the list and compare notes. It’s also amazing what you can overhear as other groups go over their lists. “I got your mum those invisible suck in knickers for fat people” was just one, and I can only guess what Christmas morning is going to be like in their house when she opens that. Perhaps she’ll use it to keep the stuffing bound inside the turkey.
I’m off now back to my desk to dream of a few days off next week and to finish writing my Christmas cards. I see that you’re next on the list, so Season’s Greetings.
Once upon a time you knew where you were with Christmas cards as they all had a ‘Happy Christmas’ inside, but we now are so wary of upsetting everyone from Zoroastrans to people who don’t want to smile, that we now avoid the mention of Christmas and happiness to avoid any offence. I received a double whammy today with a Season’s Greetings inside a card that wished me a Happy Winterval on the front.
So what is a Season’s Greeting? Would a quick “My it’s cold” do the trick, or is it “I see fuel bills are up?”. There’s also “Got to pay my tax next month”. All these are greetings used frequently at this time of year so it seems to me that Season’s Greetings is a useless non message meaning either nothing at all or, in the case of my newspaper girl, “Don’t forget to tip”.
With all these cards I had to admit that putting Christmas off was no longer an option and I needed to face up to the annual climb in to the loft for the decorations. So, we now have our tree up, the wreath’s on the door with a few sweeties stuck in just in case anyone’s late and confused for Halloween, and my desk is covered in boxes of Christmas cards as I agonise over who will get the whole Bethlehem and Three Wise Men scenario, and who receives Santa relieving himself behind someone’s chimney.
I also started my Christmas shopping and more or less finished it on the same day. But before you despise me for being a right little clever clogs, the truth is I had already done most of my annual present buying online – everyone is getting Viagra, their bank details sent to Nigeria, and a degree from some American university this year – but I had to go out and get one or two personal items.
I knew that the shops would be busy so I was ready for the long queues in some stores which seemed to be selling off their stock, their premises, their staff and their future by desperately throwing stuff at us, most of which looked as if it had first seen the shelves when Santa was an elf. I didn’t know whether to join in and scramble around for bargains as it seemed to be dancing on the graves of the staff who were doing their best to look cheerful, but in the end the bad angel overcame the good one on the other shoulder and I filled my basket.
Joining the lines to pay, I waited for just under an hour in a shop I’ve always liked and I stood chatting to fellow waiters as we made the most of our time. It was a bit like being locked together in a broken down lift but without the worry of enclosed spaces. Or flatulence. After fifty five minutes of pleasant banter we reached the till and, as I went to get my wallet, I discovered I’d left it in my car. I could have cried.
There was one bit of light relief however as, after I came back and rejoined the line, a six or seven year old boy was misbehaving in front of me and, despite pleas from his mum, he just carried on pulling Christmas decorations off the shelves, dancing around madly and colliding with other shoppers while generally being a nuisance. His dad finally managed to control him with a line I wished I’d thought of when my kids were a bit younger. “Stop mucking about”, he said, “or I’ll phone Santa and tell him we’ve moved house”. He was good as gold after that.
As a youngster I loved the wonder of Woolworths, especially on Easter Monday when their Easter eggs were reduced to half price, so I took a nostalgic trip this week to look at their beautiful Christmas decorations hanging from the store’s ceiling. As I read them – Closing Down Sale, Fifty Per Cent Off, We’re All Doomed, Got A Job Going? – I hunted around for one last bargain. If I’d had a couple of pounds more in my wallet I would have taken the special offer of Buy One Store Get One Free, but opted instead for some chocolate.
For some reason, probably one of taste, amongst the rows of empty shelves they still have lots of pink, fluffy, artificial Christmas trees for sale and you can even buy pink fluffy logs to place around them. But, don’t go redecorating just to fit around the pink fluff when you proudly place it in your lounge. Remember, a log is for Christmas, not just for life.
I’m one of the world’s optimists but even I found the Woolworth’s receipts a bit hopeful. Bearing in mind they’re closing after Christmas and going to the great shopping mall in the sky, the receipt I was given proudly boasted that “Christmas gift returns will be refunded from December 28th.”
Christmas shopping has to be done right. It should be done in groups so you can share the pain and, after a few stores, it’s time for a coffee break to regroup, cross things off the list and compare notes. It’s also amazing what you can overhear as other groups go over their lists. “I got your mum those invisible suck in knickers for fat people” was just one, and I can only guess what Christmas morning is going to be like in their house when she opens that. Perhaps she’ll use it to keep the stuffing bound inside the turkey.
I’m off now back to my desk to dream of a few days off next week and to finish writing my Christmas cards. I see that you’re next on the list, so Season’s Greetings.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Send In The Clowns
www.paulcoia.com
As a proud native of Glasgow, one time city of culture and now the Woolworths of riverside real estate, I’ve long enjoyed the fun to be had in a Scottish sport which is enjoyed by everyone. It is not tossing the caber, but hurling the insult.
Alan McGee, former manager of the band Oasis and pal of Tony Blair, used his Glasgow upbringing this week when asked what he thought of the Prime Minister. “Gordon Brown”, he said “has had a charisma bypass. His party are cretins and retards.” Contrast this with London’s, very English, mayor Boris Johnson who said that Gordon Brown is “like some sherry crazed old dowager who has lost the family silver”. More polite, for sure, but less of a direct hit than McGee’s barbs.
Scottish humour is based on cruelty but also applauding when you get bigger and better thrown back. We’re not sophisticated, and a poster advertising a play about Glasgow summed it up as the city where “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some are still throwing spears at buses.”
Meeting some gas bag, who simply opens their mouth to boast, might lead English people like Stephen Fry to say a clever and enduringly whimsical remark such as “You have the patter of tiny feats” but in Glasgow it’s more likely that Stevie Fryup would say “That’s clever, the way your lips move but your bum does the talking”. It then becomes a contest with the reply being something like “At least I’m not wearing mine on my shoulders”.
We don’t do subtlety in Glasgow, preferring to hit the bullseye first time, and when I visited the city recently and was recognised in the street, a woman said “I used to look forward to seeing your face on my telly every day.” Then with a sly smile she added, “As soon as you came on I knew it was time to turn over for Countdown”.
As I’ve mentioned before, we’re no repecters of celebrity. When Bono played Glasgow with his band U2 and movingly snapped his fingers every three seconds saying that a child was dying in Africa on every click, an audience member shouted “well stop clicking then”.
So are we Scots just simply rude? I hope it’s more than that. Sir Alex Ferguson, now manager of Manchester United, tells the story of his playing days with Glasgow Rangers and going in to see the then manager Scott Symon to ask why he had been playing in the second team for three weeks. Mr Symon replied with the perfect put down, “because we don’t have a third team”. Ferguson, the target of the comment, just laughed.
Scottish football has a sense of humour deadlier than a teenager’s socks, where hopeless goalkeepers are known as Michael Jackson - because they wear gloves for no apparent reason - useless players are said to be “the biggest waste of money since Paris Hilton bought pyjamas”, and I remember when Scotland lost to Denmark in the Mexican World Cup our supporters summoned up their vast knowledge of world events and current affairs, aligned with their powers of creative writing and word play, and chanted, “you can stick your streaky bacon up you’re a*se”. Now that’s class.
So why am I going on about being Scottish? Well I guess it’s because my kids keep telling me that the longer I live in London the less Scottish I’m becoming by the day and, this week, they said I’m turning English. Apparently I said the word ‘filthy’ rather than my usual ‘manky’. Unless you’ve had acid injected into your veins whilst coating your eyeballs with chilli powder, or you have bought Des O’Connor’s new Christmas album, you cannot appreciate the level of pain I feel when I hear that. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being English, indeed some of my best wives have been English, but rather that there’s everything wrong with forgetting where you come from.
I know it’s not my accent that’s changed as an internet chat board currently has a comment saying they hate my Scottish voice on radio and always switch over – I wonder if it’s that Countdown fan from Glasgow again – and when I went to see England play Australia at Twickenham two weeks ago I sang the Australian anthem to deflate the auld enemy. It seems to me my Scottish bloody mindedness is still intact.
I wonder, though, if it all matters anyway. It seems that wherever we live we’re all starting to blend more and more in to one homeless waif as quick communications and ease of travel mean we spend more time picking up other cultures and accents, and my kids seem to now talk an American street language that is part “Yo girlfriend” and part indecipherable.
In the quiet road of eleven houses where I live we have three German families, one French and two Far Eastern. There is also a Danish family who are renting, though what they do with streaky bacon must remain a mystery as I’ve yet to meet them. But I’m sure we’d all get along famously as nationality seems to me to be less an issue than ever before.
So forget common currencies, Central Banks, European Unions, Nato and cultural exchange trips. Togetherness in daily life is us all just getting along despite where we come from, and laughing at ourselves. When we get to the stage of Glasgow humour being used commonly, without anyone taking offence, I think we’ll have truly arrived.
As a proud native of Glasgow, one time city of culture and now the Woolworths of riverside real estate, I’ve long enjoyed the fun to be had in a Scottish sport which is enjoyed by everyone. It is not tossing the caber, but hurling the insult.
Alan McGee, former manager of the band Oasis and pal of Tony Blair, used his Glasgow upbringing this week when asked what he thought of the Prime Minister. “Gordon Brown”, he said “has had a charisma bypass. His party are cretins and retards.” Contrast this with London’s, very English, mayor Boris Johnson who said that Gordon Brown is “like some sherry crazed old dowager who has lost the family silver”. More polite, for sure, but less of a direct hit than McGee’s barbs.
Scottish humour is based on cruelty but also applauding when you get bigger and better thrown back. We’re not sophisticated, and a poster advertising a play about Glasgow summed it up as the city where “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some are still throwing spears at buses.”
Meeting some gas bag, who simply opens their mouth to boast, might lead English people like Stephen Fry to say a clever and enduringly whimsical remark such as “You have the patter of tiny feats” but in Glasgow it’s more likely that Stevie Fryup would say “That’s clever, the way your lips move but your bum does the talking”. It then becomes a contest with the reply being something like “At least I’m not wearing mine on my shoulders”.
We don’t do subtlety in Glasgow, preferring to hit the bullseye first time, and when I visited the city recently and was recognised in the street, a woman said “I used to look forward to seeing your face on my telly every day.” Then with a sly smile she added, “As soon as you came on I knew it was time to turn over for Countdown”.
As I’ve mentioned before, we’re no repecters of celebrity. When Bono played Glasgow with his band U2 and movingly snapped his fingers every three seconds saying that a child was dying in Africa on every click, an audience member shouted “well stop clicking then”.
So are we Scots just simply rude? I hope it’s more than that. Sir Alex Ferguson, now manager of Manchester United, tells the story of his playing days with Glasgow Rangers and going in to see the then manager Scott Symon to ask why he had been playing in the second team for three weeks. Mr Symon replied with the perfect put down, “because we don’t have a third team”. Ferguson, the target of the comment, just laughed.
Scottish football has a sense of humour deadlier than a teenager’s socks, where hopeless goalkeepers are known as Michael Jackson - because they wear gloves for no apparent reason - useless players are said to be “the biggest waste of money since Paris Hilton bought pyjamas”, and I remember when Scotland lost to Denmark in the Mexican World Cup our supporters summoned up their vast knowledge of world events and current affairs, aligned with their powers of creative writing and word play, and chanted, “you can stick your streaky bacon up you’re a*se”. Now that’s class.
So why am I going on about being Scottish? Well I guess it’s because my kids keep telling me that the longer I live in London the less Scottish I’m becoming by the day and, this week, they said I’m turning English. Apparently I said the word ‘filthy’ rather than my usual ‘manky’. Unless you’ve had acid injected into your veins whilst coating your eyeballs with chilli powder, or you have bought Des O’Connor’s new Christmas album, you cannot appreciate the level of pain I feel when I hear that. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being English, indeed some of my best wives have been English, but rather that there’s everything wrong with forgetting where you come from.
I know it’s not my accent that’s changed as an internet chat board currently has a comment saying they hate my Scottish voice on radio and always switch over – I wonder if it’s that Countdown fan from Glasgow again – and when I went to see England play Australia at Twickenham two weeks ago I sang the Australian anthem to deflate the auld enemy. It seems to me my Scottish bloody mindedness is still intact.
I wonder, though, if it all matters anyway. It seems that wherever we live we’re all starting to blend more and more in to one homeless waif as quick communications and ease of travel mean we spend more time picking up other cultures and accents, and my kids seem to now talk an American street language that is part “Yo girlfriend” and part indecipherable.
In the quiet road of eleven houses where I live we have three German families, one French and two Far Eastern. There is also a Danish family who are renting, though what they do with streaky bacon must remain a mystery as I’ve yet to meet them. But I’m sure we’d all get along famously as nationality seems to me to be less an issue than ever before.
So forget common currencies, Central Banks, European Unions, Nato and cultural exchange trips. Togetherness in daily life is us all just getting along despite where we come from, and laughing at ourselves. When we get to the stage of Glasgow humour being used commonly, without anyone taking offence, I think we’ll have truly arrived.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Flash Dance
www.paulcoia.com
So like Winter follows Autumn, and “annoys the hell out of me” follows Timmy Mallett, the BBC are again in trouble, this time with actor John Barrowman showing his willy during an interview on Sunday.
The offending incident took place live so couldn’t be edited, but it was on radio, a medium not renowned for its great picture quality. This didn’t stop the Daily Mail from putting the event on their front page today with a headline which reads something like Mad Flasher Kills Four Hundred Babies And Poisons Old Ladies As Civilisation Ends All Thanks to the Labour Government.
Barrowman is only the latest in a long line of distinguished people who like flashing for a laugh, giving his man parts a starring role most days in the movie of his life, though obviously a very small part. Unlike him, while having people laugh at me naked is something I’ve had to come to terms with, it’s not something I’d actively seek.
By coincidence I was driving home and switching around radio stations in my car on Sunday night so, although I’m not normally a Radio One listener, I listened closely to the interview as I had chatted to John just a couple of days before. I came away from it thinking it was a bit juvenile, which seems fair enough as juvenile is Radio One’s target audience.
Last week John told me things about Doctor Who star David Tennant’s anatomy that even a Dalek would find scary so it would appear that Tennant has form on the flashing front too. Any actors invited to take part in the show should pack a bucket of ice and a sense of humour, but you’ll have to wait till the New Year on Smooth Radio London to hear John tell us exactly what Tennant’s peculiarity is.
Barrowman tells these stories, and shows his bottom, with no malice intended and when I asked him last week why he loves flashing he had an obvious, but strictly correct, answer. It’s because he gets told to - whether it’s in a script or in a radio interview. So, John is always polite and waits to be asked first. His mum would be proud. Actually, I did ask if his mum objects when yet another neighbour rings up saying “you’ll never guess what he’s done now”, but he told me she’s happy that, having cleaned it so often, her son’s bum is getting appreciation and attention; a bit like polishing a brass bannister for years and smiling proudly as visitors admire your handiwork .
You’ll be pleased to hear I didn’t ask John to flash but, talking to him, he reminded me of a former colleague of mine at another radio station who used to drop his trousers on a whim. It didn’t matter to him whether he was in a meeting, doing his radio show or opening a shopping centre, though I thought he did take it a bit far at his daughter’s Christening. When I was interviewing stars at Radio Clyde he - let’s call him Tim - used to creep in to the studio and drop his trousers during interviews, leaving us all helpless with laughter.
He did it again during news bulletins, waiting for stories of death and destruction and rendering the newsreader incoherent and giggly. But eventually Tim had to stop after a local traffic warden protested to the police and he was warned as to his future conduct. I must point out in his defence that he was not in the street at the time but was hanging out of our radio station’s sixth floor window and waving at the warden’s office opposite. What he was waving I’ll leave for another day.
For a shy guy like myself, I’m left thinking that it must take a lot of confidence in your anatomy to let everyone see what Mother Nature intended to remain hidden, but it seems there is no shortage of confident flashers in showbiz. Janet Jackson famously had a “wardrobe malfunction” at the Superbowl when her assets popped out, but if she had hoped to shock or, er, titillate, then I’m afraid she failed as my only memory of catching it half way through is being filled with wonder that Michael Jackson’s voice had broken at last. One of them ought to wear a blonde wig or a duffel coat so we can tell them apart.
In paparazzi land Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Mischa Barton and Paris Hilton seem to enjoy flashing back at the cameras that are flashing at them and, in the UK, Jordan and Jodie Marsh, to name just four, have some form here though I believe that’s because it’s in their contract with the surgeon whose signature you can just about read above the belly button, depending on the quality of photo.
Here we have a very typically British way of handling these people. When the craze for flashers at sporting events took off a few years ago, with supporters running on to cricket pitches and trying to jump over the stumps without injury, or weaving nakedly in and out of rugby mauls while trying to avoid puns about great tackles or ball control, some stiff policeman with no sense of humour would remove his helmet and cover the offending appendage. But now increased security at grounds has put paid to all that, a seldom mentioned spin off from Mr Bin Laden.
The BBC and John Barrowman have both now issued an apology and, sadly, John has said it will never happen again. It will of course, even if it’s not John who does it, and I for one am glad. The American stars can almost carry off the innocent “accident” routine, but we can’t. We just roll our eyes, have a laugh, and move on. However, I realise that the audience who rang the BBC switchboard to complain about John, and kick started today’s headline, won’t agree with me.
And to that one caller I can only offer my apologies.
So like Winter follows Autumn, and “annoys the hell out of me” follows Timmy Mallett, the BBC are again in trouble, this time with actor John Barrowman showing his willy during an interview on Sunday.
The offending incident took place live so couldn’t be edited, but it was on radio, a medium not renowned for its great picture quality. This didn’t stop the Daily Mail from putting the event on their front page today with a headline which reads something like Mad Flasher Kills Four Hundred Babies And Poisons Old Ladies As Civilisation Ends All Thanks to the Labour Government.
Barrowman is only the latest in a long line of distinguished people who like flashing for a laugh, giving his man parts a starring role most days in the movie of his life, though obviously a very small part. Unlike him, while having people laugh at me naked is something I’ve had to come to terms with, it’s not something I’d actively seek.
By coincidence I was driving home and switching around radio stations in my car on Sunday night so, although I’m not normally a Radio One listener, I listened closely to the interview as I had chatted to John just a couple of days before. I came away from it thinking it was a bit juvenile, which seems fair enough as juvenile is Radio One’s target audience.
Last week John told me things about Doctor Who star David Tennant’s anatomy that even a Dalek would find scary so it would appear that Tennant has form on the flashing front too. Any actors invited to take part in the show should pack a bucket of ice and a sense of humour, but you’ll have to wait till the New Year on Smooth Radio London to hear John tell us exactly what Tennant’s peculiarity is.
Barrowman tells these stories, and shows his bottom, with no malice intended and when I asked him last week why he loves flashing he had an obvious, but strictly correct, answer. It’s because he gets told to - whether it’s in a script or in a radio interview. So, John is always polite and waits to be asked first. His mum would be proud. Actually, I did ask if his mum objects when yet another neighbour rings up saying “you’ll never guess what he’s done now”, but he told me she’s happy that, having cleaned it so often, her son’s bum is getting appreciation and attention; a bit like polishing a brass bannister for years and smiling proudly as visitors admire your handiwork .
You’ll be pleased to hear I didn’t ask John to flash but, talking to him, he reminded me of a former colleague of mine at another radio station who used to drop his trousers on a whim. It didn’t matter to him whether he was in a meeting, doing his radio show or opening a shopping centre, though I thought he did take it a bit far at his daughter’s Christening. When I was interviewing stars at Radio Clyde he - let’s call him Tim - used to creep in to the studio and drop his trousers during interviews, leaving us all helpless with laughter.
He did it again during news bulletins, waiting for stories of death and destruction and rendering the newsreader incoherent and giggly. But eventually Tim had to stop after a local traffic warden protested to the police and he was warned as to his future conduct. I must point out in his defence that he was not in the street at the time but was hanging out of our radio station’s sixth floor window and waving at the warden’s office opposite. What he was waving I’ll leave for another day.
For a shy guy like myself, I’m left thinking that it must take a lot of confidence in your anatomy to let everyone see what Mother Nature intended to remain hidden, but it seems there is no shortage of confident flashers in showbiz. Janet Jackson famously had a “wardrobe malfunction” at the Superbowl when her assets popped out, but if she had hoped to shock or, er, titillate, then I’m afraid she failed as my only memory of catching it half way through is being filled with wonder that Michael Jackson’s voice had broken at last. One of them ought to wear a blonde wig or a duffel coat so we can tell them apart.
In paparazzi land Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Mischa Barton and Paris Hilton seem to enjoy flashing back at the cameras that are flashing at them and, in the UK, Jordan and Jodie Marsh, to name just four, have some form here though I believe that’s because it’s in their contract with the surgeon whose signature you can just about read above the belly button, depending on the quality of photo.
Here we have a very typically British way of handling these people. When the craze for flashers at sporting events took off a few years ago, with supporters running on to cricket pitches and trying to jump over the stumps without injury, or weaving nakedly in and out of rugby mauls while trying to avoid puns about great tackles or ball control, some stiff policeman with no sense of humour would remove his helmet and cover the offending appendage. But now increased security at grounds has put paid to all that, a seldom mentioned spin off from Mr Bin Laden.
The BBC and John Barrowman have both now issued an apology and, sadly, John has said it will never happen again. It will of course, even if it’s not John who does it, and I for one am glad. The American stars can almost carry off the innocent “accident” routine, but we can’t. We just roll our eyes, have a laugh, and move on. However, I realise that the audience who rang the BBC switchboard to complain about John, and kick started today’s headline, won’t agree with me.
And to that one caller I can only offer my apologies.
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