Road Trip

I wear a number of hats, in this confusing lark we call life.

And the hat this week (and next) is my Bus Driving one. Regular readers will know that I am one of the chaps behind a small, but beautifully formed, bus company. We operate a little fleet of Routemasters (the famous London double-decker) doing transport for parties and weddings in and around London.

Around London. So, why is it that I am currently guiding one of our buses round the far South West of England?

It's like this. We were approached by Wedding TV, (Sky channel 266) looking for a bus for their pioneering new game show Brides on a Bus. It sounded like fun, and I fancied an adventure, so ... what better excuse do you need?

Here's the bus, snapped this morning in Penzance. Not a Routemaster, the keen-eyed observer may spot. This is the only non-Routemaster of our fleet. Also the young upstart of the band. The RMs are 40 years old, whereas this fine example of the Leyland Titan range, turned 30 this year. We're using this for the job because it's a little faster and quieter than the Routemasters, and it has doors, making it a little cosier if the weather decides to turn wintry.

There's a long journey ahead, starting at Land's End tomorrow, and winding up in Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border, on 1st October. Will we make it? Watch this space!

Coming over the brow of the last big hill before Penzance was a lovely experience today. The sun was beating down on the bay, and the English coast was looking very good. I swear I felt a little surge of excitement from my red steed, as she glimpsed the seaside. It's a long way for a London bus to come. I hope she packed her bucket and spade.

And me? Well, cruising the highways at a top speed of 45mph affords time for thought, and sightseeing. I was held up in a queue of traffic passing Stonehenge. I thought it was being caused by people slowing down to look at the stones, but then realised that, in fact, they were slowing down to gawp at a field on the other side of the road, a couple of hundred yards along, full of pigs, lounging in big muddy pools. They looked blissfully happy, their top halves warmed by the sun, their nethers cooled by the water and mud. Happy as a pig in ... er...mud.

Managed to confuse a waiter in a roadside dining emporium somewhere near Exeter, by ordering Vegetable Soup, followed by Roast Chicken. "Do you want the soup as a starter?" he asked. I spent much of the following hour or two pondering what else he thought I might have wanted to do with it. A bodyscrub? A footbath?

More reports to follow as this strange saga unfolds. Tomorrow, the Brides board the bus. Wish me luck!

Where I've been going wrong

The Evening Standard reports:
Lady GaGa shocked the audience at the the MTV Video Music Awards 2009 in New York with a live performance which culminated in her pretending to stab herself while playing the piano

Now I know where I've been going wrong all these years. My broadcasting career has been held back by a lack of this sort of thing. Not enough bloodshed. Insufficient immolation. Failed flagellation. An apparent absence of asphyxia.

NO MORE, I TELL YOU!

Tomorrow's 0800 News bulletin on Radio 2 will, simultaneously, plunge new depths and ascend to new heights of danger. I shall deliver the news in my usual unruffled style, whilst juggling burning batons and throwing knives at my knees. That'll do it. No more safe broadcasting for me!

Signs again

The world of itillerate signs makes another audacious grab for my attention.

I know, I know: the fact that you can't spell doesn't make you a bad person! Surely, though, if you're commissioning expensive graphics, you'd get someone to check?

Or maybe there was just nobody, er, avaliable?

Perhaps here the only available person was unavoidably detained on the Mezza....what?

That's enough dodgy signs for today, says my Nurse. Time for my medication.

But just time before I close to show you the entrance to an emporium in Hull. After scoffing in a cafe, I headed for the toilet. The signposted route led me past an array of freezers, interrupted only by this portal .....

Tempting, but not quite tempting enough!!

And finally, top marks for honesty to the owners of this place in Glasgow:

You can't say fairer than that!

Newsreading Cake

The Daily Mail reports Sir Terry Wogan slams 'self-important' newsreaders whose job is a 'piece of cake'

Needless to say, I'm far too cool to give the proverbial stuff about what anyone thinks, so I waited all of two nano-seconds before lunging for a copy of the rag to check if I was on the list.

And .... relax....
'Get your good suit and tie on, and a quick dab in make-up. Make yourself comfy and here comes the Six O'Clock News, all written nicely and clearly before your eyes.' continues Sir Tel.
'Read it clearly and distinctly, ask the reporter the questions you have written down in front of you and there!'

Phew! He's having a go at the TV newsreaders. That's a relief. On radio, we have a much tougher time of it. No make-up, for a start!

Wogan's swipe is, of course, a deftly timed release from his forthcoming book.

Is TV newsreading really that easy? Actually, I don't think it is. Is it watchable? Er....no, not really, most of the time, not in my house. I find I can only tolerate a few moments of TV News before the mechanics of it start to drive me nuts.

• The gratuitous hand-waving (some Consultant told them it was a good idea..!)
  
• the fact that Fiona Bruce always does a sweeping movement with her script-holding hand during the second sentence of the opening to the BBC 10 o'clock bulletin
  
• and why do they stand up for the first link and then sit down? Is it supposed to convey the impression that life in the newsroom is so frantic that they haven't managed to make it to the chair in time?
  
• the little shake of the head when we're supposed to emote (leave it to me to decide whether I'm upset, will you?)
  
• the gratuitous live tops and tails, where the reporter stands outside a closed and locked building, in which nothing has occurred for hours, in order to deliver a 10 second intro to the VT package he's prepared earlier AND THEN has to be interviewed by the newsreader at the end of the package, to reiterate what was in the package or confirm that there's nothing more to add. "So, John, what more can you tell us?". "Nothing, otherwise I'd have told you in the piece you've just run, wouldn't I? Now sod off and let me go to the pub!"
  
• the ghastly spectacle of journos trying to do ad lib banter
  
• gratuitous insertion of names: "our correspondent Bert Bloggs is there. Bert." "Michael. The incident happened ...."


• and that staple of Rolling News channels: "well of course it's too early to speculate as to the cause of this disaster, but joining me now is Sid Snodgrass, a Professor of Speculation at Bridlington University's Centre for Speculative Studies. Professor, just what might have been the cause of this disaster?"

I could go on, but I think you get my drift....

Anyway, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, here's a clip of a TV Newsreader in trying circumstances, complete with the gallery talkback, some or all of which will have been blasting into the newsreader's ear as she ploughed bravely on.

And back in the land of Radio, here's a gratuitous pic
(photo by Barry Norman, (c) The Sunday Post)
of me and Sir Tel discussing the merits of some finely turned prose
Or perhaps (more likely?) we're discussing a piece of cake...!

It's hip to be square. Isn't it ... ?

When will I learn?

Making conversation in the car the other day, with my "verbally economical" younger son, I sought to display my knowledge of Young People's Music. He's off to the Reading Festival soon.

Me: "So, who'll you be seeing at Reading?"
Him: "(Grunt)....lots of bands.....(mutter)"
Me: "Like who?"
Him: "(sigh)....no-one you'd have heard of...(grunt)"
Me: "Try me! What about You Me At Six?"
Him: "Yeah...(mumble)"
Me (emboldened by early success): "What about that other lot you like, you know, Beat 123?"
Him (incredulous look, shakes head, speaks r e a l l y s l o w l y for the hard-of-thinking) : " I think you mean BLINK 182 ?"
Me: " Ah. Yes....that'll be the one."

Ho hum. Another cruel blow. Second of the day. The morning had already struck me down when, in conversation with my hairdresser (a pretty, 20-something Kiwi who's about to go travelling) we got on to the hazards of hitchhiking. "It's ok if it's someone like you, y'know, an older man.....".

HELP! I'm not ready for the Pipe & Slippers phase. I hate slippers. There must be someone, somewhere, to whom I still appear at least slightly cool. Surely? Please...?

There's been a murrrder....!

Riffling through some old paperwork the other day, I renewed my acquaintance with a treasured cutting from the Glasgow Herald, published in 1993. It made me guffaw then, and it still works its magic all these years on. Here's the deal:

Central Scotland Police were called in to investigate a campaign of hoax letters, sent to people in Glasgow and Edinburgh and purporting to offer the recipients the opportunity to appear, as a corpse, in the splendid tv crime drama Taggart.

The production company, Scottish Television, was inundated with complaints from outraged people who'd been told that they were considered ideal candidates in the producers' quest for "someone with a natural, sad, haggard expression, deformed torso, misshapen legs and a large bottom". The letter went on to explain that the person would play the part of a murder victim, and be seen for around five seconds, "naked, face-up and in a contorted position on Glasgow Green".

What a job description! Why do I find this so funny? I don't know, but it has brought me tears of joy over the years.

Never mind the outraged complainants, I wonder how many actually applied for the role?

To Hull and back...

Just back from a trip to Hull, the latest venue for the event often disparagingly termed "Radio Nerd Night". It's always a fun evening, as an assortment of folks from the radio biz get together to scoff and quaff, exchange outrageous gossip and lapse into dark mutterings about the shortcomings of various items of modern broadcasting apparatus.

Hull was curiously quiet, last night. Very strange. It was almost as if there'd been some sort of emergency evacuation of the town, but we'd somehow missed the announcement. Surely word of our impending arrival isn't so drastic as to cause the locals to leave in droves?

By the end of the evening, some of the population had returned. I know this because we encountered two fine representatives in the street shortly after midnight. As we meandered in the general direction of our hotel, along a pleasant cobbled street, two girls clad in the attire of "lasses out on the lash on a summer's eve" (ie not much!) came wobbling towards us.

One tripped on the cobbles and tumbled both sideways and headlong - a good trick if you can do it - into the arms of her friend (sideways) and the lead members of our party (headlong). There was much squealing and guffawing. I decided to contribute some of my most calming words to the incident: "It's alright, we're doctors." From the shadows, into which the tumbling girlie had now stumbled, burst the squawked reply, in broad Yorkshire tones, delicately matured in fags and booze: "Doctors, my f*cking arse!".
"Well, that's not actually my specialism..." I ventured, before deciding on a tactical withdrawal, lest my medical qualifications be put to the test.