Barefaced cheek?

The all-seeing Body Scanner is upon us, it seems.

BBC News reports today:

'A human X-ray machine that produces "naked" images of passengers has started a trial at Manchester Airport. The authorities say it will speed up security checks by quickly revealing any concealed weapons or explosives. But the full body scans will also show up breast enlargements, body piercings and a clear black-and-white outline of passengers' private parts.
The airport has stressed that the images are not pornographic and will be destroyed straight away.'

Hmmm. Yes. They insist that the images will only be viewed by one person, and that it is impossible to copy or store them. I'll give it a handful of months before there's an unpleasant incident involving howls of mirth being heard emanating from behind the control room door, and even less time than that before the first "impossible" images are obtained by a newspaper. If the image appears on a computer, then it is possible to store it. If it's possible to store it, then it is possible to move it elsewhere. You just have to work out how to do it, and somebody will!

Sarah Barrett, Manchester Airport's "Head of Customer Experience" says: "This scanner completely takes away the hassle of needing to undress."

Well, I've found another way to avoid this hassle. Go By Train! I've made my three most recent trips to and from Glasgow by rail, and it really compares very well. The fastest trains get you to the centre of Glasgow in four-and-a-half hours. The plane does it inside 90 minutes, BUT factor in the other 90 mins you have to allow for check-in and the parade of holey socks and beltless trousers at security, plus the waiting time for baggage retrieval and the trip from airport to city centre and there's precious little in it.

I used to love flying. I still love the actual flight bit, but the rest of the experience is a great advert for the railways. Back in 1981 Jimmy Savile was claiming that "This is the age of the train". No, Jim, this is the age of the train!

Back to the depot

Well, the bus and I made it safely home after our Brides on a Bus adventure. All told, I drove 1647 miles in the two weeks. Undoubtedly the best shakedown our 30 year-old Leyland Titan has had in years! It blew the cobwebs away. A few other things came away too, but I was able to fix them with ingenious roadside repairs. I thought I was in trouble when a crucial nut-and-bolt assembly absented themselves from the front doors. The nut vanished, presumably onto the verge somewhere in the middle of the Cotswolds. How was I going to find a suitable spare? As luck would have it, I needed to look no further than the coach parked next to me. The friendly driver (and coach drivers in the UK are, in my experience, generally delightful chaps) grinned broadly as he opened one of the luggage lockers to reveal an enormous Spares box, brimming with nuts, bolts, washers etc. Within minutes, we were back in business.

Talking of coach matters, my eye was caught by this sign on the back of a vehicle on the M6

In my previous post, I referred to the extraordinary Nove & van Day singing double act. Now that I'm back at base I can offer photographic evidence...

A number of people have said we should go far. Very far.

So, there we are. Bus adventures over for the moment. Now it's back to the rest of my world, the studio, voice-overs and the radio broadcasting biz. Big changes to come at Radio 2 at the turn of the year, as Sir Terry Wogan retires from his breakfast show. People keep asking me what effect this will have on my work. I wish I knew! Right now, the search is on for a radio manager who remembers that I can do more than read the news. And when I find one, I hope we'll make sweet music together.

Who were you with in the Bus Lane?

As previously observed, doesn't life throw some amusing twists sometimes?

The Brides on a Bus show is being presented by David van Day, he of Dollar fame in the 70s and 80s and, more recently, ITV's I'm A Celebrity.

Passing some time on a long drive yesterday, David and I launched into an impromptu singalong at the front of the bus. The old Tommy Steele hit Flash Bang Wallop What A Picture was surprisingly fresh in both our minds, and we sang it with great gusto.

It did make me smile. When I was a young DJ, playing Dollar songs on the radio, many moons ago, little could I have suspected that the next time I'd encounter David van Day would be at the front of a bus, with him dressed as my Clippie, me driving and the pair of us singing.

Happy daze!

On the road again, again

Just a quick update to say that we've made our way across the Severn to Cardiff (where the Brides on the Bus played a Touch Rugby tournament), and then onwards in a slow, steady, uphill haul, to the high ground of the Brecon Beacons. We're in the village of Bwlch (yes, that's how you spell it. Pron: Bull (as in the male cow) Ch (as in "loch"), with a stunning view of the leafy valleys below.

Tomorrow, we aim for the Cotswolds town of Burford, Oxfordshire. More news to come, as the mystery tour continues...

Road Trip continues

Here we are in Cheddar Gorge. And just to prove the old theory that you wait ages for a London bus and then two turn up at once .... no sooner had I arrived here than another Leyland Titan appeared. It's a local resident nowadays, doing tours around the hills. So my T23 and Cheddar's T860 have renewed their acquaintance, heaven knows how many years after they left London service.

Monday went very well, until we had an unfortunate breakdown on the way to our overnight hotel. Total loss of gears, right in the middle of a major roundabout in Devon. Not good! The Brides and the crew had to be offloaded onto a coach, and I stayed with the bus, the Highways Agency and Devon & Cornwall Police until recovery could be arranged. Both the HA and the Police were very good humoured and supportive, which was a great help in a stressful situation.

Bizarre coincidence: Talking to one of the Highways Agency team, the subject of our hotel for the night arose. I told him it was the historic Boringdon Hall in Plympton. He laughed and said (think broad Devonian accent) "Ahhh, don't let them put you in room 11 .... ahaaaarr!". "Er why?" said I. "They say it's haaauunted!". Turned out that, before going on the Highways, this man had been a night shift manager there and had seen many a scared guest. Great hotel (and no I wasn't in Room 11!). Apparently Henry VIII stayed there. I'm not surprised. I couldn't find the exit either.

Bizarre apparition: Picture the scene. Bus stranded mid roundabout. It's a huge roundabout, in the middle of nowhere, no buildings, no nothing, with a central island about the size of a football field. The scene is lit up by Highways Agency floodlamps, flashing amber beacons, there are cones, blue and red strobes on the police car, it's like a film set. I'm standing in the middle of it all, discussing tactics with the police, when a man appears. Nobody sees him approaching - he's just, suddenly, there. It's a chilly night, but he's wearing an oily string vest and comedy baggy trousers. He looks exactly like the binman that Geoffrey Hughes used to play in Coronation Street. He walks up to the cops and says "Excuse me. Could I have a word with you?" They look slightly apprehensive. Turns out he has a fairly technical enquiry about the legality of transporting a particular type of hazardous waste in his vehicle. One of the policemen spent half an hour or so obtaining the info he needed by radio. Then, as quickly as he arrived, he'd gone. There were 5 of us standing there, and not one of us had seen him arrive. Nobody was quite sure which way he went when he left, either. Weird!

The broken down bus was recovered to Launceston, where I rejoined it in the morning to do some fault finding. With my trusty test meter, and some invaluable advice on the phone from one of our chums who used to be a London Transport electrician, working on these buses, I traced the fault. It was a humble broken wire, in the circuit controlling the alternator. Without it, the alternator could not charge the batteries, and without charge the batteries reach a point where they can no longer operate the gearbox....hence loss of gears. Wire fixed, bus back on the road!

My party had carried on without me, using a hired coach. I made it to the hotel in Devon while they were still out filming, so there was a big cheer when they arrived at the hotel to find the Titan already ensconced in the car park, with me lounging against it in a "what kept you?" pose.

Off to Frome in Somerset tonight. Some nice local Cider, perchance....?

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!