Does that make sense?

"Fashanu... oh what a goal!"

2012-01-31T10:06:00.008Z

There was an episode of Man About The House during the mid-1970s which revolved around a storyline of the trio's flat being riddled with woodworm. While George Roper's dodgy handyman mate Jerry closed off the flat and applied gallons of wood preserver, the three residents had to grab a few belongings and spend the night in the Ropers' flat downstairs.

The sleeping arrangements produced a small slab of comic confusion. Robin Tripp, whom Mildred Roper was infatuated with, had to share her bed - but with George. The two girls set up camp beds and Mildred herself was content with the sofa.

After a brief exchange between the two men about bedtime "bad habits", George chased Mildred into the hall for a quiet word. He started to express concerns about the prospects of Robin being "a bit, well, you know...".

Mildred's reply: "Well, even if he was - which he isn't - who'd fancy you?"

And last night, while watching the documentary on the continued suspicious attitude to homosexuality in football on BBC3, I thought about George Roper. In fact, whenever there is a debate on homosexuality in a wider context, I always think of that scene. And that's because someone rather, shall we charitably say, "old-fashioned", always makes the outrageous suggestion that gay men will fancy all men, and that's why there is no place for homosexuality in any communal sporting context.

I can cast aside the views of John McGovern, captain of Nottingham Forest when Justin Fashanu played there, as of his era and irrelevant. It's a pity too, as he was a successful assistant manager of Hull City just over a decade ago and now my view of him is permanently clouded. Fashanu remains the only footballer from these islands to come out, and after some shocking treatment from his family (including his younger brother John, at the time of the revelation an England international) and one or two lurid tabloid tales, the elder Fashanu hung himself. It was his niece, John's daughter, who headed last night's documentary.

Today's footballers are, like you and I, a generation that have seen the prejudices of our parents' and grandparents' generations dampened down by a surge from society. Maybe I'm offering them too much credit, and there will be exceptions, but I find it hard to believe that if any footballer, at any team, now declared he was gay, there would be any hostile reaction from his team-mates, or even his opponents. However, the supporters are a different matter entirely. Every club has a sizeable minority of truly awful people who will enjoy the moment and milk it for as long as they can.

When Justin Fashanu declared his homosexuality, his brother was playing for Wimbledon. Their next match was at Crystal Palace, and it was quite a game - it finished 4-3 to the home side. The goals were shown on Saint & Greavsie at the weekend, and there was one extraordinary moment when John Fashanu received the ball and immediately the Palace fans started, as one, to make camp, high-pitched Larry Grayson-esque noises. It was horrid. Fashanu's response was to chip the goalkeeper from 30 yards and silence the lamebrains completely, with the only noise audible as he raised his arms coming from the cheering Wimbledon fans in a corner.

Ultimately, I suspect we haven't moved on from there. Fashanu Major wasn't at an English club when he came out and so we have little anecdotal evidence of how football treated him upon his declaration. The next player to declare he is gay may be supported by the game but still catcalled by opposing fans. Fashanu Minor, guilty by association in the eyes of those vile Palace supporters, shut them up by scoring a stunning goal. Ultimately, all gay footballers will, like footballers who take stick for other reasons, only quieten down the idiots by doing their jobs well, until society has fully rid itself of those that see homosexuality as any kind of issue at all.

"One thousand words are not enough to say what I feel inside..."

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s was on yesterday. This is how we filled our three allocated hours...

The Waterboys "The Whole Of The Moon"
Narada Michael Walden "Tonight I'm Alright"

Madness "Shut Up"
Sly & Robbie "Boops (Here To Go)"

Toyah "It's A Mystery"
Spandau Ballet "How Many Lies?"

Bon Jovi "You Give Love A Bad Name"
And Why Not? "Restless Days"

A-Ha "The Living Daylights"
Shalamar "Make That Move"

FLOPPY DISC:
Janet Jackson "Funny How Time Flies (When You're Having Fun)"

Modern Romance "Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey"
Teardrop Explodes "Treason (It's Just A Story)"

Adeva "Warning"
Motorhead "Iron Fist"

Terence Trent D'Arby "If You Let Me Stay"
Department S "Is Vic There"

Bruce Springsteen "Brilliant Disguise"
Evelyn Thomas "High Energy"

Howard Jones "Pearl In The Shell"
Rockers Revenge "The Harder They Come"

Propaganda "Duel"
Queen "Save Me"

Suzanne Vega "Marlene On The Wall"
PiL "Disappointed"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Helloween "I Want Out"

Air Supply "All Out Of Love"
Tippa Irie "Hello Darlin'"

Erasure "Victim Of Love"
Barry White "Sho' You Right"

Heaven 17 "Temptation"
Was (Not Was) "Spy In The House Of Love"

Mac Band featuring the McCampbell Brothers "Roses Are Red"
King "The Taste Of Your Tears"

The Jam "Just Who Is The 5 O'Clock Hero"
Gillan "Trouble"

Maria Vidal "Body Rock"
Keith Sweat "I Want Her"

Bad Manners "Buona Sera"
Robert Palmer "Looking For Clues"

FLOPPY DISC:
Debbie Gibson "Staying Together"

Billy Ocean "Suddenly"
Dead Or Alive "Something In My House"

Ryan Paris "Dolce Vita"
Echo and the Bunnymen "Seven Seas"

We're on each Sunday at 6pm - if you fancy hearing the above show again (because obviously you've already heard it once), then it is repeated this Thursday, again at 6pm. Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online here.

Rumours of one of them having a 'thing' with Wendy James

2012-01-28T07:00:00.001Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as per. You can find this goldmine of broadcasting perfection on Q Radio, which is online here or available via Freeview channel 716.

The song below shall be featured...

...as shall another as teased by the title of this blog. Of the remaining 43, two will be Floppy Discs - failed singles by major artists - and one will be German and drenched in hairspray as it provides our entry from The Nobody's Diary, where we showcase an act of the 1980s that didn't quite make it.

See you on Sunday, 6pm. Word.

And don't forget to pay anything you owe

2012-01-25T10:18:00.003Z

It's Moira Stuart's most lucrative time of year - indeed, from September to January you'll hear her on almost every breakfast show in the country.

I once suggested to an old boss that there should be an OFCOM issue with her voicing the HMRC adverts on commercial radio while also reading Chris Evans' news - there is potential for listeners to say "hold on, isn't it Moira Stuart also on Radio 2 at this time?" and immediately re-tune. Of course, on Radio 2 her work (reading news bulletins that someone else has written and giggling with difficulty at Evans' stuff) is done by 9am and so she then just dominates the commercial oeuvre instead.

Those adverts reminding the self-employed to sort out their tax returns by the January 31st deadlines are ubiquitous. I can't imagine they are inexpensive, either. They appear at the top of adbreaks and as newslinks too, so they've really spent a lot of, er, taxpayers' money making them and scheduling them. This year, they are also straight down the line - sort it out, pay up on time, or else. The last couple of years have had Moira suggesting that if we get it all done early enough we have time to "play footy in the park" (which didn't sound right coming from her at all) or "have lunch with an old flame" - in her case, Des Lynam, I expect. But HMRC, desperate to appear tough while allowing Vodafone to rip off every adult and child in the country, have ditched the friendly auntie Moira and gone for her authoritative patter instead.

That said, they are doing the right thing. I bumped into my accountant while walking the dogs one day last week and he told me that he is still having clients, new and old, turn up on his doorstep with huge piles of folders and papers asking him to sort it out. Now I took mine round in September, and got notice through a month or so later of how much I owed, and that's allowed me to save up. I can't understand anyone who leaves it so long, risking fines and all sorts of other trouble. So maybe Moira's standpoint is right, as there are many people out there who, like at school when confronted with homework on the last day of the holidays, pretend it isn't there until they can pretend no more. So while Moira's ads may sound like a mild lecture and a spot of condescending finger-pointing, they clearly need to be.

I hope she got her tax return in on time and paid up. Imagine the headlines.

"I'm like a boy among men, I'd like a permanent friend..."

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s did its stuff this weekend, as ever. It sounded like this...

Fine Young Cannibals "She Drives Me Crazy"
Kool & The Gang "Funky Stuff"

Madonna "Angel"
Timbuk 3 "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades"

Simply Red "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye"
Judas Priest "United"

Inner City "Do You Love What You Feel"
OMD "Maid Of Orleans (The Waltz Joan Of Arc)"

Eurythmics "It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)"
Hi Gloss "You'll Never Know"

FLOPPY DISC:
Billy Joel "Leningrad"

The Who "You Better You Bet"
Marc Almond "Bitter Sweet"

Hall & Oates "Kiss On My List"
Dhar Braxton "Jump Back (Set Me Free)"

Blow Monkeys "Digging Your Scene"
All About Eve "Wild Hearted Woman"

ABBA "One Of Us"
Specials "Rat Race"

SOS Band "The Finest"
Thin Lizzy "Cold Sweat"

Taylor Dayne "Prove Your Love"
The Smiths "Bigmouth Strikes Again"

Phil Collins "If Leaving Me Is Easy"
Style Council "Life At A Top People's Health Farm"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Ronnie Bond "It's Written On Your Body"

Ultravox "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes"
Gladys Knight and the Pips "Bourgie Bourgie"

Kajagoogoo "The Lion's Mouth"
Kim Wilde "View From A Bridge"

Whitesnake "Here I Go Again"
Yarbrough & Peoples "Don't Stop The Music"

Depeche Mode "Just Can't Get Enough"
Afrika Bambaataa "Reckless"

Belle Stars "The Clapping Song"
Electribe 101 "Tell Me When The Fever Ended"

Michael Jackson "She's Out Of My Life"
ELO "Calling America"

R.E.M. "Orange Crush"
Pretenders "Message Of Love"

FLOPPY DISC:
Don Henley "The End Of The Innocence"

Donna Summer "Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)"
Bourgeois Tagg "I Don't Mind At All"

Elbow Bones & the Racketeers "A Night In New York"
Hue & Cry "Looking For Linda"

The show is repeated this Thursday at 6pm, with the next edition to follow on Sunday at the same time. You can locate Q Radio by flicking to channel 716 on your Freeview box or listening online here.

Related to Toni just distantly, and even then only by marriage

2012-01-21T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend as usual. You can find us on Q Radio each and every Sunday evening at 6pm, repeated at the same time the following Thursday.

This week's show features a song teased by the title of this blog entry, plus the embed below...

... and two Floppy Discs too, our weekly brace of failed singles by major artists. I'm contemplating giving those a rest soon and replacing them with something similar - but different. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, there will be a song from The Nobody's Diary too, celebrating the acts that never quite made it.

Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online too, right here. Our Twitter hashtag - yeah, I know - appears to have caught on as well. It's #qthe80s, predictably.

Ollie Ollie Ollie, oy oy oy

2012-01-19T14:06:00.004Z

Have a picture of Oliver, half-awake. It's the best picture I've ever taken of one of my cats.

What's in a name?

2012-01-18T11:42:00.005Z

This is Darron Gibson, a Republic of Ireland footballer who has just moved from Manchester United to Everton. Good player. And I'm sure he's a nice young man too.

I have a bugbear about his name though. And I know Darron is an Irish take on Darren, along with Darin, Darryn and even Dara, but I'm going to be unreasonable about it. Darron doesn't look right at all. He should be called Darren. Of all the aforementioned versions of the name, only Darren doesn't currently have a dotted red-line underneath it courtesy of Blogger's spellchecker. That's good enough for me. Google and its sister companies are never wrong.

A mate of mine has a daughter who should be called Hayley, but is in fact named Haley. The first 'y' is, apparently, entirely unnecessary. The male half of Ashford & Simpson was called Nickolas, not Nicholas. Conversely, the female equivalent of Nicholas doesn't look right if you leave the 'h' in - that smacks too much of being desperate for a boy to call Nicholas and being disappointed upon delivery of a girl. When I was a swimmer, there was a girl at the same club called Joann, whose name on a competition starting list would always be spelled incorrectly as a result. Or correctly, if you prefer.

There are names where different spellings are seen as the 'norm', of course. Our own beloved Clair could have been a Clare or a Claire, and each would have been as worthy as the next (though Blogger only underlines Clair - gulp). Graham and Graeme, Philip and Phillip, Brian and Bryan, Rachael and Rachel, Deborah and Debra. A girl I was briefly at school with is called Kathrine. Now that's some serious choice in spelling - not only choosing the 'k' option, but also removing the first 'e'. Do parents really think so much about this? With that name, there could have been the use of 'y' too. Catherine, Katherine, Cathryn, Kathryn, Kathrine, Cathrine (presumably), and the list could potentially continue.

Now, of all the names in the above paragraph, which do you think don't meet with Blogger's approval? Well, aside from Clair, it doesn't like Phillip. It also, oddly, disapproves of both Rachael and Rachel, and therefore assumes the name has never existed (incurring the wrath of Jacob immediately, he's probably shifted his Flight And Dream blog to Wordpress in protest). For the former version it suggests Raphael; for the latter, quite brilliantly, it thinks I meant to write Earache. Needless to say, it dislikes all of the options at the end which aren't Catherine or Katherine.

I'm trying to think of the most far-out spelling of a supposedly normal name I've ever seen, and it's probably Timothee, though there may be a cultural reason to do with Africa attached to that. My brother is called Jon. People assume it's spelled John and are surprised when he corrects them. The truth of that is, as I expect is the case with most Jons (including this one?), that he is actually a Jonathan and finds the name too long and clumsy. Dennis Bergkamp, the fine Dutch footballer, was named after Denis Law but the Netherlands only recognised the name with two 'n's in and so his parents had to conform by law.

My own name, for what it's worth, is forever misspelled Mathew (which, gratifyingly, has a red line under it) by people - I've never seen a namesake of mine spell their name with one 't' - though there is the Matthieu alternative, which again I've never seen and Blogger doesn't appear to like.

"Saddest thing I've ever seen on my TV screen..."

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s enhanced civilisation with its presence over the weekend, as ever. This is what made the cut this week...

George Michael "Faith"
Eighth Wonder "Cross My Heart"

The Cure "Lovesong"
Kane Gang "Respect Yourself"

Iron Maiden "The Clairvoyant"
Shannon "Let The Music Play"

Squeeze "Another Nail In My Heart"
Sinead O'Connor "Mandinka"

Styx "Babe"
Rockwell "Somebody's Watching Me"

FLOPPY DISC:
Eddy Grant "War Party"

Wet Wet Wet "Angel Eyes"
Altered Images "Happy Birthday"

Princess "Tell Me Tomorrow"
Dire Straits "Twisting By The Pool"

Thompson Twins "Hold Me Now"
Diana Ross "Workin' Overtime"

UB40 "Dream A Lie"
Spear Of Destiny "So In Love With You"

George Harrison "All Those Years Ago"
Duran Duran "Do You Believe In Shame"

The Cult "She Sells Sanctuary"
Tina Turner "I Don't Wanna Lose You"

Toto "I Won't Hold You Back"
Bow Wow Wow "C30 C60 C90 Go!"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Silencers "Scottish Rain"

Billy Ocean "When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)"
The Alarm "Absolute Reality"

Colourfield "Thinking Of You"
Neneh Cherry "Buffalo Stance"

ABC "All Of My Heart"
Sharon Redd "Never Give You Up"

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions "Perfect Skin"
Tourists "So Good To Be Back Home Again"

Men At Work "Down Under"
Quincy Jones "Razzamatazz"

Bronski Beat "Hit That Perfect Beat"
Kiss "Lick It Up"

Shakatak "Easier Said Than Done"
Rod Stewart "Love Touch"

FLOPPY DISC:
Imagination "New Dimensions"

Godley & Creme "Cry"
Kym Mazelle "Got To Get You Back"

Haircut 100 "Favourite Shirt (Boy Meets Girl)"
Prince "Take Me With You"

The show is repeated this Thursday, and returns with the next edition on Sunday, each at 6pm. Q Radio is online here or accessible via your Freeview box, channel 716.

Actors from the film pretended to sing backing vocals

2012-01-14T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as always. Three hours of 80s tunefulness that mixes the familiar with the forgotten.

The show will feature a song as teased by the title of this blog, and also this one:

There are 43 others, too. Two of them will be our Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another will be our entry from The Nobody's Diary, showcasing the acts of the 80s that didn't quite make it.

Q Radio is online here or available on Freeview, channel 716. We start at 6pm on Sunday!

Don't marry her, er, um, have me, yeah

2012-01-13T10:39:00.007Z

Ed Sheeran is leading the way as far as the BRITS nominations for this year are concerned. By that, I mean that he has taken the headlines so far. I've not read the story carefully as yet, but I assume this is because he is in more award categories than anyone else.

His current single, Lego House, is on radio station A lists, where it follows The A Team, a gentle and controversial song which remains heavily recurrent on the airwaves having been A listed for pretty much its whole duration of release. He has a sweet but powerful voice, he clearly can write a decent hook and he used to live in Hebden Bridge, in West Yorkshire. I only know that last bit because he was a guest on The Pulse of West Yorkshire's breakfast show when I was depping there in the late summer, and I had to replay some clips of the interview during my show.

At the gym recently, I saw the video to Lego House and they've used that second-string actor chap - you can tell I keep up, can't you? - from the Harry Potter franchise in Sheeran's place because they both have extremely ginger hair. And there ends my knowledge of Ed Sheeran.

But I was flummoxed also by another airing of Sheeran only earlier this week on the rolling music channel that is usually on in the gym. It was some countdown or other of 2011's biggest hits, and so eventually, on he came with The A Team.

They didn't show the video - indeed, I don't think I have ever seen the video. If I have, I was too busy doing sit-ups and it passed me by. Instead, they showed the young man himself - what is he, 19 or 20? - singing the song live on some T4-esque programme. And, as such, he was having to censor himself.

This isn't Eric Idle changing one line to "life's a piece of spit". This is Sheeran actually stopping himself from singing for just a split-second to remove a dubious syllable or two and take away the context of the song. There is no swearing in it, of course; the song is about a young woman with a drug addiction who has to go to extreme lengths to maintain her habit. Presumably Sheeran's people had sat down with the programme's producers, pored over the lyric sheet and decided which words or syllables Sheeran would skip over. Words that fell silent included "snowflakes", "class", "grams" and "white".

I can imagine, first and foremost, that this was a very difficult thing for Sheeran to do to his own precious song. I can only assume that he was an unknown promoting the single from the off when he did the performance and therefore was willing to do anything, as a pro, to raise the profile of his work. He maintained something of a smile onstage, but his brain was working overtime as he sang the song and forced himself to think ahead about the next mildly contentious word that needed to be expunged. He can't have enjoyed himself and it didn't come across well.

Also, it did seem pretty pointless anyway, as radio stations had no issue with the song. Drugs are something that need to be discussed maturely with older kids as they are to be kept closed off to younger ones. I suppose it's a target audience thing; primary school kids will watch T4-type shows whereas radio stations have demographics that start at the age of 15, and no younger. This doesn't mean kids younger than 15 aren't tuned in, of course, but the station has no official duty to serve them.

Essentially, this TV programme was censoring Sheeran when the words he was being forced to omit were already in the public domain. As an exercise in protecting the vulnerable, it was about as useful as that era when members of Sinn Fein had their voices dubbed by actors on the news.

More than one damn song that can make him break down and cry

2012-01-11T11:12:00.005Z

David Bowie's 65th birthday, then. I'm a fan. I didn't really see his influence until I was 18 years old but I'm a fan nonetheless, as best as I can be at least for someone who was an embryo or toddler during his greatest era.

I bow here, however, to my mate Mike. He was a teenager in the early 1970s and grew to adore Bowie from pretty much the moment the chap himself became famous. Mike, when I got to know him in the late 1980s, was the man who taught me about the sentimental value of records and the collectability of certain artists.

Mike was my closest schoolfriend's next door neighbour and his nuttiness for all things Bowie is evident around his entire house. Pictures everywhere give the game away to anyone who makes it into his living room but if you are permitted to delve deeper, you'll find more. This is a man who wishes to own every recording, in every format, via every nation, that there is. We'd go to record fairs - I haven't been to one for years but for a couple of years in the late 80s/early 90s I was obsessed with them - and he'd be looking for the Venezuelan edition of Fashion or Diamond Dogs on limited 10" vinyl while I, with no artist to obsessively collect, bought singles that I knew our local hospital radio station didn't have in its library. More often than not, he'd always find that elusive thing he was seeking too.

When you saw his collection it was eye-watering. Every album would have two copies; one for playing, one for carefully storing away, wrapped in sellophane, to be untouched for the duration of his life. Each of these albums would be in vinyl and cassette; each would have separate issues depending on special editions available and the countries they were available in. Around this period, he was also in the process of adding everything on CD too. Then there would be every single, again in every format, again from every country he could find a copy from. His collection was incomplete by his standards - I expect it always would be - but he never stopped trying.

He had reels and reels of Revox, featuring Bowie sessions from Radio 1 in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as interviews and live concerts. Every book ever printed, every magazine article he could find, every bit of fan club memorabilia, every concert ticket. Concert tickets for gigs he was physically and financially incapable of attending but had purchased through sources afterwards. And all of this, by the way, before the internet. I haven't been to his house for many years but I almost dread to think what Bowie-related stuff he now owns courtesy of eBay and newsgroups.

But his prized possession wasn't something Bowie had made or recorded, it was something he had held.

Mike went to many a Bowie gig in the UK, obviously. At one such gig, the great man lit a cigarette onstage and, realising it was the last one, chucked the empty Marlboro packet into the crowd. Mike caught it. It remains to this day - probably 25 years now, maybe more - in his display cabinet, symmetrically between the wine and brandy glasses. Its presence means every visitor will ask about it and he gets the pride of being able to tell.

Everything is insured for thousands, and Mike claims it will all be buried with him, though I expect he is joking on that last point. I wouldn't actually disbelieve him 100 per cent though. I really wouldn't.

He has a wife, three grown up kids and now a grand-daughter too. His obsession has, for all its time consumption, never been to the detriment of his family life and his wife, also a Bowie fan of the era, has just taken it as part of the package. He does like other music too; at the time I knew him I was beginning to discover T Rex, as mentioned here, and he showed me his not unsubstantial T Rex album collection, while adding that somewhere in his loft or cellar was a grainy recording of Bowie's appearance on Marc Bolan's final TV show prior to his road accident.

Ask him about other artists in his collection and he'll relate them to Bowie. Got any Queen? Yep, Under Pressure. How about Mott The Hoople? All versions of All The Young Dudes. The Rolling Stones? Only Mick Jagger and some other geezer doing Dancing In The Street. Pet Shop Boys? There's Hallo Spaceboy, right there. Bing Crosby? Oh now, come on, you know that slightly awkward Christmas recording is going to be in a cupboard at Mike's place somewhere. Samantha Mumba? Well, she wouldn't normally fall under his radar, but one of her biggest hits did sample Ashes To Ashes quite heavily. And, naturally, all of the above are in all formats, from all countries, etc etc.

I still see Mike occasionally as, until a recent bout of ill health, he was a taxi driver in Hull. As pleasant and as cheerful a man as I've ever met, and he remains living proof that if a single rock star is worth it in your eyes, no ridicule or raised eyebrows from anyone is going to halt that. My first memory of Bowie is Let's Dance, an album Mike - like all "proper" Bowie fans - sees as a clinical and technically impressive work rather than anything truly reflecting what Bowie was about. Though of his 1980s output, he does like the Tonight album, and from it, Blue Jean. And so do I.

"Step in, step out of the rain..."

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000Z

This was how Q The 80s sounded at the weekend. If it takes your fancy, then you can hear the repeat this Thursday at 6pm...

U2 "Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
Patrice Rushen "I Was Tired Of Being Alone"

Kon Kan "I Beg Your Pardon"
Ozzy Osbourne "Bark At The Moon"

Fun Boy Three "Tunnel Of Love"
Glen Goldsmith "Dreaming"

Hazel O'Connor "Will You"
John Foxx "Burning Car"

Marillion "Freaks"
Rockers Revenge featuring Donnie Calvin "Walking On Sunshine"

FLOPPY DISC:
Rolling Stones "Rock And A Hard Place"

Nik Kershaw "Human Racing"
Wonder Stuff "Golden Green"

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson "Say Say Say"
Ofra Haza "I'm Nin'Alu"

The Smiths "Panic"
Earth, Wind & Fire "I've Had Enough"

Stevie Wonder "Lately"
ACDC "Touch Too Much"

Yazoo "Only You"
Eugene Wilde "Personality"

Spandau Ballet "Musclebound"
Laura Branigan "Self Control"

Aswad "Give A Little Love"
Cock Robin "The Promise You Made"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Shy "Girl (It's All I Have)"

The Clash "I Fought The Law"
Steve 'Silk' Hurley "Jack Your Body"

The Police "Spirits In The Material World"
Housemartins "There's Always Something There To Remind Me"

Simple Minds "Waterfront"
Oran 'Juice' Jones "The Rain"

Holly Johnson "Love Train"
Incantation "Cacharpaya"

Survivor "Burning Heart"
Taja Sevelle "Love Is Contagious"

Steve Miller Band "Abracadabra"
ZZ Top "Sleeping Bag"

Dionne Warwick "All The Love In The World"
Adam and the Ants "Dog Eat Dog"

FLOPPY DISC:
Billy Idol "Catch My Fall"

KC and the Sunshine Band "Give It Up"
Carl Carlton "She's A Bad Mama Jama"

Bryan Adams & Tina Turner "It's Only Love"
Creatures "Right Now"

The show can be found on Q Radio each Sunday evening at 6pm, followed by the aforementioned repeat. Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online here...

Lynn Anderson, Silver Convention and numerous others

2012-01-07T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as always. Three hours of 80s music that mixes the familiar with the forgotten.

The embed below will be one song featured, plus another teased by the title of this blog entry. We'll also have an entry from The Nobody's Diary - celebrating the acts that never quite made it - and two more Floppy Discs, the failed singles from major artists.

Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 or online here, and we're on 6pm Sunday night, repeated Thursday. See you there!

Time for Karen

2012-01-04T11:11:00.003Z

Alesha Dixon announces that she's leaving Strictly Come Dancing for somewhere more suited to her level of expertise and gravitas, Britain's Got Talent, leaving a gap for a judge once again.

So it's got to be the Hardy!

"I give in to sin because you have to make this life liveable..."

2012-01-02T06:55:00.000Z

So this was the New Years Day edition of Q The 80s...

Big Country "In A Big Country"
Bomb The Bass featuring Maureen "I Say A Little Prayer"

UB40 "If It Happens Again"
Debbie Harry "French Kissin' In The USA"

Tom Petty "I Won't Back Down"
Bangles "If She Knew What She Wants"

Club Nouveau "Lean On Me"
Status Quo "Lies"

Depeche Mode "Strangelove"
Chicago "Hard Habit To Break"

FLOPPY DISC:
Stranglers "Big In America"

Beautiful South "You Keep It All In"
Kraftwerk "Pocket Calculator"

Girlschool "Hit And Run"
Midnight Starr "Headlines"

Glenn Frey "The Heat Is On"
Pebbles "Girlfriend"

Level 42 "Lessons In Love"
Gap Band "Burn Rubber (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)"

Breathe "Hands To Heaven"
Marvin Gaye "My Love Is Waiting"

Queen "The Invisible Man"
Shalamar "Disappearing Act"

Then Jerico "The Motive (Living Without You)"
Siouxsie and the Banshees "Cities In Dust"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Devo "Whip It"

Coldcut & Junior Reid "Stop This Crazy Thing"
Bluebells "Cath"

Slade "We'll Bring The House Down"
Bobby Brown "On Our Own"

Billy Idol "White Wedding"
Human League "The Lebanon"

Gillan "Restless"
Tanita Tikaram "Good Tradition"

Sigue Sigue Sputnik "Success"
Billy Joel "All For Leyna"

S Express "Superfly Guy"
Nick Heyward "Warning Sign"

Gladys Knight "Licence To Kill"
Undertones "My Perfect Cousin"

FLOPPY DISC:
Lionel Richie "My Love"

Kool & the Gang "Celebration"
Barracudas "Summer Fun"

A-Ha "The Sun Always Shines On TV"
Tracie "The House That Jack Built"

The show is repeated on Thursday at 6pm, and the next edition will be on Sunday, same time. Q Radio can be found on Freeview channel 716 or online here...

All four members namechecked in the lyrics

2011-12-31T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s returns in its normal form after the brief madness of Christmas Day, and we return to our tried and even slightly trusted format of a three-hour 80s show.

The music will mix the familiar with the forgotten and will include the embed below, plus a song teased by the title of this blog entry.

We'll have two more Floppy Discs - failed singles by major artists - and an all-crucial entry from The Nobody's Diary, which showcases the acts of the 80s that never quite made it.

Sunday evening (New Years Day, natch) at 6pm. Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 or online here. Happy New Year...

That's Asda price

2011-12-28T09:13:00.004Z

Back to one of my bugbears, but with a rare positive slant. I'm one of many thousands of drivers who, I'm sure, feel quite grateful towards Asda.

A couple of months back, Asda brought down the price of its unleaded petrol to 129.9 pence per litre. This sort of price hasn't been seen, even in the forecourts of the traditionally cheaper supermarkets, for some time. I was dedicated straightaway to finding branches of Asda whenever my car needed one of its many refuellings, with a Hull branch of Asda handily having a 24-hour garage with self-service pumps.

After a short while, the other fuel outlets began to follow suit. Other supermarkets have dropped their fuel down to below 130p a litre, while Shell and Texaco garages - though not all - have also cut their prices. The cheapest Esso and Total filling stations I've encountered have managed to take themselves to 130.9 pence per litre. Only BP - which has an oil leak to pay for - remains high above the Asda benchmark, with the lowest I've seen 132.9 pence per litre. Some are still as high as 138.9 pence. I'm amazed when I see car drivers using their pumps. Then there are the many brands that operate at motorway service stations who currently feel unaffected by Asda's efforts and continue to charge crazy money - I'm pretty certain that if Asda somehow publicised its branches that are based close to motorways, they'd get traffic prepared to briefly turn off and fill up there.

129.9 pence is still far too expensive of course - I always point to episodes of Top Gear that are under three years old that show pumps charging 99.9 pence per litre - but Asda have at least made a start, and have recently upped the ante further by getting down to 128.7 pence. It proves that these fuel companies will charge only what customers are prepared to pay, despite them banging on about Government duty and the rising price of oil. I really hope that Asda, with all the good publicity and goodwill attained by their actions, will dare go for it again soon and whack down their prices further. In the meantime, it's quite nice to be able to fill the car to the brim and not see that day's wages almost entirely vanish in doing so.

"With my undying, death-defying love for you..."

2011-12-26T07:00:00.000Z

This was the Q The 80s Christmas show...

Pretenders "2000 Miles"
David Essex "A Winter's Tale"

Japan "European Son"

Annie Lennox & Al Green "Put A Little Love In Your Heart"
Paul McCartney "Pipes Of Peace"

Robert Palmer "Johnny And Mary"
Suzanne Vega "Tom's Diner"

Gary Moore "Over The Hills And Far Away"

Run DMC "Christmas In Hollis"
Chris Rea "Joys Of Christmas"

Frazier Chorus "Dream Kitchen"
Fashion "Love Shadow"

Smiley Culture "Police Officer"

All About Eve "December"
Queen "Thank God It's Christmas"

Waitresses "Christmas Wrapping"
Bryan Adams "Christmas Time"

Black Box "Ride On Time"

Jona Lewie "Stop The Cavalry"
Frankie Goes To Hollywood "The Power Of Love"

Spandau Ballet "She Loved Like Diamond"
Cyndi Lauper "All Through The Night"

Wax "Bridge To Your Heart"

Van Morrison & Cliff Richard "Whenever God Shines His Light"
Wham! "Last Christmas"

Our Daughter's Wedding "Lawnchairs"
Jenny Burton "Bad Habits"

Human League "Open Your Heart"

Jets "Rockin Around The Christmas Tree"
Bouncing Czechs "I'm A Little Christmas Cracker"

Band Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas"
Elton John "Cold As Christmas"

Farley Jackmaster Funk "Love Can't Turn Around"

Jon & Vangelis "I'll Find My Way Home"
Freiheit "Keeping The Dream Alive"

Prince and the Revolution "Pop Life"
Alison Moyet "Ordinary Girl"

Ashford and Simpson "Solid"

Crazyhead "Like Princes Do"
Coldcut "Coldcut's Christmas Break"

Michelle Shocked "Anchorage"
That Petrol Emotion "Big Decision"

Vesta Williams "Once Bitten Twice Shy"

Kate Bush "December Will Be Magic Again"
Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl "Fairytale Of New York"

Back to normal on New Year's Day, from 6pm!

As Argyll drove John to the Nakatomi

2011-12-24T08:22:00.002Z

Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, so we have the honour of a Q The 80s Christmas special. Loads of Christmas songs of the 80s, some familiar and some forgotten (of course), plus other stuff.

This is in the show.

And yes, it'll be repeated on Thursday at 6pm when you're less occupied...

Two earholes per ear

2011-12-21T11:39:00.005Z

After attending a football match at the weekend, I dropped into a branch of Subway for some sustenance prior to catching my train.

The young chap behind the counter was welcoming and helpful and everything you want from someone serving you in an eaterie. I found it hard, however, not to stare at him just a bit.

Clearly, this fellow had chosen to make a major cosmetic alteration to his appearance, but had gone beyond tattoos. He had decided to not just have his ears pierced, but his ears punctured.

I've seen a lot of people lately, almost always men, with these coloured discs pushed into their earlobes. I can't imagine either the frame of mind of someone who chooses these mutiliative decorations, or the pain barrier they must have gone through to have holes the size of ten pence pieces made in their ears and then a disc shoved into each.

Thing is, however, Subway clearly have a uniform policy, based on either appearance or safety, that disallows any member of staff from wearing this stuff on duty. So the reason why I had trouble tearing my eyes away from this kindly chap wasn't because he had the discs in, but because he hadn't the discs in. He was behind the counter with two enormous holes in his ears.

I thought you were meant to put sticking plasters over them in the event of taking these items out, to avoid infection. Evidently not. They make me wince each time I see them; they remind me of the Amazonian chief with whom Sting was in cahoots in the late 1980s as he banged on about deforestation. I'm not sure what Subway policy is on lip plates, but I suspect it's roughly similar to how they view ear enhancements.

"Nancy's in a five-star hotel; Robbie's in a golf and country club; and Russell's camping..."

2011-12-20T07:00:00.000Z

Bit irked about the Strictly Come Dancing final, to be honest. Jason Donovan, though the obvious outsider of the three prior to the curtain going up, didn't deserve to be ousted by the public after the first two dances. The judges' scores, though only a guide, proved that.

But all in all it was a tremendous watch and Harry Judd was, on a technical and clinical level, a worthy winner. I enjoyed the way he skilfully avoided Sir Bruce Forsyth's observation that he now had a career as a dancer ahead of him if he wanted it. If you're the drummer in a pop band of heart-throbs still having hits, you're not going to give that up for eight hours a day of jiving and foxtrotting. Not yet, anyway.

I liked Chelsee Heeley's partner, Pasha Kovalev, the only male pro dancer on the show without any evidence of ego or showbiz-seeking. The singing and musicianship was, as always, tremendous. Bruno Tonioli and Craig Revel Horwood remain the worthiest of the four judges. Zoe Ball was superb on It Takes Two. Contestants who came across well included Russell Grant, Anita Dobson, Robbie Savage and even Audley Harrison.

But there are gripes. Sir Bruce continued to cock up the autocue and Tess Daly is actually starting to grate now. She can do live telly but she isn't a reactive person to the often chaotic stuff around her; indeed, Alex Jones showed when removed from the constraints of autocue just how much sparkle and charisma she actually has. When you look at the combination of Sir Bruce and Tess, it's opposites working together - the old man can't read properly but can still show and improvise; the youthful sidekick can read properly but has no real awareness of what to do when the script has to be thrown away.

Len Goodman, meanwhile, has become a miserable, curmudgeonly, picky, lazy, soundbitten old get.

"I passed the howling woman and stood outside your door..."

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s did its stuff at the weekend, as always. It sounded like this...

Elton John "I'm Still Standing"
Candi Staton "Suspicious Minds"

A Flock Of Seagulls "Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)"
T'Pau "Secret Garden"

Stray Cats "Stray Cat Strut"
Kim Wilde "Cambodia"

Iron Maiden "Wrathchild"
UB40 "So Here I Am"

Erasure "A Little Respect"
De La Soul "Say No Go"

FLOPPY DISC:
George Benson "What's On Your Mind"

Christians "Forgotten Town"
Men Without Hats "Safety Dance"

Amii Stewart "Friends"
The Cure "The Walk"

Michael Jackson "Bad"
Sheena Easton "Just Another Broken Heart"

Re-Flex "The Politics Of Dancing"
Heart "Who Will You Run To"

Gary Numan "I Die: You Die"
Simply Red "The Right Thing"

Split Enz "I Got You"
Whitney Houston "So Emotional"

Dexys Midnight Runners "Dance Stance"
Freddie McGregor "Just Don't Wanna Be Lonely"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Love And Money "Candybar Express"

Huey Lewis & the News "If This Is It"
Lisa Stansfield "This Is The Right Time"

Rainbow "I Surrender"
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark "Secret"

Mike Oldfield "Moonlight Shadow"
Soft Cell "Where The Heart Is"

Soul II Soul "Get A Life"
Jim Diamond "Hi Ho Silver"

Housemartins "Five Get Over Excited"
Ruby Turner featuring Jonathan Butler "If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)"

Rod Stewart "Sweet Surrender"
Matchbox "When You Ask About Love"

Liza Minnelli "Losing My Mind"
Mtume "Juicy Fruit"

FLOPPY DISC:
The Madness "I Pronounce You"

Duran Duran "Skin Trade"
Kiss "Creatures Of The Night"

Gwen Guthrie "They Long To Be Close To You"
Happy Mondays "Hallelujah"

The show is repeated this Thursday. Meanwhile, it was the last "normal" edition of the programme, as next Sunday happens to be Christmas Day. Hooray! This will entail a rather splendid Christmas special, featuring festive singles of the 80s that fit both remits of the familiar and the forgotten (as ever), plus a few mistakenly festive tunes too. We'll also play some of the best Floppy Discs and entries from The Nobody's Diary featured during the year, and pay tribute to stars of the 1980s who passed away in 2011. Normal time on Christmas Day - 6pm. It's not as if there is anything better to do...

Q The 80s is on Freeview channel 716 and online here.

Donated to the soundtrack when he heard the show was about bikers

2011-12-17T07:00:00.001Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as ever. It's final "normal" edition of the programme, as the following Sunday happens to be Christmas Day, which means - yes - a Christmas special. Yay!

Anyway, it's the regular but never remotely tedious mixture of the familiar and the forgotten from the 1980s that you can enjoy from 6pm on Sunday, including the song teased by the title of this blog, and another given away by the following embed...

We'll also have two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary, where we showcase the acts of the 80s that didn't quite make it.

The Christmas special, by the way, as well as being crammed full of Christmas songs from the 1980s, will feature some of our (well, my) favourite Floppy Discs and entries from The Nobody's Diary featured over the past 12 months.

We're on Q Radio at 6pm this Sunday, repeated on Thursday at the same time. The radio station is on Freeview channel 716 and online here.

Taking a big blow

2011-12-14T15:39:00.007Z

This is my own personal nozzle. Any ideas what it's for?

It was a gift presented to me in the daft hours of Sunday morning by a kindly copper. Yep, after driving what I estimate to be 1.5 million miles in my life, in all weathers, at all hours, in all places, for all kinds of reasons, I was breathalysed for the first time.

It was Saturday night, and the cop had watched me, at 3am, leave the bar where I have my longtime residency. I managed 100 yards before the blue lights flashed behind me. After a cursory discussion about one of my tiny number plate lights being out, he brought out the breathalyser.

I'd been on soft drinks all night, as is the norm for me when working, and so the word ZERO emerged on the screen after I completed my little exhalation. I'd already informed him that a) I was the DJ as opposed to a punter; and b) I had been on diet Coke all night, but he still whipped out the in-car intoximeter. I should add that I didn't just belligerently offer these facts, but did so in response to his questions "where have you been?" and "have you drunk any alcohol?". Despite my latter reply, he still tested me out - and then looked a bit surprised when it traced no alcohol at all, as if he was used to dealing with inebriated liars.

He then reminded me about the number plate light and allowed me to go.

It's December, and every copper is doing it, of course, and quite right too. I'm just surprised it's taken so long for me to blow into the box for the first time. It nearly happened earlier this year in Manchester but the officer accepted my offer of a smell of my breath to save time and let me on my way. And yes, I'd been on the soft drinks all night again.

And, presumably for DNA-related reasons, I am now the proud owner of my own police breathalyser nozzle. I'm half-expecting to have gained quite a collection by the end of the festive season.

Poor Robin Tripp wasn't so diligent...

"Where better to do your best dance than the semi final?"

2011-12-13T07:00:00.001Z

So we're approaching the Strictly Come Dancing final this weekend and even though the largely predicted trio of couples have come through, the show hasn't suffered for it.

Kicking out two couples from five would have been more interesting had there not been two obvious rank outsiders from the quintet of pairings that took to the floor at the weekend, but even so the fact that Jason Donovan found himself in the bottom two last week meant that nothing could be taken for granted. A hellraising display from Alex Jones coupled with Harry Judd turning an ankle slightly and the whole thing was up in the air.

As it turned out, however, the three market leaders barely put a toe wrong. Judd is brilliant but very clinical and I still wonder whether his personality is enough to make him a winner, as he hasn't got that extra bit of obvious chutzpah to hang on to. Donovan, with his intensity in performance and ability to act as a spokesman for them all, and Chelsea Heeley, whose bubbliness has become less irritating as the weeks have passed, both have something extra off the floor to endear them to the crowd.

The two that left at the weekend, Alex Jones and Holly Valance, were telegraphed as likely to depart prior to broadcast, and once Jones got the terribly patronising comments about "deserving" to be in the semi-finals and that she "should be proud" of herself, it was clear the judges didn't see her as a finalist in waiting. The marks proved it. That said, even though she finished fifth out of five, she didn't seem as obvious to exit as Valance, the icy Aussie who was forced to do the dance most deeply unsuited to her laid-back attitude, the Charleston. Wearing sequinned hotpants that were inexplicably pulled up to her navel, she surpassed anything Russell Grant and Audley Harrison had honourably achieved earlier in the series for the title of least suitable dance for any celebrity, and she looked just relieved when it was over, not caring a jot what others thought of it because it couldn't be any worse than how she viewed it herself.

That meant that it was something of an anti-climax when Jones was the first to be declared out of the competition, as an early ejection for Valance might have just prompted audible tension as Jones and Donovan lined up for the final announcement of who was staying and who wasn't. As soon as the two Aussies were pitted together, with Jones out and the other two safely through, the tension evaporated. The public were not going to oust Donovan, with his perfect 40 score for an extraordinarily hot Argentine tango that could have easily represented 90 seconds of pornographic pre-amble, against Valance and her hotpants.

Strictly... has done Jones the world of good. Cast generally as a bit lightweight and slow since joining The One Show, she has shown in the last three months without the restriction of autocue that she has wit, self-awareness and rather brilliantly, she becomes so much more Welsh when being herself, as if the BBC had asked her to tone it down and make her accent more generic when chatting each weeknight. She has become very likeable indeed and maybe she'll be trusted to do better stuff on telly as a consequence of it.

So, the final. My money is on Heeley to win, as her talent is the most natural and her personality the most warming. She has flowered as a celebrity too, being possibly the least well-known of all the amateurs that lined up at the start of the run but now being instantly recognisable by face, smile and those fabulous Eccles vowels, which were mocked ungentlemanly by Sir Bruce Forsyth several times at the weekend.

Heeley also has an advantage over Judd in that her partner, Pasha Kovalev, makes no concessions for her amateur status and throws her in at the deep end. Judd's partner, Aliona Vilani, is a magnificent performer but has incurred the wrath of judges and audience in the past by doing too much scene setting when choreographing a dance and not enough traditional steps. It probably cost Matt Baker the title last year.

Donovan is the outsider, which may suit him given his regular position at the top of the show's earliest leaderboards as other celebrities took longer to settle, but he is the only one with real A-list status and a CV of achievement behind him that will potentially prompt block-voting. Out-and-out popularity with the television audience will decide the final if nobody makes a mess of their dancing, and this is where Donovan's main hope should rest. There is goodwill also for his partner Kristina Rihanoff, whose history on the programme has been via clunking incompetents until this year - John Sergeant, Joe Calzaghe and Goldie all had their limitations, to put it charitably - and so her own long-awaited rise to the top has been noted by the viewers.

Of course, we get show dances in the final too, which ultimately can be the actual difference between first and second. Nobody thought Tom Chambers would win, for example, until he did this...

"Let's just say our love is right, would you kiss and a-hold me tight..."

2011-12-12T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s was, yes, on at the weekend! They're still letting us do this each week. Here's how we sounded...

Peter Gabriel "Sledgehammer"
Mica Paris "Breathe Life Into Me"

Psychedelic Furs "Heaven"
Paul McCartney "Press"

SOS Band "Just Be Good To Me"
Rolling Stones "She's So Cold"

Elkie Brooks "Fool If You Think It's Over"
Fine Young Cannibals "Johnny Come Home"

Magnum "It Must Have Been Love"
George Benson "Feel Like Makin' Love"

FLOPPY DISC:
Grace Jones "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)"

The Smiths "This Charming Man"
Tracey Ullman "Move Over Darling"

D Mob featuring Cathy Dennis "C'Mon And Get My Love"
Billy Idol "To Be A Lover"

The Jam "Going Underground"
Amazulu "Don't You Just Know It"

Pasadenas "Enchanted Lady"
Ozzy Osbourne "Shot In The Dark"

Jane Wiedlin "Rush Hour"
New Order "State Of The Nation"

Junior "Too Late"
Howard Jones "New Song"

New Model Army "Stupid Questions"
Kids From Fame "Hi-Fidelity"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Mighty Lemon Drops "The Other Side Of You"

Flash and the Pan "Waiting For A Train"
Berlin "You Don't Know"

Pinkees "Danger Games"
Cool Notes "Spend The Night"

Hue & Cry "Labour Of Love"
Alyson Williams "Sleep Talk"

Stranglers "Golden Brown"
Madonna "The Look Of Love"

Marillion "Lavender"
Gene Chandler "Does She Have A Friend?"

Spandau Ballet "Lifeline"
Sting "Russians"

Hot Chocolate "Are You Getting Enough Of What Makes You Happy"
Broken English "Comin' On Strong"

FLOPPY DISC:
The Clash "Know Your Rights"

Los Lobos "Come On Let's Go"
Enya "Evening Falls"

David Bowie "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)"
Imagination "Thank You My Love"

The show is repeated on Thursday, and then our final programme before Christmas airs next Sunday. All shows start at 6pm. Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 or online here. And there will be a show on Christmas night!

Written specifically for a Rolling Stones tribute act

2011-12-10T07:00:00.002Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend. Sunday night, 6pm, Q Radio - and you can find us here or on Freeview channel 716.

The usual remit - a stack of 80s songs that mix the familiar with the forgotten and contain a couple of Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and an entry from The Nobody's Diary, which is our glance back at the artists of the decade that never quite made it.

The title of this blog entry gives you a clue as to the identity of one song, while the embed below entirely ends any mystery about another.

See you Sunday evening...

The best time of the day meets the best day of his time

2011-12-06T10:16:00.001Z

Alex, my dear friend and total hero, got married in a gorgeous, ancient East Sussex hotel at the weekend. It was a smashing do, classy and enormous fun, befitting the character of the man. His new wife, Kerry, is of course totally stunning, and it was a privilege to be there.

Alex's speech lasted half an hour and was pure stand-up comedy. Then Clive, one of his two best men who also uses the professional name Bill Shipton (one for 1980s soft porn fans there), gave a speech which reduced grizzled broadcasters and cynics to a hysterical jelly.

Edwina Hayes sang this at the ceremony and there was a lot of "something in my eye" nonsense going an afterwards...

And I got to meet Janice Long ("They told me at Live Aid that if Status Quo's microphones failed, I had to go on and fill") and Neale James ("Matthew Bannister said I had six months to go at Radio 1. I could either flounce out like the others or have six months of great fun, so I had six months of great fun") so all was fantastic, really.

Alex is now totally loved up and can't stop grinning. But we all agreed that upon his return from honeymoon and to the airwaves, he'll be still a cynical old get, and our favourite cynical old get at that. Congratulations to them both.

"Take it to the bridge, throw it overboard..."

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s was, once more, the only radio show that had any meaningful role to play in society at the weekend, and here was how it sounded...

Bruce Springsteen "Born In The USA"
The Selecter "The Whisper"

INXS "Need You Tonight"
Landscape "Norman Bates"

Cyndi Lauper "True Colours"
Robert Palmer "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On"

Ollie and Jerry "Breakin'…There's No Stopping Us"
The Look "I Am The Beat"

Jermaine Stewart "Get Lucky"
Twisted Sister "The Kids Are Back"

FLOPPY DISC:
Human League "Love Is All That Matters"

Style Council "A Solid Bond In Your Heart"
Narada Michael Walden "I Shoulda Loved Ya"

Pet Shop Boys "Suburbia"
Belle Stars "Sweet Memory"

Adam Ant "Goody Two Shoes"
Deborah Harry "I Want That Man"

Dire Straits "So Far Away"
Force MDs "Tender Love"

Fields Of The Nephilim "Moonchild"
Godley & Creme "Under Your Thumb"

Janet Jackson "What Have You Done For Me Lately"
Matt Bianco "Don't Blame It On That Girl"

Depeche Mode "It's Called A Heart"
Boogie Box High "Jive Talkin'"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Toni Scott "That's How I'm Living"

Gloria Estefan "Anything For You"
Motley Crue "You're All I Need"

Squeeze "Hourglass"
Stacy Lattisaw "Jump To The Beat"

Ashford & Simpson "Solid"
The Mission "Tower Of Strength"

Modern Romance "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White"
Mick Jagger "Just Another Night"

Paula Abdul "Straight Up"
Tenpole Tudor "Swords Of A Thousand Men"

Poison "Nothin' But A Good Time"
LeVert "Casanova"

Kate Bush "Running Up That Hill"
Glass Tiger "Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone"

FLOPPY DISC:
Bangles "Going Down To Liverpool"

Elvis Costello "A Good Year For The Roses"
Blue Mercedes "I Want To Be Your Property"

Matchbox "Midnight Dynamos"
Kool and the Gang "Summer Madness"

The repeat edition is on Thursday evening, and then the next go is on Sunday. Both editions go out at 6pm. You can find Q Radio here or on Freeview channel 716.

Twice an instrumental hit in the 50s, but this was the first with lyrics...

2011-12-03T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend. You knew that already, of course.

Three hours of cracking 80s tunes that mix the familiar with the forgotten. Included will be the song teased by the title of this blog post, and the embed below...

There will be two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another glorious entry from The Nobody's Diary, which showcases the acts that never quite made it.

Q Radio is online here or on Freeview channel 716. The show is on Sunday and starts at 6!

"Otherwise it's B.F.H. - bus fare home..."

2011-12-01T11:59:00.005Z

I've taken to watching repeats of Bullseye on Challenge, and it seems I'm not alone. They occasionally trend on Twitter - I'm guessing via drunk people thinking they're being ironic - and the odd newspaper TV critic has commended Challenge for putting them on.

They are such fun. Yes, it's easy and unoriginal to laugh at colour tellies "with remote control!" and some of the bespectacled muddlers in the contestants' chairs who think that anthracite is a freshwater fish. But it was actually a nicely honed quiz, with a host who seemed to genuinely care for the contestants, and for all its cheapness on set, contestants often went home with several grand in cash and goodies.

I worked out last night that the most a duo could win in the opening Categories round of Bullseye was £1,140, which is a lot of money now, let alone from 1981 onwards. I very much doubt anyone ever managed it - it would have relied on the thrower to hit three bullseyes and his or her partner to answer all three of their questions correctly, rely on the other two to be wrong on every answer they gave, and then know the answers to their questions too.

Perhaps it was the stinginess of ITV that prompted the change in the rules midway through the run that meant that the winning duo had to gamble away their money as well as their prizes when it came to getting 101 or more with six darts. Initially it was just the prizes that were at stake. Also, it wouldn't surprise me that when auditioning contestants, they chose ones whose dart players were mediocre, as opposed to really quite good. There were a lot of 41 and 26 scorers over the years. And I'd love to know if there was ever an episode where all three duos refused to gamble for the star prize, leaving Jim to just reveal the fully-fitted kitchen or holiday to Lanzarote that nobody wanted.

Anyway, they're worth watching in a totally appreciative, unscathing way. And a mention for Tony Green, whose kids and grandkids probably thought him the coolest guy on earth when his Bullseye exploits got him a cameo on Newman And Baddiel In Pieces.

"Superpowers always fighting but Mona Lisa just keeps on smiling..."

2011-11-28T07:00:00.002Z

Q The 80s was on over the weekend, and boy was it groundbreaking, inspiring, life-enhancing radio. Allow the following setlist to prove it...

Shalamar "A Night To Remember"
Queen "The Miracle"

Tracey Ullman "They Don't Know"
Boomtown Rats "House On Fire"

Linx "Intuition"
Jesus & Mary Chain "April Skies"

Neneh Cherry "Manchild"
Saxon "And The Bands Played On"

OMD "Enola Gay"
Windjammer "Tossing And Turning"

FLOPPY DISC:
Pink Floyd "One Slip"

Simply Red "Money's Too Tight To Mention"
Dr and the Medics "Burn"

Beastie Boys "Girls"
Carly Simon "Why"

Van Halen "Jump"
Christians "Harvest For The World"

Trevor Walters "Love Me Tonight"
The Damned "Grimly Fiendish"

Abba "The Winner Takes It All"
Steve Winwood "Higher Love"

Madness "Wings Of A Dove"
Supertramp "It's Raining Again"

A-Ha "The Blood That Moves The Body"
Gladys Knight "Taste Of Bitter Love"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Savanna "I Can't Turn Away"

The Alarm "A New South Wales"
Keith Marshall "Only Crying"

Hazell Dean "Searching (I Gotta Find A Man)"
Pasadenas "Riding On A Train"

Nik Kershaw "Wouldn't It Be Good"
Simple Minds "Kick It In"

Status Quo "Red Sky"
Total Contrast "Takes A Little Time"

Echo and the Bunnymen "Bring On The Dancing Horses"
Spagna "Every Girl And Boy"

Guns n Roses "Welcome To The Jungle"
Grandmaster Melle Mel "Step Off"

Donna Allen "Serious"
Ultravox "Sleepwalk"

FLOPPY DISC:
Shakatak "Don't Blame It On Love"

Snowy White "Bird Of Paradise"
Jellybean featuring Steven Dante "The Real Thing"

Sade "The Sweetest Taboo"
Genesis "That's All"

Repeated on Thursday, then a new edition next Sunday, either way the show starts at 6pm. You can hear Q Radio on Freeview channel 716 or online here.

Three Top 10 hits under three different names courtesy of lawsuits and arguing

2011-11-26T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend. Usual time, usual place* and the usual three hours of 80s music that mixes familiar with forgotten.

The title of this blog post may lead you closely towards the identity of one featured song, while the embed below offers zero mystery over another.

There will be two Floppy Dhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifiscs - failed singles from major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary, as we offer a brief return to the spotlight for an artist that came close to making it, but not quite...

*6pm, Q Radio, which is online here or available via Freeview channel 716. The show is repeated on Thursdays at the same time.

Wounded knee, wounded pride

2011-11-25T10:16:00.004Z

Friday has started with a rare feeling of human achievement. Driving away from the gym (a place where I seldom feel human achievement), I edged round the final corner and came across a moped rider flat out on the concrete.

Quickly I got out of the car and remembered one of the few episodes of Casualty I'd ever watched - "have you hurt your head or your neck?" I asked. The answer was a very pained no - and so I asked the rider to remove their helmet.

The injuries suffered by this girl - and she was a girl, 17 I reckon - were two heavily gashed knees and some severe, severe embarrassment. I applied tissue to the heavier of the cuts while another motorist who'd just turned up was calling 999. I then lifted her into the back seat of my car so she could sit up properly and then shifted her bike, then we all waited for the ambulance.

The operator seemed to have no access to Google Maps, or common sense, or sympathy, given that he was still asking me for a more precise address in a featureless voice when the bloody ambulance itself actually turned up. The communication system in that avenue of the emergency services needs a bit of work, really. It was one of those Ambulance Responders, the type you mistake for police cars all the time, and the burly bloke inside had a bedside manner ("I had a knee like this after crashing my go-cart", "you'll get a scar your boyfriend will be proud of") that made this lass smile and blush simultaneously.

Then a "proper" ambulance turned up, containing two more burly blokes. They cracked weak but reassuring jokes and then the three of them lifted her into the back of the ambulance as her parents arrived to check on her welfare. I'm assuming this girl was arriving for sixth form lectures - the gym is tagged on to my old school - and instead found herself being given medical treatment by three men. She's got a story to tell to her mates.

Anyway, my work was done. She couldn't look me in the eye once her helmet had come off - teenage pride and deep embarrassment over the fuss - but I think she was grateful. Teenagers, eh?

It actually says: "Welcome to Barbados, have a nice day..."

2011-11-23T14:15:00.007Z

"To you it may be taboo to boo the tattoo; but for me the tattoo is something to say ta-ta to..."

When you watch a Premier League match on telly now you see an array of artistic images burnt into the flesh of the players. There has been quite a rise in the prominence of the tattoo in recent years, possibly as a direct consequence of these chaps.

How do they cope with the pain? Given that some have a penchant for rolling around in agony for ages when an opponent exhales on them, it's quite remarkable to consider that they can sit for several hours in an artist's studio while needles dipped in a combination of ink and molten lava are rammed under their skin.

Players who choose to wear short-sleeved shirts show off their forearm pictues and patterns; those who take their shirts off entirely for any reason are often sporting serious artworks on front, or back, or both.

As for me, nope. Not on your nelly. I expect I'm in only a small majority of tattooless people of my generation. I don't have kids, so I don't have the motive for a tattoo that many people choose to use. But now there is quite the number of people who have their kids names, or some Greek proverb, or an oriental bon mot, branded into some area of their anatomy. And I have both admiration and a touch of pity those who have the patience and pain threshold to sit down, keep still and bite on a wooden spoon while their artist of choice imprints an image of Enceladus or Selene, sitting proudly on a rock while holding a staff and shield, into their back.

Admiration for the nerve and commitment, and pity for when the day comes that, for whatever reason, they regret it. Usually this applies with ex-spouses, doesn't it? You're asking for trouble the moment you imprint a partner's name indelibly into your skin.

The stories about tattoos are well-thumbed, aren't they? The woman who thought it would be amusing to have a No Entry sign imprinted in the very base of her back. The Geordie who had a complicated, agonising, detailed tattoo of Andy Cole put into his torso 24 hours before Newcastle United sold him to Manchester United. The woman who had a cartoon image of Kelly Holmes crossing the finishing line tattooed into her back, only for the tattoo artist to forget the letter 'l' in the athlete's name.

And I can say this as a chap who can recognise a good-looking guy without any question marks over sexuality, but that thing on the back of his neck has ruined David Beckham.

(I assume you recognise the punchline in the title of this blog...)

"Revolutionary!"

2011-11-22T07:00:00.000Z

There was no voting scandal in the end as, finally, Russell Grant bid farewell to Strictly Come Dancing. He had been entertaining, willing, self-deprecating and humorous to the limit, but the timing of his exit was spot on.

His now familiar position at the bottom of the leader board was cemented by a public vote that the programme actually seemed to cock up in using its "no particular order" policy for announcing the results. The two participants immediately above him - Robbie Savage and Anita Dobson - were the first two to have their safety confirmed, making the eventual confirmation of Grant's exit something of a non-event. Ultimately, it was the clinical Aussie plaything Holly Valance, fifth of the eight, who stood beside him as the other celebrity in danger and although one wondered briefly if we were about to witness a genuine outrage that would have surpassed anything Ann Widdecombe's shtick last year attained, the result was obvious.

Len Goodman said, not entirely without a menacing tone, that we'd remember Russell Grant flying out of his camp cannon for years to come. He was right of course, but I thought it was a dreadfully executed stunt. A potentially great idea ruined by the desire to make spectacle outweigh substance. That Grant emerged very slowly and with his belly attached to some kind of protective toboggan made it all the more pointless. He then landed on the deck and proceeded to parade and point rather than dance, something which even a man of his limited abilities had admirably managed to avoid in previous weeks. He and his partner thought about the setting - Wembley Arena, 6,000 people - far too much, and forgot about the contest.

From his point of view, that was a pity, because there were enough weaknesses in his nearest rivals to give him half a prayer of surviving another week had he done a better job. Savage isn't improving enough and cannot convince the judges at all; Dobson is only as good as she was in the first fortnight, which is a real worry for her; Valance has ability but doesn't seem remotely emotional about it at all; and her Aussie compatriot Jason Donovan is in danger of seeing his considerable chances ruined by his own intensity. His missing steps within a jive that had been built up and built up by others as potentially one to ape the Halfpenny standard of seven years ago could be the starting point of a breakdown before our very eyes. His perfectionism and professionalism is proving to be part of the problem rather than the solution. He needs to lighten up.

Still, all of the aforementioned remain, and Grant has gone. With the comic relief confined to the audience from now on, the competition again can restart, just as it did when Nancy Dell'Olio got the shepherd's crook three weeks ago. The remaining septet are all winners in the making, but right now only Harry Judd is obvious. Chelsee Healey is hot on his trail and the surprise package Alex Jones needs to be taken seriously - in the past slowburning improvers like Darren Gough and Chris Hollins have overwhelmed more instantly gifted rivals to peak just at the right time. It helps that Jones has come across as witty, humble and affable, attributes that we had not been previously able to see from someone whose national profile had been 100 per cent in front of an autocue.

As for the show, it just didn't work. Of course, it was fine for the crowd packed into Wembley Arena, the admission fees of whom had contributed a six-figure sum to Children In Need, but for the dancers and television viewers - the two most important sectors in all this madness - it wasn't good. The floor was too big for some of the less fit competitors while we at home were forever seeing crew sneaking around while hearing bad echoes and wrongly activated microphones. For what it's worth, however, it did seem to be one of Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly's best performances as a presenting team, and the main man himself has been much less prone to error in general this year. And Bruno Tonioli really, really made me laugh.

I keep changing my mind, but at the moment it's a brave person who backs anyone other than Judd or Healey for the title. Much will depend on whether ultimately they have the personality to match their dancing, deficiencies that have done for other competitors at the last minute in the past. The biggest personality has now gone, but he wasn't a dancer, so now on likeability we're looking at Dobson and Savage. The best dancers are lacking personality and profile, while the best personalities are lacking as dancers, so maybe someone in the middle - someone who can combine a bit of ability with a smidge of character - has a better chance of winning this thing than they realise.

"And he recorded it on a reel of tape..."

2011-11-21T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s did its thing as ever over the weekend, and this is how it sounded...

David Bowie "China Girl"
Jets "Yes Tonight Josephine"

U2 "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
Barbara Jones "Just When I Needed You Most"

Siouxsie and the Banshees "Happy House"
Quincy Jones "Ai No Corrida"

Heaven 17 "Come Live With Me"
Gap Band "Party Lights"

Joan Armatrading "Drop The Pilot"
Public Image Limited "Flowers Of Romance"

FLOPPY DISC:
Hot Chocolate "You'll Never Be So Wrong"

Prefab Sprout "The King Of Rock n Roll"
Light Of The World "I'm So Happy"

Iron Maiden "The Evil That Men Do"
Patrice Rushen "Forget Me Nots"

Kirsty MacColl "A New England"
Hothouse Flowers "Don't Go"

Transvision Vamp "Baby I Don't Care"
Kid Creole & The Coconuts "Stool Pigeon"

John Lennon "Watching The Wheels"
Human League "Life On Your Own"

Eric B and Rakim "I Know You Got Soul"
Def Leppard "Rocket"

Spandau Ballet "To Cut A Long Story Short"
Kool and the Gang "Fresh"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Pale Fountains "Thank You"

Texas "I Don't Want A Lover"
The Beat "Drowning"

Patti Austin and James Ingram "Baby Come To Me"
Polecats "Big Green Car"

Deacon Blue "Fergus Sings The Blues"
Billy Griffin "Hold Me Tighter In The Rain"

Danny Wilson "The Second Summer Of Love"
Coffee "Casanova"

Depeche Mode "Leave In Silence"
Belinda Carlisle "La Luna"

George Michael "Kissing A Fool"
Whitesnake "Don't Break My Heart Again"

H20 "Dream To Sleep"
Sister Sledge "Got To Love Somebody"

FLOPPY DISC:
Prince and the Revolution "Pop Life"

Duran Duran "New Moon On Monday"
Chris Rea "On The Beach"

Scarlet Fantastic "No Memory"
Undertones "It's Going To Happen"

The show is on Q Radio each Sunday evening at 6pm, repeated the same time the following Thursday. You can find us on Freeview channel 716 or online here.

He wrote an extra verse because she thought his version was too short

2011-11-19T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend. Hooray!

Three hours of 80s goodness, including the embed below and a song teased by the title of this blog entry too. There will be two Floppy Discs and another entry from The Nobody's Diary, as ever.

Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online here. We're on from 6pm on Sunday evening.

"Now that's what I call... anarchy!"

2011-11-17T09:51:00.009Z

My pal Alex has done overnight radio for 20 years now. He knows the small hours better than anyone. My own handful of years on the nightshift (1997-2001; 2006-2008) give me some idea of how they hang too. But in the confines of a radio studio, with natural lighting effects in the ceiling and loud music playing, only the clock and the tiredness give away the daypart.

If it isn't for work, then there aren't many other reasons to stay up all night. I would expect that there are people experienced in this world who can count on one hand the number of times they've actually seen through a whole night awake. Sometimes emergencies occur, of course, but they aren't attached exclusively to the small hours. And plenty of hard-drinking partygoers still find themselves looking at their watches at 2am and longing for their beds.

The first time I deliberately stayed awake all night was as a teenager, when my parents were away on holiday and I, for the first time ever, had the place to myself. It was the summer holidays, my exams were over, and I just decided to watch telly all night. We had the array of ITV nonsense that masqueraded as nocturnal entertainment back then - Quiz Night, Crazy Like A Fox, America's Top 10, repeats of The Chart Show, and one extremely dodgy, low quality film. Then, at 4am, came Jobfinder. Even I wasn't going to sit through this, so I decided, in my semi-comatose state, to see what outside was like.

I got on my bike - a newly-acquired black and yellow Peugeot Elite which I'd saved my part-time wages for - and cycled around the small town where I grew up and where my folks still live in that same house. It was spooky just how quiet it was, even though it was August and so 4am was three quarters to broad daylight. The sun was poking through and as I traversed the streets and estates, going nowhere in particular but wanting to go everywhere, the only signs of life were other cyclists who had far more important destinations than I. Some said good morning, some gave me odd looks, some assumed I was up to no good.

The place isn't big but by day it's bustling, with shops and a market place and two primary schools. August meant the latter were shut, of course, but even so the first time you see the place you know so well, and had spent every day of your life, being so empty and still and silent, is a most eerie experience. You could hear the blood rushing round your head. I got back after about 45 minutes, having achieved little but thought plenty.

45 minutes was important, as my big target for my night away from sleep was 5am. I had just started to enjoy the radio and harbour little thoughts about how one could get into this industry, and for a while I'd wondered, in a manner all radio anoraks of my generation (and there are bloody loads of them, trust me) how Radio 1, my station of choice, got underway in the morning. 24 hour broadcasting was still anathema to the "station of the nation" and at this time, it ended at 2am with Richard Skinner's programme (always with the "England! Scotland! Ireland! Wales" Sister Sledge pastiche jingle) and started up again with Adrian John's early show, with pilot-tinted glasses, three hours later. But how?

I switched on my dad's beige one-tier Sanyo stereo and re-tuned it from Radio Humberside at about 4.50am. There was a sporadic beeping noise. Then the beeping noise got a bit quicker. Then, suddenly, at 4.55am on the dot, a jingle came on. And another. And another. And...

Forgive me, but this was the most exciting and enthralling thing I'd ever heard.

That five-minute sequence changed every few years as jocks came and went and packages were updated, but essentially you got every main jingle, stabbed versions of the same, jock IDs and a one-liner from the presenter in question, and a few short music beds (one of which was clearly based on the intro to Footloose) prior to an instrumental jingle at ten seconds to the hour (which Adrian John would always "la la la la" to, if he could) which then brought in the pips. He'd say good morning, we'd get one final jingle later, and his name ID ("do do dah do, Ay-drian Joooohn!") would play into the intro to his first record, which was always something from the current Top 40 which, on this particular day, was Soul II Soul's Back To Life.

Words can't express how thrilling it was to hear this. I wanted to hear it again and again and cursed myself for not putting a blank cassette into the stereo. This was remedied the next time I managed a night up and about a few weeks later, though by now Adrian John had left and Jakki Brambles was on, but I'd tuned in for a week of Gary King, to this day one of my radio idols, depping for her and for the first time heard him wish the pips "good morning" which was his subtle way of proving that he'd hit them spot on. Within 18 months the opening sequence had gone and Radio 1 was broadcasting 24 hours a day.

Subsequent all-nighters have been slightly less thrilling and enlightening (apart from one or two obvious ones, the details of which I'll spare you...). And it's no slight on Adrian John at all, but on that first occasion I was in bed by 5.15am. I was knackered!

The greatest Dane

2011-11-15T10:22:00.004Z

You can tell we're a nation of animal lovers. Schmeichel's peaceful passing in Coronation Street last night moved me far more than any other soap death. I was in floods.

And yes, I know it's not real, and Schmeichel was played by numerous dogs, and I'm a fool. I don't care.

"Didn't know how lost I was until I found you..."

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s, 6pm on Sunday evenings, Q Radio. This is what it's all about...

Don Henley "The Boys Of Summer"
Pepsi & Shirlie "Goodbye Stranger"

Mighty Wah! "Come Back"
Stevie Wonder "Overjoyed"

Erasure "Ship Of Fools"
Bad Manners "Just A Feeling"

Arrow "Long Time"
Elton John "Kiss The Bride"

Whispers "It's A Love Thing"
ACDC "Let's Get It Up"

FLOPPY DISC:
Smokey Robinson "Just To See Her"

Phil Collins "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)"
Talk Talk "Today"

Sydney Youngblood "If Only I Could"
The Cars "Since You're Gone"

Madonna "Like A Virgin"
Luther Vandross "She Won't Talk To Me"

Tiffany "Could've Been"
Sisters Of Mercy "This Corrosion"

Tina Turner "Let's Stay Together"
Simple Minds "Speed Your Love To Me"

Pretenders "Talk Of The Town"
Fish "State Of Mind"

Donna Summer "On The Radio"
The Cult "Revolution"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Budgie "Keeping A Rendezvous"

Kenny Rogers "Lady"
Level 42 "Take A Look"

Jellybean featuring Elisa Fiorillo "Who Found Who"
Billy Joel "Leave A Tender Moment Alone"

The Smiths "Ask"
Karyn White "Secret Rendezvous"

Kajagoogoo "Ooh To Be Ah"
Terence Trent D'Arby "Dance Little Sister"

Boystown Gang "Can't Take My Eyes Off You"
New Musik "This World Of Water"

Prince "Paisley Park"
Kim Wilde "Say You Really Want Me"

UB40 "Homely Girl"
Status Quo "Something 'Bout You Baby I Like"

FLOPPY DISC:
Nick Heyward "Laura"

Tears For Fears "I Believe"
Jo Boxers "Johnny Friendly"

Housemartins "Me And The Farmer"
Dollar "Give Me Some Kinda Magic"

And that was that. The show is repeated on Thursdays, again at 6pm. You can get Q Radio on Freeview channel 716 or online here.

Later the song gave its name to a record company and a studio

2011-11-12T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is on this weekend, y'know. Q Radio is gettable via the website here, or Freeview channel 716. We do this little show each Sunday at 6pm.

The programme will include a song teased by the title of this blog post, plus the embed below. Our two Floppy Discs are belters, while the entry from The Nobody's Diary is especially obscure.

See you Sunday? Splendid.

Back of the head with a plastic cup

2011-11-10T19:26:00.005Z

A compelling debate on 5 Live this week about truancy, with education professionals contributing alongside former pupils who skipped school regularly and their exasperated - and criminalised - parents.

It was compelling because the two ex-truants on the programme, both females now in their early 20s, were fantastically eloquent and convincing in their reasons for not bothering, not to mention candid too - they declared, for example, that they were sorry their parents ended up before the courts but it didn't stop them continuing to stay away.

The listener response was predictably mixed - from people saying the one-size-fits-all system has never worked and girls like these needed to be taught according to their skills and capabilities, to the usual array of faux-outraged anger merchants who said the fines imposed weren't big enough owing to the number of malingering parents laden down with vodka, fags and scratchcards.

The nearest I came to truant was feigning a headache in order to get some coursework finished. This hardly makes me disruptive pupil of the century, not least because the feigned headache was believed by my mum so she knew I was home, and I was staying home to do schoolwork anyway - just different (and considerably more vital) work to that which I'd have done if I'd turned up. It could easily act as the most impotent act of teenage rebellion ever.

I had long spells of loathing school but I never thought of bunking off, simply because authority figures around me were frightening. I pass no judgement on today's teachers and parents, but I suspect they haven't half the scare factor - possibly as the law doesn't permit it - as they did "in my day" (I hate that expression, it makes me feel like Arkwright lecturing Granville). My dad was and is the most fantastic man on earth, but when he was cross with either of his sons we knew about it and learned. And there were enough petrifying figures at school to act as a deterrent too.

One lad in my class regularly "twagged" from school. He didn't go as far as to turn up, register and then just walk out again, like the seriously nerveless kid would, but just not come in at all. Upon his eventual return, he would hand over a sick note purporting to be from his mum but evidently written in his own infant school scrawl, and not even remotely looking fussed that the forgery was obvious. I never saw him get into proper trouble though, possibly because he lived in a village far enough away to need a school bus, and so it was a bit of a bind for the school to send someone round his house. I haven't seen him for 22 years but I hear he's still local.

The best thing about this debate on the radio was that the two girls who had avoided education for probably a quarter of their schooling life were now both in enjoyable jobs, working their way up and getting on positively with life. Their argument was that school wasn't of interest to them but their working lives are, and so they put more into those as they are getting more back. It's hard to argue with them as they've lived it for real, but you have to believe they are the lucky ones. I expect there are many ex-truants of all generations regretting to this day that they chose not to go to school.

Smoke gets in your purse

2011-11-08T06:47:00.003Z

Eight years ago yesterday, I stopped smoking. I've blogged about it before so I won't bang on about it again.

What I would say, however, is that while purchasing a newspaper yesterday, I noticed how much it now costs for a packet of 20 fags. Nearly seven quid? Blimey, even rich smokers must be tempted to stop for that much money.

"I see the people happy, so can it happen for me?"

2011-11-07T07:00:00.002Z

Q The 80s did its usual three hours of goodly deeds yesterday evening, and sounded thus...

Chaka Khan "I Feel For You"
Gary Numan featuring Dramatis "Love Needs No Disguise"

David Bowie & the Pat Metheny Group "This Is Not America"
Stranglers "Bear Cage"

Suzanne Vega "Luka"
Japan "Cantonese Boy"

Toto "Rosanna"
Blow Monkeys "Out With Her"

Change "The Glow Of Love"
Beautiful South "I'll Sail This Ship Alone"

FLOPPY DISC:
Cyndi Lauper "She Bop"

Madness "Baggy Trousers"
David Grant & Jaki Graham "Mated"

Morrissey "Ouija Board Ouija Board"
Natalie Cole "Everlasting"

The Jam "Start"
Dead Or Alive "Lover Come Back To Me"

Sheena Easton "For Your Eyes Only"
INXS "Mystify"

Toyah "Be Proud, Be Loud (Be Heard)"
Johnny Hates Jazz "Heart Of Gold"

Metallica "Harvester Of Sorrow"
Rocky Sharpe & the Replays "Shout! Shout! (Knock Yourself Out)"

Whitney Houston "How Will I Know"
Duran Duran "I Don't Want Your Love"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Fashion "Love Shadow"

Vangelis "Chariots Of Fire"
Hue & Cry "Violently"

Communards "Tomorrow"
Kate Bush "Sat In Your Lap"

OMD "Tesla Girls"
Captain & Tennille "Do That To Me One More Time"

Rolling Stones "Emotional Rescue"
Billy Bragg & Cara Tivey "She's Leaving Home"

Poison "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"
Bananarama "Shy Boy"

Soft Cell "Bedsitter"
Monie Love "I Can Do This"

Police "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
Untouchables "Free Yourself"

FLOPPY DISC:
Ian Dury and the Blockheads "Superman's Big Sister"

Michael Jackson "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"
Eurythmics "Don't Ask Me Why"

Karel Fialka "Hey Matthew"
Loose Ends "Magic Touch"

The show is repeated on Thursday at 6pm, and then the next edition airs at the same time on Sunday. Q Radio can be accessed here, or via Freeview channel 716.

It nicked the riff of Taxman

2011-11-05T07:00:00.000Z

Q The 80s is back this weekend. You can hear it on Q Radio at 6pm on Sunday via the radio station's website, or on Freeview channel 716.

Three hours of 80s tuneage of distinction and quality, including the embed below and a song teased by the title of this blog entry.

There will also be our two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary, where we showcase the acts that never quite made it.

See you Sunday!

Firework week

2011-11-04T10:20:00.004Z

It's chucking it down. Let it rain, I say. I've spent the entire night up with three spooked Basset hounds after a particularly long and loud evening of fireworks.

Bentley, especially, is affected by the bangs and crashes. For Saturday night, the one evening where we should reasonably expect fireworks to go off for a bit, contingency plans were made. The radio was going into the kennel and blinds were being put up. But last night, on the playing field close to the house, a group of ne'erdowells were setting fire to a few quid of their pocket money for hours on end.

It's a gripe we have every year, and never does anything seem to be done about it. Is it wrong to ask that fireworks are not sold until a short, set time prior to Bonfire Night itself, or not at all unless to places doing official functions? They've been going off round here for days now. And only wet nights have given my dogs any peace.

Bentley is nine years old now and has always been something of a wussy character, but all animals of varying degrees of courage are spooked by fireworks going off. Granted, some of them react by looking bemused out of the window - all my cats are in this group - while others howl and screech and whine, which is the stock Basset reaction. Bentley, however, gets so stressed that it affects him physically - and it's me who had to keep getting up during the night to clean up.

There are at least two more nights of this ahead unless the one saving grace can keep the neighbourhood quiet and the animals chilled. And that's the rain. Right now it's pelting down against my window, but during the day it's of little value. Hopefully it'll keep up through the night and beyond, and Bentley can get comfortable again. So let it rain, I say. Let it rain.

"You have your legs open a lot, it's very unfeminine..."

2011-11-03T10:08:00.007Z

So, she's gone at last, after three goes in the bottom two. I was starting to get worried, to be honest. But the dreaded Nancy Dell'Olio has made good her exit from Strictly Come Dancing and now the competition can begin without any further distractions.

And, even by her standards, she deserved it. It was clear from her attitude, her self-obsession and her known approach to the whole competition that she wasn't putting in the effort. The judges were kindly one week, claiming there could be some talent under all the posing and awkwardness, but I'm not so sure. Anton du Beke got a dud, yet again. And this time it was a dud whose ineptitude couldn't be turned into comedy and used as a tool for survival.

This is where we thought we were going to find Russell Grant, perhaps. However, the astrologer is showing a genuine aptitude for showmanship on the floor which, with a rough cut of the correct steps, could take him far. He garnered comic and sympathy points in the first couple of weeks, but that tango to Sweet Dreams was terrific as a showcase and had a technical competence to it, turning him from wooden spoon contender into someone for the longer term. He won't win, but in this vein, he may boot out a few of the more humourless duos on his way.

So now we have ten left. There are probably three who are currently nailed-on finalists - Jason Donovan, Chelsee Healey and Anita Dobson - a further four who could make the final but simultaneously are one rick away from being kicked out - Alex Jones, Harry Judd, Holly Valance and Robbie Savage - and three who will only get any further now through luck, charisma and application - Grant, Lulu and Audley Harrison.

My other beef at the moment is with the marks being handed to Judd, the drummer from McFly. I can't help but feel that Alesha Dixon is not happy about being in the papers too rarely these days, and so has given tens to him to garner some publicity. This will add fuel to the fire over the extent of her knowledge, as simultaneous to these perfect scores were criticisms from the other judges over the lack of traditional content his partner Aliona Vilani has put into the dances, something that Strictly connoisseurs claim cost Matt Baker the title in cahoots with her last year. Did McFly and Misteeq ever tour together, I wonder?

I still don't like Lulu very much, but there is something brilliant about watching a Scottish 1960s diva, dressed as a bat, flying through the air prior to doing a Spanish bullfighters' dance with a prickly New Zealander as a BBC orchestra and classically trained session singer perform Highway To Hell by AC/DC. That alone explains why Strictly is storming the ratings.

"Look after yourself for seven days until we return for more Fix Its..."

2011-11-01T07:05:00.000Z

I watched Jim'll Fix It religiously, like many other kids of that era. I don't think I ever wrote to the programme though. A pal at school called Mark, who was a wiz at BMX biking, wrote to ask if he could go round some complicated course with the top rider of the time (whose name escapes me) and was put on standby. It never happened though.

Isolated Fix Its still stick out. The kid who wanted to jump through a paper hoop, the one who sang with Tight Fit (and got kissed by both women at once, to his obvious delight), the one who read the football scores (he supported Everton and Cambridge United so their scores were both 35-0, or something), Peter Cushing's quest for a rose in his late wife's name, and the much-repeated bunch of cub scouts spilling their Snoopy flasks on the rollercoaster.

I've looked for two in particular. This is the first. I think it's significant because in 1985, Duran Duran had stopped needing to do kids telly and Top of The Pops, they were so globally huge. And yet their lead singer had time for this...

I love that the "victim" is way too overwhelmed to react in the way you'd expect a Duranie from the mid-80s to react, and that there is generally very little bruhaahaa from the kids in general, barring a few older girls screaming as he disappears on the horse. Also, the editing is clever enough not to show the real rider coming into the school, but still manages to show him, in knight's regalia, pulling the horse away afterwards while the two of them sit on top. Brilliant.

Then there's this one. No dousing down of anyone's bonfire is intended, but I can't help but think this one isn't as genuine as it makes out...

Her parents must have told her to expect nothing, and Jimmy himself said she was the lucky one of thousands, but there she is, with a line to speak on EastEnders, purely from writing to Jim'll Fix It. The use of specially made end credits over footage of her at school, rather than actual credits that appeared over the cartoon image of the Thames, is a giveaway too. If it really did happen then one assumes there was an acting union agreement that she'd not get crediting. Plenty of agents and parents representing professional child actors would have had a fit, wouldn't they?

It's not online, but I'd love to see again a clip of the bloke who was taught by the show's videotape editor how to be a videotape editor, as his daughter had noticed from the Jim'll Fix It credits that they shared the same name - Chris Booth. We then got a set-up whereby Jimmy was shown some pottery by an enthusiast (played by Tony "Merry Balladeer" Aitken) who accidentally broke one, so produced another, and then misidentified who gave it to him - he said it was his brother, rather than his mother. One Mr Booth then showed the other how to edit the film so that all mistakes were cut out and it all emerged as intended.

Sir Jimmy Savile was a radio man who transferred effortlessly to telly, something that not all radio greats have been able to do (and even fewer telly experts can do radio, of course) and the tributes from the famous and the not famous since his death at the weekend have been very warm indeed. Jim'll Fix It, as a television institution, is as brilliant a legacy as any guy of his professionalism and longevity could have hoped to leave.

"Playing the part of a real troublemaker but I didn't care..."

2011-10-31T07:00:00.001Z

Q The 80s, with its extra listener(s), sounded like this at the weekend...

Haircut 100 "Fantastic Day"
Bobby Brown "Don't Be Cruel"

Curiosity Killed The Cat "Misfit"
Rainbow "Stone Cold"

Soul II Soul "Keep On Movin'"
Tenpole Tudor "Wunderbar"

Passions "I'm In Love With A German Film Star"
Diana Ross "Muscles"

Bruce Springsteen "Glory Days"
Scritti Politti "Absolute"

FLOPPY DISC:
Paul Young "Some People"

Teardrop Explodes "Reward"
Kool & the Gang "Take My Heart (You Can Have It If You Want It)"

Matt Bianco "Half A Minute"
Martha & the Muffins "Echo Beach"

Adam and the Ants "Prince Charming"
Debbie Gibson "Lost In Your Eyes'

Gary Moore "Empty Rooms"
Pluto "Your Honour"

Red Box "Lean On Me"
Jonathan Butler "Lies"

Teena Marie "I Need Your Lovin'"
Whitesnake "Guilty Of Love"

Tears For Fears "Change"
Dream Academy "Life In A Northern Town"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
That Petrol Emotion "Big Decision"

Human League "Human"
Icehouse "Crazy"

Redhead Kingpin & the FBI "Do The Right Thing"
Oliver Cheatham "Get Down Saturday Night"

Big Country "Fields Of Fire (400 Miles)"
Pointer Sisters "Dare Me"

ACDC "You Shook Me All Night Long"
Malcolm McLaren "Buffalo Girls"

Daryl Hall & John Oates "Method Of Modern Love"
Westworld "Sonic Boom Boy"

George Benson "Never Give Up On A Good Thing"
Kim Wilde "The Second Time"

Peter Gabriel "No Self Control"
Visage "Visage"

FLOPPY DISC:
ZZ Top "Tush"

Level 42 "It's Over"
Julia & Company "Breakin' Down (Sugar Samba)"

Jennifer Rush "Ring Of Ice"
Al Jarreau "Moonlighting Theme"

The show is repeated on Thursday and then a new edition airs each Sunday, both at 6pm. Q Radio is online here or on Freeview channel 716.

Diana Dors led the way

2011-10-29T07:00:00.001+01:00

Q the 80s, which this week showed an increase in listenership according to the latest RAJAR figures (thank you!), is back on this weekend.

Sunday evening, Q Radio, and three hours of 80s tunes of varying recognisability. What more could you possibly want?

Two of the songs will be Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and one will be our entry from The Nobody's Diary, where we highlight an artist that came close to reaching the Top 40 without ever once doing so.

The show will feature the song represented by the embed below, and another teased by the title of this blog entry. We're on from 6pm and repeated each Thursday at the same time.

Q Radio is available on Freeview 716 or online here.

A nailbiting moment

2011-10-28T22:10:00.003+01:00

One of those moments you get in radio. I'm on the air, playing a standard Spot The Intro competition, and put a lady on the line.

She told me on air she was a nurse. All good so far. Then she added that she was on holiday next week, but would still be working part-time in her other job as a Marie Curie nurse.

"Oh that's interesting," I said, kind of. "Do you do pedicures too?"

Face omelette. I thought she'd said she was a manicurist.

Still, she wasn't offended. And she won the cinema tickets. And it made Fat Mancunian laugh when he popped into the studio five minutes later, so all good, really...

Taint along with Nancy

2011-10-25T09:46:00.007+01:00

Alexei Sayle once wanted to put "the public" into Room 101. He had a grander idea of what "the public" meant, but nonetheless there were a few mild jeers from the studio audience.

They also use the term "the public" on Strictly Come Dancing a lot. Not surprising, considering that 50 per cent of the vote each week goes to them. And, as a consequence, we have the old trouble emerging each episode, like Basil Fawlty's shrapnel in the leg. The public aren't voting for dancing.

That's fine. Make it an entertainment show. But it does leave the judges slightly impotent. 50 per cent is quite a cut for them to have as far as power of each contestant's future is concerned, but it isn't enough, clearly. Nancy Dell'Olio is finishing way behind the others on her judges' score week on week, but "the public" is keeping her in.

Given that she has little discernible commitment or interest, possibly the least arsed Strictly... contestant ever, she is currently riding on a combination of luck and the popularity of her partner. Strictly... is several years old now and we know the professional dancers well. They are celebrities in their own right, with their own personalities, some charismatic qualities and an understanding of how to work a camera as well as a dancefloor. And the Anton du Beke factor can't be underestimated.

Last year, he and Ann Widdecombe epitomised car crash television. The fearlessly unshowbiz attitude of the former MP did much to keep her in week on week, despite hysterically awful dancing, but that wouldn't have worked without a partner who got the gag. If you'd put her with a moaner like James Jordan or an ego like Brendan Cole, she wouldn't have lasted five minutes. These guys want to win and have no way of adjusting their approach once they're lumbered with someone who simply can't win. Cole, a chippy character at the best of times, has stopped being a dancer or a personality this series because of the uselessness and arrogance - a dreaded combination - of his partner Lulu and has become 100 per cent a dancing teacher. He's never had to work so hard for what will be ultimately little reward.

du Beke doesn't have to do that. Everything about his approach demonstrates his ability to adapt to his partner's shortcomings with a general willingness to send the whole thing up. His asides to the camera while the judges are slagging his partner off or Tess Daly is asking something especially banal are priceless. He makes me laugh more than any other regular on the programme. And it is he, not Dell'Olio, who is charming the public into voting for them. He and Widdecombe were very much a double act last year, on and off the floor, but this year he is having to do all the work himself, and he is succeeding.

But is this tainting the programme? du Beke might be a giggle but I'm sure he'd rather just be a dancer teaching to dance someone who has a modicum of aptitude for it. Again, it returns us to the age-old question of whether the motive for the show's existence is to entertain the public or teach them about good dancing. There are four judges of four different backgrounds who would probably split 75-25 on that score - ask them, and I suspect only Alesha Dixon who say it's about the entertainment factor, despite being the brave one who bemoaned the axing of the dance-off last year. The overmarking of wildcards like Russell Grant while genuine triers with movement potential like Robbie Savage and Alex Jones get underscored suggest they are trying to avoid the argument completely this time round.

Rory Bremner, who looked after a brilliant quickstep last week like the sort of slowburning contestant who could eventually go all the way, was removed by "the public" in favour of Dell'Olio at the weekend. Although the studio audience seem to be mainly made up of contestants' loved ones and people with connections generally to the BBC, and therefore little representation of "the public", there did seem to be something of a collective sharp intake when the result was announced.

Bremner was patently a better dancer than Dell'Olio; if "the public" believe Dell'Olio is also a better entertainer than him then he may as well give up everything he does right now. Dell'Olio, assuming she has spent enough time awake to give it serious thought, may assume she's currently fireproof. She isn't. But her partner might be.

"I look at other people, doing it over and over..."

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s, yesterday, on Q Radio. It nurtured the nation's ears with these pieces of work...

Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)"
OMD "(Forever) Live And Die"

The Alarm "Spirit of 76"
Junior "Mama Used To Say"

Motorhead "Ace of Spades"
Belle and the Devotions "Love Games"

Sophia George "Girlie Girlie"
Thomas Dolby "Hyperactive"

The Cure "The Caterpillar"
Inner City "Ain't Nobody Better"

FLOPPY DISC:
Paul McCartney "Figure Of Eight"

U2 "Fire"
Rick Springfield "Human Touch"

Fine Young Cannibals "I'm Not The Man I Used To Be"
Stephen TinTin Duffy "Icing On The Cake"

Wah! "The Story Of The Blues"
Kate Bush "The Sensual World"

Alexander O'Neal "Fake"
The Clash "This Is England"

Prince "Sign O' The Times"
Vixen "Love Made Me"

Swing Out Sister "Surrender"
ELO "Rock n Roll Is King"

Fun Boy Three "Summertime"
Midge Ure "Call Of The Wild"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Bible "Graceland"

Starship "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"
Imagination "Looking At Midnight"

Feargal Sharkey "Listen To Your Father"
Dollar "Videotheque"

Depeche Mode "People Are People"
Gibson Brothers "Cuba"

Janet Jackson "Let's Wait Awhile"
Status Quo "What You're Proposing"

Talking Heads "Road To Nowhere"
Dr Hook "Better Love Next Time"

Annie Lennox & Al Green "Put A Little Love In Your Heart"
Billy Bragg "Between The Wars"

Rah Band "Falcon"
Genesis "Keep It Dark"

FLOPPY DISC:
Texas "Thrill Has Gone"

Roxy Music "Avalon"
Sunfire "Young, Free And Single"

Queen "Flash"
Wet Wet Wet "Wishing I Was Lucky"

This edition of the show is repeated on Thursday at 6pm, and a fresh one will air at the weekend. Q Radio can be found here or on Freeview channel 716.

Also featuring The World's Famous Supreme Team

2011-10-22T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend. Usual form - 6pm on Q Radio, which is gettable here or at Freeview channel 716, and featuring three hours of 80s tunes.

Included will be the song teased by the title of this blog entry, plus the song represented by the embed beneath.

We'll have two more Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary - an act that never quite made it.

See you Sunday then...!

Going west

2011-10-20T15:53:00.005+01:00

Through playing stuff through speakers and good processing on the radio, I think I can gruffily acknowledge a good pop song when I hear one, and Westlife made one or two. Only one or two, mind.

I also find myself worrying that I have far more of an opinion on Westlife splitting than I do on the Stone Roses reforming.

Anyway, if there was one good thing Westlife did for music, it was to make people more aware of this...

...though they still turned it into this.

Up to you which one(s) you click...

"John's soap's a pretty colour!"

2011-10-18T11:45:00.004+01:00

"And Wendy comes to you hotfoot with her diploma from the Geneva school of sterilised blackhead popping..."

My mate Dave, with whom I was thick as thieves during sixth form, never got a single spot during this time. He used to drive me crackers as, in that sort of unsympathetic manner that all teenage friends manage to show, he used to laugh like hell at me every time another belter erupted on my face.

Like probably 80 per cent of teenagers, I had a zit issue. And although in the worst cases they can be as distressing as any non-fatal condition going, there is absolutely no getting away from the pisstaking that comes with it.

My dad used to go on about having them "mounted", and also used to crack a joke about a plate of liver that I've never quite understood. My brother, three years older than me and therefore free of the affliction, used to tell me not to be so "eruptive... sorry, I meant disruptive" and think he was hysterical. My mum, ever the carer, used to remind him of his own spotty days whenever this happened which, bless her, was of little consolation to me on my worst days.

The advertising for spot-zapping products was relentless during kids' telly, sporting programmes, soap operas and Blockbusters. They knew their market. We got the bloke shaving through a spot on the Oxy ad and the girl who with a quick rub of Clearasil-soaked cotton wool would suddenly see a suspiciously large black patch appear on it upon second glance. That kind of dirt doesn't suggest a blackhead issue, love, it suggests you never bothered washing your face beforehand.

The big winner, though, was Biactol. That stuff was the facewash of the gods to teenagers. It got kids with overactive pores washing twice a day - that's twice a day - and in my case, it largely worked. The excess era of spottiness still required some prescription tablets when I was 18 but this over-the-counter pink soap in a squeezy bottle largely did the trick. My parents used to go on about eating fewer chips and sugary products, despite the medical advice of the time telling us, no doubt with a heavy heart, that although obesity and tooth decay were issues with such foodstuffs, acne was not.

Since the age of 19 my spots have been down to the very occasional one, making them all the more surprising when they do turn up. They don't bother me, they just make me think back to the awful, awful times when you'd wake up with a face like a trayful of cherry bakewells. And I have one right now (it's in my ear, which is awkward but at least invisible) which has prompted this blog post.

The single worst occasion of my late teenage life was spot-related. I had a part-time job in a local restaurant, which mainly involved serving in the takeaway area, and a couple in their late 20s came in. They looked at the large menu on the wall, ordered their food and then, turning to look at me, the woman blurted out: "Have you got chickenpox?" I said no, with a professional smile, but I was beyond mortified. She realised she'd said something amiss but didn't apologise. I applied every product related to skin care to my face that I could find prior to going to bed that night.

So my mate Dave never got spots, ever. Fortunately, he was my pal and so didn't take the piss too much. And the rest of the sixth form generally had the same issues as me, with only one half of them able to use make-up as a form of portcullis against it. It doesn't matter how cool a teenager is or isn't, the spots always act as a great leveller.

Great acting from the bloke who played Ant Jones in Grange Hill here...

Just before Mandy first arrived to nick Pete Beale's takings...

And here's Patsy the rock chick...

"I'll use my tricks to make you stay, stay, stay..."

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s did its goodly deed, as ever, over the weekend. For those of you who found something even more stimulating to occupy three of your Sunday evening hours, here's how it looked and sounded...

Blondie "Rapture"
King "Torture"

Spandau Ballet "Highly Strung"
Wonder Stuff "It's Yer Money I'm After Baby"

Shannon "Give Me Tonight"
Ultravox "The Thin Wall"

Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me"
Bronski Beat "It Ain't Necessarily So"

Madonna "Lucky Star"
Waterboys "Fisherman's Blues"

FLOPPY DISC:
ABC "Ocean Blue"

Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson "To All The Girls I've Loved Before"
Shalamar "I Can Make You Feel Good"

Bangles "In Your Room"
Jermaine Jackson "Let's Get Serious"

Yazz "Stand Up For Your Love Rights"
Glenn Frey "Smugglers Blues"

Madness "The Return Of The Los Palmas 7"
Jeffrey Osborne "Stay With Me Tonight"

Jimmy Nail "Love Don't Live Here Anymore"
Bow Wow Wow "I Want Candy"

Associates "Party Fears Two"
Smiley Culture "Police Officer"

A Flock Of Seagulls "Transfer Affection"
Aztec Camera "How Men Are"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Slave "Just A Touch Of Love"

Cher "I've Found Someone"
Phil Fearon & Galaxy "What Do I Do"

Chords "Maybe Tomorrow"
Altered Images "Don't Talk To Me About Love"

Specials "Too Much Too Young"
Clannad "Theme From 'Harry's Game'"

Mai Tai "Body And Soul"
Christians "Born Again"

Huey Lewis & The News "The Power Of Love"
Sharon Redd "Can You Handle It"

Tom Robinson Band "War Baby"
Soft Cell "Torch"

Gloria Estefan "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You"
Judas Priest "Breaking The Law"

FLOPPY DISC:
The Smiths "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"

Flying Pickets "When You're Young And In Love"
Jona Lewie "You Will Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties"

Rufus & Chaka Khan "Ain't Nobody"
Mick Jagger "Let's Work"

The show is repeated each Thursday too, so later this week you can hear this little lot again/for the first time. We're on Q Radio, which is gettable via Freeview channel 716 and online here.

An undercover soldier infiltrating the IRA

2011-10-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as ever. We take great delight in bringing you three hours of fine 80s tunes that celebrate the familiar and revive the forgotten tunes of the decade.

Included will be this...

... plus a song represented by the title of this blog. We'll also have our two Floppy Discs - failed singles by major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary, which briefly revitalises an act that never quite made the Top 40, but tried valiantly.

Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online here. We're on Sunday evening at 6pm, repeated at the same time the following Thursday.

Lumpestuous

2011-10-13T10:22:00.006+01:00

The judges lost some of their credibility for me this week, you know. Over many years of Strictly Come Dancing, they've contributed their own slice of panto by declaring that the public are voting for the wrong couples, and that it is a dancing contest rather than an entertainment show.

We had this with John Sergeant. Last year we over-memorably had it with Ann Widdecombe (though in truth, she left at the right time - after every other dancer not good enough to win the competition, leaving behind four who were, plus Gavin Henson), and presumably this year we're going to get it too.

The problem is, the judges have seemingly thrown in the towel and bought the entertainment argument. How else could you explain their marks for Russell Grant?

He is Strictly's elephant in the room this year, and that's not a comment made unkindly. With the appropriate and christ-motheringly predictable Dancing Queen in the speakers, he paraded and camped about in a pink feather boa and royal blue windcheater of kinds, the usual daffy grin on his face, while Flavia Cacace did all the work. Oh, of course, it was funny, and entertaining, and all the other things in the remit of Saturday night telly.

But the judges fell for it, as if they couldn't be arsed arguing for another year. So up went the 6s and 7s, and everyone cheered. Hooray!

Cacace was livid - eyes down, mouth downturned, headshake - when she and her partner Jimi Mistry got the boot last year. He was in the bottom two alongside the considerably inferior Michelle Williams, and the public got rid. They essentially dumped him because he was a middling actor of limited recognition with a northern accent and the glamorous American pop star who kids once worshipped will always get the nod. One assumes Cacace will be equally livid when her partner boots aside abler contestants as this year's contest go on, because it's going to happen.

Grant hasn't done a ballroom dance yet, and maybe he'll be good at that. But as the ballroom dances demand discipline and drama, and he's having to use the "look at me, aren't I just so much fun" dollar as his ticket into the next week, he's got his work cut out. I like him, he is personable - and lordy, there are some others taking themselves fantastically seriously this year - and just wants the thrill. He's going to have to work harder to maintain it though. The public will only keep him there for so long, the question is whether it'll be too long.

He is easily the most interesting contestant in these early stages. The rest are busy putting themselves into the usual groups. The natural dancers - Jason Donovan, Holly Valance, Anita Dobson; the triers who will get better - Chelsee Healey (eugh), Robbie Savage (highly praised and then bizarrely undermarked last week), Alex Jones (looking good), Harry Judd; the outsiders with mild potential - Rory Bremner (he's my new decent bet as a winner, actually), Dan Lobb; and the ego-driven lumps of uselessness - Audley Harrison, Lulu and Nancy Dell'Olio.

Those last three are excruciating to watch off the floor, let alone on it. Harrison's introduction as "Olympic champion boxer" immediately reminds everyone that he had ten rubbish years as a pro afterwards, and when in the bottom two against the unlucky Edwina Currie last week said he'd be sorry to "get back on the plane home", therefore also revealing that he didn't even live in the UK any more. He's better than the last boxer to appear, but at least Joe Calzaghe ended his stint on both arenas with a world title and a glamorous dancer girlfriend.

I've always disliked Lulu. Her first dance was hilarious, the epitome of the arrogant showbiz starlet who assumes that 40+ years on stage and screen would be enough to get her through it. You could tell from when she was first paired with Brendan Cole that she didn't respect him, and the opening dance proved it. That seemed to act as a wake-up and she improved last weekend, but it would be fantastic to see her ditched by the public as quickly as possible. They tend not to forget.

As for Nancy Dell'Olio, well, what a mess. "Lawyer and media personality", they call her. No. She's Sven Goran Eriksson's ex and that's the only thing that's got her on the show. And I know Len Goodman is in his 60s and she's a good deal younger, but I wouldn't have relished an accidental sight up her skirt when she stood on the judges' table last week. I'm sure they give Anton du Beke these duds deliberately. His demeanour and reaction to the the judges' rightful hammerings wins Dell'Olio half her battle. I can only assume the recruitment team looked at the Pamela Stephenson phenomenon last year and tried to replicate it - trouble is, Dell'Olio has no talent, not a great grasp of English, zero charisma, little visible work ethic, adores herself too much and has no history with the British public.

Strictly has made me like Alex Jones for the first time, have sympathy for Rory Bremner as he manfully tries not to use impressions on the live show to curry favour with anyone and remind myself that there never was a better time for EastEnders than when that manic grin of Anita Dobson was behind the bar. Jason Donovan should win, but right now up to half a dozen are in contention.

The perfect blend

2011-10-12T11:08:00.006+01:00

I don't do movies at all, but in the process last week of going through the latest cinema releases for the benefit of radio listeners, I noticed something that interested even me.

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is a new movie now showing somewhere near you. Check local press for details, and all that. It stars Katie Holmes and, among others, Guy Pearce and Alan Dale.

Or, if you prefer, Mike Young and Jim Robinson.

I watched The King's Speech on DVD earlier this year and enjoyed Guy Pearce's turn as Edward VIII. I knew that he'd made it in Hollywood after leaving Ramsay Street, but as someone who held the tiresome - and, rather insulting - received wisdom that all Aussie soap actors were somewhat limited in their abilities, I assumed this was a one-off.

But Alan Dale too? Well, of course, he made it on telly in America with Lost and The West Wing after Jim Robinson suffered his final, melodramatic coronary, but even so, seeing these two former budget telly colleagues next to each other on a big new film that presumably the world will watch is somewhat quirky. And, while it may not necessarily endorse Australian soapland as a major breeding ground for global acting greats, it certainly enhances what has always been a rather demoralising reputation.

Simultaneously, Jason Donovan is the bookies' favourite for Strictly Come Dancing (more on that another day). Kylie Minogue and her little sister are still pop superstars with occasional diversions into reasonable acting roles when they feel like it. I expect there are numerous other actors from that background now doing very nicely indeed both in terms of their work and their reputations.

For me, undoubtedly without any fairness at all, the Aussie soap will be associated with hams for as long as that scene where Sharon Davies, trying to slim into model shape by just Not Eating, fainted into the swimming pool with all the natural grace of a giant redwood getting stuck mid-fall on an obstinate twig, remains in the memory. My father's incredulous snort when that scene was completed will live with me forever.

None of this suggests that Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is any good, though as the lead role is played by a child, it will probably receive some kind words, irrespective of what is merited. The sequel, Still Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, Cobber will feature comebacks for Kristian Schmid, Ashley Paske and Lucinda Cowden. And there will be an offscreen role for Len Mangel, obviously.

EDIT: I've found it! This is Neighbours legend, this, right up to the bit where Bev gives the lecture about not "paying too much attention to the images promoted in advertisements"...

"Will I be the one that you put down, or someone that you don't forget?"

2011-10-10T07:00:00.001+01:00

Q The 80s was on over the weekend, and what larks and jollity it contained - all in the form of the tunes below...

Dexys Midnight Runners "Geno"
Sherrick "Just Call"

Duran Duran "Meet El Presidente"
Sybil "Don't Make Me Over"

Joe Jackson "Steppin' Out"
Heart "Nothin' At All"

Elton John "Blue Eyes"
Fresh 4 featuring Lizz E "Wishing On A Star"

The Jam "Absolute Beginners"
Iron Maiden "The Trooper"

FLOPPY DISC:
Go West "I Want To Hear It From You"

Depeche Mode "Somebody"
T'Pau "Valentine"

UB40 "One In Ten"
Will To Power "Baby I Love Your Way - Freebird"

Elvis Costello & the Attractions "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down"
Alvin Stardust "Pretend"

Dire Straits "Skateaway"
Jaki Graham "Step Right Up"

Lionel Richie "Running With The Night"
The The "Heartland"

Madonna "La Isla Bonita"
Nick Straker Band "A Walk In The Park"

Culture Club "Church Of The Poison Mind"
Oh Well "Oh Well"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Michelle Shocked "Anchorage"

Stone Roses "She Bangs The Drums"
Timex Social Club "Rumors"

Rush "Tom Sawyer"
Thompson Twins "We Are Detective"

Simply Red "It's Only Love"
Iggy Pop "Real Wild Child (Wild One)"

Bananarama "Robert de Niro's Waiting"
Kissing The Pink "The Last Film"

Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead Or Alive"
Midnight Star "Midas Touch"

Bad Manners "Special Brew"
A Tribe Of Toffs "John Kettley Is A Weatherman"

Donna Summer "Unconditional Love"
Marillion "He Knows You Know"

FLOPPY DISC:
Sade "Love Is Stronger Than Pride"

China Crisis "King In A Catholic Style"
The Truth "Confusion Hits Us Every Time"

Michael Jackson "Farewell My Summer Love"
Johnny Hates Jazz "I Don't Want To Be A Hero"

We're on Q Radio each Sunday evening and repeated on Thursdays, both at 6pm. The radio station is available online here or on Freeview channel 716...

A rare chance for Martin to sing instead of Dave

2011-10-08T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as ever. You can locate the show on Freeview channel 716 or online here, and we're on from 6pm on Sunday.

Three hours of 80s goodness, including a song represented by the title of this blog and another represented unmysteriously by the embed below.

We shall have our two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and an entry from The Nobody's Diary - the acts that never quite made it.

See you on Sunday evening!

Mottyfilarious

2011-10-05T09:43:00.006+01:00

I went off John Motson a bit the other year when he commentated on Hull City's goalless draw at Tottenham Hotspur and proceeded to mispronounce the name of our heroic goalkeeper, Boaz Myhill*, all the way through, but even so the man has deserved the week's worth of celebration of his 40th anniversary with the BBC this week.

He is quite the survivor really, as he sounds very old-fashioned and staid in comparison to many modern commentators but that should be regarded as a strength. You only have to listen to the abysmal Jonathan Pearce chucking in a hideous "where Eagles dare" pun (in relation to the Bolton player Chris Eagles) to realise that Motson has always been about the commentary and not the commentator.

The moment that made him came in 1972, when Ronnie Radford scored a ludicrous goal for non-league Hereford United in a replayed FA Cup tie (which they went on to win) against top-flight Newcastle United. Motson was the junior on a year's trial and this game was not regarded as the great tie of the day so, in deference to people like David Coleman, Barry Davies and Alan Weeks, he got sent there. His commentary, coupled with the now immortal images of the crowd made up entirely of parka-clad schoolkids invading the pitch, became part of folklore. Every football fan over the age of 16 can parrot the commentary and see the images in their mind's eye as if it were happening out of their bedroom window there and then.

Coleman remained the BBC's main man, but Motson got an extended deal from that day and when the famously stroppy main man sued the BBC in 1977, he was removed from football duty and Motson - instead of the more experienced (and, apparently, mightily peeved) Davies, got the FA Cup final. Coleman returned a year later, but from 1979 and for pretty much two decades thereafter, Motson was the BBC's man at Wembley. In the days when both the BBC and ITV covered the big game, it was always the Beeb and Motson for me, and only partially because Brian Moore on the light channel was always unusually hysterical and prone to missing stuff.

The guff about statistics and sheepskin coats are superficial labels pinned firmly to Motson's image; what football thinkers tend to see when his name comes up is a deep understanding of the game, a thirst for accuracy and gravitas and a quiet dip into the background when not required in a gantry somewhere. In more recent times he has become a bit easier to parody, but much of the criticism is because he is the same guy he's always been, now the elder statesman alongside dashing young bucks who are good but largely featureless and, in many cases, all sounding the same.

Some of his commentaries are perfectly ordinary, but there is nothing wrong with that. He hasn't got a "they think it's all over" moment, but at least you know that if it had ever come his words would, like Kenneth Wolstenholme's, been natural and of the moment, not scripted and delivered with a smirk and a clench of the fist by loons like Pearce.

I remember reading a Q&A with Motson a few years ago and he was asked about the commentary he wishes he could take back and do again. Surprisingly, he didn't mention his twice calling Stuart McCall "Steve McCall" when the flame-haired Everton substitute had just scored an 89th minute equaliser in the FA Cup final, but instead went for this (9'35" in)...

Motson says he cringes when he hears his commentary on this goal, the most important England had scored since 1966, because he is too concerned with the antics of the German defenders and doesn't notice Gary Lineker enough until he's actually swiped his shot into the net. I think he's being harsh on himself.

As for my favourite bit of Motson, there's only one choice:

It misses the incredulous "WHAT a goal by Brady!" at the end but it works for me simply because he commentates like a football fan would, sitting at home. And as Motson is a known Tottenham supporter, that also shows his absolute professionalism, especially as Arsenal actually won this game 5-0.

There are things about Motson I struggle with - the daft cackling, the occasional insistence he has on defending overpaid players who misbehave (he said something on the radio about Ashley Cole recently that boiled my blood) - but the man is still great to hear on television and is representative of football's great television age more than anyone else.

He has quit going to tournaments now - indeed, aside from his sojourn to Old Trafford last week, and even that seemed to be only so he could interview Sir Alex Ferguson for the first time in years on his 40th anniversary weekend - he now never seems to leave London. But as long he's behind a microphone somewhere, there's something eternally soothing about watching the game, with all its faults, on telly.

*pronounced "Bose". Motson went for "Boz".

"You don't remember me, do you?"

2011-10-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s did its thang at the weekend. And it sounded a bit like this...

Eurythmics "Would I Lie To You"
Mystic Merlin "Just Can't Give You Up"

Run DMC "It's Tricky"
Arcadia "The Promise"

Billy Preston & Syreeta "With You I'm Born Again"
Fine Young Cannibals "Ever Fallen In Love"

Lillo Thomas "Sexy Girl"
Nik Kershaw "Wide Boy"

Gillan "Mutually Assured Destruction"
Raw Silk "Do It To The Music"

FLOPPY DISC:
Tears For Fears "Suffer The Children"

John Lennon "Nobody Told Me"
Pop Will Eat Itself "Can U Dig It"

Everything But The Girl "Each And Everyone"
A-Ha "Train Of Thought"

Billy Joel "We Didn't Start The Fire"
The Beat "Mirror In The Bathroom"

Erasure "Sometimes"
Sam Brown "Can I Get A Witness"

David Essex "Tahiti"
The Smiths "Last Night I Dream That Somebody Loved Me"

Animotion "Obsession"
Quireboys "7 O'Clock"

Pointer Sisters "Slow Hand"
Alice Cooper "Bed Of Nails"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Our Daughter's Wedding "Lawnchairs"

Shakatak "Down On The Street"
Robert Palmer "Change His Ways"

Blancmange "Don't Tell Me"
Wedding Present "Kennedy"

Imagination "Music & Lights"
Vixen "Cryin'"

Big Country "Peace In Our Time"
Tom Browne "Funkin' For Jamaica"

Siouxsie & the Banshees "Dear Prudence"
Terence Trent D'Arby "Wishing Well"

Communards "You Are My World"
Dave Lee Roth "Just Like Paradise"

Whitney Houston "Saving All My Love For You"
Then Jerico "What Does It Take?"

FLOPPY DISC:
Alison Moyet "Ordinary Girl"

OMD "Joan Of Arc"
Amazulu "Excitable"

Hot Chocolate "It Started With A Kiss"
Echo & the Bunnymen "All That Jazz"

We're on Q Radio - Freeview channel 716 or online here - each Sunday evening at 6pm. If you'd still quite like to hear the above edition of the show, then we're also repeated each subsequent Thursday at the same time.

He was the trumpeter; Tonny Smith did the singing

2011-10-01T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is back this weekend. Three hours of sublime 80s goodness, mixing the familiar with the forgotten. We're on Q Radio from 6pm - the station is gettable via Freeview channel 716 or online here.

The embed below gives away the identity of one tune on the show, while the title of this blog entry may take you gently towards spotting another.

There will be two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary, the slot that showcases the artists that never quite made it.

We'll see you at 6 on Sunday...

Working my way back to you

2011-09-30T16:55:00.003+01:00

A lot of people have commented, with equal measure of praise and disdain, about how much work I've done lately. Wherever and whenever I'm on air, I tend to promote it on Facebook and Twitter, predominantly for reasons of pure ego, but also to remind future potential employers of my existence and current "popularity".

Anyway, this week, it screeched to a halt. An enchanted seven months or so of non-stop work on a total of ten different radio stations had suddenly had a vast, yawning crevice opened up before it. The calendar for the whole week was blank.

It meant I could rest. It meant I could take the dogs for longer, more leisurely walks at nicer times of day. It meant I could go to an away game on a Tuesday night (albeit the closest one of the season, at Doncaster) and not worry about missing out on much-needed kip afterwards. It meant I could go to the gym. It meant I could see people and places that had been off my radar.

And I really didn't like it.

Well, I did, but you know what I mean. When you're freelance and overworked, you have to strike a balance between needing the money and not doing yourself a mischief. When you're freelance and underworked, you have to strike a balance between needing the money and being able to enjoy your life. Thing is, my profession is a privileged one (despite the moaning that sometimes comes with it) and I try not to lose sight of that. So by Tuesday of this week I was starting to panic about where the next job was coming from. Then by Wednesday, the panic was over. Two late breakfast bookings in Bradford, the second of which was this morning, and then next week I'm doing drivetime cover in Wigan. Phew.

People at various stations ask me where I get my energy and appetite for all this work from, plus the patience to do all the travelling and stupid hours that go with it. My answer is simple: it combines a love of the job with a morbid fear of unemployment. For as long as someone thinks I'm of use, I'll keep doing it. And although I do want to be back on a full-time schedule, it's quite nice to be known - rightly or wrongly - by up to a dozen radio stations as someone reliable and versatile enough to step in and do the right kind of job for them when needed.

Have a nice weekend.

"She finishes at four, she'll be in the pub at five past..."

2011-09-27T14:12:00.003+01:00

If you've ever read this blog with reasonable frequency, or had to put up with me for a while on Twitter, you'll know I'm a considerable devotee of Coronation Street. Well, at the moment the programme is taking some flak over its characterisation and storylines, and I'm inclined to agree.

The problem I think is that the older characters seem to have been left behind somewhat, and they are the key to the light and shade that Coronation Street has always exploited flawlessly in the past. Admittedly the death of Maggie Jones (who played Blanche Hunt) left a yawning chasm in the humour stakes, but to me the obvious replacement is staring the show's masters right in the face.

How fantastic has Stephanie Cole been since joining as Roy Cropper's mother? Like when Blanche first returned years ago, the character of Sylvia initially came only with negative attributes but a settling-in process, helped by the ground rules that Roy managed to put in place, has developed the character beautifully. Now is the time to get her into the silver-haired circle that includes Emily, Rita, Norris and the brilliant Dennis. For as long as these older characters continue to be in place, Coronation Street shouldn't go far wrong. But, of course, that's only if the decision-makers allow them the airtime.

Emily, for one, hasn't been on for a while. Betty, meanwhile, doesn't get mentioned half as much when she's in view as she does when she's allegedly "in the kitchen" or "on her own behind the bar" as other characters do scenes in differing rooms of the Rovers. But Rita, who has never been more waspish in her manner before, plus Norris and Dennis (the tiny side story of his continued skintness is delightful) are still on the full-time rota and need more. Add Sylvia to the mix and they've got what's missing.

Let's be honest, there isn't a lot of humour elsewhere in the show at the moment. Sean used to be funny and whimsical, but he's now sour, jealous, pompous and hypocritical. Eileen, who is brilliant when given comedy to do, hasn't had a storyline of note since half-arsedly nicking Owen's accounts. Eddie and Graham, characters of loveable eccentricity, have both gone and been not replaced. Steve and Lloyd's domestic issues have prevented them from having showtime together in the cab office - and the sooner Eileen goes back to work there, the better. Julie, supposedly a funny character, just gets right on my nerves and it's only going to get worse if that Brian type becomes a regular as her beau. That's quite an alarming thought. Dev makes me laugh, but not necessarily in a good way. This bland story of his son's potential as a golfer will probably be quietly disbanded in a few weeks time.

There's still much Coronation Street is doing right - the Carla/Frank saga justifies the discomfiting subject matter with the dramatic and pinpoint portrayal from all concerned, while I like the prospect of Tyrone getting fruity with a smart looking girl, even though we all know deep down a Kirsty like that wouldn't even glance sideways at a Tyrone like him.

Oh, and if I can be shallow just for a moment? Anna Windass should be glammed up like that in every single episode. That's all.

"The earth is dying, and desert taking its place..."

2011-09-26T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s was on as ever over the weekend, and this is the setlist we chose...

Inner City "Good Life"
Queen "Body Language"

Go West "Don't Look Down"
The Mission "Wasteland"

Martika "Toy Soldiers"
Ultravox "Slow Motion"

Men At Work "Dr Heckyll & Mr Jive"
Kool & The Gang "Take It To The Top"

Olivia Newton-John "Landslide"
Theatre Of Hate "Do You Believe In The Westworld"

FLOPPY DISC:
Bryan Adams "This Time"

Pet Shop Boys "It's Alright"
Agnetha Faltskog "The Heat Is On"

Jimmy The Hoover "Tantalise"
Luther Vandross "I Gave It Up When I Fell In Love"

Janet Jackson "When I Think Of You"
Motley Crue "Girls Girls Girls"

Lloyd Cole & the Commotions "Lost Weekend"
Prince "Partyman"

Dead Or Alive "In Too Deep"
Robert Wyatt "Shipbuilding"

Detroit Spinners "Working My Way Back To You"
J Geils Band "Freeze Frame"

Kim Carnes "Bette Davis Eyes"
Kid Creole & the Coconuts "Dear Addy"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Freur "Doot Doot"

Level 42 "Hot Water"
Princess "Say I'm Your Number One"

U2 "New Years Day"
Judy Boucher "You Caught My Eye"

Police "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da"
Maxi Priest "Strollin' On"

Human League "Love Action (I Believe In Love)"
Evelyn Champagne King "Back To Love"

The Cure "Boys Don't Cry"
Bruce Springsteen "I'm On Fire"

Kim Wilde "You Keep Me Hangin' On"
Double "The Captain Of Her Heart"

Lipps Inc "Funkytown"
Mr Mister "Kyrie"

FLOPPY DISC:
Howard Jones "Everlasting Love"

Whitesnake "Is This Love"
Light Of The World "I Shot The Sheriff"

Mike & the Mechanics "Silent Running"
George Benson "Shiver"

The show is on Q Radio each Sunday at 6pm, repeated at the same time on Thursdays. You can find the radio station at Freeview channel 716, or online here...

Combining songs by the Four Seasons and the Michael Zager Band

2011-09-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as ever. 6pm, Sunday evenings, on Q Radio, which is accessible via Freeview channel 716 or online here.

Three hours of great 80s tunes, mixing the familiar with the forgotten. The title of this blog entry is a teaser towards one title on the show, whereas the embed below gives another away completely.

We will feature two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and another entry from The Nobody's Diary; the most successful failures of the decade.

See you Sunday!

It's the end of the world as we know it

2011-09-23T09:30:00.000+01:00

I'd love to blog about R.E.M. and their demise, but I don't really feel I have the clout for it. Though they were formed at the start of the 1980s, they're not some chuckaway 80s pop act whose very existence needs the likes of me to justify. They're far more important than that.

All I know is that a pal of mine started a small but intriguing Twitter debate which suggested that the USA, with the exception of the Beach Boys and R.E.M., didn't tend to produce "good" bands. One assumes the criteria includes longevity, statistical success, worldwide appeal, continued credibility as tastes change and a generally good reputation that combines musicianship with a spot of devilment. When you give it some thought, he isn't far wrong.

I think R.E.M. may lack on the devilment front - the nearest they've had to scandal or an off-diary story is Peter Buck getting pissed on an aeroplane and being acquitted of any further wrongdoing afterwards - but otherwise they've been as good an American group as any since the Beach Boys. They're outstanding composers, professional performers and yet when you read their interviews or sleevenotes, their seriousness doesn't ever come across as pomposity or self-absorption. If the Americans ever adopted a class system like ours, Mike Mills would be the ultimate middle class American.

Ultimately though, I just care about the songs. Find The River is their most exquisite single composition of all. Finest Worksong rocks. Crush With Eyeliner is brilliantly scary. And, of course, people will always think of Losing My Religion, a song that has never really suffered in the UK for being what our beloved radio industry thinks is pretty much the only playable song the band have ever produced in 31 years.

I've never been one for live gigs, more fool me, but R.E.M. are one band I always thought I would go and see play one day. I hope there'll be a reunion tour in five years or so because otherwise I'll spend the rest of time kicking myself that I didn't take up an opportunity go along. With my musical tastes, they're the nearest I've ever got to liking a band that "proper" music fans like, and the quiet arrival of a new, polished R.E.M. album every three years will soon be missed.

Not allowed to embed Losing My Religion at the moment, so have a gorgeous bonus track - the one that tried to emulate those very Beach Boys mentioned here...

Bowl provider

2011-09-22T15:12:00.005+01:00

Been working in Preston this week, covering the breakfast show on Lancashire's Magic 999. Good fun.

The radio station, with its sister 97.4 Rock FM (together the two used to be the old Red Rose Radio brands), is based in an old church on the Preston ring road. It's a bizarre place to work but wholly satisfying as well, seeing meetings take place between ancient archways and walking down arcane stone staircases from the offices to reception and the studio area.

Anyway, like all radio stations, it has commemorative framed discs pinned on every wall, proudly proclaiming the station's contribution to an artist's sales. One of them is this, featuring the much maligned (and fairly so) Michael Bolton.

All fine so far, taste issues aside. Then a second photograph reveals the actual context of its display.

Yep, in one of the traps. And it makes me laugh every time I see it.

(Okay, I'll even it up a bit. I liked this one...)

"We have a Matthew James Rudd at customer services..."

2011-09-20T07:00:00.000+01:00

Brief sojourn into a well-known supermarket yesterday, and a lost child was being comforted by staff as they tried to locate his parents via the tannoy system.

Brought back the memories, it did. To my knowledge, it occurred twice in my tinier years. The old Jacksons Grandways superstores had a big branch in east Hull, and this was the favoured store of choice in the late 1970s for my parents to do the weekly (always weekly, back then) big shop. As the younger of two boys, I'd be the one in the little trolley compartment, whereas my brother would cling on to my mum. Dad, with hindsight, clearly didn't want to be there and his job seemed to combine keeping us youngsters occupied before finding boxes from the back to pack the wares into as they were tilled through.

Anyway, once I was not sitting in the trolley, for whatever reason. I think I probably decided that at six years old - and proud of it - I was now able to walk round the shop with big brother and the grown-ups. And so, naturally, I got lost. I looked round a few aisles but to no avail, and can't imagine how frantic my family were when they noticed my absence. In the end, I had the sense to accost a person in a Grandways tabard who was stacking a shelf and asked, very innocently: "Excuse me, do you know where my mum is, please?" That's the one bit I remember clear as day.

Quickly I was transported to the customer services desk and within ten minutes I was back in the company of my parents. I blamed them for losing me, of course. Though I was a bit upset and very relieved, I was most of all utterly terrified. My naivete in assuming Grandways person would know the identity of my mother hit me quite quickly afterwards. And in later years when thinking about it, I realised how fortunate I was that I didn't just ask some random customer.

The second time wasn't long afterwards, I think. This time it was the dreaded family trip into "town". All families did this. The mother would insist that we needed to spend a whole Saturday morning, and sometimes part of an afternoon, in Hull city centre, traversing the shops. My dad never made any secret of his loathing for this but, being a good dad and husband (and figuring it'd be easier to look after us two when walking us round town than it would be at home without my mum), he loyally tagged along. Like all kids in this situation, my brother and I were very, very bored, especially when the dreaded moment would arrive involving my mum bumping into someone she knew and spending 20 minutes gassing to them about bugger all, meaning the rest of us stood motionless, anxious to move on. Or, better still, go home. I think the naggy question I asked more than any other during this period of childhood was "Can we go back to the car now?" I think my dad wished every single time I asked that he could say yes.

Anyway, the Hull branch of British Home Stores. Mum, dad, brother and I are looking at clothes - well, Mum is, dad is pretending to, and me and big bro are tossing about like kids do - and I wandered round a corner or two expecting to be chased by him. I wasn't. I tried to retrace my steps but suddenly there was no sign of anyone I knew. Unlike at the supermarket, I have no idea how I ended up as an official BHS misper but before I knew it my name was on the tannoy system and, as if to prolong the agony further, the staff had picked me up and stood me on the enquiries desk so that the whole damn store could see me. My strongest memory of this incident was saying "You lost me!" to my mum when the rest of the clan finally saw me and returned to pick me up.

There was one occasion when Mum genuinely did lose me. I've been told, and heard told to others, this story a thousand times. My mum sees it now as some kind of badge of honour. The pair of us were, it appears, out of hospital not very long after my birth when she took me into the village in my pram while paying visits to the bank and the Co-Op. When going inside, she left me outside. She then returned home and Dad asked her where I was. The story goes that she said she'd left me with him, only for her jaw to then drop on the very last syllable before declaring "I've left him outside the Co-Op!" Into the Ford Cortina they dived to speed to the Co-Op - and there I still was, happily playing with the plastic things in my pram, oblivious to my brief period of abandonment. And yes, the story in all subsequent tellings has come with the obvious punchline.

I didn't hang around this supermarket to see how quickly this family were reunited. But one suspects the little lad will remember this moment for life.

"A thousand times I've spared a thought to all those whose hearts are torn..."

2011-09-19T07:00:00.001+01:00

Here was yesterday's Q The 80s. Hope you didn't miss this little lot...

Housemartins "Happy Hour"
Kate Bush "Army Dreamers"

Dire Straits "Your Latest Trick"
Shalamar "I Owe You One"

David Bowie "Fashion"
Kajagoogoo "Big Apple"

Fuzzbox "International Rescue"
Linx "Throw Away The Key"

Kiss "Reason To Live"
John Foxx "Europe (After The Rain)"

FLOPPY DISC:
Heaven 17 …(And That's No Lie)…

Eddy Grant "Electric Avenue"
Transvision Vamp "Landslide Of Love"

Dollar "Hand Held In Black And White"
Tears For Fears "The Way You Are"

Odyssey "Use It Up And Wear It Out"
Status Quo "Rock n Roll"

Howard Jones "Hide And Seek"
Vapors "Turning Japanese"

Four Tops "Indestructible"
Freeez "Flying High"

Adam Ant "Puss n Boots"
Gap Band "Someday"

Morrissey "Everyday Is Like Sunday"
Rene and Angela "I'll Be Good"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Jenny Burton "Bad Habits"

Fleetwood Mac "Everywhere"
Thompson Twins "Don't Mess With Doctor Dream"

Rod Stewart "Sweet Surrender"
Hollywood Beyond "What's The Colour Of Money"

Madonna "Papa Don't Preach"
Slade "Run Runaway"

Haircut 100 "Love Plus One"
Maze "Too Many Games"

Billy Bragg "Levi Stubbs Tears"
Saxon "747 (Strangers In The Night)"

Brenda Russell "Piano In The Dark"
Soft Cell "Down In The Subway"

Phil Lynott "King's Call"
Spandau Ballet "Paint Me Down"

FLOPPY DISC:
Hall & Oates "Say It Isn't So"

Deacon Blue "Dignity"
Haywoode "Roses"

Tone Loc "Funky Cold Medina"
All About Eve "Every Angel"

We're on Q Radio - Freeview channel 716 and online here - each Sunday at 6pm, repeated Thursdays at the same time.

Mark Rogers and his one man band

2011-09-17T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend, as ever. Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online here. Our little show starts at 6pm on Sunday, to be repeated at the same time the following Thursday.

Three hours of eighties loveliness, including two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists - and a second entry from The Nobody's Diary, which showcases the acts that never quite made it, but came close.

Meanwhile, the title of this blog entry leads you gradually towards the identity of one song on the show, while the embed below offers nil ambiguity as to another.

See you Sunday...

"Who did it? Was it Captain Lancaster?"

2011-09-16T13:49:00.003+01:00

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
The ruler broke in two, so she hit me with a shoe
And my bum went black and blue.

Corporal punishment is under discussion today. A survey has suggested that more than half of parents questioned would approve of its return in secondary schools.

I got smacked on the backside with a slipper* and also a twelt on the palm with a 30cm ruler** during my primary school days, but fortunately for all concerned, corporal punishment was outlawed a year or so later.

You can't justify violence against kids in any circumstances whatsoever, even if the kids are evil and spiteful, which, let's be honest, some clearly are, and even if they are big enough to fight back.

I suspect the parents who would care for the return of corporal punishment are a) parents of kids who never get in trouble (and therefore, if their kid ever got a lawful twelt on the palm with a ruler, would complain to every individual and sue every authority in existence); and b) parents who don't instil enough discipline at home and think their child's behaviour in school is the school's responsibility.

Campaigners in favour say it will make kids learn discipline. My view is that it will make them more shrewd when it comes to getting found out, and glamorise the use of violence for allegedly "positive" reasons. The short-term pain for the kid will be to the long-term detriment of everyone else.

Also, the "never did me any harm" brigade consistently fail to notice that it did do them some harm, as they now advocate the beating of children in a civilised society rather than accept that their own experiences should be something they wouldn't wish on anyone else.

Lastly, a lot of kids in school get unfairly punished for stuff they didn't do. Any kind of punishment for an innocent person is one punishment too many, but if it involves physical discomfort and mental scars, then that is unforgivable.

I'm being a right lily-livered sort here as I don't know what the best answer really is. I know I'd like parents to back the schools a bit more when news comes through of a child being bad. But I'm pretty certain that smacking children under 16 is the worst answer of all. Moreover, I suspect that teachers themselves would simply refuse to administer corporal punishment even if it was re-introduced.

*telling a dinner lady to "go pick yer bum", if you must know. I was seven and totally stitched up by an 11 year old tell-tale tooley at my table. I still actually hate him quite a lot even though I barely ever saw him again.
**genuinely can't remember what the crime was, but I remember the teacher and room concerned and was therefore eight years old.

"Bring on the Vita Wonk!"

2011-09-15T12:00:00.004+01:00

Like every child with working eyes and an imagination, I devoured Roald Dahl's books. This week's story of his decrepit hut where he brought his characters to life is both enlightening and depressing.

However, when I think of him now I think, rather churlishly, of his major continuity error. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, his most famous and most reproduced work, was a glorious read. Then out came the sequel, Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator.

If you remember, via either book or film, the original story ends with Charlie being told by Willy Wonka that he was giving him the factory as a gift, and the whole family - mum, dad, four extremely elderly grandparents - could all move in too. And so the factory's transparent portable lift crashed right through the roof of the Bucket family's tiny home and collected the remaining members of the clan, the three bed-bound grandparents pushed in via their bed, still in their nightshirts.

Then, via the book, the sequel took us into space and a bit of a to-do with the American government and the Vermicious Knids, before Wonka revealed his new sideline into health foods with Wonka Vite - the pill that would take 20 years off your life. The three bedridden grandparents - who, incidentally, had taken an illogical dislike to Wonka despite endorsing Charlie's hero-worship of him in the first book - took far too many pills each. Grandpa George and Grandma Josephine went back to being babies, and Grandma Georgina disappeared entirely.

Now, here lies the problem. For this storyline to work, Dahl put words into secondary characters' mouths that revealed that the three affected grandparents were 81, 80 and 78 respectively. Yet in the first book, when first describing them, he said that all four were over 90 and Grandpa Joe, who didn't do Wonka Vite as he was long already up and out of bed for his trip round the factory with Charlie and didn't think Wonka had anything to prove, was labelled the eldest at 96 and a half. As all three remaining grandparents took four pills each, they should all have been reduced to school age children, not babies or glints in the muffin man's eye.

Of course, the fantasy brilliance continued with Georgina's revival as a woman of more than 300 years of age ("the Mayflower!") prior to the introduction of Vita Wonk to revert the babies back to old gifferdom. And Dahl did write it beautifully. But he made a massive error. If this nine year old child noticed it, how on earth did he or his publishers not?

It's a bit late to get worked up about it, I know...

School's out

2011-09-14T14:36:00.007+01:00

Just why do kids not seem able to walk to and from school on their own any more?

Took two dogs and a cat to the vet yesterday for their latest booster injections and check-ups, and it was a 3.10pm appointment. Now, the closest vet's surgery is on a side street in the small town where I grew up (but no longer live) and about three doors away from the pedestrian entrance to the primary school I attended between 1978 and 1984.

The road is residential, narrow and no-through, so it's accessible only from one direction. Cars that belong to residents already line the street as one side is terraced housing with no garages or driveways. The vet's place has a car park which is a bit of a tight squeeze but straightforward enough.

So, out I drive from the vets at about 3.25pm with two grumpy Basset hounds in the boot and a seething cat in a box, and the sight that greeted me was horrendous. It was like trying to exit the main car park at a football stadium five minutes after the final whistle. Cars lined both sides of the street; those shuffling up the road were entirely invisible to drivers like me trying to edge out and go in the other direction. People were doing seven-point turns to make progress or just get out of someone's way. I dread to think what the residents make of it.

And all because the kids needed picking up.

Now, as I understand it, primary schools are exempt from the "choice" element that is attached to secondary education and therefore every child, of all abilities, has an automatic right to a place at their local primary school until they are 11. This means that almost all of these kids rushing out to meet their parents yesterday would have lived within walking distance of the school.

I don't wish to be all "fourth Yorkshireman" about it, but when I attended that very school I went with my mum until my seventh birthday and then walked there and back alone while she went back to working part-time. I had the same pelican crossing to use across the busy main road and the same streets and lanes to gallop down with my mates. I have a good memory of school, and I genuinely can't think of any pupil around my era who got a lift in with mum or dad in a morning or a ride home afterwards, even those who had parents working at the school. There were some kids who were a stupid distance away towards Hull, right on the East Riding boundary, but they used to get a service bus each way.

If the kids all live within walking distance of the school then that obviously means the parents do too. So why not still pick them up but do so on foot? The exercise would be nice, it gives the kids longer to tell their mum and/or dad what they got up to that day and it doesn't completely snarl up an innocent residential street and annoy veterinary customers. Like me. I don't think the crime rate (especially in sleepy East Yorkshire villages and towns) is any worse now than it was in 1980 and so I can only assume that the parents who choose to take their kids to and from this school in their cars are a combination of lazy, paranoid and disorganised.

"Look around, leaves are brown..."

2011-09-12T07:00:00.001+01:00

Q The 80s did its thang yesterday, and all was well. The setlist is below...

Madness "My Girl"
Cheri "Murphy's Law"

Pat Benatar "We Belong"
UB40 "Watchdogs"

Lisa Stansfield "All Around The World"
XTC "Senses Working Overtime"

New Model Army "No Rest"
Kid Creole & the Coconuts "I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby"

Prince "When Doves Cry"
Modern Romance "Walking In The Rain"

FLOPPY DISC:
The Alarm "Sold Me Down The River"

Erasure "Stop!"
Mantronix "Bassline"

The Smiths "Shoplifters Of The World Unite"
Altered Images "Bring Me Closer"

Aswad "Don't Turn Around"
Style Council "A Solid Bond In Your Heart"

Yazz "Fine Time"
Stranglers "No Mercy"

Michael McDonald "Sweet Freedom"
Adeva "I Thank You"

Gary Numan "This Wreckage"
David Grant & Jaki Graham "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love"

ABC "Tears Are Not Enough"
Bangles "Hazy Shade Of Winter"

THE NOBODY'S DIARY:
Frazier Chorus "Dream Kitchen"

Aerosmith "Love In An Elevator"
Central Line "Nature Boy"

Fine Young Cannibals "Good Thing"
Nick Heyward "Take That Situation"

Pretenders "Back On The Chain Gang"
Nick Kamen "Each Time You Break My Heart"

Duran Duran "Careless Memories"
Sheena Easton "One Man Woman"

George Michael "Monkey"
Donna Summer "State Of Independence"

AC/DC "Who Made Who"
Cherelle featuring Alexander O'Neal "Saturday Love"

Tracey Ullman "Sunglasses"
Landscape "Einstein A Go Go"

FLOPPY DISC:
The Damned "In Dulce Decorum"

INXS "Never Tear Us Apart"
Bruce Foxton "Freak"

Matthew Wilder "Break My Stride"
Teardrop Explodes "Passionate Friend"

So our new spot, called The Nobody's Diary, will showcase one artist per week who never quite made it. It's a step further from the Floppy Disc in that respect and currently I'm compiling a list - and, from that, a collection - of songs that reached no higher than number 41 in the 1980s for acts that never once made the Top 40. Frazier Chorus, one of the most famous (and greatest) examples of such, kicked it off with some panache. Suggestions welcome, of course.

Q The 80s is on Q Radio - Freeview channel 716 and online here - each Sunday at 6pm, repeated at the same time Thursdays.

Prompting complaints that the band were encouraging people to thieve

2011-09-10T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend, and something exciting is happening. (No, it really is, please read on). The Guilty Pleasure, the most divisive and controversial radio feature since Howard Stern first introduced Anal Ring Toss, has been banished to the reserves.

In its place comes something called The Nobody's Diary, the name of which was suggested by our own James Masterton. The first explanation of what it involves will be on the show itself. I'll expand more when putting the setlist on this blog on Monday morning. You're intrigued now, aren't you?

Meanwhile, it's otherwise the carefully selected mixture of the familiar and the forgotten, including two Floppy Discs, which are failed singles from major artists (both of which please alternative rock fans). The title of this blog takes you towards the identity of another tune, and the embed below drags you to another whether you like it or not.

Q The 80s is on Q Radio - Freeview channel 716 and online here - at 6pm on Sundays, repeated at the same time on Thursdays.

"Well at least you're not Ann Widdecombe, dahhling..."

2011-09-07T09:46:00.009+01:00

I'm a Strictly Come Dancing junkie, as you may be aware, and so I'm fairly pleased with the line-up, as announced yesterday, though it isn't instantly as impressive as last year's. But it's also a predictable 14 in that it carefully fits every category the BBC needs in the ratings war.

Footballer? Check. And it helps that he is also a BBC darling (inexplicably, to many) in his new career.
Youthful pop star whose band aren't as good as they were once were? Check.
Ageing pop star that still looks okay? Check.
Retired (ie, failed) politician known for courting controversy? Check. And I really hope that Craig Revel Horwood reminds her, on live television in front of millions, that she indulged in a few harvest festivals with John Major.
Glamorous soap star of yore? Check. Any excuse to bring out the Kiss Kiss video.
Soap royalty of yore? Check. No excuse whatsoever to bring out the Anyone Can Fall In Love video. Assuming they dared make one.
Current BBC A-lister? Check. Just so they could announce the line-up on her show.
Token unheralded star of BBC show that needs the publicity? Check. This year it's Waterloo Road's turn.
Person from flagship ITV show to guarantee promotion from rivals? Check.
Person from commercial radio to guarantee promotion from rivals? Check. Though as Heart isn't (mercifully) any more than a quasi-national brand, it'll be the Lisa Snowdon syndrome all over again to some of us.
Macho sporting beefcake who "needs" to "discover" his "softer side"? Check.
Obese person who will treat it as a weight loss experiment? Check. And there will be endless gags about how he should be able to predict how far he gets in the competition.
Famous for association with someone far more famous? Check. Again, good telly will come from a judge daring to mention Sven and Ulrika at some point.

The genuine exception, to me, is Rory Bremner. Comedians have been largely under-represented on the programme over the years. Jimmy Tarbuck only lasted a week before he had to bow out with a dicky ticker, and nobody thinks he's funny any more anyway. Pamela Stephenson made a point frequently last year of reminding people of her psychological credentials, even though most of us would rather recall that American Express sketch. The recruitment of Bremner feels more like a celebrity fan of the show pushing for an appearance than anything else. Unless he genuinely feels he needs the exposure, or is bored of doing Geoff Boycott take-offs on Channel 4.

The only thing to ponder now is which useless article is going to be forced on to Anton du Beke this year.

It starts on Saturday, and I'm especially looking forward to how Bruce Forsyth will handle the inevitable plugging for Twitter accounts and hashtags, a la Dimbleby on Question Time. Perhaps he'll cock it up once, throw a hissy one behind the scenes and insist Tess does it from then onwards. And when you think of how many errors he made last year, it's quite staggering that he's still presenting the show. I also expect there to be a standing ovation when his knighthood is mentioned for the first time.

And my early hunch is the soap royalty of yore will win. This is opposed to the glamorous soap star of yore, who I've just mentioned again as, er, an excuse to bring out the Kiss Kiss video.

And I've checked. There is no video for Anyone Can Fall In Love.

He descends upon our earth from the skies

2011-09-06T09:39:00.010+01:00

Good to see much acknowledgement of Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday yesterday. The man remains, to me, the greatest frontman in rock and roll history.

What I do notice, with no little pleasure, is that even people who didn't like Queen's music whatsoever could see the appeal and the abilities of their lead singer. Of course, he was much more than that, as a composer, figurehead and complex bundle of rock charisma, but most of all he was still a man who could carry a tune while putting on a show.

I've seen the Live Magic! show at Wembley in 1986 what feels like a hundred times, and it never ceases to amaze me just how easy he makes the task of drawing in a crowd look. Obviously a stadium full of partisan Queen fanatics makes the job half done, but devotees still want their money's worth and Mercury made sure they got it.

The bit midway through the show, when it's just him and his microphone singing random notes and getting the crowd to imitate him is still quite superb. I think his actual singing voice puts him ahead of other notable frontmen like Mick Jagger, because his range, variation and versatility was so much greater. I don't know if he was trained at any point as a singer but either way he never hits a bum note, accidentally loses his thread or forces himself to go low instead of high. Jagger and others couldn't have done the "aaaaay-oh!" gubbins as effectively simply because they didn't have the voice to carry it with such verve as to make a crowd respond so enthusiastically.

And, of course, there are the songs. Up to and including The Works, Queen wrote individually and then brought their songs to the studio to go through which the others felt were goers and which weren't. I can't imagine that many Mercury compositions ever fell by the wayside. Bohemian Rhapsody is, of course, his magnum opus (and, in more recent snobbish times, something that people now blame him for rather than congratulate him for) but that was experimental and daring, and nobody dare expect it to work the way it did. Much more indicative of his writing talent comes through songs like Somebody To Love, You Take My Breath Away, It's A Hard Life and We Are The Champions. Impeccably constructed piano-led pieces with relatable lyrics and finding a lovely cross between rock authenticity and pop catchiness. He's also responsible for Don't Stop Me Now, of course, a song that was largely unheralded in 1979 but has now suffered for ubiquity through a different generation adopting it as some kind of retro anthem that they feel they are "allowed" to like. And Crazy Little Thing Called Love is his too, as un-Mercury as he ever got as he endeavoured to fashion a respectful rock and roll pastiche, and through its stripped down joy and simplicity, is possibly his true peak moment.

We didn't see Queen at all in 1987 and 1988, and then the band re-emerged with The Miracle in 1989, by some distance their least impressive album. Queen then picked up a lifetime achievement award at the 1990 BRITS and Mercury's gaunt, heavily made-up appearance (not helped by his decision to remove the trademark moustache) began the hounding and merciless speculation about his health and private life that continued right up to his death. It was horrifying to read at times - one piece even suggested that Queen records should be boycotted as Mercury wasn't telling anyone the "truth" about his private life - and, again, even people with little time for Queen as a band found themselves on Mercury's side.

We saw further evidence of his decline in 1991 with the I'm Going Slightly Mad video, which showcased simultaneously his failing health with his desire to still play the rock star, and though the song is bizarre at best, the video is eminently watchable, especially with hindsight. Of course, with the end near, he recorded a stack of compositions in pain for posthumous release and then declared his illness on a Sunday in November 1991, prior to his death within 24 further hours. I woke up the news on Radio 1 while living in student digs in Darlington while Gary King was doing the early show, and then Simon Mayo responded to huge correspondence from his breakfast audience by playing Bohemian Rhapsody at 8am. I also remember Nicky Campbell, typically wishing to remember his other work, beginning his late-night show with Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy.

When These Are Days Of Our Lives came out on the double A-side at the end of 1991, the video finally showed Mercury at his most vulnerable. It was in black and white and little effort had been made to hide his state of health through make-up or trickery. The last "I still love you", which he delivered straight to camera, was quite clearly intended as a final goodbye to his fans. It brings a lump to the throat now, even though I cannot really bear the song. I can't imagine what the filming process must have been like for the other band members or the crew involved. The person holding the camera that filmed that last, defining moment of poignancy has a story to tell.

The posthumous stuff has been largely guff, of course, and I can't help but think that Queen fanatics who listened to A Night At The Opera by candlelight in 1976 only bought the post-1991 albums out of a sense of duty. As for the projects on the West End and also with Paul Rodgers, I find those hard to take seriously. Paul Rodgers is a magnificent frontman, but he isn't Freddie Mercury. Nobody else is, as that rather up-and-down tribute concert of 1992 proved. Some were better than others - Joe Elliott, Gary Cherone, even Seal ("Please welcome Mr Seal!") all did well - but ultimately the best bit was when Brian May sat at his electric piano and performed the previously unheard Too Much Love Will Kill You on his own. You could hear a pin drop.

I went through a phase of really enjoying Queen's stuff in the mid to late 1980s and bought the whole back catalogue from the original Queen album through to The Works. The problem I have with them now is that they did release some rather odd, easily dated and sometimes even infantile stuff. The crucial thing to point out, however, is that next to none of it (barring probably Bicycle Race) was written by Freddie Mercury. Perhaps it's as a composer that he gets the least credit compared to his performance skills, but given that he isn't exactly ignored on that front (mainly thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody still topping polls of greatest singles), it's not the end of the world.

Ultimately people really liked him and, for a man who was the focus of a band that hit and missed in almost equal measure, it's quite some accolade. He deserves the continuing tributes when the milestone occasions like yesterday's come round.

"Go on and go free, baby you're too close to see..."

2011-09-05T07:01:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s was on over the weekend, which marked our first anniversary. Somehow we've survived and even, just a little, thrived over the last year. Thanks to everyone who enjoys and supports the show!

Here's how it sounded...

Aztec Camera "Somewhere In My Heart"
Honey Bane "Turn Me On, Turn Me Off"

Carly Simon "Coming Around Again"
Guns n Roses "Nightrain"

OMD "Locomotion"
B52s "Planet Claire"

Clannad featuring Bono "In A Lifetime"
New Order "Thieves Like Us"

Michael Jackson "Another Part Of Me"
Herbie Hancock "Autodrive"

FLOPPY DISC:
Billy Ocean "Mystery Lady"

Roxy Music "Over You"
Sharon Brown "I Specialise In Love"

Ultravox "Lament"
Swing Out Sister "You On My Mind"

Abba "Lay All Your Love On Me"
Meat Loaf "Midnight At The Lost Found"

Poison "Your Mama Don't Dance"
Paul Young "Every Time You Go Away"

Simple Minds "All The Things She Said"
Bobby Thurston "Check Out The Groove"

Belinda Carlisle "I Get Weak"
Talk Talk "Talk Talk"

The Clash "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"
Lindsey Buckingham "Trouble"

GUILTY PLEASURE:
Modern Talking "Brother Louie"

De La Soul "Me Myself & I"
Whitney Houston "Didn't We Almost Have It All"

Phil Collins "I Missed Again"
Bauhaus "She's In Parties"

Cher "If I Could Turn Back Time"
The Skids "Circus Games"

Communards "So Cold The Night"
ELO "Twilight"

Spandau Ballet "Through The Barricades"
Elvis Costello & the Attractions "High Fidelity"

Dan Hartman "I Can Dream About You"
Iron Maiden "Sanctuary"

Boy George "Sold"
Kenny Rogers "Coward Of The County"

FLOPPY DISC:
Paul McCartney "Tug Of War"

Falco "Rock Me Amadeus"
Natalie Cole "Pink Cadillac"

Marillion "Punch And Judy"
Creatures "Kiss The Girl"

We're back at the usual time next week, with something new to replace the Guilty Pleasure. Hope you can join us! Q Radio is on Freeview 716 or online here - and we're on Sundays (repeated Thursdays) at 6pm.

Highest charting song ever to be released solely on 12"

2011-09-03T09:47:00.003+01:00

Q The 80s is back this weekend. It's our first anniversary. Yay!

Three hours of the familiar and the forgotten, including this...

... and also a further song teased via the title of this blog entry.

There will be two Floppy Discs, represented by two male solo artists (including the most successful pop musician of all) while the Guilty Pleasure takes us to mid-1980s Germany. It's also our final Guilty Pleasure; something new and more eclectic will start on the show next week.

Q Radio is on Freeview channel 716 and online here. The show is on Sunday evenings and repeated on Thursdays, both at 6pm.

Working on the site from morning 'til night

2011-08-31T18:00:00.005+01:00

Had a lot of fun covering the daytime shift on the Pulse of West Yorkshire and already I'm seeing the end of the line, as there is just a week and a half of it left. Such is the life of a stopgap jock. I'm used to it.

Last week, I took a smashing phone call during the request hour from a teenage girl who was excitedly wanting to declare she had just won a place on a bricklaying course at college thanks to good A level results. I played the record she asked for and put her good news on the station's official Facebook page, while privately offering her good luck as "an example to school leavers everywhere". Hark at me. The response she got from the listeners via Facebook was absolutely tremendous, I was so pleased.

It did also prompt a light-hearted debate among my Twitter followers about how she would react if, once qualified and on a building site, her (presumably) predominantly male colleagues indulged in the traditional (but semi-stereotypical) practice of making lewd suggestions towards attractive women as they walked past the site.

Would she object? Would she stand firm for her fellow women? Or, as I'd like to think most women in comfort with the spice of life would do, accept it as a natural response from one gender when an easy-on-the-eye specimen of the contradictory sex comes into view? After all, it's just the infamous "Diet Coke break" in reverse.

I needn't have thought about it too much; indeed, the debate eventually proved fruitless. She went to the station's Facebook page to thank her wellwishers, allowing me to click on her profile. It turns out she's in a civil partnership with another lady. So one assumes that with the right mood and a following wind, she'll see what the boys see on the site (though I wouldn't expect her to actually join in with the wolf-whistles). And while every ounce of feminine principle in a woman would want them to object to wolf-whistles for the sistahood, I suspect underneath it all they'd prefer it to being ignored or chastised. It'd prove the sage of the 1990s Gary Strang right when, in expressing his despair of the opposite sex, stated: "You put on a skirt the size of two tea bags and then complain when blokes look at you."

Anyway, I hope this lass goes far in her course and her career. I expect she will.

"Would you like me to marry me, and if you like you can buy the ring..."

2011-08-29T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s was on over the weekend, and if you missed it, you can catch the repeat at 6pm this Thursday. Q Radio can be unearthed by going to Freeview channel 716 or heading to the official website here.

Talking Heads "Once In A Lifetime"
Heatwave "Jitterbuggin'"

Curiosity Killed The Cat "Down To Earth"
Cameo "She's Strange"

Beastie Boys "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)"
Rupert Holmes "Him"

The Jam "Dreams Of Children"
Heart "There's The Girl"

Average White Band "Let's Go Round Again"
Big Sound Authority "This House (Is Where Your Love Stands)"

FLOPPY DISC:
Nik Kershaw "Radio Musicola"

A-Ha "Manhattan Skyline"
Fleetwood Mac "Oh Diane"

Mary Jane Girls "All Night Long"
Jesus & Mary Chain "Sidewalking"

Howard Jones "Look Mama"
Sammy Hagar "I've Done Everything For You"

Eurythmics "Right By Your Side"
Voggue "Dancin' The Night Away"

Psychedelic Furs "Pretty In Pink"
Kool & The Gang "Get Down On It"

Human League "Mirror Man"
Debbie Harry "Backfired"

Farley Jackmaster Funk "Love Can't Turn Around"
Haysi Fantayzee "Shiny Shiny"

GUILTY PLEASURE:
Lionel Richie "Hello"

The Smiths "William It Was Really Nothing"
Shakatak "Night Birds"

Gun "Better Days"
China Crisis "Best Kept Secret"

Feargal Sharkey "A Good Heart"
W*A*S*P* "Forever Free"

Depeche Mode "Love In Itself"
Billy Griffin "Hold Me Tighter In The Rain"

Eric Clapton "Behind The Mask"
Diana Ross "Mirror Mirror"

Level 42 "Micro Kid"
Curtis Hairston "I Want Your Lovin' (Just A Little Bit)"

ABC "The Look Of Love"
Al Jarreau "Trouble In Paradise"

FLOPPY DISC:
David Sylvian "Pulling Punches"

Hall & Oates "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)"
Ozzy Osbourne "So Tired"

Hazel O'Connor "Eighth Day"
Pet Shop Boys "Left To My Own Devices"

Back next Sunday, 6pm!

The dialogue at the start comes from Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

2011-08-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on again this weekend. Freeview channel 716 or online here, and three hours of fine 80s tunes of varying familiarity await you.

There will be two Floppy Discs - failed singles from major artists, and two major British solo males get that honour this week - and the Guilty Pleasure doubles up as one of the most successful and yet most derided chart-toppers of the decade. The Guilty Pleasure is going soon, probably next week (which marks Q The 80s' first anniversary) in order to make way for an exciting, eclectic and certainly more tasteful feature.

The title of this blog entry coaxes you towards one song, while the embed below gives away another entirely.

See you on Sunday at 6...!

This machine may dispense £5 notes

2011-08-24T22:26:00.003+01:00

I wanted to blog about cashpoints. I even put it in the Notes bit of my mobile phone - "blog about cashpoints", it says. Now, I know my dad still can't use them, I know Speedbank was the first buzzword surrounding the new holes-in-the-wall of the 1980s, I know receiving your first PIN in the post was tantamount to espionage when you were 15, and I know John Hegley used to use his cashcard as a plectrum when playing his mandolin onstage.

But I've no idea what specifically prompted me to make this note saying "blog about cashpoints". Have you?

"Go your own way, don't think twice about me..."

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s was on at the weekend and sounded thus...

Kate Bush "Babooshka"
Power Station "Some Like It Hot"

Hot Chocolate "Girl Crazy"
Julian Cope "World Shut Your Mouth"

Kane Gang "Closest Thing To Heaven"
Crown Heights Affair "You Gave Me Love"

Erasure "Drama!"
Billy Idol "Eyes Without A Face"

Sheena Easton "When He Shines"
Bruce Springsteen "Tougher Than The Rest"

FLOPPY DISC:
Kim Wilde "Child Come Away"

Rolling Stones "Harlem Shuffle"
Tanita Tikaram "Twist In My Sobriety"

Echo and the Bunnymen "Crocodiles"
David Grant "Love Will Find A Way"

Nena "99 Red Balloons"
Simply Red "Infidelity"

Stranglers "Who Wants The World"
Yello "Of Course I'm Lying"

Madonna "Borderline"
Imagination "Body Talk"

Japan "I Second That Emotion"
Matt Bianco "Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed"

Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough"
The Cure "The Hanging Garden"

GUILTY PLEASURE:
Weird Al Yankovic "Eat It"

Rod Stewart "Baby Jane"
D Train "You're The One For Me"

Alice Cooper "Poison"
Elvis Costello & the Attractions "New Amsterdam"

Thompson Twins "Hold Me Now"
Dusty Springfield "Nothing Has Been Proved"

Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"
The Damned "The Shadow Of Love"

Chicago "Hard Habit To Break"
ACDC "Whole Lotta Rosie"

UB40 & Chrissie Hynde "Breakfast In Bed"
REO Speedwagon "Take It On The Run"

Robbie Nevil "C'est La Vie"
Selecter "Three Minute Hero"

FLOPPY DISC:
Stevie Wonder "Ribbon In The Sky":

U2 "All I Want Is You"
Colonel Abrams "I'm Not Going To Let You Get The Best Of Me"

Genesis "Throwing It All Away"
Classix Nouveaux "Is It A Dream"

We're on Q Radio every Sunday at 6pm and repeated at the same time each following Thursday. Freeview 716 or online here. Be good to have you along...

His last entirely solo hit before going into duets and then vocal coaching...

2011-08-20T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is on this weekend. We're on Sunday evening at 6pm, and you can find the radio station on Freeview channel 716 or online here.

Three hours of 80s tunes that mix the familiar with the forgotten. Two Floppy Discs on the show as ever - one from the most successful British female of the decade, and the other courtesy of a Motown superstar. The Guilty Pleasure, meanwhile, takes us into the world of parody.

The title of this blog entry gives you a mild clue as to the identity of one song on the show, while the embed below offers no ambiguity as to another.

See you Sunday at 6 then...!

"It opened in November 1967, and the glass roof was added 20 years later..."

2011-08-19T22:13:00.004+01:00

I'm working for the Pulse of West Yorkshire for a month, doing the daytime five-hour slot. It's a station I've always wanted to work for, having lived in its target area for five years of my younger life.

Today, I was sent on an outside broadcast. I've done a fair few over the years but as a freelancer it's one of the things you miss about having a regular, nailed-down, six days a week gig. Still, off I was packed to Keighley, on the far edge of West Yorkshire, where the radio station had been doing its Proud To Be Local campaign all week.

I was in the Airedale Shopping Centre, and having been seated at a desk at the front of an empty shop with branding all around me, I looked a bit of a sitting duck. People who notice OBs react in one of a few different ways; they gawp like hell for ages and assume you haven't noticed, they come over and chat and take whatever merchandise is on offer; they ignore you entirely or, regrettably, they try to put you off when you're doing a link.

Plenty of the first three and, fortunately, only one solitary example of the latter; a teenage girl with a Croydon facelift who thought it would be kerrrrrrr-azy, and ever so cool to all her gang, to shout something obscene, followed by the name of a rival station, in my direction. The daft lass hadn't accounted for me not being on air at the time though, as a song was playing on the speakers and I was not wearing any cans and, indeed, not actually speaking into the microphone.

The official stuff consisted of brief interviews with a woman who owned one of the cafeterias in the shopping centre, plus a local councillor who used his couple of minutes to sell Keighley and sell it again. He was very impressive. Otherwise, I was required to present the show in the same way as I would have done if sitting at the controls in the Pulse's nerve centre in the centre of Bradford. I did also have my photo taken with the mascot of the Keighley Cougars rugby league club - a cougar that goes by the name of Freddie. The best mascot-related act of punnery ever. And, last but by no means least, the much-revered Ben Baker, resident and proud of the place, turned up to say hello - wearing an Atari T shirt.

Great fun, and over the next month I'll be doing a couple more, I think.

"Just pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies..."

2011-08-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s did goodly deeds via the wireless yesterday evening. Here's what was therein...

Spandau Ballet "Chant No.1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)"
Billy Ocean "Loverboy"

Sandie Shaw "Hand In Glove"
Galaxy featuring Phil Fearon "Wait Until Tonight My Love"

Dave Edmunds "The Race Is On"
Happy Mondays "Hallelujah"

Billy Joel "It's Still Rock n Roll To Me"
Change "Change Of Heart"

New Order "Ceremony"
Phil Collins "Sussudio"

FLOPPY DISC:
Kinks "Don't Forget To Dance"

Survivor "Eye Of The Tiger"
Tina Turner "Typical Male"

Bronski Beat "Why?"
Inner City "Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin'"

John Lennon "Just Like Starting Over"
Style Council "Have You Ever Had It Blue"

Dire Straits "Romeo & Juliet"
Belouis Some "Some People"

Bananarama "Cruel Summer"
Madness "Cardiac Arrest"

Department S "Is Vic There"
Cool Notes "Spend The Night"

David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto "Forbidden Colours"
Andy Why Not? "Restless Days"

GUILTY PLEASURE:
Status Quo "Burning Bridges"

Neil Diamond "Love On The Rocks"
Iron Maiden "Flight Of Icarus"

Adam & The Ants "Kings Of The Wild Frontier"
Voice of the Beehive "I Say Nothing"

Prefab Sprout "The King Of Rock n Roll"
Joe Jackson "It's Different For Girls"

Queen "It's A Hard Life"
Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack "Tonight I Celebrate My Love"

Specials "Rude Buoys Outta Jail"
Alison Moyet "Invisible"

Robert Palmer "Some Guys Have All The Luck"
Stephanie Mills "Never Knew Love Like This Before"

Yazz "The Only Way Is Up"
Visage "Night Train"

FLOPPY DISC:
Gary Moore "Ready For Love"

Big Country "In A Big Country"
Regents "7 Teen"

Judas Priest "Living After Midnight"
Nu Shooz "I Can't Wait"

Each show is repeated at 6pm on Thursdays. You can find Q Radio here, or on Freeview channel 716. Thank you...!

It had dropped to number 21 when the shots were fired

2011-08-13T15:33:00.004+01:00

Q The 80s is back on this weekend, again. You can hear it on Sunday evening on Q Radio, which is channel 716 on your Freeview box, or online here.

The title of this blog is a teaser as to one song's identity, while the embed below is somewhat over-effective in its teasing qualities as to another.

There will be two Floppy Discs, failed singles from major artists, and a Guilty Pleasure which also happens to come from a seriously major act in popular music and whose other songs we have happily featured in the main body of the show. Hmmm.

See you Sunday evening then.

OJ

2011-08-12T08:25:00.005+01:00

Just a short one today, but I'm thrilled to bits that my old chum OJ Borg has got himself a week on BBC Radio 2, covering for Janice Long.

OJ's career has been meteoric and deservedly so. He is so annoyingly handsome while being so annoyingly witty and so annoyingly charismatic while being so annoyingly articulate. He's going far.

In the last five years he's been a presenter on VH-1, done the Lotto draw, presented darts on telly and worked on some of the UK's biggest radio brands, culminating in this coming week on the biggest radio brand of them all.

And although it's telly that's given him his national profile, he's a proper radio man, which does the network rare credit in giving him the work. I know him because he used to be on the travel news rota that kept listeners updated on the breakfast show I hosted from 2002 to 2005. From there he had his own shows on the same radio station, then got breakfast on the Revolution in Oldham. His career was, from thereonin, only going up, up, up. He had the gall - and the confidence - to do a visual showreel while on his breakfast show and VH-1 gave him a gig on the spot.

He's a top bloke and one of my favourite people in the industry. I genuinely take this as one of the best bits of radio industry news I've ever heard.

Stand by your man

2011-08-10T07:00:00.000+01:00

Don't like that Feminax advert at all. Hate it, actually. And yes, I know I'm hardly target audience for the products but ads are ads, and they appear during any kind of television programme.

What happens in it, if you haven't seen it, is that a butch male voiceover claims that as well as physical pain, there is emotional pain caused by women, and to prove it a desperate man at the end of his tether with his dreadful partner is seen pressing an ejector button on the settee and the woman is flung out of the window to her obvious violent death.

That's just horrible.

It's also not quite true. It's in fact the opposite - the voiceover is a sarcastic woman and it's the man who is the pain, and he is the one ejected out of the window to an obvious violent death.

Suddenly, it seems to be not horrible. It seems to be funny, fair game, acceptable. Let's all show a man being patronised and then killed. Oh, there goes the final rib.

In this world where two sports presenters can have their careers instantly curtailed (understandably) by making a few witless off-air comments about a woman while a bunch of misandric loonies can appear on telly every lunchtime and bang on about how useless men are at everything, this ad is perfectly fine.

It isn't. And it makes my blood boil.

"Is he still alive?"

2011-08-09T07:00:00.001+01:00

Alex and I, in a bar called The Chough as we and others embarked on the latest Nerd Night. On this occasion we were in Salisbury, a city I have never visited before but immediately liked.

(Please note: it takes a while to get to the actual night out. I need first to rant about parking in a very dull and pompous manner).

I arrived on Friday afternoon after a four hour drive, and was beyond all definition of knackered. I had been double shifting on the radio all week - breakfast in Warrington, drivetime in Blackburn - and had been sleeping on Simon Green's floor. By the time the Friday came I was like a newly dug up Pharoah and, after completing the last breakfast show (I wasn't doing Friday drivetime), I set off for Wiltshire.

The last leg of the journey, when I exited the M5 at Cirencester, was one of the most picturesque hours of driving I'd done. Small town afthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifer small town - how beautiful is Marlborough, for example? - until I drove into Salisbury and the satnav took me to the hotel. Except, as I already knew, the hotel was actually a pub with rooms to let, as uncovered by Louis on the interweb, and therefore parking was at a premium.

By that, I mean there wasn't any. Hotels always have car parks, and many pubs do, even those in city centres. This one didn't.

I trundled the car round the corner to the market square and parked for an hour for £2.70. Ah yes, the south of England's quaint habit of making parking charges a) expensive and b) of a sum that you are unlikely to have in the correct money, meaning you overpay into a machine that - naturally! - isn't sophisticated enough to give change and therefore you are ripped off twice at the same time. Only then did I notice (under an overhanging tree) that there was a sign advising people that cars were disallowed from parking overnight in the market square on a Friday because there was, er, a market the next morning. All cars had to be shifted by midnight or a big truck would do the shifting for you. So my hopes of a couple of hours kip prior to hitting the ale with the others had now gone, as I had to go out and shift the car again.

Already a bit peeved, I dragged my stuff to the hotel and checked in. As it was essentially a pub with rooms above, all within an old building, it was one of those scenarios where you have to traverse through narrow corridors and up and down loads of random staircases, carefully following the signs to your room. The staircases would only have a maximum of five steps on them, making them feel almost wholly pointless. You feel like you're exploring the catacombs in the Atari Adventure game. As I carried two bags and a hanger with clean shirt and slacks on through these narrow vomitories, I half expected Yorkle the yellow dragon to attack me round the corner, only to run away because my room key was gold in colour.

Anyway, I got to the room and it was delightful. Bed was big and comfy, everything seemed to work. However, in the bathroom - which was clean and big - the lavatory was, for some reason, slightly raised off the floor on a slab, only by an inch or so. This nevertheless was a high enough pedestal for me to not notice and therefore trip up and hurt my toe on my way to the wash basin at the other side. I limped for the next two hours.

I went back to shift my car after the hour was up, with advice from the receptionist to use the city's central car park which didn't charge from 6pm to 8am and was available all that night. This I did but, having fed all my change into the previous machine, I was forced into trusting the automated SMS payment service advertised with just a touch too much enthusiasm on the meters. I had an hour left to pay for that evening, and wanted to pay through to 9am the next morning. Two hours in total. This I managed to do, judging by the computerised voicemail I received after giving my debit card details.

Alex was less lucky. He arrived after 6pm and therefore, ridiculously, the whole SMS system had shut down. He couldn't pay for an hour's parking the next morning and so had no choice but to make sure, after a long night on the booze, that he was up, breakfasted, checked out of the hotel and back with his car before 8am the next morning. Crazy. What irritated me further was that even though parking became free after 6pm, I still got a text message at 7pm telling me my car had "run out". Which it hadn't, but it didn't half annoy me. I spent the rest of the evening worried that I'd be clamped again when I got back to the car in the morning.

Right, to the festivities. The last one was in Manchester in May, but I didn't blog about it as I was so completely drunk I couldn't remember a thing about the actual night, and had to be reminded by folk later on. This time, with a big journey the next day to make - I had to be back on Warrington's radio station by 2pm - I was able to pace myself and be responsible. I also knew that while I'd earned a few beers, if I went too quickly I'd be fast asleep in my pizza by 9.30.

I hopped down to the hotel bar, via the catacombs and with one big toe throbbing, to find the iconic Martin Kelner waiting for us. Being a genuinely top radio personality, Martin has quite the schedule and therefore isn't able to join us every time, but there he was, with a bottle of Magners, reading the Wetherspoons News. There appeared to be a dearth of information for his appearance on Fighting Talk the next morning, but nonetheless he was amused that the Wetherspoons News not only existed, it had a letters page. And not only did it have a letters page, but somebody had written an actual letter. To the letters page. Of the Wetherspoons News.

One by one the remainder of our clutch arrived and upon Alex's entrance, Martin promptly greeted him with the words: "You are a cult." These two go back many years and have hundreds of anecdotes in their respective lockers, and the rest of us essentially were happy to just sit back and laugh. Often this was when one of them mentioned an old colleague or manager from bygone days and the other had to check whether said person was "still alive".

To the restaurant, a branch of Strada, where pizza and Peroni was taken. Onwards we then went to a pub called The Chough (pronounced Chow, but the three Yorkshiremen present immediately assumed it was the Chuff) where the two main men swapped tales about being on-air announcers ("you've never seen a proper BBC announcer before have you? Please welcome, Alec Lister!") and expressed their dislike for the Archers due to the sound effects issue. They're always way too loud ("would you like a drink? FFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!") and when someone opens a door, they never seem to close it behind them. Alex, meanwhile, regaled us with his tale of being the last ever person to interview Carry On star Peter Butterworth which, frankly, puts Peebles and Lennon straight into a cocked hat.

A high quality evening, as always, and thanks to Roger, Matt and David, our local guides who tirelessly drive to whichever place we choose for Nerd Night each quarter and who finally had the opportunity to sack the travelling and show us round their fine city. I was on the road by 8am and back in the north west for half 11, enjoying Martin Kelner calling Paolo Di Canio a "champagne fascist" on Fighting Talk while also regaling us with tales of when The Hitman And Her came to Preston.

By the way, for both journeys, I used the M6 Toll. I'd never used it before. Isn't it just so empty? Even for a Friday afternoon. This doesn't explain, however, why the one service station (I know, I'm sorry, but I needed a wee) on the motorway was jammed solid with cars and people. Also, when you pay by debit or credit card, they don't ask for your PIN. They just acknowledge the card, spit it back at you while simultaneously opening the barrier, and essentially tell you to bugger off.

Anyway, all done with now. London in November next.

"She's loved and she is welcome in my home..."

2011-08-08T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s did its thing again at the weekend, and my giddy aunt, was it a laugh a minute. Here are the tunes we played...

Blow Monkeys "It Doesn't Have To Be This Way"
Girlschool "Hit And Run"

Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler "Keep On Movin'"
Bill Wyman "A New Fashion"

The Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
Paul McCartney "Take It Away"

Gloria Estefan "Oye Mi Canto"
New Model Army "Vagabonds"

Go West "We Close Our Eyes"
Odyssey "If You're Looking For A Way Out"

FLOPPY DISC:
Kajagoogoo "Turn Your Back On Me"

Depeche Mode "Shake The Disease"
Pointer Sisters "Jump For My Love"

Police "Invisible Sun"
Gillan "New Orleans"

David Bowie "Blue Jean"
Coldcut featuring Yazz "Doctorin' The House"

Eurythmics "When Tomorrow Comes"
The Wonderstuff "Golden Green"

Peter Gabriel "Biko"
Heaven 17 "This Is Mine"

Midnight Oil "Beds Are Burning"
Gloria Gaynor "I Am What I Am"

Junior Murvin "Police And Thieves"
The Mission "Severina"

GUILTY PLEASURE:
Shakin' Stevens "You Drive Me Crazy"

Midge Ure "If I Was"
Kirsty MacColl "Days"

Beggar & Co "Somebody Help Me Out"
Poison "Nothin' But A Good Time"

Belinda Carlisle "Heaven Is A Place On Earth"
PiL "Rise"

Randy Crawford "You Might Need Somebody"
Gary Numan "We Take Mystery To Bed"

Culture Club "Karma Chameleon"
Glass Tiger "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)"

Bruce Springsteen "Cover Me"
Debbie Gibson "Out Of The Blue"

Stranglers "Always The Sun"
Kurtis Blow "If I Ruled The World"

FLOPPY DISC:
Gerry Rafferty "Bring It All Home"

UB40 "Maybe Tomorrow"
Goodbye Mr MacKenzie "The Rattler"

Christopher Cross "Arthur's Theme"
Brothers Johnson "Stomp"

Banned for its reference to Irish paramilitaries

2011-08-06T07:00:00.000+01:00

Q The 80s is back on this weekend. It'll feature a heady blend of well-known 80s anthems with less well-known 80s anthems. 45 joyous songs in total, including the embed below and one clued by the title of this blog.

The Floppy Discs represent two acts whose downfalls both owed much to their own self-destruction, while the Guilty Pleasure is unabashed in again celebrating the most successful solo artist of the decade.

Sunday evening, 6pm, Q Radio. We're on Freeview channel 716 and online here.

A man and his work

2011-08-05T03:58:00.002+01:00

I've been on double shifts this week, trying to earn. I have ideas on what to blog about, but haven't had time yet. For the six of you that do visit, that's the explanation.

Right, back to Warrington. Then Salisbury. Then Stockport. Then...