Quizteama Aguilera – Genii in a Bottle

Quiz Cakes

There are many landmark firsts in the life of a parent; the first word spoken (“Daddy” in my case – in your face, Mummy!), the first time they walk and, er, the first solid movement. But for me they all pale into insignificance with the events of last night, a momentous occasion in the life of our small but perfectly formed clan.

Felicity’s first day at school was always one we were looking forward, albeit with some apprehension. Would she jump right in and immerse herself into school life or would she need to dragged in, kicking and screaming? We needn’t have worried, although it didn’t stop us. She took to it like a Primary 1 duck to water school.

After Flick’s seemless introduction into scholastic life, there’s was only one thing on our mind; when is the first school quiz night? There’s bound to be one, every school has one. The Good Lady Wife and I love quizzes. We love nothing better than shouting at the telly during a Who Dares Wins or a Mastermind or a University Challenge, although we tend to have less to shout about during the latter! We’re no Kevin Ashman or Daphne Fowler but we can hold our own at a local level. I repeat, we love quizzes and we’re not ashamed of that. Get over it!

When you haven’t been to a particular quiz night before it’s always a worry as to what the format will be. Well, it’s a worry to me but I’m sad that way. The other concern is usually, and it saddens me to say this in this day and age, how strict the quizmaster is on cheating. Nobody really minds the odd exchange between adjoining quiz tables, especially at family based events, but the shameless use of Google and Shazam is just not on and has turned the modern quiz night into a bit of a farce. It defeats the purpose of the whole night. This is why I tend to only host one-offs and only attend those with some sense of order. Thankfully it wasn’t an issue last night.

Paper, pens and quiz round running orders were distributed as parents, teachers and children filled up on E-number packed, sugar-filled confectionary, juice and hot beverages (that’s right, a dry quiz. Have you ever heard the like?) The Good Lady Wife had made special quiz cupcakes with white icing and the words such as Which?, Who? and Why? atop them. She’s Fife’s answer to Martha Stewart, although I doubt if Martha knows which year decimalisation came into force in the UK or how Paddington Bear came by his name.

Normally our quiz team name of choice is Magic Darts, as in the Sid Waddellism “There’s only one word for that – magic darts”, or the self-deprecating Hope and Despair, which we use to play down our chances and lull the opposition into a false sense of security. (It’s also the name of an Edwyn Collins album, fact fans). My mate Dave is normally our quiz colleague of choice but he wasn’t available for selection due to ineligibility and as a mark of respect to him we changed to a name we hadn’t previously used before but one which we’d always liked: Quizteama Aguilera.

We didn’t know what we were up against, although the holders of the crown were present in the shape of the School Quiz Team. We were strangers in a strange land.

We got off to a decent start in the opening General Knowledge round, with Kirsty coming up with a crackin’ answer. When asked which had more bones in its neck; a giraffe or a human, Kirsty paused for thought and then calmly scribed “they have the same” on the answer sheet. Cool. The trick question is a great tool in the quizmaster’s armoury and there should always be at least one in your set. Luckily we spotted it.

We swapped papers with the nearest table, marked them and awaited the question master asking each table for their scores. After the first round it was reasonably neck-and-neck with us setting the pace alongside three other teams on 9. Even the backmarkers in the 14-strong field had a none-too-shabby 6 so things were tighter than Joan Rivers’ face. A quiz at this level is always going to be close and we knew we’d have to score reasonably well in every round. One bad round and the dream would be over. Okay, a touch melodramatic but you get the idea.

Round 2 was a TV Themes audio round and we had a distinct advantage because the poor sound quality made it into a bad bootleg live Jesus and Mary Chain TV themes covers album. Our first correct answer, Holby City, was all the more remarkable because we only ever hear a couple of seconds before we instinctively reach for the remote. We did however kick ourselves for not recognising the theme to 90s TV staples Changing Rooms and Mr. Bean. We held our own with a respectable 8 but slipped back to second behind The Daft Birds, who’d scored an excellent full house.

TV and Films were up next and we emerged from the pack and took the lead took after a 100% performance. Films are not normally our strong point as it’s only in the past few years, following Flick’s birth, that we’ve watched so many films, albeit mostly children’s ones. We knew the name of Postman Pat’s Cat (Jess), which of the Marx brothers was the silent one (K imparted the knowledge that his autobiography was called Harpo Speaks) and that Davros (aka Vince Cable) was leader of the Daleks. But the answer of the round – call it a shot in the dark if you will – was to know, alright guess, that a Gaffer on a  film set is the Head Electrician. Back of the net! Our top marks combined with The Daft Birds poor showing meant we now had a two point lead but there was a close pack behind us.

The second music round was next and it was a Disney audio. On the inside, I rubbed my hands in anticipation. On the outside I was nonchalantly cool. Having put together a Disney audio round for Kirsty’s work quiz night, we were pleased when he announced the subject of the audio round. Although given the audience, it was always a possibility. It would be difficult to have, for example, a pop music round that didn’t alienate a good proportion of the audience. If the songs are too old you omit the kids, if you have it too up to date the adults would struggle. To be honest, that would be fine by us. I can’t think of anything worse than an audio round featuring the likes of N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder.

Any smugness about hearing a repeat of my own Disney round soon dissipated as Dougie the QM played songs or parts of songs we weren’t that familiar with. We failed to recognise a song from Tarzan, which we hadn’t seen, and Cinderella, which Kirsty had seen but a long, long time ago. Those are our excuses and we’re sticking to them. The imaginatively-named The Quizmasters had top-scored with 10 and were on our tails. A steady-as-she-goes 8 retained our two point lead as we moved to the business end of the contest.

Round 5 of 7 was another General Knowledge round. The questions in the  GK rounds had been split into a half kid/half adults and Flick played her part in keeping the score ticking over. We dubbed her The Baby-Faced Assassin! We didn’t know that the only bird who hunted by sense of smell was a kiwi (that’s the sort of fact Stephen Fry’s QI quartet might debunk) and that an octupus laid eggs, as opposed to giving birth to live octopuses. Another solid 8. We had had a run of scores a UK Eurovision entry could only dream of: 9-8-10-8-8 (yes, I know you can’t score 9 at Eurovision!) Only Here For The Cakes topped the GK scoring with 9.

Time for the penultimate round and it was the picture one. Three sets of four pictures. Name the people or characters in the picture and the connection between each set. Simples. Well, not so. The four actors who played The Doctor (not Dr.Who as intimated by the QM) and the obvious connection gave us five points. We knew (Sir) Chris Hoy, Usain Bolt, and diver Tom Daley straight away but Jessica Ennis’ name only came to me in a Usain-like bolt of inspiration. However, we slipped up on the connection. We plumped for Olympic medallists but they were actually all World Champions. Fair enough. The last set of pictures proved tricky. We knew the pictures represented Up, Ice Age, Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E but the QM wanted the character names and we were up Dawson’s Creek without a paddle. We’d heard of them all but only seen Ice Age. The answers were Mr. Fredricksen, Diego, Po and, thankfully, Wall-E. Even the connection threw us but that’s because it was a poorly thought out one. They were all animated characters! Duh, we knew that but thought he was looking for something less obvious. He may as well have given the answer as “they were all printed on the same piece of paper”. No need to panic. Yet.

A relatively lowly 11 out of 15 allowed the opposition back at us and eight teams were now within 5 points of us. Now we knew how the fox felt on hunt day. An impressive 14 from Family M and Friends brought them back into the running and close on our heels.

The last round was entitled Top 10 and we had a reasonable idea what it would consist of. We also knew that we didn’t like this type of question because, after six rounds of skilled you-either-know-it-or-you-don’t questions it was now one for the guessers. Okay, there’s a certain level of skill but that skill is mostly in the art of damage limitation, especially if you’re defending a lead.

Name the Top 10 heaviest land animals. A toughy and no mistake but it could’ve been worse; Top 10 wine-growing countries or Top 10 selling men’s deodorants, that sort of thing…We plumped for Elephant, Rhino, Hippo, Lion, Tiger, Bear (non-specific), Polar Bear, Buffalo, Bison and Walrus. We scraped a score of 6 but only because the QM allowed a point for just bear, when the answers included the more specific Kodiak bear. (The answers, in order, were Elephant, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, Giraffe (we dismissed that answer or should I say I did!), Water Buffalo, Crocodile, Asian Guar (a what?), American Bison, Kodiak Bear and Yak).

Remarkably, between the 14 teams, all the scores ranged between 5 and 7 and it would be a very tight finish. We knew we had 6 but The (Not-So) Daft Birds had pulled out a 7 and it was going to be a tie-break.

When did the Mayflower sail for America? It was nearest-the-bull time; a fight to the death. We figured it was well before 1776 because that was the Year of Independence. Someone in the team beside us, Besta Groupa, suggested 1642 and it sounded as good as anything we could think of so we went for it and handed it in. There was no point in anguishing over it. The QM told the other team that we were very close. Like all good QMs he was building up the tension and no mistake.

As soon as the QM announced that The Daft Birds were 135 years out I knew we’d won it. Indeed, the answer was 1620.

Felicity with the trophy

I was naturally pleased for the Good Lady Wife and I but more so for Felicity. I was a proud father as I witnessed my offspring collecting her first quizzing silverware. It was a deeply moving moment. Bring back Ask the Family! Let’s be havin’ you!

As a quizmaster myself I always assess the performance of my fellow inquisitor. A good quizmaster knows the right level for a quiz and tonight’s was pretty much spot on. Sure, I could be ultra-pedantic and ask why there was no sport round or no questions relating to modern children’s television (maybe they don’t want to alienate those who only have “cooncil telly”) but for all I know he might have done some last year. As I know only too well, you simply can’t cater for everybody. Unless you run a weekly pub quiz in which there will be an inevitable predictability about some questions, especially if you have a topical news round, the questions should always have an element of surprise about them. It should entertain and educate.There’s no quiz syllabus to bone up on. This isn’t a GCSE you’re swotting for, it’s much more important than that.

People who have never been a quizmaster think it’s easy to write a quiz. It isn’t. A good quizmaster only makes it looks easy. He, or indeed she, should always ensure there is no dubiety in any of the questions and no ambiguities that pedants (like me) can try to pick you up on. There should never be any argument as to what the answer is.

There was however one contentious point following the Disney audio round but I didn’t make a fuss. If it had been decisive it might have been different story. One track played was Bobby Darin’s Beyond The Sea. The correct answer, which we had, was given as The Little Mermaid. One team, possibly our nearest rivals, protested that the song featured in Finding Nemo too. Instead of checking, the quizmaster accepted their assertion and gave them a point, to some derision for all around. Now, even as watertight as I think my questions are, in that situation I would’ve held off awarding a point until I could checked their claim.

I digress. Dougie and his partner did a great job, wrote a good quiz and kept excellent control. You can’t really ask for more than that. Except maybe the trophy!

The silverware is now ours to keep for a year and as sure as Iceland resembles Dot Cotton’s ashtray we’ll be back to defend it in 2011. The training starts now…

The Cat
=^..^=

P.S. Me being me, as soon as I got home I checked the dubious Disney audio question. Beyond The Sea did indeed feature at the end of Finding Nemo but it was a Robbie Williams cover and not the original as played by the QM. I felt vindicated. Until, that is, I had a look for it on The Little Mermaid soundtrack for the song I couldn’t find any reference to it! Ultimately, it didn’t affect the result but I can see me watching The Little Mermaid, just to get closure!

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There’s Still Life in Tokyo

Regular readers will know that my alter ego, “The Cat” has a show called “Where The Action Is” on hospital radio in Kirkcaldy VRN 1287AM. As I always say, like some sort of sad catchphrase, if you’re ever involved in a non-fatal accident in the area do tune in between 5 and 7 on a Sunday night. If I was a blatant self-publicist – perish the thought – I’d say it was the “award-nominated” “Where The Action Is” but I’m not, so I won’t. Anyway, enough of this blatant self-promotion… D’oh!

I’m always looking to hone my radio skills – lord knows I need it – and on Tuesday I took the opportunity to shadow my VRN colleague and Fife radio legend John Murray as he did his other show on Edinburgh’s premier community station Leith FM. I wanted a flavour of what goes on at a different level of radio and I mean no disrespect to hospital radio when I say that. I don’t get (m)any calls to my own show – I don’t encourage it to be honest – and e-mails are non-existent although this is in no small part down to the limits of our broadcast area. I wanted to get a sense what happened in a busier studio, with emails and texts and phones liable to go off at any moment.

In radio circles there’s been a bit of a buzz about Leith FM and the interesting things they’re doing. The team at Leith are passionate about what they do and it shows. Sure, they may not be “professional” and at times can come across as somewhat ramshackle (don’t we all) but that’s one of its charms. If it was good enough for John Peel…At one point during John’s show the station seem to stop broadcasting and staff scurried through the studio trying to find out what went wrong. John was calmness personified.

“Noise Up” is the 12 until 2 lunchtime slot and has a different presenter every day, with John filling the between-Monday-and-Wednesday slot. Like all seasoned professionals John makes it look so easy. I was roped in, alongside Ally Gourlay – who’ll start on Leith FM on Monday presenting “Art School of Dancing” – into a Juke Box Jury one-minute-only review of a number of tracks sent in by a promotional company. The first track by The Hayley Oliver Band sounded like Dolly Parton backed by The Corrs and as bad as that might sound to some people it was head and shoulders above the countless other Country-by-numbers efforts Ally and I had to then endure.

Thankfully studio guest Tokyo Rosenthal, accompanied by mandolin magician Charlie Chamberlain, rescued us from further punishment. John played a couple of tracks from Tokyo’s new album “Ghosts” in-between some chat and the big North Carolinan treating us to three live slices of his home town Americana seasoned with a touch of the blues, an altogether more palatable form of the Country genre.

Here’s footage of Tokyo performing “There Is No Perfect Love” from the new album:

The sound isn’t great due to the studio window being open and me only using a Flip to record it but it’s enough to give you a flavour of an excellent singer-songwriter.

A VERY limited audio download of the full session and interview is available for 7 days (from Tuesday!) or 100 downloads from:

https://www.yousendit.com/download/OHo1M25EMGNCTWxjR0E9PQ

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Stone Free – A Night with Andrew Loog-Oldham

As so often happens, the best events in Scotland occur on the West Coast. Living on the East Coast means it’s almost a military-style operation to get organised and with my own ever-changing moods to contend with sometimes it just doesn’t happen and I miss out on wonderful evenings.

Thankfully I was focussed enough to get myself off to Glasgow to witness legendary radio presenter John Cavanagh – a voice I grew up with and have as much affection for as I do Sir John of Peel – interviewing ever more legendary record producer, impresario and man-of-all-sorts Andrew Loog-Oldham.

Now the thought of travelling across country to sit and listen to two men talking might not be everybody’s idea of a good time, especially without any alcohol involved, but I was enthralled. I had plans to do some recording while I was there – one-line trailers for my radio show – but that went out the window as I engrossed in the discussion and the following question-and-answer session.

John Cavanagh is a natural orator and knows how to get the best of interviewees, not that he had to try too hard. Andrew told it like it is and was and was unapologetic and why should he be? Considering his own well-documented addiction problems, he seems to have come through it with even more focus and no less passion for music, and his other love cinema.

As if to underline the importance and influence of the man there were a number of the great and good of the Scottish music scene present with Rab Noakes, Billy Sloan, Jason McPhail (V-Twin), Lenny Helsing (The Thanes), Lindsay Hutton (Next Big Thing) and George Gallacher and Fraser Watson from The Poets, a Glasgow band signed and managed by ALO.

The event was filmed and hopefully it’ll see the light soon because it was a fascinating talk; a talk of survival and passion and being ‘in the now’ and making the most of it.

ALO and I

He kindly signed my copies of “Stoned” and “2Stoned” and agreed to a photo (above) and a brief chat. “Stone Free” is imminent but for reasons best known to them the publishers of the first two books weren’t interested in the third. Their loss. After a brief chat with Lenny* and Fraser about the possibility of The Poets and The Thanes playing together soon (now that would be worth travelling a great distance for), I headed off into the night in search of chips.

ALO MMX

Having parked some distance away at the Glasgow Science Centre, I enjoyed an eerily quiet walk back to my car. I know I was out of the centre and walking along the banks of Clyde but this was too quiet. But instead of mentally complaining about it I revelled in the peace. As I crossed the “Squinty” Bridge and walked along the other side of the river passing first Scottish Television and then BBC Scotland it occurred to me that the BBC’s “River City” may not be the best soap opera in the world but it’s better than anything produced by STV of late.

I never did get my chips.

The Cat

*I thought I’d driven some distance for this relatively short event but Lenny had come from Stonehaven. By train! Now that’s rock ‘n’ roll.

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“Where The Action Is” playlist – Sunday 25 April 2010

The sun has well and truly put its hat on, as well as the rest of its holiday clothes, and toddled off somewhere else. Still I’ll try to bring some musical sunshine in the shape of “Where The Action Is”. As usual we’ll play two rounds of the Connect 3 game, we’ll celebrate the birthday of songwriter Michael Brown and this week’s foreign language track comes from Gillian Hills. There’s also the half-time instrumental, the Trojan Mod Reggae track (still no suggestions for a groovy name for this feature?) and there’s Two of a Kind from Nino Tempo and April Stevens. I’ll also be playing another track from the brand new Jackie Leven album, “Gothic Road”. For the last time we’ll feature tracks from the Sunshine Pop edition of the Chartbusters USA series, “The Laurie Records Story” and “Phil’s Spectre II: Another Wall of Soundalikes”. Here are this week’s dishes – tuck in:

The Beach Boys – Darlin’ (Capitol 1967)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
Mary Wells – One Block From Heaven (Motown 1966)
Ella Washington – Too Weak To Fight (Sound Stage 7 1972)
The Del-Rons – Your Big Mistake (Laurie 1964)
Bobby Vee & The Strangers – Look At Me Girl (Liberty 1966)
Gloria Dennis – How Can I Be Sure (That It’s Love) (Laurie 1965)
Bobby Coleman – (Baby) You Don’t Have To Tell Me (Bounty 1965)
Gemini – Sunshine River (Clarion 1969) (Connect 3)
The Sunshine Company – Back On The Street Again (Imperial 1967) (Connect 3)
The Box Tops – I Only See Sunshine (Mala 1969) (Connect 3)
The Charmers – Shy Guy (Laurie 1963)
Kane and Abel – Break Down and Cry (Destination 1965)
The Left Banke – She May Call You Up Tonight (Smash 1967) (Birthday: 25/4/49 Michael Brown)
The Cheese Cakes – Heading for a Heartbreak (Laurie 1966)
Noreen Corcoran – Dreamin’ of You (Vee-Jay 1964)
Gillian Hills – Maintenant Il Telephone (Barclay 1963) (Foreign Language)
Mamas and the Papas – I Saw Her Again (Dunhill 1966)
The Small Faces – Own Up Time (Decca 1966) (Half-Time Instrumental)
Bernadette Carroll – Circus Girl (Laurie 1965)
Spanky & Our Gang – Lazy Day (Mercury 1967)
Owen Gray – Running Around (Blue Beat 1960) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
Willie Hobbs – Where Did I Go Wrong? (Sound Stage 7 1970)
Joe South – Don’t Be Ashamed (Capitol 1969)
Beverly Warren – Let Me Get Close To You (Rust 1965)
Jackie Leven – John Paul Getty’s Silver Cadillac (Cooking Vinyl 2010) (Under The Influence)
The Forum – The River Is Wide (Mira 1966)
Connie Stevens – A Girl Never Knows (Warner Bros 1964)
Brenda Lee Jones – You’re The Love of My Life (Rust 1966)
The Peppermint Rainbow – Don’t Wake Me Up In The Morning, Michael (Decca 1969) (Connect 3)
Jackie Lee – End of a Rainbow (LP version) (Pye 1971) (Connect 3)
The Rainbow People – Rainbows (Pye 1968) (Connect 3)
The Chiffons – Keep The Boy Happy (Laurie 1967)
Marcy – Love (Can Make You Happy) (Sundi 1969)
Nino Tempo & April Stevens – The Habit of Lovin’ You Baby (White Whale 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Nino Tempo & April Stevens – All Strung Out (White Whale 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Harpers Bizarre – Anything Goes (Warner Bros 1967)
The Righteous Brothers – Nite Owl (Moonglow 1964)
The Association – Time for Livin’ (Warner Bros 1968)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

If you’re in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, you can tune in on channel 3 on your hospital bedside or on 1287AM on the Medium Wave.

That’s it for this week. Next week will be a self-indulgent Birthday special as it’s the day before my big day. I’ll be playing tracks by artists who have Paul in their name, or songs/artists about cats (because I’m “The Cat”) and a few birthday/party tracks. Until then, it’s good day and good health.

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I Was Looking For A Job…

“Does anyone have a job in Dunfermline/Fife, Mon-Fri 8-4? Admin with a bit of creativity and no sales. Radio would be cool too. Call me!”

My parents’ divorce, when I was barely a teenager, had a devastating effect on me and for many years – too many years – I lacked any kind of guidance, especially when it came to careers advice. Now that I’ve finally come to terms with this and have gained some mental and physical stability by kicking anti-depressants and engaging in a daily exercise routine I’m ready to take on the world. But is it too late? Am I too set in my ways? Can I get up to speed and make a difference?

I recently posted the above plea on Twitter and Facecloth. After a 15-year struggle with depression, which left me unfocused, and, quite frankly, a bit of a mess, I’m ready to get on and do “something”. I want to achieve something, be part of something and, more importantly, do something I enjoy, something that makes me happy. I haven’t been very lucky when it comes to jobs.

Like many directionless school leavers in similar circumstances I fell into “office work”. Or, if you want to make it sound grander “Admin.” Like many desperate professions, once you’re in it’s hard to get out. It’s like a never-ending whirlpool of stationery, squash ladders and wacky ties. You can only hope that the office you work in is in an interesting area, maybe PA at a radio station or Officer Manager in a Television production company. You get sucked into the routine inanity of office life and all the mind-numbing banalities it throws up and there just seems like no way out.

I can’t blame all my work failings on my parents because I’ve made some really stupid mistakes. I put my hands up to those but maybe they would’ve have happened if I’d been more focussed and less distracted by the black cloud constantly hanging over me. Who knows?

Here’s a brief history of my working career, omitting the more revealing details

Job 1: First job as an impressionable school-leaver. First Friday coincided with my 17^th birthday and my colleagues got me drunk. Okay, I was only HALF-cut until one of them kindly put some vodka into my cider. Collapsed at my desk drunk and it was all downhill from there. Lasted 9 months thanks to the bullying of two bulky jack-booted sisters who made me as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. Oh, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

Job 2: It took me another 18 months to get a job and this time it was within walking distance of home. Okay, it was a 40-minute walk but if I had no bus fares – most weeks – I could take Shanks’ Pony. I walked out of this job after being exasperated by the overbearing and patronising behaviour of my Cliff Richard-loving, munchkin-esque boss.

Job 3/4/5: Public sector house sales. I actually enjoyed working there and liked most of the people – there’s always one idiot everywhere I’ve worked – but when the house sales department privatised itself it all went downhill. Like Franz Klammer on speed.

Job 6: In a moving reeking of desperation and in an attempt to appease my mother I joined the Royal Navy. In five years I never went to sea once much to my wife’s eternal amusement. The nearest I got to a life on the ocean wave was regular trips on the Gosport Ferry. The disciplined environment was actually a godsend and gave my some focus but it was also when I was first diagnosed with depression. It explained a lot. I left when I fell in love and realised I missed my lifestyle in Edinburgh (pub quizzes, cinema, the Festival). Maybe if I’d joined younger, like my brother…

Job 7: The worst job ever. The area of the building I worked in – the basement – was known locally as “The Killing Fields” and was overrun by school leavers whose only reason for being there was to avoid losing their benefit. The salary was also half of my Navy one. Took me a year to escape. Dark days indeed.

Job 8: From one institution to another. Again, there were many nice people here but it also had more than its fair share of dickheads, and they were mostly women. A heterosexual colleague spurned the advances of a female colleague while on holiday and her life was made a misery. By association of my friendship with her, I too was sent to Coventry. It got worse when I applied for the temporary job I had been doing for five months, only to lose out to an external candidate. My dad had died a few days before the interview. My bullied colleague/friend and I left with days of each other.

Job 9: My first position in what you might consider a creative environment. It had some perks and, again, some very nice people but it’s always the actions of a few horrible ones who outweigh the positives. My boss and her colleague used to rake through my in-trays when I wasn’t there (I know because I set traps!). I’ve never trusted Personnel people since.

Job 10: In my current job I’ve been in a number of departments. The first saw me in a department with five women, who seemed to hate each other. The second post was with a misandrist of a boss. After losing out on an internal job when I had scored the highest at interview, I left that department for another as a Supervisor. Big mistake and within six weeks I was off for 7 months with depression, anxiety and stress. I had challenged a member of staff about some racist language and she took exception. She repeated it before walking out. I got little or no help from superiors or colleagues. Not good times.

Thankfully towards the end of my illness-enforced lay-off I found a creative, confidence-boosting outlet in the shape of the local hospital radio station. I thought I would just be helping out but they gave me a show. I’ve since moved to a more forward-thinking station but I’m grateful for the opportunity they gave me.

I returned to work and was redeployed to an office, where I would sit for hours on my own staring out of the window at a multi-story car park and honing my Sudoku skills. Not my idea of rehabilitation to the world of work. I’m now working in an office with decent people but dull, unfulfilling work, which sucks the very life out of me. There’s got to be more than this.

My twice award-nominated show, “Where the Action Is”, and the occasional piece of writing hasn’t been enough to relieve an overwhelming feeling of frustration. I’m unsatisfied. I want more. Is that too much to ask? Hell, I wouldn’t mind getting paid too. The radio show is voluntary and I’ve only done one piece of paid writing. I recently did a quiz night for my employer and got 5 ½ hours’ overtime, which will mean about 27p after tax. The DJ, who only played for about half an hour after I’d finished, got proper pay. Cash. Wonga.

I like doing quizzes, especially for people who ask nicely, and I put a lot of work into them but I only do them as irregular one-offs. I do have an annual gig, for which I’m paid, but I couldn’t go back to a regular pub quiz. Partly because of the work and time that goes into them and partly because of the propensity of pub quizzers to now Google and Shazam every question. Why reach into the deepest recesses of your mind when you can just type it into a small computer cunningly disguised as a phone? People have no respect for the pub quiz anymore.

I was an irregular contributor to The Scotsman’s excellent Recommends section. While most of the top 5s sent in would extol the virtues of Scotland and all it has to offer visitors, mine were more left field, with a decidedly proper culture bent to them. Top 5 Slosh songs, anyone? Write about what you know, isn’t that what they say? Sadly Recommends is no more and opportunities to get into proper print are few and far between, especially in the kingdom of Fife.

Well, that’s my story, sad, but true. So can anyone offer an opportunity or creative outlet to a hard-working, intelligent man with a lot of personality to offer? Thought not. Time to refill my stapler.

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The Whole 19 Yards

Whenever a brand new television format comes along that proves successful e.g. Come Dine With Me, there is the inevitable clamour by other creatively bankrupt stations and/or production companies to grab on to the mudflaps of said bandwagon in the vain hope that some of that success might rub off. Sadly, those productions lacking the imagination of Come Dine With Me have, not surprisingly, turned up some right mince.

The thought of Michael Winner coming into my house via the rectangular box in the corner is bad enough without him parking his actual arse on our actual chaise lounge in full 4D is enough to bring up my Turkey Twizzlers. Michael Winner’s Dining Stars, along with Restaurant in Our Living Room and Instant Restaurant have been the televisual equivalent of finding a bit of shell in your omelette or a bone in your fish – totally unpalatable.

Quiz shows are no stranger to this format “borrowing” either. You know that when a production assistant tries to persuade you that a show is “Show A meets Show B” then it’s struggling for its own identity and inevitably a poor imitation of one or both.

I didn’t watch all of ITV1′s Saturday night hors d’oeuvre to the main meal of Britain’s Got Talent but I watched enough of The Whole 19 Yards to know I had had a lucky escape. As any who knows me will testify, I do like a quiz/game show and, if it appeals, I’ll try to get on it. A contestant call went out in January for The Whole 19 Yards and I was not unnaturally intrigued.

Sold to me on the premise of being Total Wipeout meets quiz (any old quiz) I decided on a rather different tack with the production assistant asked to call back interested parties. Normally I wouldn’t have mentioned that I had just recorded something else – still not shown yet – but I wasn’t that fussed if I didn’t get on. It seems my attempts to put them off worked and they didn’t take it any further and boy am I glad.

It was like Pat Sharp’s Funhouse with a quiz that a Primary 1 class would find insulting tagged on. In fact, it wasn’t even that good. Last night’s winner didn’t even know The Kremlin was in Moscow and he walked away with £20,000! Am I so desperate for money that I would put myself through that? Er, possibly, but not just now thanks. By the time I’ve decided that I am that desperate it’ll probably (hopefully) be off our screens. Meanwhile, I’ll head straight for the cheese board.

Oh, and don’t even start me on Vernon Kaye…

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“Where The Action Is” Playlist – Sun 18 Apr 2010

It’s back to VRN 1287AM after a week of sunshine in beautiful Strathyre. We’ll play two rounds of the Connect 3 game, we’ll celebrate the birthday of Manfred Mann multi-instrumentalist Mike Vickers and this week’s foreign language track comes from Sandie Shaw. There’s also the half-time instrumental, the Trojan Mod Reggae track (any suggestions for a groovy name for this feature?) and there’s Two of a Kind from Reparata, with and without the Delrons. We’ll also play a track from the brand new Jackie Leven album, “Gothic Road”. This month’s shows will feature tracks from the Sunshine Pop edition of the Chartbusters USA series, “The Laurie Records Story” and “Phil’s Spectre II: Another Wall of Soundalikes”. This week’s delights:

The Lovin’ Spoonful – She Is Still A Mystery (Kama Sutra 1967)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
The Fifth Dimension – Workin’ On A Groovy Thing (Soul City 1969)
Marie Antoinette – He’s My Dream Boy (Providence 1964)
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – If You Can Want  (Tamla 1968)
The Lemon Pipers – Green Tambourine (Buddah 1967)
The Bonnets – Ya Gotta Take A Chance (Unical 1963)
Dawn – Sandy (Laurie 1968)
Robert Knight – Love On A Mountain Top (Monument 1973) (Connect 3)
The Victorians – Climb Every Mountain (Liberty 1963) (Connect 3)
Valerie Mountain – Some People (Pye 1962) (Connect 3)
The Summits – He’s An Angel (Harmon/Rust 1963)
The Young Rascals – A Girl Like You (Atlantic 1967)
Manfred Mann – Hubble Bubble (Toil and Trouble) (HMV 1964) (Birthday: 18/4/40 Mike Vickers)
Timmy & The Persianettes – Timmy Boy (Olympia 1963)
Cortina Ford – Don’t Lean On Me (Laurie 1966)
Sandie Shaw – Rien N’Est Fini (Guardo Te Che Te Ne Vai) (Pye 1966) (Foreign Language)
The Satisfactions – Bring It All Down (Imperial 1966)
Dave Pike – Sweeet Tater Pie (Atlantic 1965) (Half-Time Instrumental)
The Tokens – She Lets Her Hair Down (Buddah 1969)
The Fantastic Vantastics – Gee What A Boy (Tuff 1965)
Clancy All Stars – C N Express (Trojan 1967) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
Dana Gillespie – Thank You Boy (Pye 1965)
The Charmers – Sweet Talk (Laurie 1963)
The Friends of Distinction – Grazing In The Grass (RCA 1969)
Jackie Leven – Gothic Road (Cooking Vinyl 2010) (Under The Influence)
The Chiffons – Love Me Like You’re Gonna Lose Me (Laurie 1969)
The Velvelettes – Let Love Live (A Little Bit Longer) (Unreleased 1965)
The Knickbockers – Wishful Thinking (Challenge 1966)
Helen Shapiro – A Teenager Sings The Blues (EMI 1962) (Connect 3)
The Jeans – Whenever A Teenager Cries (Laurie 1981) (Connect 3)
Joe Simon – Teenager‘s Prayer (Sound Stage 7 1965) (Connect 3)
Ruby & The Romantics – Your Baby Doesn’t Love You Anymore (Kapp 1965)
The Neon Philharmonic – Morning Girl (Warner Bros 1969)
Reparat and the Delrons – I’m Nobody’s Baby Now (RCA Victor 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Reparata – Your Life Is Gone (Laurie 1972) (Two of a Kind)
The Association – Time for Livin’ (Warner Bros 1968)
The Rolling Stones – Plundered My Soul (Polydor 1972)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

If you’re in the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, you can tune in on channel 3 on your hospital bedside or on 1287AM on the Medium Wave.

That’s it for this week. It’s back to the day job and changeable weather but I’ll be back with you next week for more aural delights. Until then, it’s good night and good health.

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Never Mind The Trossachs

Forest Cabin

I’m not sure I can even remember when my last overseas holiday was. Since my daughter’s appearance on this island earth we’d made do with an assortment of holiday camps, caravans and the occasional forest cabin. (Yeah, I know some people don’t even get that but I’m not going to apologise for feeling I deserve a break).

I feign jealousy that my colleagues are heading off to the more glamorous exotic climes of Dubai, Amsterdam and Lanzagrotty while I have to settle for staycations but, if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t swap with them. It’s not so much the destinations themselves as the sterile, Tie Rack-ridden vastness of the airports and all the stress the waiting there induces. Again it’s not the air travel itself, just the worry of what might go wrong. Would someone try to jump the (ordered) queue? Will the luggage go astray? Will the kid behind me ever STOP KICKIN’ MY FUCKIN’ SEAT?

Air travel is not good for me – mentally or physically – although a new inner calm brought about by a year without anti-depressants and a ritualistic obsession with the gym may enable me to cope better. (At six feet three/four there’s never enough leg room unless I sit in the aisle and as for the other passengers, well, they’re so annoying, aren’t they?) Only time, and a free all-expenses paid foreign holiday won in a competition/prize draw, will tell.

It may sound somewhat decadent when I say I’ve just had the first of three holidays this year but four nights in a log cabin, a few days in York in the summer (assuming we can get booked on the train and in reasonably-priced accommodation) and three days at Crieff Hydro in the autumn but Alan Whicker I am not. The family “holidays” are planned with military precision (fire up the Excel spreadsheet!) due to the Good Lady Wife and I having different leave years and our daughter’s school holidays being all over the place. World War Two didn’t have so much forward thinking.

It’s the third time in four years we’ve been to the Forest Cabins at Strathyre and we love it. As soon as we’re checked in and the clothes and food are squirreled away into cupboards and drawers, we have a seat on the balcony, raise a glass to our holiday and listen. To nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sure there’s the odd twitter of a chaffinch or robin but essentially it’s people-less nirvana.

Over the next few days we went for long walks (our five-year old daughter even managed two in one day), toured Blair Drummond Safari Park (also our third visit),  had a barbeque on the balcony (a new feature) and cycled into Callander. Hell, we could’ve been even more decadent and got one of the cabins with a hot tub but we didn’t want too much excitement.

On our arrival we were greeted with a Scrabble rack spelling our FAILTE, the Gaelic Scots word for welcome. Aah. Sadly this was somewhat spoiled by the lack of one of the Ds and no Z when we played the game the next day.

Two missing Scrabble tiles was the only downside as we basked and turned off-red in the glorious sunshine and not a volcanic ash cloud in site. (Having no newspapers and a mere six TV channels this news seemed to have passed us by until the day before we returned home. Another reason to be thankful of a home soil holiday).

Actually there was one other problem, which became evident as soon as I parked my gluteus maximus on one of the green plastic balcony chairs to sip my first holiday coffee. The polar bears. They were nowhere to be found. Our daughter had left her much-loved comforters of choice, along with her holiday reading and colouring-in pencils, in her playroom and no sooner had I sat down than I was driving back home again. No greater love hath a dad for his daughter…With only an iPhone/iPod of indie pop classics for company I drove 80 minutes home and 80 minutes back and re-started my holiday some three and a half hours after it had originally started.

Nine months of regular gym patronage has done wonders for my fitness and I really enjoyed the two Tuesday climbs*. The Thursday cycle to Callander and back had started well enough but after a stop at The Lade Inn on the way back for fish and chips and a pint of Belhaven Best (mmm…) I struggled home. I can’t imagine Lance Armstrong stopping off on Mont Ventoux for Battered Haggis Balls, Beer Battered Haddock served with Homemade Tartare Sauce and a pint of cold, creamy Best and faring any better. Mind you, Lance wouldn’t have been pulling along a five-year old girl in a trailer as well. Having steadfastly refused a tag-along bike Felicity spent most of the trip curled up in a ball behind me as I ploughed a lone furrow at the front of the Johnston peloton. I say peloton but she-who-must-be-obeyed had given up the ghost and walked the rest of the way.

There were no naked WI ladies in Callander but I did encounter one movie star who decided, without provocation I might add, to whack me around the head. While at the Blair Drummond Safari Park I was cuffed around my slightly singed noggin by one of the stars of the film “Alexander”. Sadly it wasn’t Colin Farrell or Angelina Jolie but a Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture. He flew away before I could have a word with him. Lucky for him.

We returned home this morning with aching limbs, burnt necks and an enormous sense of wellbeing. Roll on August and the delights of York.

(* At the welcome meeting on Tuesday we all had a raffle ticket and our daughter was asked to pick one ticket out to win a free guided Dusk Walk. She picked out our ticket! Hence the second the walk on Tuesday. She showed remarkable stamina by staying up well past her normal bedtime, leading the group round most of the way and helping to listen out for bats, using a machine I dubbed the BatNav).

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“Where The Action Is” Playlist – Sun 11 Apr 10

After the trauma of the HBA awards and the chocolate-flavoured goings-on of the Easter weekend, it’s back to normality and the usual mix of mod, soul, Motown, alternative pop and a veritable cornucopia of classic cuts from the late 50s through to the early 70s. This month’s shows will feature tracks from the Sunshine Pop edition of the Chartbusters USA series, The Laurie Records Story and “Phil’s Spectre II: Another Wall of Soundalikes”. Eyes down for a full house:

The Turtles – Happy Together (White Whale 1967)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)
The Summits – Hanky Panky (Harmon/Rust 1963)
The Beach Boys – I Do (Unreleased 1963)
The Critters – Younger Girl (Kapp 1966)
Les Girls – I Still Love You (Laurie 1966)
The Velvelettes – A Bird in the Hand (Is Worth Two In the Bush) (VIP 1965)
The Cowsills – The Rain, The Park and Other Things (MGM 1967)
Eight Feet – Bobby’s Come A Long Long Way (Columbia 1966) (Connect 3)
Keith – 98.6 (Mercury 1966) (Connect 3)
Four Tops – Wonderful Baby (Motown 1967) (Connect 3)
Cher – I Go To Sleep (Imperial 1965)
Linda and the Lindettes – He’s Mine (Unreleased 1964)
The Kingsmen – Louie Louie (Jerden 1963) (Birthday: 11/4/35 Richard Berry)
The Goodies – Dum Dum Ditty (Blue Cat 1965)
Don and the Goodtimes – I Could Be So Good To You (Epic 1967)
Jacques Brel – Le Moribond (Philips 1961) (Foreign Language)
Lorrie Darnell – Nothing Went Right (Laurie 1963)
Tony Newman – Let The Good Times Roll (Decca 1968) (Half-Time Instrumental)
Donovan – Wear Your Love Like Heaven (Epic 1967)
Dobie Gray – No Room To Cry (Charger 1966)
Tommy McCook – Riverton City (Trojan 1966) (Trojan Mod Reggae)
Mama Cass – It’s Getting Better (Dunhill 1969)
The Rockin’ Berries – The Water Is Over My Head (Piccadilly 1965)
Dawn – I’m Afraid They’re All Talking About Me (Laurie 1967)
Jackie Leven – In a Shivering Blaze (Cooking Vinyl 2010) (Under The Influence)
Suzy Wallis – Be My Man (RCA-Victor 1965)
Tommy James and The Shondells – Crystal Blue Persuasion (Roulette 1969)
Episode Six – Put Yourself In My Place (Pye 1965)
Kathy Lynn & The Playboys – I Got A Guy (Swan 1964) (Connect 3)
Bernadette Carroll – He’s Just A Playboy (Laurie 1965) (Connect 3)
Sundown Playboys – Saturday Night Special (Apple 1972) (Connect 3)
The Dreamlovers – You Gave Me Somebody To Love (Warner Bros 1966)
Robert John – If You Don’t Want My Love (Columbia 1968)
The Chiffons – If I Knew Then (What I Know Now) (Laurie 1966) (Two of a Kind)
The Chiffons – Stop, Look and Listen (Laurie 1966) (Two of a Kind)
Clydie King – The Thrill Is Gone (Imperial 1965)
Chris Farlowe – Out of Time (Immediate 1966)
Floyd Cramer – On The Rebound (RCA 1961) (show theme)

That’s it for this week. I’m now off for a week’s R&R with my ladies but I’ll back for next week’s show. Until then, it’s good night and good health.

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