my life - already

I have been reading other people’s blogs, and I get the impression that these are supposed to be thrilling records of one’s personal life – got up, went to the toilet, that kind of thing – rather than just one’s thoughts on the Beatles or Tamla Motown (or Tampa Midtown, as Microsoft spell check would have me write). So here goes.

My problem is that I don’t really do anything much of interest these days. I sit at home at my computer, turn out a sport-on-TV article for Guardian Sport, a fortnightly piece about radio for the Guardian media section, and a weekly general sports column for The National, Abu Dhabi’s award-winning daily newspaper.

Once a week I go round to my mate Edouard’s gaff over the other side of Leeds and record my piss poor podcast, and most Tuesday nights I take part in topical comedy night in the Comedy Cellar at the Verve bar in Leeds. I try and make amusing observations about items in the news, while the young stand-ups on the panel take the piss out of me for being so much older than they are, and try to embarrass me by mentioning sexual practices that weren’t invented in my youth - or at least if they were they never made it to North Manchester.

I’ve only just come to terms with round tea bags, let alone felching and dirty sanchez.

Point is, apart from Tuesday night downstairs at the Verve, Merrion Street, Leeds – next one 8pm, March 17 – and a lunchtime coffee with Edouard in Street Lane, my life is one gay round of putting the kettle on, getting myself another couple of digestive biscuits, watching a bit of sport on TV, and trying to think of the odd joke or felicitous phrase for one of my columns.

I take my youngest daughter to school most days, and pick her up in the afternoon, and we often go swimming on a Saturday. Nothing so far to have Hollywood falling over itself to make a film version of the blog.

Fortunately, most of my friends who blog are passing the time equally pointlessly, while they wait for the grim reaper to come and do his stuff. The interesting ones, I guess, are just too damned busy to blog.

Good to see my old mate Simon Donald, co-founder of Viz, falling into the former category. His blog tells how he was interviewed by young Lauren Laverne recently for a culture show special from Newcastle, and never made it to the final cut, about which he got very amusingly pissed off.

His thoughts on the place in Newcastle’s cultural fabric of Viz Comic, he complained, were jettisoned in favour of the apercus of one Stuart Maconie. After all, Simon only founded the comic, and has lived in Newcastle all his life, whereas Stuart Maconie likes to go walking in the Lake District.

Macca’s contribution was reminiscent of one of those Monty Python arts show spoofs, as he earnestly placed Viz in a “northern tradition” that includes Alan Bennett, Morrissey, and some other random approved Culture Show name. It was all as outré as Mark Kermode’s hair, but it was good of Macca to fit the show in between his furniture ads. He always does a bang-up job when Paul Morley isn’t available.

(I know it’s not really Maconie on the furniture ads, but, hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good sideswipe).

The good news is that I am in London for a couple of days on a charm offensive (with the emphasis on the offensive), so I expect to have more of interest to report, and blow me if the fun hasn’t already started.

I met my old boss Keith Skues in Euston Road. He was on his way to a preview screening of The Boat That Rocked, the Working Title take on the pirate radio years. Apparently all the old pirate djs had been invited, and obviously transport was standing by to escort them all back to the old broadcasters’ nursing home, Dunjockin.

On which topic, I praised Keith for Pirate Radio Skues, his programme on BBC local radio in the Eastern counties playing all those songs you thought – or possibly hoped – you had forgotten. He told me that he had received a call from the numb nuts in charge of Radio Norwich telling him the show had been axed.

This is just the kind of dynamic management for which BBC local radio is famed. Timing, you see. Just as the pirate stations are back in the spotlight, get rid of the guy who was actually there, and is playing the music they used to play. Anyway, Keith accepted their decision with good grace, the Mail On Sunday did a piece in which he resisted the temptation to shoot his mouth off, and he got a reprieve.

“How’s your Radio Leeds show going?” he asked, and I had to tell him I have not been doing it for nearly two years, and in contrast to him, I had not accepted the fuckwits’ decision with good grace, and left to the sound of burning bridges. “I operate a slash and burn policy,” I told him, “You should know that, you used to be my boss.”

Skuesy tells me he is 70 later this year. I think that might be too old to still be calling yourself Cardboard Shoes. After all, even Francis Rossi has cut his pony tail off.

(Followers - ooh, I feel like L. Ron Hubbard writing that - from now on the blog will be at http://www.martinkelner.com)