It doesn't feel like two years since Andrew Collings and me last graced the 6Music airwaves together, and as we walked into the studio this morning very little had changed. We were back. For one day only. A "one-off" according to the Radio Times, but who knows where it might lead. Perhaps in two more years we will be asked back again.
Provided of course that we didn't mess it up by behaving like we were in my attic and doing a podcast.
People seemed convinced that I wouldn't be able to control myself and indeed I was slightly concerned, but only slightly. I am a professional broadcaster and have worked live before and have only very rarely accidentally sworn by mistake. But I was aware that if I got into one of those rants, where even I am not sure what is about to come out of my mouth, then there was danger some devil inside me might push things too far.
But Andrew Collings was so excited and is so keen to get back on the radio for proper, that I couldn't take him down with me. I would be cheeky, for sure and I would push things a little bit, but I would, I was almost sure, stay on the right side of the line.
There were a couple of gags for podcast listeners. I said, for example, that I thought Susan Boyle would have won the contest last night "standing on her head". I was also delighted to find out that Barry Norman had a range of pickled onions. "Imagine Barry Norman's pickled onions," I said, in a show where we had made euphemisms a theme, "they'd be all wrinkly with really loose skin."
Andrew was full of ideas for the audience at home to get involved, not just the euphemism thing, but also encouraging to people to text in with their J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez), Subo (Susan Boyle), Sico (Simon Cowell) style nicknames. Our own Anco (sounding like a bargain supermarket chain) and Rihi (according to Andrew the cry of a troll) were rubbish, but some superb suggestions came in, so good in fact that I wondered if a couple of them might have been nicked from a comedy act (and if not, I might nick them to do the act) Pete Doherty would be P-do and Amanda Holden would be A-Hol. How brilliant is that. I came up with one for the boringly named Britain's Got Talent runner up Julian Smith of Jusm (which might have been pushing things almost as far as they could go).
We also had fun tasting Collings' truly horrible homemade biscotti, which was so dry and sawdusty that it actually sucked all moisture from the entire room, but had a surprisingly nice after taste. They contained neither sugar or flour which I would suggest was the problem. Everyone else who has eaten them has been very polite. I am not held back by such niceties.We had fun discussing the idea of him setting up his own label, marketing his unpalatable food. Hopefully one day he will do so.
I got through the whole thing without jumping over the line and even got in a couple of insane rants.
Maybe we should have a similar no swearing policy on the podcast.
Yeah, fuck that.
You can listen again for the next week
on iPlayer. Or you can hear it without the boring music
by downloading it from here. I thought we were pretty good. Hopefully we'll get to do some more.
If not, back to the attic next week.
I made more progress with the book, but still have to work my way through the last couple of chapters. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow. Realistically I think I am aiming for a fully finished almost final draft by Friday. Given I have to go to Bristol on Tuesday to record the DVD of Headmaster's Son at the Tobacco Factory. Last scheduled performance of this show. Still a few tickets left.
Book online.
