I have been really enjoying my weekly stint on
the Andrew Collings show on 6Music (they have mispelt his name on the website- idiots). It is a very relaxed chat about the Sunday newspapers and we (clearly) don't prepare for it and just say whatever comes into our heads. We can only work with what we're given and as the Sunday papers are full fo filth and fury, we are forced to be filthy and furious in return. Well that is my excuse. In reality we are a pair of naughty school boys seeing how far we can push back the boundaries of taste on a Sunday afternoon, before the headmaster tells us off. With Andrew as a kind of prefect who has a bit more to lose and who will thus chastise me when I go too far. He can pretend to be appalled by me when I make a statement that is too contentious and thus we have all the exits covered. In theory.
In our time we have touched on some fairly controversial subjects but the only time we've had a complaint was when I implied (possibly by directly saying it, I can't quite remember) that I would like to dance on Margaret Thatcher's grave. Otherwise we have merrily gone on our way with our silly conversations which usually touch upon lesbianism, serial killers and Andrew's persistent desire to touch the beak of a duck (a dangerous desire in the current climate - you will either get bird flu or be shot by the Vice President of the USA - is it worth the danger? To a duck menace like Collings, yes it surely is). We usually have a good laugh for the half an hour we're in the studio, both on air and also while the records are playing when we can say even more controversial things. It's fun and if you don't listen to it then you are an idiot. Especially as you can listen again on the website I have linked to above.
Today we were in especially skittish mood, perhaps because we had had the feedback that the controller of 6Music (the headmaster if you will) particularly likes our bits and was annoyed at the gym this week when his iPod batteries ran out before he got to our bit.
We had had an amusing chat about serial killers, which Andrew ended on what I thought was a slightly contentious note. Then we got on to talking about a story where some rugby players had roasted a woman in a kitchen and filmed the whole dirty deed. They hadn't roasted her in the oven, which would not have been a newsworthy story, instead they had roasted her in a sexual sense, a term which I believe comes from the act resembling a spit roasting. We got on to discussing what a strange thing this was to want to do with a friend as it means you are having to watch them as they go about their business, whilst you are going about your own. Personally I think I would find this an off putting and probably embarrassing thing to have to do. I've often thought that the macho and usually aggressively heterosexual sportsmen who seem to do this a lot with their team mates are actually just interested in having sex with each other, but they need the woman in the middle of them so that they don't look gay. I said to Andrew that I wouldn't like to do it with him, having to look him in the eye during such an intimate moment. He seemed to agree, but I wondered if we were being short-sighted and maybe we couldn't be sure unless we were to give it a go ourselves (purely as an academic exercise). I suggested that maybe a listener who was a fan of us both might want to help us with this task, (it could have been a prize for a competition of some kind and then when we did it we would find out if it was a good way to behave or as we both assumed a bit embarrassing and humiliating to everyone concerned). Andrew tried to swerve the subject away from this unpleasant and wrong suggestion by saying we could do it not with a fan, but with a chicken. This came a bit out of nowhere, though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the bird obsessed DJ shuld think of such a thing. "I mean a roast chicken" he added, and although there was a pun in this I found it more amusing that Collings seemed to be trying to say he obviously wouldn't do such a thing with a live chicken, but a dead one would be OK.
In any case, it was such an unexpected turn that I found myself laughing uncontrollably, with tears rolling down my face. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) Andrew also found it very funny and there followed what felt like about two minutes of us laughing hysterically, unable to say anything. Listening back it only lasts about 10 seconds on air before Andrew managed to stick a record on to cover our childish unprofessionalism. Though we did keep laughing for a good minute as the record played. It was delightfully naughty and pathetic and hopefully didn't sound too stupid or annoying. Two middle aged men laughing about having sex with a chicken on Sunday afternoon on the national radio. Is that entertainment? I am not sure. It could be the ultimate entertainment.
I haven't laughed as much in ages. Hopefully the headmaster's iPod will run out of batteries again this week and we won't both get sacked.
You can read his side of the story on his new (restarted) blog (he spells his own name wrong on it - the idiot). He seems to blame me, but it was him who started talking about having sex with chickens. I just talked about having sex with a consenting human which is nothing to be ashamed of. Even if you have Andrew Collings's big face staring back at you from the other end.
This is my job. Life is strange.
