Mainly driving again. Down to Nottingham for another preview and then, just cos I hadn't driven enough, two and a half hours more to get home just before 2am. What did you do with your Saturday and Sunday? I drove for about 12 hours and did about three and a half hours of comedy. Sweet!
Although the night time driving is (as always) a bit tough, I enjoyed the drive from Kendal to Nottingham, listening to the radio, thinking about my show, watching the rain.
My good show biz friend Dale Winton (I met him once in about 1993 when he was on our radio show) was doing his nostalgic chart rundown. He was playing the chart for the 22nd June 1966 and the quality of the songs and the number of classics among them was slightly breath-taking. It included Simon and Garfunkel "I am a Rock", The Beach Boys "Sloop John B", The Troggs "Wild Thing", The Rolling Stones "Paint it Black", Percy Sledge "When a Man Loves a Woman", Ike and Tina Turner "River Deep, Mountain High", The Kinks "Sunny Afternoon", Mamas and the Papas "Monday, Monday", Frank Sinatra "Strangers in the Night" and at number one, perhaps inevitably, the Beatles with "Paperback Writer". That is just an astonishing list of songs and it was incredible to discover how few of these tracks that are still being played today actually made it to number one. The competition was clearly intense and the quality of music is almost unbelievable.
I like Sixties music, but I don't think it's just my personal taste that makes this chart exceptional. And nor is it bringing back nostalgic memories as I wasn't alive at this point. But how many of
today's top 20 will still be regarded as classics in 40 years time? I know the singles chart isn't as important today as it was then and I guess that the incredible competition and fecundity of the Sixties raised everyone's game.
There was some rubbish admittedly, like Cilla Black warbling through some dirge and an unimpressive Animals track, and I suppose Paperback Writer is one of the weaker Beatles tracks (though their weak is better than most people's incredible), but it made me want to have been eighteen in 1966. Even if that would make me nearly 60 now.
Then Dale Winton leapt to 1993 and played a Cliff Richard song that I have never heard before, that was one of the worst examples of this man's work that there has ever been (and his strong, is way below most people's weak) and I decided to stop off at a service station to escape the disappointment.
The Nottingham gig was OK. But last night perhaps made me over confident and tonight was a reminder that I have a long way to go! Dave Longley was previewing his show too. It was also work in progress, but I think it will be well worth a look if you're up in Edinburgh. He got embroiled in a mini-furore, whipped up by the self-righteous and hypocritical media about
what he immediately admitted was an ill-judged joke at a gig in Liverpool. It's very interesting and enlightening to see his side of the story. But who is really the bad guy in this story? The comedian or the journalists whipping up an indignant response? "What if someone from Rhys's family was here?" asked a heckler. No one was though. But by reporting the joke in the newspaper the journalists have ensured that Rhys's family will have heard the joke. They have thus essentially told the joke to the family, whilst maintaining the moral high ground and arguing we should chastise Longley. But without the journalists the joke would have died and disappeared and not risked offending anyone connected to the story. Longley himself, by his own admission is not a household name (in fact he asked someone in the audience of tonight's gig whether he knew his name - he got it wrong. And he was at the gig) so it was strange and bullying for the media to give him this mini-blip of self-righteous anger. Especially given the fact that he had immediately shown his contrition. But it's really interesting to hear him talk about these issues, so do get along to his show if you get the chance.
