On our travels

Broad-minded house-hunting in Sydney and broad bottoms in Sudan

© Steve Palmer 2015

Kenya, December 1990

BTK – Before the kids – Mrs Steve and I travelled. A lot. As soon as we finished uni, we were off. We spent a year in Australia and then travelled back through Asia. I then spent eight years in a travel agency. We climbed Ayers Rock, ate grasshoppers in Mexico and stayed in a hotel in China where the cockroaches staged a sit-in to complain about conditions. Yes. We weren’t tourists. We were proper travellers.

Take the issue of going on safari.

Not for us some unnecessary and pompous luxury camping trip with fine dining. In Nairobi in 1990 we signed up to go with a company called SAVUKA, who offered a discount tour of the Kenyan game parks. I seem to remember it cost about £150 for both of us for a week. This was doing things properly. This was how you get about if you’re after an authentic experience. On the first day we saw the same animals in the Maasai Mara game reserve as those posh people who’d spent £1,000 for their all-inclusive plastic experience. They were wasting their money and we had it sussed.

And then we got to the first night’s campsite. Well, I say ‘campsite’ but that’s perhaps an exaggeration, especially given the state of the toilet. Well; I say ‘toilet’ but it was a massive hole in the ground. Well, I say ‘ground’. And that’s what it was.

Lion eyes

Within minutes of arrival I’d christened the tour company SAVUKA ‘Such A Very Uncomfortable Kamping Arrangement’. Actually, the tents were permanent and pretty good. No; it was probably unfair that I gave the tour company this acronym. There was nothing they could do about the hole in that ground that constituted ‘facilities’…a few yards from the campsite’s kitchen. Slop-out in the mess?

We weren’t the only ones to suffer. I remember seeing a Japanese tourist, obviously at her wit’s end, running into an open field, dropping her jeans and parking a large one then and there in front of me, twenty yards away. People have asked how I could have possibly have watched, but, Your Honour, it all happened so quickly.

The problem for Mrs Steve is that she too wanted to ‘go’. At night. You know, that time when your fears - that hungry lions may be roaming around - are that much more accentuated. So we left the tent, clutching a rudimentary torch, and then Mrs Steve had to make like our Japanese friend and basically let go a few yards away from the canvas. It was practically touching cloth.

And I couldn’t resist shouting, just as things were coming to a nice conclusion: “Lion!” The result was that Mrs Steve panicked and trod in it. She was wearing flip-flops and poo squelched up her leg. I told her that she had to stick the leg out of the flap of the tent all night. I said it might even give the lion something to gnaw on.

Here in 2015 I’ve just searched ‘luxury Kenya safari’. It’s ridiculously expensive. And it looks gorgeous. Damn.  

Well, I can dream can’t I? Because on the same trip we had to wash in the sea for three days. The reason? We were told by our hotel owner that an elephant had cut through an essential cable with its tusk and cut off the water supply to the city of Mombasa. I love the way that a hardship can be dressed up in such a dramatic way by a local trying to give travellers an authentic experience of their country. We stank of seawater.

OK, the Mombasa hygiene situation did actually force us to upgrade. We went for some luxury. In nearby Malindi, we took refuge from the backpack circuit and booked a few nights in a good hotel. By which I mean there was a pool. The thing was, the hotel really existed for package tours. So the people holidaying there were having a totally different experience to us. We’d been walking around with back-breaking backpacks; the tourists expected mosquito nets to be draped from ceiling to floor…and a buffet breakfast. But we deserved this. We were experienced travellers who had, in fact, really earnt this temporary holiday lifestyle. Well, that little fantasy didn’t last long.

We headed straight for the pool and a couple of British families were there. I did that thing where you duck under water and just before your body disappears, you kick a football to show off your skill. This bloke was standing by the side of the pool and the ball I’d kicked smacked him right in the face.

As I surfaced, he was shouting: “You fucking bastard! I can’t fucking believe it! What the fuck do you thing you were doing, you fucking wanker?” I said: “I’m so sorry.” He said: “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” And a kid from the other family asked me: “Is that your Dad?”

Now, our friend Simon wouldn’t entertain the idea of slumming it. He likes a degree of comfort on his travels. Oh, what am I saying? He craves - and gets - luxury.

Do disturb

A few years ago, Simon was in a hotel in Lagos, Nigeria, enjoying room service. Simon’s job has meant that he’s travelled the world for the last twenty-five years. He’s always emailing updates from North Korea, Albania or New York. But it’s the African continent that he most loves. We met in the travel agency but he didn’t stay long. He’d rather live it than talk about it.

On this occasion in Lagos, Simon was immersed in the full room service experience. Somehow, as human beings, if we arrive in a hotel room, the most decadent thing to do is to have our dinner with a towel draped around us, fresh from the shower. We wouldn’t perhaps do that at home. I gather that the towel in question was just about ample to drape around Simon, but he was all alone, so who cared if a bit of flesh was showing? We’re none of us getting any younger.

Then he decided to put the tray outside the door. He reckoned he could do this in his towel. Simon was a seasoned luxury hotel guest who knew all the tricks. He opened the door and put the tray down, with its contents sloshing around. He tried to manoeuvre the tensile strength of the towel and the tray-sloshing at the very same time, in one swooping downwards movement.

It involved Simon bending down to an acute angle to place the tray on the floor - and at the same time trying to hold onto the towel. He managed this rather successfully, but men can be bad at multi-tasking, and he soon realised that although the job was indeed performed copiously, the room door had slammed shut. But that was OK. He had a towel on and could call for help. No such luck.

The towel was jammed in the door.

Now, I’ve told you that the towel was adequately fit-for-purpose in the room, but in the corridor it now became a millstone around Simon’s neck; or should I say – a loose garment that didn’t quite cover everything around Simon’s body.

So, he was standing in the corridor in the all-together; and this was all together a tricky situation (a) to get out of and (b) to explain. Then the good news. The lift door went ‘ping’ and surely his rescuer was on the way. Again; no such luck. The person coming out of the lift was one of the prostitutes that frequented the lobby of the hotel. It was a very long shot, but Simon asked her, politely, if she’d be kind enough to go down to the front desk. You know, and speak to the people that she’d rather avoid talking to, because that would draw attention to her presence (and her profession). But she misunderstood Simon and offered him the best rate that day.

I can understand why. Simon was standing in what looked like a ‘come on’ position. “Yeah, yeah. The old ‘towel in the door’ routine. Why didn’t you just say?” However, he did then manage to explain the situation meaningfully and, not surprisingly, the prostitute politely declined his request to report the incident. She didn’t want to be embarrassed. That was Simon’s job.

I know how he feels. I was accosted by a lady wanting money for services in Nairobi. The thing was, Mrs Steve was standing with me when it happened.

But this isn’t about me. Simon’s still in the hall, nearly-nude. This is where the story could become embellished; he could have been made out he was standing there starkers for hours but I’ve pressed him heavily on this and he maintains it was only twenty minutes. But, really. That is a very long time to be naked, in a hallway, with only a smallish towel rammed in a doorway for modesty-covering.

Eventually Simon was saved. When he checked out, he tried not to engage in any conversation with the reception staff (who surely had to have known what happened). He felt paranoid. Quite rightly. “Did you have room service? Anything from the mini bar? Did someone come along and save you when your towel was jammed in a door?”

Now, perhaps it’s because he moves about the world a lot, but Simon seems to get into more scrapes than most. And, apart from the above example, those scrapes seem to usually involve bodily functions. OK; I’m going to say it. Excreta. Plops. Jumbo jobbies. Shit. That’s better.

Let the train take the strain

Simon’s love of Africa in general is only eclipsed by his love of Sudan in particular. He just adores the place. Here are some facts that I looked up on the internet for you: Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, has recently seen rampant ethnic strife and has been plagued by internal conflicts, including two civil wars and fighting in the Darfur region. Thousands of years ago, the area of north Sudan was extremely volcanic. And Simon was, one day, feeling pretty volcanic himself.

As I’m writing this I’m smiling because I saw Simon last night. Good timing because he was in London on a rare trip and we had a great catch-up with friends. He was in high spirits as he’d just been to his beloved Sudan. Of course we all reminded him of his story about the train…

Sudan has 4,725 kilometres of narrow-gauge, single-track railroads that serve the northern and central portions of the country. But, to put it frankly, travelling by train in Sudan can be erratic. And quite uncomfortable.

Now, personally, I’ve never been one of those people who can hold onto a poo. When I have to go, I have to go.

Mrs Steve’s the same. We’ve had our moments of embarrassment, from Indonesia to India, where the need to take a dump pretty sharpish, has become increasingly pressing as the minutes tick by. I remember trotting rather quickly around a museum in Cairo, searching for a serviceable toilet. In the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Mrs Steve made it to the loo, again just in time, only to then got locked in that bog. The guy with the screwdriver was very pleasant. When you’ve got to go, who cares if the lock’s working or not. 

Simon, however, can hold on for days. Maybe it’s his history of international travel, mainly in developing countries. He knows that it’s always worth the wait, to finally let it all out in the luxury of a five-star hotel.

But on this one occasion, maybe he held on, well, just too long.

On a Sudanese train, he opened the door to the loo on a speculative visit. A family was living in there. He really didn’t want to interrupt or ask them to move out - so that he could move his bowels. So he held on. Finally the train arrived in a station, where it was to remain for an indeterminate amount of time. That happens in Sudan.

It sat beside another train in the searing East African heat. That other train – a freight locomotive - had apparently been there for days. Days and days and days. With no toilet on the station, Simon was by now dancing around in agony and he had to grab this opportunity. He ran around the back of the second train, out of site; and pulled down his trousers. And just as relief started washing over his body, that second train started pulling out of the station, rather too astonishingly quickly for Sudanese rolling stock that had just been rusting on the rails for so long.

And so the passengers on Simon’s train got an eyeful. He now had the dilemma about whether to finish his ablutions and get back on the train; or not to finish and get back on the train. I don’t know about you but I like to linger, when possible, with a book or magazine. Simon had no choice. He had to ‘squeeze, release and say please’… “Please let me back on the train”. I bet even the family in the toilet turned their eyes away when they saw him perform the walk of shame across the tracks.  

But Simon tells me that he loves an article by fellow Sudanophile Iain Marshall, written in 1990. So, about 15 years before the rest of the world started blogging.  Iain says: "The concept of transport is based on the principle of moving from A to B in Sudan. The comfort of the journey is of little importance. People overcome the hardships of such travel by a wonderful act of will. They simply ignore all the signs of pain and irritation. During the course of that journey I was treated regally by my fellow travellers. A handful of dates extended from the press of bodies; a house in a tiny Nubian village providing tea; countless offers of water from roadside houses.”

Iain also goes on to say: “The Sudanese proverb ‘Ar raffig gabl at tarig’ - travelling companions are more important than the journey itself - has rung resoundingly true on every trip I have ever made in Sudan.” That’s lovely, but Simon’s travelling companions got a radical re-interpretation of this saying. And I’m not sure Simon should have accepted any dates. Iain’s now made that 1990 essay into a blog. tinyurl.com/pxwyypq.

And Simon only let me write all about him if I included this YouTube tribute to Sudan. No Third World disaster here. A lovely film with a strong message. bit.ly/1GPVsPy.

Tassle hassle

In 1983 our friend Judy was with us at Pickwick’s nightclub, Bradford. She was, on this occasion, particularly pleased with herself. She’d done her make-up in the loo and then couldn’t believe it as she hit the dance floor, as guys and women seemed to be staring at her. She tells me she thought she’d really nailed it as U2 thrashed out ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’. She’d arrived. She was young, beautiful and an undergraduate in charge of her own destiny.

Then Bert, the doorman who’d seen generations of students make fools of themselves, tapped Judy on the shoulder and said in his Yorkshire accent: “Sorry love, but you’ve got your skirt tucked into your knickers.”

Mind you. It’s not just Judy. I was at a disco in Freshers’ Week, 1982. I was wearing my red corduroys - they were very tight - with white baseball boots. Jeanette Robinson asked me to dance and well, with Junior / ‘Mama used to say’ on the decks, a new student couldn't go wrong. I really went for it. Sure enough, after the song finished, Jeanette took my hand, escorted me off the dancefloor and said: "Can I ask you a question?" I thought: "This is it. This is what I came to university for." She then said: "Will you promise never to dance with me again?"

Judy’s like Simon in that they’re both sort of drawn to embarrassing situations. When she was a teenager, Judy’s family lived in Mexico and one day she was making her way back to the UK. Alone. She was at Guadalajara airport.

Breaking off for a moment; there’s a great Audioboom clip from a recent radio show where sports reporter Ian Ramsdale just can’t pronounce the word Guadalajara, when talking about a Mexican football story. The clip has him attempting the word several times and I think it’s very funny. He tries: “Gwajalahara’. The following hour, during the next sports bulletin, he says: “Gwala……Oh, I’m rubbish at this.”

And then, later: “Gwalahara.” However, he does get the pronunciation of German side, Borussia Mönchengladbach, faultlessly correct. He just can’t pronounce Guadalajara. They even play in a bit of a Steely Dan song, My Old School, which is a tribute to the Mexican city.

Presenter Danny Kelly describes it as a “legendary night’s broadcasting”; and forces poor Ian to try it again. And again. And again. But, in the end, Ian gets it spectacularly right. Wonderful and at bit.ly/1AzVFZM. So, back to Guadalajara airport.

It was the late 70s so young women were obliged to wear tassled suede jackets. The internet says that there are two spellings (tassled / tasselled). But no one’s sure because the jackets have been so decidedly uncool for so long. They’re also called ‘fringed’ jackets and basically have bits of suede material hanging down. Think of the two cool bikers in Easy Rider (1969). Man. A colleague tells me that they are now, in fact, back in fashion, so this actually really really matters.

You read about the knickers incident in the introduction - that particular elastic embarrassment happened a few years after Judy was sitting at Guadalajara airport. But, just like in the Bradford disco a few years later, Judy realised that lots of people were staring at her. At Guadalajara airport. Judy believed that she was a stunning, attractive and clever eighteen year-old young woman with her life ahead of her.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the only thing (or things) that were ahead of her, poking out of the tassles. Before she left for the airport, she’d neglected to button up her blouse. Excess baggage. The tassled effect only added to the airport-themed soft-core porn surroundings of potted plants and artificial light. Poor Judy. She was blissfully unaware that the admiring looks she was getting were because she was expressing herself in more than just a couple of languages.

Until someone approached her to tell her about her teenage wardrobe malfunction. Somehow it’s funnier when the news is conveyed, as in the Bradford incident, with a broad West Yorkshire accent. I don’t know what the Spanish for ‘exposed’ is (OK; a quick search suggests it’s ‘expuesto’) but I’m sure it’s hilarious in Mexico. Pablo and Miguel are probably sitting around in the Hacienda right now saying: “Almost 40 years ago, the poor British girl in the tassly jacket flashed more than just a cheery smile.”

The airline phoned ahead and there were packs of teenage boys waiting to great Judy back to Heathrow, shouting her name. OK. That didn’t happen. But, these days, before landing, it would have been all over the internet and news crews would be waiting at the airport to see who all the fuss was about.

I can hear Judy telling this story and LOL’ing, even though it was totes awks. OK, that’s the sort of language that she would have used if she was a teenager in 2015. She’d have tweeted: OMG just showed off my best side GDL airport #totesawks #totesembarrass #wardrobemalfunction #buttonitbaby !!!

Embarrassing bonbons

More Judy in a moment, but here’s another quick humiliation for me, some years before Judy was bearing all in Mexico. I was on a day trip to France with school when I was about thirteen and I was really embarrassed by everything in…well, in life really. Why do French people need to say that they ‘have’ hunger; why can’t they say that they are hungry? Because I went into a sweet shop in Calais and said the latter. I am hungry. Je suis faim. The assistant started laughing and, as a teenager, I found it excruciating as she eventually composed herself enough to tell me that I’d just proclaimed that: “I am a woman.”

Here comes the sun

We spent a lovely holiday with Judy when she was, once again, living in Mexico, in 1995. She did all the talking in Spanish and took us to places off the tourist map. She knew all the local tips on how to have a great holiday. She called us wimps for staying by the pool; she went to the beach knowing full well that the coastline at Puerto Escondido has the most volatile rip tides. But she was practically a local. She knew Mexico. She could tame those tides.  

Then, poolside, I suddenly heard this: “Steve! Steve!” This phantom-like figure came into the pool area with her hands out in front of her in what looked like a bad impression of the ghost from Scooby-Doo. A ghost called Judy.

It turns out that she had layered on too much sunblock and a freak wave had come in-shore and washed over her whole body. The seawater had done its business and mixed with the sun-cream to produce a nasty concoction that temporarily blinded Judy, like a melting action figure that’s been got at by a naughty boy with a magnifying glass.

Do you know what? Judy’s decision, to ask me to make a speech at her wedding, was a terrible idea. Because, guess what? All the stories got mentioned. The knickers, the tassles and the sunblock. Oh, and also the time she burnt down a beefburger van that she was working at. I want to tell you more but she won’t let me. The wedding was in Madrid. Half the guests were Spanish, though, and so didn’t understand me - and consequently have no idea that Judy’s such a fart. Love her.  

And I’ve had my own fair share of overseas awkwardness.

Sticking out a mile

Between 1986 and 1987, Girlfriend Steve (later Mrs Steve) and I spent a year in Australia. And when we arrived in Sydney we met up with Norman, a guy we’d first met in Bali. He was so welcoming and introduced us to all his friends from the local gay scene. We were at Norman’s flat and we met his mates, who were all very charming, but secretly, Norman told us later, they were writing notes to each other as we sat chatting. These days they’d be texting or private messaging as we sat there.

What had happened is that the December heat down-under had got to me personally ‘down-under’ and I’d acquired a sweaty infection in a difficult place, having never had a simple childhood operation that would have avoided it happening in the first place. So I put on the cream and kept my underpants off. But this was 1986 and of course I had very, very short shorts on. Norman later confided that the note said: “Flashing an uncut nasty.”

Just after the foreskin faux-pas we were flat-hunting and answered a promising ad in the Sydney Morning Herald, which mentioned that 'broad-minded people' were encouraged to apply. When we got to the house it was like the Rocky Horror Show, with lots of good-looking young men in shorts dancing around. On one such resident, just below his belly-button, the words 'virgin's delight’ were tattooed with a downward arrow.

Then we were ushered upstairs to meet the boss man. This large – and larger-than-life - guy checked our 'broad-minded' credentials and apparently we passed with flying colours. We were gay-scene-ready. But he also said he needed to read our tarot cards, because he had to be 100% positive. After all, he said that we had to be prepared for him to burst into our room at any time if he wanted to chat, have a party of anything. Even at three in the morning. The chemistry just had to work.

We went along with it because this was a cultural experience. He rang us a couple of days later to say he really liked us but that the tarot readings just weren't right. After that, there was nothing at Mardi Gras in Sydney that would ever shock us.

But two friends of mine do truly have a shocking travelling tale to tell.

Someone left the cake out at the bottom of the bed

This wonderful couple have given permission for me to use this story, but only if their names aren’t used. I mean, you can understand why: deeply in love, and, quite frankly naked in an Amsterdam hotel room, there was much confusion as a cake was delivered. It was Queen’s Day in Holland and that’s a big deal in the Netherlands; it was also the woman’s birthday. So the hotel wanted to show its generosity by delivering a cake to my friends, via room service.

Except, the cake arrived as they lay asleep – and starkers after a particularly robust session of lovemaking - on top of the covers. Awake, no cake. Wake up again: a sodding great cake at the end of the bed. Whoever delivered it didn’t get a tip. I mean, they probably wanted to give a tip: “Don’t lie asleep on your bed, naked, on Queen’s Day, when quite naturally there’s a big chance of a cake being delivered.”

But my friends aren’t the only people to sew confusion whilst travelling. I used to do it for a living.

International fateline

Working in the same travel agency, Simon and I conspired, out of ineptitude rather than malice, to put the long-term health and wellbeing of an eighty-year-old woman in danger.

Let’s talk about computer systems 25 years ago. There’s no doubt that with advances in technology by 1989, more people were able to get booked in more quickly and to travel to more places than ever before. But systems weren’t without their disadvantages. If a flight took off at 23:00 and arrived at 06:00, the computer system defaulted to +1, as in, the plane was due to arrive the next calendar day. It worked well for a flight from New York to London, for instance. Dep: 23:00. Arr: 06:00+1.

But when someone flew from Los Angeles to Auckland in New Zealand, you had to manually change this setting to +2, because on that flight route, you cross the International Dateline and time goes a bit weird. You arrive two calendar days after you took off.

Simon hit it off well with this one woman, who’d booked a trip-of-a-lifetime to see the true Kiwi countryside and to catch up with some distant family members.  And she was set to arrive, with a night in a hotel, before taking off on her ten day tour of both North and South islands. Lovely.

When it was being booked, I was charged with the task of checking the reservation over, a procedure that acted as a backstop to make sure that mistakes were avoided. Um…Simon and I both missed the +1 / +2 thing. It was booked as +1 and it should have been +2. The tour was booked in a day too early. And this perfectly charming woman arrived at Auckland airport half an hour before her excursion was about to start. No hotel time.

Anyway, she showed a great deal of guile, got her bags in a Kiwi taxi and, effectively got to shout: “Follow that tour bus”. The taxi driver apparently grasped the gravity, and the excitement, of the situation and took on his new responsibility with relish. They caught up with the bus just after its first North Island place-of-interest stop. And, as the coach left the car park, the taxi driver straddled his vehicle in front of the bus, forcing it into an emergency stop.

She had a lovely time.

Even in my 30s, I would not have enjoyed the feeling of starting a tour with horrendous post-dateline jetlag. But this woman was made of sterner stuff. On her return to the UK, she sent Simon a thank-you card with a present of a book voucher. She brushed off the incident - which could have led to a multi-million pound lawsuit with Simon and me standing in the dock in our suits - as a mild and quite exciting deviation. What a woman.

Hatchet job

Simon’s got a whole series of stories about his travels. For instance, when he had to remain in a plane on the runway during a sandstorm. When the storm had abated and the passengers got off, his Sudan Airways 737 had been stripped of its livery and was a perfect, beautiful, silver, the paint ripped off by the swirling sands of East Africa.

Or when the cabin crew couldn’t get into the cockpit and had to smash the door down with a hatchet. Or plenty of flights where there’s been standing room only.

All I know is that Simon carries with him, wherever he goes, things that bung you up. He apparently used some this February in the north of Sudan. Although the communal loo had a great view of an ancient temple, Simon says: “I popped two Imodium to avoid ever having to go in that bog whilst staying there!”

If you want to feel embarrassed, then go travelling, because it can throw up the most bizarre and awkward situations. And you get to remember them fondly.

Football and festivals: time off

The very slow Nicoise and the very small tent

© Steve Palmer 2015

Oxford trip 2006

I wrote in my book ‘Down’s with the kids’ about how my Friday football is a release from my duties as a parent, including being a Dad to a son with learning disabilities. And once a year the football lads have a weekend away. And as a bonus a few of us go to a music festival every year as well. I’ve worked hard for these breaks. And then I humiliate myself on them.  

The football lads are all quite sober and very politically correct. On our Amsterdam trip we were there saying: “Come on girls; cover up. It’s only yourselves you’re hurting.” 

More about our weekends away in a moment. First, though, please pay attention to the next bit as you’ll need this for later in the chapter. I’m getting you to do homework and everything.

Cake catastrophe

When our good friend Tom was about 18, he got a job in a cake factory and all he had to do was oversee the fruit pies as they travelled from one part of the building to another. On Tom’s part of the production line, the pies were already in their little plastic holders, making their way to the machine that slipped them into boxes.

Unfortunately the machine malfunctioned and started crushing the pies into thousands of pieces and Tom, bedecked in hair net, plastic goggles and a lab coat, heard the supervisor shout: “Tray up!” This meant Tom had to do something, rather than just stand around. He had to save as many pies as possible from the pie-thrashing monster.

He picked up a couple of the errant pies and it seemed quite a straightforward exercise. But soon he found he had nowhere to put them, so, before long, he was stacking them on the floor, on a nearby stool and stuffing his face with as many pies as possible. There was poor Tom, with a mouthful of pastry and sweetmeat, by now fighting against gooey stuff that was cascading onto the floor and onto his shoes, with the horrifying prospect of more and more pies making it past him and into the belligerent boxing machine.

You’d have thought there would be a big red button to stop everything.

There was.

But in the panic, Tom’s brain was too much of a scramble and he just couldn’t get his head around pressing it. 

Eventually, the supervisor rushed onto the factory floor and pressed that big red button. Tom had been employed there for two days and was let go because, he was told: “Enough is enough.” It was exceedingly awkward.

Tom appears again soon.

You lot are bonkers

Skip forward many years. We went to Oxford for a boat trip in June 2006 and we picked the weekend with the most spectacular weather. Many look back on it as one of our best weekends away and we’ve spent time in spa baths in Budapest and have lounged by a luxury pool in Marrakech. It was amazing, gorgeous, hot weather.

We spent Friday night on the boat, most of the chaps in cramped bunks with about ten inches of room. Simon and I decided we’d rather head-to-toe it on the kitchen table. Which was lucky as all the bunks were gone anyway. Neither of us reacted to drinking too much Oxfordshire bitter. Neither of us farted.  Lucky really, because the boat berthed twelve but it was more cramped than a very cramped thing. So, on the Saturday morning, we were weary but happy.

In the evening we moored up – yes, I’m equipped with all the technical terms - on the left-hand-side of the river. Football friend Rob reminds me that we got the very last mooring spot. So none of what follows necessarily needed to have happened. Anyway, we found ourselves by a picturesque old ruined building. Proper ruins from the past, and everything.

We decided to wander around the site and then walk on a few yards to cross a small bridge to the right-side of the river, where we would have dinner at a beautiful pub, outdoors. 

Actually, most of us thought “sod that”. Only two from our party of 16 decided to look round the ruins. The rest of us stayed on board for a sundowner. The position of the bridge is really important, though. Keep the image. Just north of the ruins.

Opinions are divided about whether the rest of the party should have really joined our two adventurers. Because Cliff and Pete went off for an excursion that they weren’t expecting. First Cliff. He was gone for about ten minutes. And then he came rushing back. Animated, he blurted out: “You’ll never guess what I just saw in the ruins. A young couple, rather excitedly enjoying some pre-carnal pleasure. I’m sure they were just about to do it.”

Five minutes after that, Pete returned and confirmed that he’d seen the same incident, but a few minutes on from when Cliff had stumbled on the copulating couple. Pete had really seen them, well…at it. Pete takes up the story on a recording I made of the weekend (and no, you can’t hear it. It’s logged behind a password wall. Come on; we’ve got jobs.) He says: “I saw the couple. He pulled down her leggings and they were about to come to an arrangement.”

Listening back, the language is a bit choice. Pete says: “I was proceeding in a southerly direction.” I reply: “So was he.” I finally say, in the words of a Waterboys song: “He saw the whole of the moon.” A great recording. No; you can’t.

We couldn’t believe that we’d had the same story from two angles (so to speak) or that both Cliff and Pete had politely walked away instead of watching more. No – actually, of course I can believe that. I told you; we’re very polite footballers.

Then it all got even more bizarre. Our entire group started the walk to the bridge, to get to the pub. And just as we passed the ruins, the couple magically and nonchalantly appeared; they swooped in front of us, crossed the bridge and went into the pub where we were to have dinner.

So we sat down outside this lovely Oxfordshire pub on perhaps the most glorious evening this country has known this century. And the bonking couple were two tables away. Either they were oblivious to the fact that we knew everything – and that Pete and Cliff had seen lots of it - or they were particularly carefree about their behaviour and lifestyle.

At one point I attempted to go and interview the couple themselves with my audio recording device, but I was held back by my football buddies.

We all ordered, but Tom (from the cake story – his time has come) seemed to get it all wrong. He selected a Salad Nicoise - and it was the ‘late’ one. You know; the order where everyone’s craning their necks around because everyone else has been served; and the rest of you can’t enjoy yourself until the final bit of food hits the table. It was soon christened the ‘Slow Nicoise’.

But eventually it arrived. Along with Tom’s chips.

By the way, Tom, like some of my other friends who are drawn to this sort of thing, also had an embarrassing moment in Iceland's Blue Lagoon. The geothermal spa is near the capital, Reykjavík, and you have to shower naked before you bathe. They don't want dirt in the minerals. Tom was so excited about being there he forgot to put his trunks back on after the shower, and only realised this when he was sitting in the actual lagoon. Eventually he summoned up the courage to perform the squirm of shame past some astonished families, with parents quickly placing hands over children's eyes.

Anyway, back to the salad and chips in Oxford in 2006. As far as I know, Tom’s never done anything to warrant what happened next, but the waiter held onto the plate before handing the chips over to Tom; he seemed to be sizing him up and down. After what seemed like an eternity, he put the plate down and rather confidently said: “Greedy bastard.” Cue consternation then laughter. The waiter called Tom a greedy bastard. And got away with it.

So an evening that started off with the hope of a sundowner, ended up with some default-voyeurism involving a couple who could have mistakenly believed that we were following them; and a waiter who was either the rudest man on earth or the greatest person in the world, with a mystical knack for understanding emotional intelligence, in that he judged to the n’th degree what the response would be when he brought the chips out and abused Tom.

Tom’s Slow Nicoise was full of tuna but tuna soon turned into the lamb.

Frightening fleeces

Our friend Lyle had to leave earlier than the rest of the party. His job in education sees him often entertaining visiting foreign dignitaries, and this was June 2006. The World Cup was on. Some Japanese guests were arriving early on the Sunday at Heathrow and Lyle was to pick them up; and then take them to a Central London sports bar to watch one of the group matches. He didn’t want to leave during that great Saturday evening, so he departed on the Sunday morning, very early.

But Lyle didn’t count on the ‘getting to Oxford train station’ bit. Because he had to get there via a country lane. It was early. And Lyle probably should have called a cab. Yet I’ve told you how beautiful the weather was that weekend. Lyle had hardly had any sleep. And a bracing walk down a country lane seemed like a great idea.

Until he met a sheep. And then another. And then hundreds. And then thousands of them. Surrounded by sheep, Lyle thought this was quite funny.

And then the sheep charged him. They penned him in and started being really aggressive. Lyle started feeling uncomfortable. They shuffled towards him and performed some close-to-the-body head-butts. Sheep aren’t supposed to do this, are they? There was actual physical contact, ref. Lyle’s ‘flight-or-fight’ receptors were starting to go all over the place. How pathetic to take aversive action against some ruddy ruminants…

Former Labour Chancellor Dennis Healey famously said of his one-time opposite Conservative number, Geoffrey Howe, that an attack by Howe was: “Like being savaged by a dead sheep.” Lyle was being savaged by many live sheep.

Sweat was now pouring down his back. He started to panic. But then he had a brainwave and got his backpack, and opened it up. This seemed to have a partial success rate because the sheep appeared momentarily interested in what was in his bag, rather than continuing the sheep stampede.

Lyle then used the open bag, with the sheep-heads in them, to whisk them away one-by-one. This was painstaking and took about an hour. It seemed like forever. I think Lyle felt both mighty relieved and a bit silly when he got away. Before he knew it, he was sheep-free and his train was hurtling towards London; On the train, he opened his backpack and screamed when he saw a sheep’s head in there. Then he woke up, sweating again.

I’m sure that telling his early-morning story to his Japanese guests may have got lost in translation. However, Lyle tells me that the Japanese have a proverb: “An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” And I’m grateful to Kevin, another of the friends I play football with, for pointing out that 2015 is the Chinese year of the sheep. Lyle had been totally flocked. But it also happened to a guy in Australia. He had to get off his motorbike and the film on YouTube is mesmerizing. I’m sure Lyle will concur. tinyurl.com/nfhnj3t. I’ve just this second emailed it to him. 

Sweet dreams, Lyle.

Laughing lavatories

At a music festival camp site the toilets are all anyone ever talks about. Normally, going to the toilet is a quick, functional activity. At a festival, it’s an endurance test. And a major topic of conversation; how long the queue was, how long you were in the temporary lav and whether it was worth the trip, in your wellies, for what you achieved. It becomes an obsession. In 2009 I saw a barnstorming performance by the band James at the V Festival; and dropped a particularly satisfying three-pounder. It’s all I remember.

Men and women

Imagine the scene. A woman – let’s call her Vicky – is persuaded to go to a festival, by her friends, because “it’ll be a laugh.” She packs meticulously, enjoys the first night in the campsite and looks forward to the bands starting the next day.

And then, in the morning, she takes her first visit to the bog. The loo. Those temporary lavatory companies, that deal with the waste, do an amazing job. They suck up festival shit and piss and take it away from you. They provide an important public service. Although, at the time of writing, I’ve just returned from the Latitude Festival 2015, and the truck that took away the shite etc had, written on the side: “Non-hazardous waste.” How, in anyone’s universe, this can be a claim that can be believed, is beyond me.

Back to Vicky. I’ve seen the look on the faces of women like Vicky who open the door and leave the portaloo / septic tank for the very first time, and it’s not good. Vicky’s about to abandon the festival site because the look is one of horror, confusion, disgust, revulsion and regret.

My top tip is to go into a festival toilet when a woman has just been there. They generally clean up better than men do. This is all important stuff. Except the festival I’ve just been too had loos for men and women. Separately. And the seats were screwed down. If you wanted a dump, you had to wipe off all of the urine that blokes had sprayed across the cubicle, in total abandon. Wet wipes can be a necessity.   

But, a few years ago, my brother-in-law Andrew went to ablute in the portaloos, or perhaps we should call it the crappy encampment. A bit hungover, the poor lad lingered in the cubicle perhaps just a bit too long. After a while, it all seemed eerily quiet.

Too quiet.

He gingerly emerged from the plastic poohouse to discover that a lorry had, whilst he was shitting, come along and blocked the entire entrance to the loos. And Andrew had to watch on in terror as in front of him, the tops to the pissoir units had been taken off, in readiness for sucking into the lorry. So, on his departure from that cubicle, he was met with eight steaming vats of urine. Piss soup. And he couldn’t leave until all the remnants of ravers’ bladders were sucked away. Pipes were pulsating, the stench was something you’d imagine in a refugee camp and poor Andrew had an out-of-body experience as piss went past him in a conveyer belt of hell.

When he got back to our tents, he turned down my offer of an apple juice to go with his breakfast.

Carry on camping

But at least Andrew had attended to his tent. Of good, robust construction, this behemoth of camping culture ensured him a good night’s sleep and shelter from the rain. (When it rains at festivals the ground gets muddy. When it doesn’t rain, the bogs send over a smell from a few hundred yards away. Nice.)

Back to Tom. Following his cake-smashing, naked Icelandic run and Slow Nicoise, he came with us the V Festival and was slightly less prepared than Andrew, myself and others. 

At the same festival where Andrew was marooned in pumping piss, Tom brought along his six-year-old daughter’s tent. He reckoned that the most important thing to factor in was how quickly to get the tent up. It was super quick.

And his head stuck out of the top. It was tiny. Someone in our group unkindly described the tent as a ‘body-bag with a hard on’.

And instead of going into the ‘foyer’ bit of the big tent that my friend Steve and I were sharing – we named our tent Dave – Tom decided to see the whole festival out, sleeping with his head out of his tent. He rejected the offer to spend the night snuggly inside Dave. But there’s a problem. People wander around festival sites all the time. Our group arranges our tents in a certain way so that we have a communal area to sit around in, but everyone ignores that and tramples through, looking upwards as they’re trying to locate the flag that’s flying near their tent. So, folks aren’t good at looking where they’re going, they’re often drunk and they’re tripping over guy ropes every ten seconds.

And Tom’s daughter’s tent was about two feet high and below people's line of sight. Tom was rather vulnerable to having his head trodden on. His coping mechanism was to stay awake all night and when someone approached in their confused state, Tom would shout out: “Small tent!” And then, as the person or people came nearer and nearer, he’d shout it again, more and more desperately, until he had to curl himself up into a crouched position to get as much of his body as possible inside his daughter’s tent…so that he didn’t get his head trodden on. And his back was in agony. Tom’s not been back to another festival.  I still regularly trip over guy ropes.

Bongo man

The Green Man Festival in 2014. A guy we were with got increasingly frustrated, as the weekend went on, by being barged past by festival-goers. This was beginning to ruin his enjoyment of the bands. But, if you go to a lot of gigs, you get used to people pushing past you to get to a better position than you’re in. You either let it get to you or you have a go back. I’m in the former camp. This guy wasn’t. You could see the resentment building up. Advising him to ‘leave it’ wasn’t going to wash. (A bit like us at our festival tents.)

We were waiting for the ritualistic midnight burning of the Green Man - where people play bongos and generally whoop as the fire takes hold of this giant grass figure - and this woman tried to get past us. This friend finally saw red. It was the moment I’d been expecting and it promised to be particularly awkward.

He said:  “I've put up with this all weekend and I'm sorry - I'm not letting you past. I'm sorry but no - not this time.”

The woman said: “I'm playing the bongos.” He said: “Go on then.”

Confessions of a caffeine-holic

I could murder a coffee. Scrub that. I could commit genocide for a double macchiato. But I'm not allowed. I'm a caffeine-holic. And I currently have none in my system. I intend that to always be the case. 

Don't get me wrong: writing about it makes me feel like caffeine's raging through me. But don't make me drink coffee. You wouldn't like me when I'm on coffee. 

There. I feel better now. I mean I still desperately and urgently want a cappucino right now, as the first thick, brown liquid makes its way up the side of the styrofoam cup. But I'm calmer. 

I started realising I had a problem about 20 years ago. Although, thinking about it, I've had this problem since caffeine first entered my life, or to put it more directly, my blood stream. Caffeine makes me jittery. I mean; it makes me deliriously happy for 20 minutes and then jittery. And then I turn into an over-the-top blabbermouth. 

It gets worse. If I was to have a single shot at 08:00am, I'd still be awake at 04:00am the next day. It's the same with decaf and chocolate. I used to have the odd bit of chocolate and then, in March this year, I added that to the list of banned substances that aren't allowed in my system. This moves things on a bit from when hot chocolate was my 'caffeine-free' choice. I had an item on BBC London 94.9fm about this, when I worked there in 2000.

A strange thing happened in about May, two months after I kicked chocolate. I had a surge, as if I'd had a few espressos. It must have been me rejecting the remnants. I felt like Dr Who regenerating. 

So I can't go back. Ever. But now I want to. I won't. 

I have this weird conversation with people. They say: "Oh go on, have a small coffee." I say: "Can you imagine me on coffee?" They reply, knowing that I'm quite hyper anyway, by saying: "Oh, yes. I see now." They achieve a vision of clarity. And then skip off to Starbucks to drink something that doesn't affect them. Lucky, lucky...people.

I admit I have fantasized about the end of the world. Not because I want it to end. I love the world. No. It's because I'd run riot. Not in the streets, but in a coffee shop, if I was lucky enough to be there when the 20 minute warning came in. I don't know how to make a machiatto - perhaps I should learn just to be ready for this eventuality. But I would have time to dive behind the counter, as the baristas flee in terror, make a coffee, and relish the experience. That would last 20 minutes and I wouldn't have those nasty side-effects, as we're blown to kingdom come. 

But, in the real world, I often go into the kitchen and sniff coffee. I do it without thinking about it. And then I think about it. And I will always have this in my life. But no more caffeine. God I miss it. But no more. I miss it.  

Chris Squire: Black Yes fans speak out

“The number of black people listening to Yes would astound you.”

Chris Squire. 1948-2015

I burst into tears when I heard that Yes bassist Chris Squire had died. Yes were such a big part of my life as a young man. And then I rediscovered them about ten years ago. I only really like a few prog bands, but Yes, in their first few albums, had the tunes. The Yes album, in my view, is a perfect album. 

But an interesting issue has risen following the news. The band have often been seen as a group for white suburban young men (I fitted into that category nicely in Hatfield in 1981). But a YouTube commentator says that black Yes fans have often been invisible and that it's a real issue. Paul Jenkins, a You Tuber from the USA, says: "Just as whites were stigmatized for listening to black music back then, we weren't supposed to listen to white music." Paul's happy for me to blog about this as he's keen for it to be aired as an issue. 

This blog is really just a copy-and-paste job, but I hope that I've fleshed out the most interesting comments by black Yes fans in the USA, reacting to the news of Chris's death, on this YouTube discussion. 

You see, I'm used to seeing no black, Asian or any non-white faces at prog rock gigs. At Christmas my brother-in-law bought me a souvenir book of Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in 1979. There I am, aged 16, photographed on one of the pages. Along with pages and pages of white faces. 

I don't know what it's like for any Yes fans drawn from BAME communities here in the UK, but the YouTube discussion gives you an insight into feelings across the Pond. And it shouldn't be an issue: you like who you like. But, for these guys below, it is an issue. 

Paul continues: “As the good Lord as my witness, you Caucasian people have NO IDEA how many blacks listen to Yes. Seriously, the number would astound you. I think it's fitting that the gulf, however small it was between say, Weather Report and Emerson Lake and Palmer, has finally been seen, or at least heard to be non-existent. One of my favourite bands was Gentle Giant, and yes, I am black.”

And YouTuber rembeadgc says: “I grew up in the South in a predominately ‘black’ public school system in the latter part of the ‘Black Power’ and ‘Black Pride' eras. But I remember borrowing Fragile from a ‘white’ schoolmate and being transported to only God knows where when I really listened to Long Distance Runaround, Heart of the Sunrise and South Side of the Sky. My world had been forever altered. It was like an alternative universe all created by these musicians: Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman. No offence meant to any of my atheist or agnostic friends out there, but Yes has always been one of the reasons I believe there is a God!”

And metamorphosis67 puts it in context with his experiences: "I'd been to many Yes concerts and you would see maybe 20 or 30 black people in an audience of ten thousand."

Paul Jenkins continues: “Sadly many Yes fans carry racial views that are completely antithetical to the spirit of the group. I'm black and a guitarist and learned my scales by sitting around with Close to the Edge for hours at a time trying to play things I didn't yet have the chops for. Yes is not just music to me; their music is like an old friend that I grew up with. RIP Chris Squire.”

You see, these guys are of a generation that was listening to Yes in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s not a new thing. They were listening at the same time that I was. And we all miss Chris.

Related link
Down's Dad gig review, Yes: New Oxford Theatre; 29 April 2014

Broadcasting: the shaved gonads

What I said to John Prescott and why a Canadian star missed lunch

(c) Steve Palmer 2015

1997: I was begging John Prescott

The International Journal of Fatigue is dedicated entirely to the full range of scientific and technological issues associated with tiredness. Why haven’t they written about me? Have you ever been so tired that you go past tiredness? 

On reflection, one of my life decisions was particularly naff: when I changed careers to broadcast journalism, and where I was on shifts, at the same time that Mrs Steve started bringing babies into the world.

I remember working nights at the BBC and arriving back home to sleep in the day. My eldest, Harry, was a toddler and once, just as I’d fallen into a deep sleep, around 11.30 in the morning, he ran in the room and sat on my head. I can still feel the nappy nuzzled against my face. I’ll get him back. He’s seventeen now. These days I’m like Cato from the Pink Panther films; ready and poised to attack him at any time, day or night, in revenge.

And then there’s people I’ve shared this state of insomnia with. On one particular radio show, the editor’s job started at three in the morning. Yes: three am. The secondary producers and reporters had a lazy lie-in, starting at five am.

We were all tired but the most embarrassing things only seemed to happen to Rob. Like Judy and Simon, Rob’s kind of drawn to this sort of thing. Even when he went for the BBC interview, he got stuck in a Mexican stand-off in a revolving door with a woman who, of course, turned out to be the interviewer. 

Mind you, I did a similar thing myself at Talk Radio, coincidentally around the same time as Rob’s interview - and before we’d ever met. I thought that the revolving door was particularly stiff as I tried to open it, and only realised, as I exited it, that I’d been pushing it – harshly - the wrong way. Waiting on the other side was the Talk Radio boss, and former Sun editor, Kelvin Mackenzie. It was my first day there. Rob and I are calamity cousins.

Groundhog day

Anyway, back to our time working together. Every day at five, Rob started working on his story for the morning. As reporter, it was his responsibility to do a ‘two-way’ with presenter Paul just after the news bulletin at 6am.

So, Rob had an hour to learn the main parts of a news story that a producer had put together for him the day before. It might be about a tube strike, a school with a headmaster who roller-skated to work, or a council that sent its officers to the nearby park, to hide in the undergrowth, only to pounce out and fine dog-owners at the first sign of an inappropriate fouling mutt. (Yes. It happened.)

How functional is the human body at that time of day? Day after day? One day, Rob, always the enthusiast, wanted to come out with an early-morning line that summed up the basic facts of that day’s story; the nuts and bolts; the bare bones of that morning’s story, if you will. Except Rob, completely knackered, said, on air: “Paul, I want to show you the bare nuts.”

How either of them coped, live on air, I and the rest of the production team will never know. Editor Harry and I were in the control room and there was a moment of open-mouthed horror; perhaps two seconds of total recoil. Then we burst out laughing. For Rob it was painfully awkward but for us it was laugh-out-loud.  We found him later, alone in the BBC gents, head in hands.

Because for the rest of his time at the radio station, Rob had this as a millstone around his neck. So I want to thank him for his permission to repeat the story. Presenter Paul was still going on about ‘shaved gonads’ on the day he left the station.

Kurd and no way

And after the early-morning ‘two-way’, Rob would be off in the radio car to a destination elsewhere in London, to bring a story to life. Now, if I was lucky enough to be on the day shift, it was my job to ‘set up’ the story and to weave all the elements together. If there was a student demonstration, I’d be on the phone to organisers the day before to arrange for Rob to meet them about 6:50 am so he could ‘go live’ at 07:05. That sort of thing.

One day, Rob had to hot-foot it from the Marylebone studio to Hackney, where I’d arranged for him to meet a Kurdish intellectual. I can’t remember what the story was about. But there were always the most stressful logistics involved. It wasn’t just a case of turning up. There were parking considerations; not just where to park, but also where to put up the radio car communications mast, which could take some time to load, and which had to be a good distance from any overhead wires. Always a challenge in London.

On this occasion, Rob hit traffic and arrived at the venue at about 06:57. Still a miracle under the circumstances; but a time-pressured situation when it comes to the live broadcasting of fast-moving news stories. He knocked on the shutter of the café that I’d organised for him to visit. It was slowly opened by a man, who Rob talked to before the iron gate had fully opened. Come on; he was on a time-sensitive mission here. The man nodded in agreement and motioned for Rob to sit down at one of the tables. But, instead Rob ran off to put up the mast; and then came back to the table, rather anxious about the overbearing time limits. ‘Sailing close to the wind’ is the saying, perhaps.

07:03. No Kurdish intellectual. Poor old Harry was back at base, trying to get Rob on his phone. (Guess what: it didn’t work in the café). Rob hadn’t even had a chance to meet and brief this guest. Rob would have to get him to the radio car and come straight out with the questions. No practice. But he felt confident. He was a professional and experienced speech radio broadcaster and I was a producer who he could trust to set things up nicely. He could pull this off, although did it always have to be this close to the wire?

And then the original man came back.

With a bowl of soup.

I hadn’t booked Rob an interview with a Kurdish intellectual. I’d ordered him a bowl of soup. It was now time to go live and Rob had, in front of him, soup. “I’m joined now by a bowl of soup.” We still don’t know why Rob was brought soup, rather than a radio guest.

Luckily, both presenter Paul and Rob were very good at bullshitting their way through a performance. Once, the mixing desk had problems; we could get no guests on air, and Paul did a paper-review with himself for 45 minutes. Radio gold. And so, on the occasion when Rob only had soup for company, he was in Hackney and he just talked to Paul, like he had done an hour earlier, in person, in a warm studio.

And Rob reminds me that the man with the soup actually opened up the café especially for him. And made him soup especially. Doubly awkward.

Name dropping

Back to Rob in a moment, but I’ve remembered a couple of incidents from my broadcasting career. They’re not my greatest moments, it has to be said.

1997. I was the work experience person. I was on placement from my university one-year diploma in broadcast journalism. I had an internship at Channel One, a London-only 24 hour news cable channel. Now, having a placement at Channel One was great because it was ‘all hands to the pump’. I was expected to be able to write scripts, book in guests, make the tea and…use a video camera. Not the hand-held type that many journalists use today, but the big, over-the-shoulder variety with an accompanying - and perishingly-heavy - tripod and case.

Who am I to complain? As I write, the General Election campaign of 2015 is in full swing. It’s 13 April and the poll is in less than a month away. In 1997, at exactly this time, I got to cover the election which saw a change of Government. I filmed Tony and Cherie Blair; I spent the day on the election stump with rising Conservative star Michael Portillo; and I got to interview John Prescott.

Let me qualify what I said about the cameras. I basically tried to avoid going out on my own and more often than not I tagged along with a more experienced reporter. But every so often, I was told by the editor’s desk to get out there solo and to come back with pictures. Stunning, newsworthy pictures.

Prescott procrastinations

So, to John Prescott. Prezza. He’s famous for an incident that actually took place four years after I interviewed him, in the 2001 campaign, when he punched a voter who threw an egg at him. It’s here: youtube.com/watch?v=5XTiI1e-wVc. He could be a volatile character. Anyway, back to 1997. I had the opportunity to interview Prezza.

You know the ‘pause’ button on machinery? The II button? The one that stops everything? Well, I’d pressed ‘record’ and then ‘pause’, so I was ready to go. Then I tried to get the white balance right. The internet tells me that this is the process of removing unrealistic ‘colour casts’, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your camera. For me, this meant taking a piece of paper and sort of focusing in. I’m sure the new-fangled cameras do this automatically but, with Prezza standing there getting more and more impatient – you could see why: Labour wanted to maximise on its popularity – I just couldn’t get the white balance right.

I actually begged him to stay there so I could ask him my question and not get into trouble at work. I was pathetically begging John Prescott. It was either get a king-size bollocking from Prezza or get an emperor-size bollocking from the news editor. I chose Prezza. Finally I was ready and it was time to press ‘pause’. I got him excited by asking a question about travel disruption caused by an IRA bomb threat. It was a golden reply with lots of animation in Prezza’s voice, and I couldn’t wait to get the tape back to base, where the news editor was salivating for more and more exclusive material. (On a channel that no one watched).

So, Prezza ‘gave it up’ and walked off. Finally; I’d tamed the beast that was this camera. This was it. My golden career as a broadcast journalist was springboarding into success. I can still see Mr Prescott’s back as he went off to his next appointment. And I can still feel the moment of horror as I played back the clip, only to find that I’d pressed ‘pause’ twice and had a shot of John Prescott about to talk and then one of him saying: “Thank you”, and moving off. I’d put Prezza on permanent pause. I had nothing.

I was frantic. In the taxi, I was fearful that any credibility I had back at base was going to be shot to pieces. I was going to be ‘sacked’ even though I was only an intern at the TV station. Then the editor rang. On the first mobile I’d ever used. I was terrified of that phone (it was 1997 and mobiles were rare). Anyway, I don’t know why, but I held back from telling him the bad news. Then he said: “I’m really sorry but we’ve got some great shots of Blair in Birmingham and we can’t use your Prescott stuff. Don’t worry. I’ll get you on a good story tomorrow to make up for it.” I could have kissed the taxi driver.

Back at base, I went to see the bloke who maintained all the cameras and got him to magnetically wipe the tape clean, so that only he and I would ever know. It’s been my secret, with him. Until now.

Anyway, what goes around comes around. In 2000 John Prescott, by then Deputy Prime Minister, was discussing housing policy on TV and said: "People who are living in a single house…can we do that again? I made that crap." A pause followed before the BBC's Nick Robinson told him that they were still live on air. This and other microphone gaffes can be found on a news report at bit.ly/1UttWzH.

What a guy

Let’s talk about the famous Guy Goma incident. IT specialist Guy was waiting in the BBC’s reception, about to be interviewed for a job. Someone called out “Is Guy here?” 

Then, when he put his hand up, Guy was asked if he was still OK to ‘do the interview’. He replied in the affirmative. I mean, you would. Before he knew it, make-up was being applied (a 
bit strange for a job interview) and he was soon being quizzed, on air, live, about a news story regarding the internet. The proper guest, also called Guy, and abandoned in reception, could presumably only look at the TV screens, in horror.

We’ve all had dreams where we’ve turned up for a job interview and suddenly we’ve had to do a presentation on quantum physics in front of the brainiest people in the world, in only our boxers. Only me then? Except this sort of thing really happened to Guy. If you want to watch the incident on YouTube, you know what to do. The face he pulls when the penny drops; it’s gold dust. A word for the poor presenter Karen Bowerman. She does brilliantly. After almost a minute and a half, she goes to a reporter, who’s obviously been told what’s going on in his earpiece, because you don’t get to smile like that at work without a good reason.

When I worked at the BBC I was given the job of collecting former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont from Breakfast TV; and of taking him over to Radio 5 Live. Except together we got lost in the labyrinthine vaults of TV Centre. I got increasingly panic-stricken, but Mr Lamont was polite and patient as we pounded the floors. We arrived after a painful hour traipsing the corporation’s corridors. The presenters and producers gave me a patient look, as they rearranged the running order to accommodate Mr Lamont’s late arrival.

Double decker

One incident I remember from my radio days was when Carol Decker, from one-hit-wonder mega-eighties group T'Pau, came in for an interview. She was with her daughter, at the time a baby girl aged about three weeks. About as young as my eldest, Harry. It was 1998. So; Carol had been out of the limelight for about ten years and we hadn't yet seen the gig-revival-circuit, created for bands like T'Pau, to do their thing. So Carol probably wanted the publicity.

She did present one challenge. She didn't know what to do with the baby during the interview. I volunteered to look after her daughter because I had current experience; my Harry was pretty much the same bundle of joy as Carol’s baby. And Carol was happy and reassured that she was handing her newborn over to someone with experience. I've just looked it up and her name's Scarlett.

So, Carol Decker left me in sole charge of Scarlett. And, for 
those who've already worked out what I'm about to say next, I apologise. Scarlett was like china in my hands. (You need to know T'Pau. Oh I see; you do - and it's still not funny. Well, I've written a whole chapter on my failed comedy career. Bet you can’t wait. Chapter six.) Anyway, it was pretty cool.

Which is more than can be said for the bloke from Due South. The radio programme I produced didn't have a budget. It was done on a wing and prayer. The publicist from Due South rang, with demands for the guest I’d booked in, and I quickly realised that this show, a popular crime / comedy drama with the main guy dressed as a Canadian mountie, was accustomed to its team receiving gold-standard 'green room' treatment. The phone call was difficult because they asked if lunch would be provided. I said: "Yes." Because, without the offer of food on the table, I was worried that they may pull the guest, Benton Fraser, who played the mountie.

I had about half an hour to think up a plan, before Benton and his hungry entourage turned up. I concocted said plan. They arrived. I was surrounded by the group of Due South people, and I looked Benton straight in the eye. I said: "Would you like a sandwich?" Then I went next door and, with my own money, bought him a chicken bap. And I brought it back and gave it to him, ignoring the entourage. 

The interview went ahead, but without a smorgasbord luncheon laid out for the team. I needn’t have worried. Benton went to the bother of dressing up as a mountie for this radio interview, so he must have been very keen to go ahead, even if his entourage went hungry. “It’s radio mate. No one can see you. Web cams haven’t been invented. How was the sandwich?”

I was at the same station working late one night when a celebrity came in. I can't reveal who it was just yet. That's the punchline. This other producer started saying how much this celebrity's career meant to him. He said: "You're such a great presenter." Celeb replied: "Well, I've done some presenting." Producer: "Oh come on; you're brilliant. It's what you're known for." Celeb: "Well, I'm really known for my keyboard playing." Prod: "I didn't know you played keyboards." It was getting kind of silly. I was wondering if the producer should quit whilst he wasn't ahead.

Celeb: "Who do you think I am?" Prod: "Bob Harris." ('Whispering' Bob Harris, the Old Grey Whistle Test presenter). Celeb: "But I'm Rick Wakeman." (Prog rock keyboardist and grumpy old man from the TV). A bizarre lookalike suggestion.

This was all played out in front of me and absolutely no one else, in the wee small hours.

Give us a lift

Back to Rob and mostly, things we set up did go to plan. And once – in about 2001 - it went spectacularly well. And I’m proud of the part I played. I pitched an idea in a planning meeting about how to behave – and how not to behave - on the London Underground.

You know: people getting in the carriage when they should have waited for the passengers to get off; people not moving right down inside the carriage; people tutting inappropriately; and people sniffing without taking the precaution of bringing tissues. Or folks reading over your shoulder, like people have done to me whilst I’ve been writing this essay.

To put the idea in context, the London listings magazine Time Out recently published a guide to tube etiquette. It concluded: “Consider, for a moment, the ant colony. All the ants work together towards a common goal. Together they get stuff done. The more we cooperate, and put the group before the individual, the better everything works – that’s the golden rule for using the tube.” tinyurl.com/totubeeti.

The idea sparked a discussion that led to a fantastic piece of broadcasting.

It saw Rob in the lift at Earl’s Court station. He was standing there with his microphone. The lift filled to take passengers down to the next level. And as soon as the doors closed, Rob started talking into his microphone. “Well, here we are in the lift and I can feel people starting to look away. When you get this close it can be quite embarrassing.” And then, to make matters worse for commuters, he suddenly turned to one of them to talk to them; except this was a professor of psychology from a London university, who was happy to explain the phenomenon of people clamming up in a confined space.

That lift ride can take longer than you imagine. The passengers didn’t know what was going to happen next. This, of course, was all before crowd-surfing videos, on YouTube, became popular. You know, where someone asks someone to marry them in front of dancing strangers and then it’s replayed before an internet audience of millions. Well, we were there first, folks.

In this psychological experiment, we concluded that people don’t like going on live radio, in a cramped lift, in their rush hour. People can be selfish, you know. But we had a programme to fill.

So, on this occasion, it wasn’t me or my friends who found everything a bit awkward. It was total strangers who I’d unwittingly set up to embarrass. And Rob had pulled it off. He comes out of it a hero. Mind you, he did go on to be a TV sports reporter who claimed, one season, that if a particular team avoided relegation, he would be so shocked that he’d wear a dress to present the football news. Guess what? I’m not sure what size he is but the people at the boutique fitting were, apparently, very pleasant.

And, on the day I was editing this, Rob was so intent on listening to coverage of the day after the election of 2015 that he drove to the wrong airport – East Midlands instead of Birmingham – on route to a stag do in Amsterdam. What a plonker; but I’ve a sneaking suspicion it could have easily been me. Don’t tell him.

Anyway, in our radio days, we were totally knackered.