The Twelth of February is the day we celebrate the birth of the man who had the Great Idea. And in conceiving that Great Idea Charles Darwin laid the foundations of the natural sciences on whch we depend today, including medicine, botany, zoology and entomology. The Great Idea that all life on this planet is related, that it began with simple unicellular forms and that it diversified over the ages into the extraordinary variety of forms that exist today.

Mr Darwin done good!

12th February, 2012

Sometimes I wonder if I shall ever write anything for this column thing again. Over a month now, and I've been pecking out things on the old keyboard here, but none of them have fallen into the ever-open maw into which you are now peering.

There has been a small web-page design, done to help out a neighbour who had been tasked with it in the course of her job, and had suddenly realised she had no idea as to how to do it—so I took that on; all part of the good neighbour thing. It will, of course burgeon as time passes, and I know I'll have to explain to her boss just why this idea or that that won't work, or at least why I don't want to have to do it!

I've also read a novel for a Literary Agent chum, who wanted my opinion because I am atheist, and he isn't and there's a strong theme of corrupt evangelicalism in the book. There's also a lot of violence, which isn't to my taste at all, but it is an "action" novel, so it was necessary. There were no toe-curling sex scenes either, for which I was grateful. If it finds a publisher it should do well at airport bookstalls. Or is that damning with faint praise?

So January has passed in a reasonably active way, and much of it was pleasantly mild too, for which I was grateful. And now it's February, almost the month I have feared most, and what do you know - I'm ruddy well freezing! Still - this has at least broken my duck for 2012. Must try harder. Must do better. Must just have a little nap...

2nd February, 2012

Another New Year is almost upon us, which brings me a certain pleasure. I can’t help thinking how lovely it is not to have to play some god-awful gig. The reason why one felt obligated to take New Year’s Eve jobs was—not to put too fine a chiselled point n it—the bread, man, the money. These ghastly affairs paid at twice or even thrice the normal fee, so you couldn't really afford to turn your finely-chiselled nose up at it.

Last year I wrote about the very last year-end gig I played, a cabaret booking at a venue called The Talk of London, which I think is now defunct. It was part of the development of the old Middlesex music hall, now the New London Theatre, where Cats played for over 8,000 performances, on the corner of Drury Lane and Parker Street. The great thing about it for me was the fact that having played the show, we could make our escape before the first bars of Au; Lang Syne were heard, and I midnight struck as I drove away, avoiding Trafalgar Square of course. Well… it was past my bed-time…

I don’t know what happens nowadays: are there still gigs like those I shudder to remember? Are there Hunt Balls, while we’re on the subject of musical hell? I suppose I was lucky that year to only have the one show to do—it often happened that agents would book people to play two or three venues the same night, and after the first one they would somehow be swallowed up by the crowds and never make it to the others! So the bands played on…

29th Decemer, 2011

If at some time you have enjoyed a trawl through my disorganized memories of musical endeavours, and I know some folks have, then you may well enjoy a new book that I have just finished reading.

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The author is someone I have known since my teen years, and he has had a long and successful career shepherding flocks of rock-and-roll performers, singers, musicians and ballet dancers through the ordeals of touring, here in the UK and overseas. Hearing that he had a book coming out, I knew that I would have to buy it, of course — but, equally of course, I knew that you buy your friends' books out of a desire to encourage and support them, but frankly it sometimes turns out to be a waste of money. In this case, I could not have been more wrong! Malcolm Cook has created a really 'good read' that kept me turning the pages, sometimes laughing aloud at the antics of the artistes and the reactions of various Jacks-in-Office — always good for a chuckle, that lot! It certainly brought back a lot of memories for me.

Type Cook's Tours into the books search at UK Amazon to read more about the book — and to make your purchase - it's the inside story, and it's a damn' well told one. Thanks, Mal!

6th December, 2011

Extraordinary to think that it is seventy-five years since the very first commercial (by which I don't mean advertising-supported) television service in the world began, in London. That was a year before I put in an appearance, and only three years before it was all turned off—in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon, no less, pre-empted by the war which was about to start.

My family moved, after one of Herr Hitler's fly-boys had chucked a couple of bombs in our direction, which rendered our Highgate flat a trifle drafty, to the house we still have, from which a very nice view of the Alexandra Palace tower was to be had. I remember vividly seeing a V1 'doodlebug' miss the tower by a very small margin. When BBC Television restarted, after the war, they said 'As we were saying…' and launched into the previously unfinished Mickey Mouse cartoon!

Mark Gatiss wrote a Doctor Who episode, in the climax of which the Doctor climbed the tower to deal with Maureen Lipman sucking the life force out of the folks watching The Coronation broadcast. That really was the day that TV became BIG… we didn't have a set, but some close friends nearby did, and we were invited to spend the day with them. It was a huge undertaking, with every camera, every commentator in play. For the first time ever, people could see the event in minute detail, both in the Abbey and outside. After that day, TV sets started to fly out of the shops.

As a kid, I often used to hang around the Palace, watching scenery arrive—I remember seeing items winched up through the ceiling, so I presume the studios were on the first floor. There were two of them, one having originally been used for the testing of the Baird 240-line system, which lost out to the Marconi-EMI 405-line electronic system emanating from the other studio. Baird went on to developing electronic systems, and in 1944 he demonstrated a 600-line full colour electronic system! He did 3D as well, but all at the wrong time, alas.

Of course there was only one channel, and much of the programming seemed to be made up as they went along really. I do know that the very first thing I saw on a television screen was a game of rugby, not from a stadium, but from a recreation ground somewhere, and of course it was all in black and white—or more often than not, dark blue and extremely light blue. With my usual grasp of future trends, I didn't think it would amount to much—wireless was The Thing. I remember being incensed when the radio programmes were relegated to the back of The Radio Times!

Eventually, along came a baby channel, rejoicing in the name BBC Two. The pre-launch publicity featured two mascots, kangaroos—an adult and a joey to represent the new channel. Bet you don't know their names… They disappeared as soon as the second channel had gone live.

My first job after leaving school in 1954 was in an advertising agency, and Commercial TV (“a licence to print money”) was about to hit Britain. We had a television department, largely staffed by actors for some reason, and won an international prize for our campaign for OXO, featuring Harry Corbett and Sooty. Harry attended the meetings in the board-room with the OXO big-wigs, and apparently kept them enchanted with Sooty - no set, he just folded his arms and there was the bear.

Heigh ho, Happy Birthday TV. Bring back The Clangers, I say... Oh, and those mascots? Their names were Hullabaloo and Custard. Why, I don't know.

2nd November, 2011