# Every second is a highlight #

This week is the tenth anniversary of me becoming a student at the University of York, but as important as that it's also ten years since I joined YSTV.  I'll write something more substantial about my York experience in the near future but for the moment wanted to give a little extra plug to the compilation video I put online on 6th October - ten years to the day since Mum and Dad dropped me off at Eden's Court.  Yep, a bit sad that I did it on the exact date, but the video's been largely finished for about three months now so I was keen to get it out there as soon as I could!

I first had the idea of making a "best bits" video a couple of years ago, but ended getting a bit stuck with the technology.  The basic editing software I had couldn't cope with the various file formats that YSTV has used over the years for online videos, so as most of my recordings from the station are downloaded from the website it restricted me to anything I had transferred to tape which I could then capture myself.  At the time I thought this basically amounted to the final edition of my show Small Screen, which handily had contained clips of the previous two years of the show, so rather than a YSTV highlights compilation I instead ended up making an edit based around one programme (the theme of the sequence I must admit I nicked entirely from Children's BBC's 25th anniversary highlights VT).  Despite this I got a great reaction from it, so ever since I've wanted to try and do a similar thing for the rest of YSTV's output during my time as a member.  Finally, earlier this year - through a combination of some file-conversion software and, um, Windows Movie Maker - the technology came together.  It also coincided with me discovering a load more YSTV stuff I'd transferred to VHS in my first and second years that I'd completely forgotten about, some of which I've since sent onto the current membership as they're almost certainly not held in the archive anymore (the most notable of which, scarily, was Best Broadcaster 2004 - another "best of" edit assembled annually for the National Student TV Awards).

Windows Movie Maker.  Shit, but not as shit as I thought.

Putting the new sequence together was a pretty lengthy task.  I had a fair idea of most of the clips I wanted to include but did do a fair bit of scrolling through programmes trying to find interesting or notable bits I'd forgotten about.  I didn't want a representative sequence of everything we made during that period as we've got Best Broadcaster for that, and don't particularly have anything to prove in that respect. What I really wanted to concentrate on were the memories, and the clips that show us having the great time that we did. This is harder than it may sound as student TV is rarely as Krazy-with-a-K as its reputation might suggest, with people actually putting in a lot of time and effort to make programmes as professional as possible. This meant the edit I've ended up with features a lot on outtakes, clips of our "Summer Expedition" programmes and a scary amount of custard pies.  These were only an annual feature of our Children In Need broadcast, but when edited closely together do make us look a little like some kind of low-rent version of Tiswas...

A few disclaimers, if you will.  I'd initially not wanted to feature any Small Screen at all, having "done" that in the previous edit, but late on in the edit I decided to do a quick photo-montage of the years since graduation to ram home the point somewhat that we're all still mates (and indeed the last couple of photos are us at BAFTA last year with the then-current YSTV team and back in the studio again this May, which was a nice point to end).  It seemed natural at this point in the narrative to show the very end of the series prior to this sequence, which was also our final live show whilst at the university.  The vast majority of the clips are from my time as a student but you'll notice a handful from 2006 and 2007 when we made return trips to help out with big productions.  There's a bit of an absence of material from my first year, which is a shame, but this is largely a result of the station not being online at that point and the much smaller amount of output we had then.  Considering how much of a flop it was there are a surprisingly number of clips from Off The Cuff - however, given the programme's improvised (and frequently shambolic nature) this helped get quite a few oddball bits in.  There are even a handful of other bits found on my old tapes that are getting their first airing in this sequence (yeah, look impressed).  And amusingly You Tube presents you with the option to watch the video in "1080p HD". I hate to be the one to break it to you but it's not like those old Carry On films on ITV3 - we didn't film it in high-def at the time. 

Unlike the track used in the Small Screen compilation there's no real significance to the lyrics of Domino other than I really like the track and it's a good, punchy one to edit to.  There is one line though that sums up the period of time, and it's the title of this blog.  Hopefully I've managed to get across how much fun we used to have and what a great little team we were.  I hope you enjoy it!

If you care - and this is for YSTV archive geeks only really - here's the rundown of where all the clips came from:

1.    (Verse 1) The on-air YSTV clock that introduced the vast majority of the clips featured.  I can reveal this was recorded at twelve minutes past three.

2.    YSTV Summer Expedition 2004 (July).  Running over a hill in Dublin, I think this was for an opening sequence.

3.    Elections 2005 (March).  Some behind the scenes footage I shot for a piece showing how much work went into the election night programme. 

4.    Freshers’ Fair 2003 (October).  More camcorder stuff of our stall.

5.    Woodstock 2003 (June).  Our OB control room – found on a VHS this year, this footage was never used and I’d forgotten I even filmed this.

6.    Bulletin (October 2002).  My first appearance on YSTV.

7.    YSTV Week (January 2004).  Kate’s first appearance on YSTV.

8.    NaSTA 2004 Golden Bodge (April 2004).  Our spoof BBC One dancing ident.  This was lost for years but later turned up on XTV’s website – odd considering Nexus hosted the conference.

9.    This Is Your Manifesto (March 2004).  James chases the geese for a vox pop.

10.  Snow ident (January 2003).  I found this original footage on VHS this year which is why it runs at normal speed instead of Benny Hill-speed as on the finished version.  This “Y” didn’t make the final cut so is seen here for the first time (ooh…).

11.  Bona Dicta (June 2005).  Outtake of Sarah doing her pre-titles piece to camera.

12.  Good Morning Campus (June 2005).  Outtake of Ben coughing his guts up during his regional opt.

13.  YSTV Week Special (May 2005).  Greg Dyke grimaces when asked to read the programme’s slogan “Packed With Fact”.

14.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July). 

15.  Children In Need 2003 (November).  Pete and Sarah boogie in the broom cupboard.

16.  Good Morning Campus (June 2005).  Kat and I celebrate at the end of the show.

17.  The Great Big Massive YSTV Christmas Quiz Game Show Thingy 2003 (December). 

18.  Off The Cuff (January 2004).

19.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Scarborough funfair.

 

20. (Chorus 1) YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Sarah is actually miming to S Club 7’s entirely forgettable hit “You”, fact fans.

21.  YSTV Week (May 2005).  Tom tries on the CBeebies Weekly free gift.

22.  Elections 2005 (March). 

23.  Children In Need 2003 (November).  Off-cut from the filming of the trailer.  The very first of many custard pies to be thrown in that studio in November over the next few years.

24.  This Is Your Manifesto (March 2004). James ventures into URY and makes a nuisance of himself…

25.  Elections 2006 (March).  Despite being an alumnus I was back in the hot seat again…

26.  YSTV Week (January 2005).  Kate and Kat sing a song…I forget why…

27.  Elections 2006 (March).  Sarah livens up a boring result.

28.  Stereotypes (October 2004). Outtake – Kate whacks Pete after his cheesy outro.

29.  YSTV Week Special (May 2005).  Greg meets the membership.

30.  NaSTA 2003 Golden Bodge.  You’ll obviously have guessed already but I’m meant to be Richard O’Brien.  Michael and Dave are cowboys.  Don’t ask.

 

31.  (Verse 2) YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Pretending to not be able to find the sea in Scarborough.

32.  YSTV Week (May 2005).  Tony registers his disapproval of the new BBC weather graphics by going back to basics.

33.  Roses 2005 (May).  Pat Sharp did a piece to camera for us but the microphone was left off in error – hence the subtitles.

34.  NaSTA 2004 Golden Bodge.  Jen is  playing Margaret Thatcher but I’ve really no idea why we’re dancing.

35.  The Best of YSTV Week (December 2004).  Always liked this shot.

36.  Elections 2004 Bona Dicta (March). 

37.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2004 (July).  The infamous pints of Smirnoff Ice in Dublin.  Seemed a good idea at the time.

38.  Children In Need 2004 (November).  Being quizzed on my embarassing knowledge of 90s pop music.

39.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Scarborough dodgems.

40.  Snow ident (January 2003).

41.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2004 (July). At the Guinness factory.

42.  Off The Cuff (January 2004).

43.  YSTV Week (February 2005).  During the weather forecast, Richard decided to try and fix one of the broken slats in the news desk.  I was directing, and it looked so ridiculous that I asked the vision mixer to cut it to air!

44.  YSTV Week (December 2004).  Tony does the weather, for a treat this week in his own clothes.

45.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2004 (July).  Jen awaits Rowan at Dublin airport…

46.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2004 (July)…who gives us a lovely welcome.

 

47.  (Chorus 2) YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Kate gives Tony Blair rhythm.

48.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Not sure why Rowan was so pleased at going down a slide.

49.  Off The Cuff (January 2004).  Hands-in-the-air moment after Will Young’s Evergreen.

50.  YSTV Week (May 2004).  Me and Kate appear on screen together for the first time, a couple of months before we got together.

51.  Children In Need 2004 (November).  Pete gets more pie than he bargained for.

52.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  No idea what this was about but don't they look cool?

53.  The Best of YSTV Week (December 2004).  “One take Rushworth”.

54.  Off The Cuff (October 2003). Ed fails to get a message across to Dave.

55.  YSTV Summer Expedition 2005 (July).  Rowan’s moment of victory.

 

56.  (Middle 8) Elections 2005 (March).  Behind the scenes shots of our split-site operation.

57.  Off The Cuff (October 2003).  We go to Goodricke dining hall and find a huge crowd “watching” YSTV.

58.  Small Screen (June 2005).  Our final appearance on YSTV as students.

59.  Photo montage of 2005-2012 including graduation, YSTV40, parties, our engagement and return to the station

60.  Snow ident (January 2003).

 

61.  (Chorus 3) Small Screen (November 2004).  Outtake from a spoof news sequence for the pre-titles.

62.  Elections 2007 (March 2007). A brief on-screen appearance at my final election night, reporting from the balcony.

63.  Children In Need 2003 (November).  The notorious “pie attack” where Ed and I were attacked by the freshers.  A genuine "Krazy-with-a-K" moment

64.  YSTV 40/Children In Need 2007 (November).  Following a repeat of that very clip Tom and I get second helpings.  Fittingly, our final YSTV appearance to date.

65.  Elections 2004 (March).  James takes Michael down like he’s a domino.  Something I think we all wanted to do from time to time.

66.  Goodbyes montage: Elections 2006 (with the tripod slowly giving way), Children In Need 2004, YSTV Summer Expedition 2005, Elections 2004, Elections 2005, Children In Need 2003 (crammed into the broom cupboard, post-pie attack) and our final YSTV Week from June 2005.

67.  Snow ident (January 2003).  The resolution shot, filmed from Chris’s bedroom window in Halifax College.

The Saviour of Radio 1? Yeah, probably

Farewell then Moylesy.  It can't have escaped your attention that Chris Moyles finally left the Radio 1 Breakfast Show today (after a typically modest three week celebration of his eight year reign in the role).  It's also fair to say that the man polarised opinions somewhat.  As a long-term listener who's had a love/hate relationship with his show I thought I'd have a go at looking where it's gone right and wrong over the years, as it seems to me much of the derision the programme has received comes from people who have never really listened to it properly, taking much of their hatred from the press.

I started listening to Chris at the start of 1999.  I think I'd got hold of a pocket FM radio from somewhere and decided that I'd pass the time on the school bus by listening to what Radio 1 had to offer.  Our school kicked out at 3.45pm so I'd normally hear Mark and Lard's final link before Moyles's show started at 4. At the time Radcliffe had a feature called "The Cheesily Cheerful Chart Challenge" at the end of his show where listeners would suggest songs to accompany a news story of the day, so when I switched on it would normally be some sort of classic track.  For a while I genuinely assumed Mark and Lard's entire show was oldie songs, and given that the Mystery Years began at 9 as I arrived at school I also thought Simon Mayo had a similar playlist.  But over the following months I'd come to love listening to Chris - who was then just 25 - as I headed home. I loved the cheeky, rebellious nature of his show.  It's easy to forget that Radio 1 was quite humorourlessly wedded to beard-strokingly earnest new music at this point, being just a few years after the mid-90s clearout, and Moyles was a good respite from that, coming across as someone you could have a chat about TV in the pub with rather than having to enthuse about the latest release from an obscure indie act with.

He'd started at Radio 1 in July 1997.  It's fair to say that the young Moyles was far more arrogant than he is today.  The title "saviour of Radio 1" he applied to himself speaks volumes but many forget it came in that period shortly after Chris Evans quit, and his replacements Mark and Lard were struggling on the breakfast show, and the station was looking once again for a new star.  For someone placed on early breakfast it was basically part of a campaign to get noticed.  It worked, and by late 1997 he was already filling in for Kevin Greening and Zoe Ball on the breakfast show.  October 1998 brought the move to afternoons and a greatest profile, but from early 2000 onwards it's arguable he was starting to become a little lazier, with fewer regular features and edited song/ad parodies on his show in favour of simply chatting to his team.  The timing of this would seem to coincide with him not being awarded the breakfast show when Zoe Ball quit, and indeed a general falling out of favour at Radio 1.

The "new music first" approach was in the ascendency in the early noughties at Radio 1, culminating excruciatingly in a compilation of live music highlights being scheduled on Christmas Day (mmm, festive) and appeals for "credible" Valentine's Day track dedications across the network - presumably for that special person in your life that only tolerates achingly hip slushy gestures.  As a self-styled "bloke" Moyles, lacking the musical credibility that the likes of Mark Radcliffe could offer instead, looked very out of step with the station.  2001's "Radio 1 TV" series on BBC Choice ignored him entirely, despite featuring virtually every other DJ at the station.  He would later admit at a Radio Academy talk I attended that there were people openly "out to get him" in management, and that he had to resist attempts to split him up with his long-term on-air partner "Comedy" Dave Vitty.  But throughout all this he continued to have a huge appeal with listeners, particularly younger ones, and it is presumably this that kept him on board.

By 2003 Radio 1's listening figures were in free-fall, and with the daytime lineup largely unchanged for five years, the specialist output even longer and the weekend schedule stagnating, huge changes were required. A BBC Trust report gave the green light for a new approach which recognised that huge parts of the audience had children and responsibilities and were unable to identify with the sometimes hedonistic and "relentlessly single" approach to life the station seemed to recommend.  To this end older songs were gradually introduced to parts of the schedule - Moyles's Tedious Link being joined by the drivetime "Wonder Years" and Sunday morning's "Lie-In", all of which were a breath of fresh air at the time after years of finger-wagging at anything over a few years old.  This change helped Moyles immensely.  Sara Cox had fallen out of favour at breakfast, and through heavy promotion and unexpected deputising in the slot her successors were quite clearly being signposted as Colin and Edith - the duo recreating the "dream ticket" of serious music DJ and tabloid-friendly female that Kevin and Zoe had done six years earlier.  However with the change in the focus and tone of the station there was clearly a quite serious rethink internally, as Murray and Bowman were unlikely to be able to reverse any of the image problems that Radio 1 had acquired.

It's so easy to forget how unexpected Moyles's appointment to the breakfast show was when it was announced in October 2003.  It flew in the complete opposite direction of everything the station had done at breakfast for the previous few years - indeed, the man had virtually no tabloid profile at that point.  What he did have was what had sustained him in the slight wilderness of the previous few years - immense popularity with younger listeners and a down-to-earth quality that people could identify with.  His appointment signalled a real change of approach for the station, but there was no guarantee at the time that it would succeed - after all, Mark and Lard were popular too, but just didn't work at that time of the day.  It was also a strange move at the time given his afternoon show was far past it's best, and the prospect of a straight transfer to breakfast didn't seem that appetising.

What happened in the event is that the show was completely re-thought for the new slot.  Previously the afternoon show had been largely confined to Chris, Dave and occasional interjections from his producer and broadcast assistant.  A much larger cast of voices was brought in for the breakfast show, with the two staff roles amplified and news and sport readers brought into the studio, along with other appearances from "day" members of the team.  The song parodies that had more or less died away were brought back in greater numbers to a positive reception and the show aimed to visit a different UK city every month on an outside broadcast, in addition to more entertaining features such as trying to get Comedy Dave's awful game show idea commissioned (it was - for 10 minutes - by Challenge TV) and the entertaining quiz Car Park Catchphrase.  All of this made Sara Cox's show seem positively antique, and in that first year on air The Chris Moyles Show was a breath of fresh air, hugely entertaining and - most importantly - massively popular.

Sadly the positive vibe didn't last, and within a couple of years the show was attracting publicity for all the wrong reasons.  2006 was a particularly bad year for the programme, with mini-scandals surrounding swearing, alleged homophobia and racism and Moyles's own salary making the show less of a cheery listen in the morning.  Whilst each incident was blown out of proportion and in some cases completely mis-represented, as a whole they contributed to an image of the show to those who didn't listen that wasn't very appealing.  Also, rather than seeking to chastise Moyles, Radio 1 took a peculiar approach of defending him at every turn.  The greatest example of this was the infamous "that ringtone is so gay" incident, when Moyles used the word "gay" to mean rubbish (interestingly shortly after the unreported incident of Russell T Davies scripting Rose Tyler to say much the same thing in an episode of Doctor Who).  Radio 1 said in a statement that the meaning of the word had changed, and Moyles was simply reflecting that.  This wasn't entirely untrue.  However - unless things have changed radically since I was at school - the change arose from the assertion that being gay is also rubbish.  In truth, it was a lazy use of language by a presenter trying to get a laugh and something that should have been apologised for and moved on from.  By defending him and not eliciting an apology it simply made things look worse.  This single incident was used by the press to confirm Moyles's apparently homophobia at every turn for the rest of his time on the show, all the more frustrating given that anyone who has listened to the programme will know that Moyles is simply not homophobic, having worked closely with a gay producer for a decade and more recently having launched into a passionate argument on air against the Catholic Church's approach to gay marriage.  His weakness has always been to be somewhat clumsy with issues such as this when trying to be humourous.

It was during this period that the jingles got longer and more self-indulgent.  The unexpected five-minute epic that opened the first show in 2004 was hilarious; opening every single show with one of a similar length from 2007 onwards was somewhat less so.  Similarly the amount of music played on the show started to decrease, and the links getting longer and longer.  Initially, the programme would get through about twenty songs during it's three hour running time.  A few years in and it was struggling to get the post-news double bill of songs out in amongst all the chat - meaning any more than two tracks in half an hour was fairly unusual.  A great example of this is the start of the show.  For the first three years, the programme would open at 6.55am (I know, odd) with a quick link and a track, followed by the 7am Newsbeat.  By 2007, when Moyles's start time was amended to 6.30am (with the preceding Newsbeat starting at 6.27 to allow the show to start bang on), the entire first half hour of the show would be one elongated link without any music at all.  A tedious link, if you will.  For a music station this was unprecedented, and Moyles even came up with the phrase the phrase "speech radio with music" to describe this new genre he claimed to have invented.

It would be a lie to say the copious amounts of chat were never entertaining, in fact in later years many of the online fans of the show claimed to prefer as little music as possible, with attempts to introduce a song before 7am leading to a lengthy and often heated debate on the chrismoyles.net website between fans and the show's producer.  The move to introduce music to the half hour apparently came direct from controller Ben Cooper and executive producer Rhys Hughes - both former producers of Moyles's show, which speaks volumes.  However, it was also true to say that it could frequently be a bit too much, and the show became far too wedded to the idea of it's own greatness towards the end.  The lack of music also sat very, very awkwardly on a music station and was difficult to defend.  People used to laugh at memories of DLT talking for 15 minutes without playing a song, without realising we would come full circle.  Some argued that playing music was no way to attract an audience that could get it from more sources than ever before.  In truth, over time, the lack of music was driving the age of the audience of the show up.  Think about it: if you're middle-aged, and not a fan of the playlist, the amount of music Moyles played was unlikely to act as a turn-off.

The nadir of the show was when Chris used the 6.30 half hour to rant at length about apparently not being paid for a couple of months.  It was the absolute worse example of a talented, funny broadcaster succumbing to ego and using his show as a mouthpiece.  There were huge echoes of Chris Evans ranting against Matthew Bannister and Trevor Dann shortly before his departure.  It seemed as if Chris Moyles had followed the same route of self-destruction as his ginger namesake and would soon be reaching the end of the road.  Radio 1's tolerance of this episode was later explained somewhat when it transpired his long-term relationship had recently come to an end, also resulting in an unplanned week off the show, perhaps not leaving him in the best frame of mind.

Curiously, this incident seemed to be a bit of a turning point, with the final couple of years of Moyles on the breakfast show the most entertaining since he started back in 2004 as he relaxed somewhat, toned down the needless offence and became a warmer presence on the radio.  The 52-hour marathon broadcast for Comic Relief was a case in point.  Not only did Moyles and Comedy Dave broadcast for over two days continuously - in Moyles's case standing up - but he managed to remain hugely entertaining throughout.  It was a captivating and era-defining broadcast, with an incredible £2.4m donated by listeners over the course of the two days.  Moyles's ability to not only manage the feat but to competently present with numerous other DJs throughout, including specialist presenters with which you'd expect him to find little common ground, brought much-deserved respect from peers and listeners alike.

The question of succession dogged the breakfast show for a number of years, as it was noticed that Moyles's audience was dragging Radio 1's average listener age up.  It's debatable as to how important this is - after all, if young people are still listening then does it matter if older ones are reluctant to leave? However, there were signs that this has started to become an issue, with long-running "classic track" feature Tedious Link axed and Moyles apparently told to reign in his references to eighties and nineties TV (Andi Peters discussing BBC1 Northern Ireland's 5.30 opt-out from Children's BBC may have entertained us geeks but was unlikely to pull in fans of The Wanted and JLS to the station).  Even the revived weekly Golden Hour was seemingly forbidden from going back any earlier than 2002.  It is also fair to say that former controller Andy Parfitt avoided the issue of succession, leaving successor Ben Cooper to seemingly rush these changes in.  Confirming the problem, audience tickets to the penultimate show at the BBC Radio Theatre were given out randomly to listeners, with the Red Button cameras capturing an embarrassing number attendees over the age of forty.

And so, today, it came to an end.  Nick Grimshaw has a very tough act to follow, and will certainly get a rough ride from the hardcore Moyles fans, but he shows signs of being a very good choice.  He's a radio natural, and clearly a funny guy.  He has always communicated very well with a young audience - specifically as the face of the teen BBC Switch initiative - and gets on well with teen idols, often being photographed with One Direction, Pixie Geldof and their ilk.  This is one area that needs to be reigned in a little in my opinion., as despite being comprehensively part of the media establishment by the end, Chris Moyles always managed to at least remain in appearance an outsider from the celeb world - the old "funny mate in the pub" stereotype.  If Grimshaw has an Achilles' heel it's that he could appear too unobtainable for the audience.

And as for Chris Moyles?  It is yet to be confirmed where he'll end up next on Radio 1, other than that he is contracted to the station until 2014.  It has been rumoured he was do a straight swap with Grimshaw and take up the 2200 slot on the station, much to the howls of derision from John Peel's former fans.  In truth, this slot has been taken progressively more mainstream over the past few years, from the Colin Murray years onwards.  Despite this, Moyles's presence in the middle of the specialist zone would be a little unusual, but it is perhaps the one slot on the station that wouldn't be a massive demotion.  A late night slot would perhaps allow him to move further towards the American Howard Stern-style show he has clearly always craved and based on his Comic Relief marathon would probably be a good listen, if not exactly what is traditional at that time of night.

A huge amount of Moyles's full shows are available to listen to on chrismoyles.net and it's fascinating to see how his style has changed over the years, especially listening back to those darker periods in the early noughties and mid-breakfast show period.  But the most fascinating clip I've found is from the day Moyles was announced as breakfast show host in October 2003.  On Newsbeat, Ben Cooper - then part of Radio 1 management - did a short piece describing Chris as one of the most exciting young broadcasters in the UK and perfect for the breakfast show.  Nearly nine years later, now controller of the station, he again appeared on Newsbeat announcing Nick Grimshaw as Chris's replacement, using the same script almost word-for-word.  You can hardly accuse him of being inconsistent.

And for me? The slightly scary thing is that, turning 29 next year, I'm dangerously close to the age group Radio 1 is trying to get rid of.  Is it time to move on? 6 Music, 5 Live, maybe even...shudder...Radio 2? (no, don't be stupid...) But I've come to the conclusion that Radio 1 can't get rid of me that easily.  Every departure of a long-term, much-loved presenter, whether it be Mark Radcliffe, Simon Mayo or Kevin Greening leads to an avalanche of harrumphing from people in their late-20s and early-30s about how the station is no longer for them.  But I take great inspiration from my future Mother and Father-in-law insistence on still listening to Radio 1 well into their fifties, only recently switching to Radio 2. Whilst yes, Fearne Cotton, Matt Edmondson and Dev do very little for me, I still enjoy many of the relative newcomers such as Greg James and Gemma Cairney.  I don't want to be one of the harrumphers.  It's important for Radio 1 to be able to have a clear-out and get rid of the dead wood every so often.  Bowman, I'm looking at you.  And I'm sure the day will come when we move away from 97-99FM for the final time (not literally - we've been DAB for years). But for now, the last thing I wanted to do is become a young fogie who listens to Magic to get away from all the noisy rapping, or Radio 2 because the presenters don't have music beds underneath them when they talk.  So, Radio 1, you have a challenge.  In two years I shall be outside of your target audience.  By 2014 you need to have convinced me I am the old fart I will be by then.  Best of luck!

Edinburgh Fringe Blog

This week Kate and I have been at the Fringe in Edinburgh, and as I've got a long train journey to kill I thought I'd write a piece about what sort of things we've been seeing this week.  It's the blog equivalent of showing someone your holiday snaps, except you now have the opportunity to go and look at something more interesting as opposed to having to sit with a fixed grin looking at about 400 photos of Tenerife.  Incidentally, that's something that wouldn't have been a problem last time we came to the Fringe.  Kate has a special talent that means she perhaps sometimes doesn't take entirely representative photos of events.  This is her complete "Edinburgh 2010" collection:

 

 

 

I think the thing about those pictures is it really makes you feel like you were there.

 

Comedy was one of the first thing that we found we had in common - Kate still talks misty-eyed of the time she noticed the DVD of Look Around You in my student bedroom - so it surprising in a way that we didn't visit the Fringe until six years into our relationship.  We had an amazing time once we did make the journey though.  It's the sort of thing I'd love to be able to do every year but the cost would make it a bit excessive.  This year we were lucky enough to have a travel voucher Kate had won in her previous job (for being, like, generally ace) and enough East Coast reward points to cover a return first class train ticket.  As such we could tell ourselves that we were paying very little to get there and stay over so we were still "saving money for the wedding" (yeah right...).

Hello Edinburgh!

 

As a rule of thumb we tried to book two or three shows a day, and leave the rest to what took our fancy while we were up there.  We ended up seeing a total of 18 shows in our four days at the Fringe, if anything a little too many but you can hardly say we didn't make the most of it...!  On our first trip we were glad we booked so many shows in advance given the amount of sell-outs we were at.  The hoary old cliche of "just seeing where the buzz was around" didn't really work then, but this year the Olympics effect has seen audiences down across the board, and tickets for most of the shows we saw could have been bought on the day. In fact in one case a late two-for-one offer meant we actually lost money by booking ahead.  Anyway - with the proviso that everyone was far more talented than I'll ever be, here's a few thoughts on each of the shows we saw.

 

Monday

 

1. Josie Long: Romance and Adventure

 

 

I'm not a huge fan of Josie but Kate was keen to see her. I find a lot of the "aren't Tories twats?" school of comedy a bit cringey, as although I largely agree that yes, most of them are, coming from such a tribal Labour supporter as Josie it's a bit rich to ignore everything that went seriously wrong under that fairly right wing government before 2010. I thought the sections of the show that worked best, ironically, were the less political bits, such as talking about turning thirty (and specifically MSN Live's piss-poor list of things to do before that landmark birthday, one of which was "have sex") and the end of her relationship.  Still, she's hugely likeable and it was good for the first show we saw to be nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award.

2. Richard Herring: Talking Cock - The Second Coming

 

When we started going out Kate and I realised that we, along with my sister, were among the rather select group that had avidly watched Lee and Herring's This Morning With Richard Not Judy in the late 1990s.  We've continued to follow their solo careers, so naturally we went to see Richard Herring's latest offering, a revival of his Fringe show from exactly ten years ago (in fact I remember one of York's student papers running an interview with Herring about the show in the first issue after I arrived).  As ever Herring is nothing if not consistent and this was one of our favourite shows of the week. We now know all we ever need to know about the purple-headed womb broom.

 

3. Iain Stirling: Happy To Be The Clown

Iain and Hacker are the new Ed and Oucho, who in turn were the modern day Andi and Edd, who were the new Phillip and Gordon (keep up). In recent years CBBC have employed a number of stand-up comedians as continuity presenters to good effect including Ed Petrie, Holly Walsh and now Iain Stirling.  We both quite like Iain's style of presenting in the broom cupboard - I mean office, so looked forward to seeing his show, which was in the smallest venue yet (a cunningly disguised "seminar room 2" going by the signs), so at least he must have felt at home.  Although Stirling makes references to his day job it's an adult show, and quite a confident, funny one too.  We look forward to seeing more!

Tuesday

4. Harry Hill: My Hobby 

 

Actually part of the Art Festival rather than the Fringe, this was a display of Hill's paintings over the years, drawn whilst starring in Channel 4's Harry Hill and ITV1's TV Burp.  Most are related to celebrity in some way, from "You All Missed Me" (a drawing of the London whale surrounded by the 2006 contestants of Celebrity Big Brother) to "Schofield's Dream" (a visualisation of what must run through Pippy's mind having to cover so many topics for This Morning).  It's superb stuff, and it's great seeing him explore other areas now that the equally superb TV Burp has finally come to an end.

 

5. Free Fringe

We went to see a free "musical comedy" show on the basis of a nice chat the performer had with us in the queue for something else.  I haven't named it as the guy was really lovely and I don't want him Googling himself and finding this, and as a free show it's not really fair to criticise as with paid shows, but it did fall fairly flat.  An important lesson that this sort of thing is not as easy as it might look!

 

6. David O'Doherty: Seize The David O'Doherty

Although by no means a newcomer O'Doherty stuck out for Kate and I last year through his appearances on the BBC's Fringe highlights with his hilarious "party" song and protestations that he is "not Chris O'Dowd, no matter how much you may think I am".  It's another superb show, this time dealing with the end of his relationship (yep, another one) and Ireland's financial crisis, which has apparently resulted in the appearances of shops in Dublin called "Value Bastard".

7. Chris Martin - Spot The Difference

 

We knew of Chris through his warm-up act on the episode of Room 101 we went to see last year.  He was effortlessly entertaining and quite a warm and friendly compere, which is always nice to see.  As is often the case with great MCs it didn't transfer with total ease into an hour of material, so a little disappointing.  Unsurprisingly the funniest bits were the unplanned sections - such as chastising someone for clicking a pen before backing off quickly after realising it was a reviewer.

8. Set List: Standup Without A Net

 

Set List is a bit of an Edinburgh institution, assembling a lineup of comics and getting them to perform a late-night set on the fly based on random subjects that appear on the screen behind them, all in the impressive "Caves" venue of Just The Tonic. We saw this one by chance, after hearing of the lineup whilst queuing for something else, and somehow they'd managed to get Phill Jupitus, Al Murray and Greg Proops on same night.  Equally amazingly we managed to get a couple of returns.  It's a scary sight, witnessing comics at the top of their game scrabbling around for ideas, but most pull it off.  Entertaining stuff!
 

The amazing "caves" venue inside Just The Tonic

Wednesday

9. The Richard Bacon Show
 

Bacon/Hasselhoff

Um, yeah.  Whilst taking a look at the BBC area of the Fringe a clipboard-sporting member of Auntie's top team asked if we'd like to see Richard Bacon interview David Hasselhoff.  Er...why not? So within moments we were inside the BBC tent watching Bacon's 5 Live show go out, with The Hoff himself in attendance.  Bizarre.

 

10. Toby Hadoke: My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver

I'm not sure there's anyone who hasn't seen Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, such was the frequency of performance of Hadoke's predecessor show to this one, but it's an entertaining sequel dealing with the end of his relationship (another one?!) and his attempts to form a relationship with his deaf stepson.  Hadoke's "Now I Know My BBC" in 2010 was a real disappointment, amounting to little more than "wasn't Bagpuss great?", so this was a great return to form.  You could however sense his slight astonishment at teenage girl Doctor Who fans in the audience hanging on his every word, something he and indeed I could have done with back in our adolescent years.

Pleasance venues

 

11. Wit Tank

OK, we had a gap in our evening schedule so thought we'd see some sketch comedy for a change, cleverly scheduled before our existing pre-booked sketch comedy straight afterwards.  But despite the "LOL?!" name Wit Tank are a confident, slick outfit who effortlessly fill an hour, although some of the material later on in the show didn't fly too well.  Although maybe that's what happens when you have the immediate comparison of Pappy's strait after.

Arthur's Seat

 

12. Pappy's: Last Show Ever!

Wow.  Maybe it was the news that they'd been nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award, confirmed earlier that day, but even given that the trio are acknowledged to be at the peak of their abilities this was a triumph of a show.  Highlights included a song about gloves, a real-life Choose Your Own Adventure and an on-stage relationship.  They make it look so, so bloody easy.

13. BBC Rapper Bloke

 

Not strictly a show but Kate said I should put it in anyway.  Whilst waiting at the BBC bar there was a performance by a freestyle vocalist on the nearby stage who specialised in recording his own voice and building it up into a song of it's own.  The sort of thing that you've seen many times before but done really, really well.  I don't know his name though, so this is a bit of a crap review.  It's to the Beeb's credit that they've really gone to town with the Fringe coverage the last couple of years, although in a reliably BBC way.  Clearly there aren't enough venues already in Edinburgh so they've had to build one of their own, and there appeared to actually be someone going round making sure the tables were the regulated space apart from each other.

 14. BBC Comedy Presents

 

An interesting one this. Thanks to Kate's contacts in the world of You Tube/the BBC/comedy in tents (oh, I don't know), we got into this one for free, but given the somewhat broad title didn't really know what to expect.  It turned out to be an incredible one-off show by Jarred Christmas and a full choir, basically creating a religious act of worship towards the musical output of 1992. So you had Sleeping Satellite, House of Love, Would I Lie To You and more.  All the more amazing was that it was a Fringe exclusive, with the aim apparently being to have a full run in London.  We're exactly the right age for that kind of show but it became apparent that many of the people around us were clearly either too old or too young.  "I was only two in 1992" moaned one guy right at the front.  Well, you missed out then.  Unfortunately quite a few older members of the audience left well before the end, odd given they paid £12 to be there.  Given the BBC involvement no doubt they were expecting a cosy panel of Radio 4 regulars attempting to decipher regional accents.

 

Thursday

15. Richard Herring's Edinburgh Fringe Podcast

Not that the title really needs much more explanation but this was a daily chat show featuring Mr Herring and a different guest every day, usually another fringe performer, which is available to download for free after it is recorded.  It takes place at the legendary Stand comedy club, one of the few venues we visited which is actually home to comedy in the other eleven months of the year.  Rich seemed to think the show wasn't going down very well but it seemed fine from where we were sitting, and Kate even managed to interject when she found out the fiancée of guest Nick Doody grew up in Hebden Bridge and now lives in Crouch End.  As Rich said: slightly stalker-ish.

Typical Edinburgh weather

 

16. Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World

It's slightly unusual for a show to have its final run in Edinburgh after a nationwide tour, but this is the case with Carpet Remnant World.  Although better than his most recent pieces,  I have to confess (with a bit of guilt...) I'm start to tire a little of Lee's output.  Considering he is someone who holds such strong views on what comedy should entail, it feels a little like we've been seeing the same show annually for the last few years.  Whilst I can see his point on the commercialisation of the Fringe, there is a huge middle ground between the massive venues charging £30 a show and the dingy cellars showing newcomers.  Plus, he can rail against the "big four" Fringe companies all he likes, but once you're playing an enormous room yourself with a show that's over a year old there's an argument you aren't really keeping to the spirit of the Fringe yourself.  Or maybe we were just annoyed he overran and we nearly didn't make our next show...

Edinburgh Castle

 

17. Claudia O'Doherty: The Telescope

One we saw purely on David O'Doherty's recommendation (no relation), and the fact it was nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award while we were there.  I hate to sound like a pleb but it didn't really work for me.  I can see exactly what it's trying to do - the classic "show goes wrong and performer tries to get it back on track" setup, but for me it didn't hang together too well, and I got the feeling a lot of the audience (perhaps also there on the strength of the nomination) were similarly baffled.  We saw the concept done much better Johnny Sweet (interestingly a show also from Invisible Dot) but the ambition of the show both in the staging and the concept was impressive.

 

Friday

18. Bridget Christie: War Donkey

Our final show, and one we saw on the strength of her turn at her husband's "Silver Stewbilee" gala show two years ago as "A. Ant", a brilliant piece of work on the criticisms sometime levelled at female comedians.  We were a bit disappointed that this show initially  appeared to be using the war donkey to make exactly the same joke, but thankfully the show moved on from the point quite quickly.  It's another Josie Long for me unfortunately.  Despite agreeing with the political and feminist points made, for me the lurch from jokes to genuine anger that we're expected to cheer in the same way sits somewhat awkwardly in a comedy show, and as a man it was sometimes a little difficult not to feel as if some of the fire was being directed at me, such were the various misdemeanours my sex has been responsible for.  It's a very awkward position for me to express so I apologise for it not coming across very well, as I feel bad for even appearing to criticise a comic of Christie's talents (and, for me at least, she is far superior to Long), but it's the general tone I find a bit awkward to process at times.

 

 

And that was that! More by accident than design we managed to see three shows nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award, and this weekend it's been announced that the winner is...Doctor Brown.  Ah well, the old Buf-worth curse strikes again.  We have absolutely no doubt however that it should have gone to Pappy's.  Calling it a sketch show is a bit of an insult really as they've taken the genre and turned it into the most incredible mix of comedy - standup, sketch, music and even theatre all in the space of an hour.  One can only presume the Fosters judges wanted to push the boundaries a little but you do wonder when the trio will hit the big time.  By the nature of their act they haven't managed to break into the Live at the Apollo/Comedy Roadshow type of national exposure, although perhaps this is no bad thing. 

 

When there was a power cut during the all-night BBC Red Button Comedy Marathon earlier in August, host Chris Ramsay said "this is what comedy's really like! Forget Michael Mcintyre in a shiny suit chatting to Gok Wan, we're in a tent in the dark!". And that for me sums up the problems with those mainstream comedy shows.  When I was younger I thought it would be great to have more standup on mainstream TV, but now there is it seems to be the same dozen or so faces performing to the same enormous theatres seemingly on a loop.  It is far from perfect but the wonderful thing about the Fringe is staggering in off the street to see someone on the basis of a what you've heard that day, and sitting in a converted cellar holding a pint in a plastic glass.  And as I finish this I'm now back at home on the sofa watching a Will.i.bloody.am video on the TV as I write this, I'd love to be back in those tiny dingy rooms again!

London 2012: Right Here, Right Now

What a week!  I wrote my previous blog just after the Olympic torch had arrived in London and the final countdown to the start of the games was beginning.  I don't think even by my stupidly overexcited standards I could have guessed just how much the UK and in particular London would have been gripped by Olympic fever in the subsequent days as people finally swung around in support of the games after years of, let's face it, moaning about it.  If there was a medal awarded for complaining then the Great British Public (TM) would win every time (lame joke copyright every newspaper ever).

Torch-bearers at Islington Town Hall

The credit for much of that has to go to the torch relay that ran for seventy days in advance of the start of the games, and apparently travelled within ten miles of 95% of the population.  The relay really helped spread some of the Olympic fever around the country and answer the criticism that it was a London-only event.  The BBC offered pioneering coverage of the entire relay using 3G to relay the pictures to be watched online and occasionally the red button.  The tactic of awarding people the chance to carry the torch based on their contribution to the community also brought some positive coverage, although the amount of celebrities who got to carry it was a little excessive.  I'll forgive Matt Smith in Cardiff and Bruce Forsyth in White City, but Will.i.am carrying it through Taunton extracted the urine somewhat.  His local links are as yet unconfirmed and the timing seemed more to promote the climax of the piss-poor talent show he was appearing than anything to do with the Olympics.

The Olympic Torch on Upper Street

The final week saw it touring London and I was lucky enough to see the flaming thing twice (see what I did there?).  On Wednesday evening it reached Haringey and the people of Crouch End downed their hummus and focaccia in order to see it run past the edge of the area on the final leg of that day, on the route from Turnpike Lane to Alexandra Palace.  What's been less reported is the array of corporate crap that proceeds the torch itself - Coca Cola, Samsung and Lloyds TSB all have their own floats that precede the main event, the latter sadly not booed by the crowd who were in high spirits.  I consume rather a lot of Diet Coke so I couldn't really boo them, and unlike Apple I have no real issues with Samsung.  Tom and I witnessed the torch being passed to a young woman in a wheelchair, who was announced with unfortunate timing as the Coke float blared out the timeless LMFAO lyrics "hey look at that body....I work out".  Early on Thursday I went to see it with Kate in Angel, getting a much better view this time and hearing big cheers for the next torch-bearer (who we later found out was David Walliams).  By that evening excitement had reached fever-pitch at an event in Hyde Park, and - credit where it's due - Boris Johnson gave a terrific speech to the crowd.



And then....the opening ceremony.  There's not a lot that hasn't been said about it so it's perhaps difficult to know where to start, but...wasn't it just the most brilliant thing, ever?  The real genius of it was all the pre-publicity focussing on the "green and pleasant land" bit at the start (represented by the scene that plays out in John Major's head as real life) which was then promptly ripped up within the first fifteen minutes of the show proper.  So many moments sprung out as superb.  The brilliant opening going up the Thames, with the best bits undoubtedly the theme to The South Bank Show ringing out as the shot lurched over the Waterloo area and the sudden swoop-out to show the whole of east London accompanied by the EastEnders drum beat.  The frankly astonishing "industrial revolution" segement, and the poppy-framed pause in the middle to remember casulaties of war.  The Queen and James Bond - whatever your opinion of her, a few years ago that bit would have been inconceivable.  The touching tributes to the NHS and Tim Berners-Lee.  Rowan Atkinson turning a potential loo-break into unmissable TV.  The bit with Beckham and the speedboat - he may not be an Olympian, but his appeal and sportsmanship undoubtedly helped bring the games to these shores, and I hope John Terry was watching to see what he'll never be. 



And, of course, the lighting of the torch.  After all the speculation of who would light it, with the focus on the legacy of the event of course it was always going to be the young sporting stars of the future.  Coupled with the cauldron being made up of "petals" brought into the stadium by each of the participating nations, the moment where it was lit and brought together - representing the uniting power of the Olympics - was perhaps one of the most moving things we'll ever see, at least on this scale.  I have to admit there might have been "something in my eye" at that point, and it wasn't the first time that night.



After years of getting bigger and louder and brasher, Danny Boyle has redefined the art of the opening ceremony.  In truth there was little else we could do after Sydney's party, Athens' heritage and Beijing's spectacle, but few expected it to be executed so flawlessly, and to be such a love letter to our history, culture and humour.  He managed to get us hand-wringing lefties to finally feel comfortable with a form of patriotism by linking it to the UK as it stands in the world now, rather than trumpeting past military glories.  Much of the credit should also go to Underworld, who arranged the music used throughout the ceremony.  The soundtrack album is required listening and has been number 1 in the iTunes album chart for much of the last week, with the two standout track undoubtedly And I Will Kiss (from the industrial revolution sequence) and Caliban's Dream (from the lighting of the flame).  Other than by insane Tory MPs and the Daily Mail (always a tough crowd to please) the show was universally acclaimed. Perhaps unsurprisingly the broadcast is the highest rated programme of the century so far, silencing all but the most miserable of Olympic moaners. 

At St. Pancras International Station

Kate and I were lucky enough to have got tickets to see some swimming heats in the infamous first draw of tickets, but the sting in the tail was the time on our alarm clock.  A start time of 10am, being advised to get there two hours before for security checks, and then having to get there in the first place resulted in it waking us up at 5.45am on the morning of Sunday 29th.  Shortly after 7am we were at St. Pancras station to catch the infamous "Javelin" train that transports you to Stratford in just seven minutes (and Ebbsfleet International, should you so wish).  Upon arriving at the Olympic Park we were immediately bowled over by the enthusiasm and friendliness of the volunteers, cheerfully pointing us in the right direction.  Some spotted some foreign visitors, asked what country they were from and asked for a cheer for that nation - which of course was obliged by the crowd.  It's at this point you finally get the whole "people's games" schtick.  Security was fairly painless but again, friendly, with even the controversial military prescence taking time to chat to excited children in the queue.

We're in!

Once we were in the park there was such an incredible atmosphere, like nothing I've experienced before.  I found myself speaking to strangers next to us at the swimming and in the queue for food, everyone equally excited.  We were lucky enough to Rebecca Adlington's 400m heats, and she actually won her heat to everyone's delight, although obviously this successs didn't translate to gold later in the day.  Following our session in the Aquatics Centre we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the Olympic Park.  It's an impressive development and is much-lauded, with previous groups of venues apparently not landscaped as extensively. 

The Orbit (left)

There's naturally a great feel to the place and it was undoubtedly a good experience to visit it, but one thing that's pleased me about the games is the use of venues across the capital.  I initially thought that it was a bit of a cop-out, with the focus naturally on Stratford, but using the landmarks in events such as the marathon and the beach volleyball has provided the most wonderful backdrop and global advertisement for London. 

In the Aquatics Centre

Of course, it's not over till it's over.  The expected boost to London's economy hasn't come yet (unless you have a unit in Westfield Stratford City) and there may yet be recriminations if it's judged TFL has been over-zealous with their advice.  But as an experience it's been unparalleled.  I've lost count of the number of people I know who normally wouldn't give sport the time of day who've been gripped by the coverage, which incidentally the Beeb has excelled at.  It also looks like giving the Paralympics a huge boost at the end of August.  Tickets to that have been selling well following the success of the main event and following the opening ceremony and our trip to the Olympic Park, we've bought tickets to the Paralympics closing ceremony on September 9th.

Personally - and to be monumentally slushy for a moment - it's cemented my love for the capital.  When I first visited here, aged 17 or 18, I was put off by the size, how busy it was and of course the cost of living.  I wasn't entirely convinced when I moved down a few years later but figured it'd be worth it just to be with Kate (and of course for my career).  But the following seven years have changed my opinion of the place completely.  I adore the north but I also love London in an entirely different way, and the Olympics has really confirmed that by proving that we can stage such a massive event, we can welcome the world to our city and we can put on a bloody good party.

And we're not too bad at the actual sport either.