Selling out is no laughing matter

When I was a teenager I had a couple of mates who were ‘music snobs’.

They knew a lot about the indie scene and would eulogise about bands of which the rest of us had never heard.

Then, when they’d made it big and we had heard of them my mates would drop them like a copy of the Daily Mail from the hands of a socialist.

“They’ve sold out,” they always said. I always had mixed views on that stance. On the one hand I admired them for liking the music in its raw state before producers got hold of it; while on the other I thought the band members wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it now they were raking in the royalties.

I now know – in a strange way – what my mates were going through. I’ve realised I’ve become a ‘comedy snob’.

Down the years I’ve seen and heard many up-and-coming stand-ups at small clubs and pubs or on obscure radio shows; some were never seen again. Others impressed me so much I would follow them to further smaller venues and delight in their burgeoning reputation.

Yet last night, as three such comedians – Miranda Hart, Marcus Brigstocke and Paul Merton – came together on Have I Got News For You, I felt a tinge of envy that others could now share in the joy they had brought me.

There had been some kudos in knowing that, how ever many years ago it was, if I had said their names to my nearest and dearest they would have shrugged and said “never ‘eard of ‘em”. I suppose there’s an element of one-upmanship involved.

But, with the advantage of maturity – and the knowledge that I could do bugger all about it – the envy passed quickly and I realised that who am I to even subconsciously deny anybody else the joy these people can bring into our lives.

There have been others whose name I noted when they were on the bottom rung of the comedy ladder – but I’m now glad to say they’ve made it big and are delighting millions of people through radio, comedy and DVDs (yes, they’ve ‘sold out!’).

People like Mark Watson, Frank Skinner, Punt & Dennis, Jim Tavare, Patrick Kielty, Milton Jones, John Oliver and Rufus Hound, all had an immediate effect on me when I first heard them. And yes, I’m glad they’ve made it to the top of the tree.

And I hope that the likes of Tony Cowards and Patrick Monahan are soon just as well known. It’ll be great to be able to tell people that I think they’ve ‘sold out’…

No more heroes any more

Name-dropping alert

WARNING: IF YOU DON’T LIKE CELEBRITIES THIS ENTRY WON’T BE FOR YOU

I’ve heard it said that you should never meet your heroes, for they seldom live up to your expectations.

I was reminded of this idiom yesterday, when a friend of mine – having read Tuesday’s blog – asked which of my heroes I had met, given that I was too young to have shared a pint and a bag of pork scratchings with Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

And, he persisted, did I still feel the same way after meeting them?

It got me thinking – and that generally ends in me writing a blog entry. So who have I met, who was (before the event) or still is, a hero of mine?

Well, I met George Best a couple of times, and despite the fact he was as the newt on the first occasion it didn’t damage the esteem in which I held him. Probably because everybody knew he enjoyed a quick one – or 10 – anyway . . .

I interviewed Jasper Carrott and he was very pleasant and humble; I met the late, great Jimmy Dickinson (Pompey legend) and he was everything I expected him to be; the much-missed Oscar-winning film director Anthony Minghella, was also a thoroughly decent chap in the flesh; the legendary Eric Sykes, a truly gifted comedy writer who is as warm and friendly as his on-screen persona suggests; and of course my colleague Henry’s old man, Peter Alliss, is as avuncular in person as he sounds on the box.

One of my heroes will mean nothing to most people. I grew up reading the Portsmouth News, which had an award-winning columnist called Keith Newbery.

I loved his style of writing, his wit and his intuition. He inspired me. And it was Keith who was my first editor when I started my career in journalism. He didn’t disappoint; in fact he far exceeded my expectations. He was – and remains – a huge influence on my journalistic career.

Indeed, I regard many of my friends as heroes – in one way or another they’ve nearly all inspired me. But that’s far too maudlin, so I won’t dwell on it. You want celebrity name-dropping . . .

I’ve looked up to actor Bryan Marshall - whose name may not mean much, though I’m sure you’d recognise his face – ever since as a young kid I was a guest at a charity football match and found myself sitting next to him in the dug-out. He couldn’t have been nicer though he had far better things to do than nursemaid a kid he didn’t even know.

Rick Wakeman is great company – a self-deprecating, self-confessed grumpy old man – and I had the pleasure of spending a morning with him at a charity golf event.

There have been counterpoints of course: people I’ve met who disappointed me. Hampshire and West Indies cricketer Gordon Greenidge, was hugely grumpy when I spoke to him; golfer Sam Torrance was brusque and aloof; and football writer Brian Glanville, whose talent inspired me, came across as very arrogant when we met, albeit briefly.

There are heroes I never got to meet – mainly in my second love of comedy: Eric Morecambe, Tony Hancock, Tommy Cooper, Spike Milligan and footballers Duncan Edwards, Bobby Moore and anybody who was in Pompey’s 1939 FA Cup-winning team.

And there are heroes I still hope to meet: comedians Mark Watson, Rhod Gilbert, Punt and Dennis, Marcus Brigstocke, Paul Merton and David Mitchell; actor Martin Sheen and anybody else who starred in the brilliant The West Wing; Homer Simpson and the world’s number one golfer Tiger Woods.

No musicians anywhere you notice. Comedy and sport have always been my rock ‘n roll. However, I would quite like to meet Chris de Burgh, though I might well spend the rest of my days in a prison cell if I did.