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’…

Green, as in naive

I'm trying to be green, but like Mark Watson, in his book I finished recently, I'm crap at the environment.

In fact I'm more crap at the environment than Mark Watson.

I keep all the Jiffy bags and padded envelopes that come into the office so we can reuse them - it's only a little gesture, but every little helps.

This morning I despatched something up to the nice man at Golfblogger.co.uk in a recycled cardboard envelope, but used up about 100m of sticky tape in order to prevent the contents being spread all over a sorting office floor.

That can't be right - or green - surely?

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.

Maybe it's because I'm grumpy

Maybe it’s because I’ve just finished reading Mark Watson’s Crap at the Environment (blog passim) and am much more conscious of green issues.

Or maybe it’s because I hate gmtv with a passion. Whichever it is, I am at a loss to understand how the producers can justify sending Ross King and Mel B* to Beverly Hills merely to promote a competition to win £100,000, in association with a Beverly Hills hotel.

Avoiding pointless air journeys such as this, is the first, easy step to take to cut down on carbon emissions - and the hot air the duo creates in their ‘chummy’ banter can only damage the environment further. Have they not heard of library footage at gmtv?

Personally I’d rather they spent the money on getting another decent news reporter so they could stop being tv’s version of OK! magazine (just don’t get me started on Carla Romano).

Are gmtv viewers so thick that they don’t realise the location of Beverly Hills and that for £100,000 you can afford an air fare? Are they so stupid that they wouldn’t know what to do with 100 grand? And are they so shallow that they need B-list celebrities to encourage them to enter a competition?

I think we all know the answer is probably ‘yes’.

How else can you explain the fact that in thousands of houses every morning people jump up excitedly from the breakfast table because they realise they know the answer to a multiple-choice question which is only slightly more difficult than ‘what is your name?’

It’s easy because they want thousands of people to phone in and cover the cost of the prize you numbskull. Chewing gum for the eyes? It’s not even that high-brow . . .

And if any of the three people who read this blog on a regular basis use the above link to actually enter the competition I will personally come round to your house under cover of darkness and remove all sharp objects for your own safety.

*And if, as has been suggested by a colleague of mine, they were in the US anyway, they'd probably still have taken internal flights, which, it could be argued, is an even greater sin

** Said colleague has pointed out that King and B may well live in Beverly Hills anyway. In which case I take back everything about a carbon footprint. Just concentrate on the fact I hate gmtv. Never let a smart-arse ruin a good rant.

Cynical but getting greener

I just love the opportunity to be cynical; after all I’m a journalist.

So I was interested to see the press release today about a thing called the Low Carbon Festival later this year.

It said: “Visitors and residents alike will have the ultimate excuse to visit Exmoor and Dartmoor this October as the South West’s National Parks host the very first Dartmoor & Exmoor Low Carbon Festival from 9-12th October (www.lowcarbonfestival.co.uk).”

Great. A festival about lowering carbon emissions. I think I’ll fly down to Plymouth Airport from Newcastle for that. Or maybe jump in my Audi A4 and drive down.

(Actually I live in Hampshire, not Newcastle, but I needed to stress my point).

Admittedly, the travel section of the website does say: “Please consider the many sustainable options for travel by using public transport or car sharing whenever possible.”

But then it still gives instructions on how to get there by air!

Maybe this wouldn’t have registered on my cynical barometer a month ago, but as I mentioned in a previous blog I’m currently reading Mark Watson’s Crap at the Environment (CATE), and I’ve suddenly become much more aware of things like this. I’m even half-filling kettles for the office coffees, not leaving my phone charger on overnight and walking to work.

Like Mark, I’m still CATE but I’m becoming more aware . . . and it would appear, more cynical.

All booked up

I have a vice. Admittedly it's not much of a vice, but then again I'm quite an uninteresting person, hence I feel the need to put most of my thoughts down on this blog.

My vice is books. I love books. I love being surrounded by them and spend hours reading.

But my family think I'm weird because I read more than one book at once. I don't mean I have five or six spread out on a table reading a page in each before darting to the next one like a chess champion's exhibition. No, I have more than one book on the go at any one time.

Currently I have five: Mark Watson's Crap at the Environment (one of the funniest comics around currently tries to save the planet - my light read); John O'Farrell's Utterly Impartial History of Britain (another light read but also educational); Christian Wolmar's Subterranean Railway (the story of the London Underground - slightly heavy going but it is a subject which fascinates me); Stephen E Ambrose's D Day (essential reading for everybody in the most pampered and comfortable British generation ever); and To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway (My attempt at literary self-education).

Plus I'm listening to Bill Bryson's Lost Continent on my mp3 player when walking to work and PG Wodehouse's Uncle Fred in the Springtime is in the CD player when I'm driving.

Which book I read at bed-time depends on my mood. If I've had a hard day and am feeling a little down or stressed I'll turn to a light read; if I'm feeling full of the joys of a bedspring I'll pick up something a little heavier. I don't think that makes me 'weird' though my wife and kids disagree.

I still get through two or three books every fortnight, even flitting from one to the next.

My darling wife always say "I don't know how you can do that - I'd get lost." But this is the same woman who five minutes after Tom Barnaby makes a crucial discovery in Midsomer Murder will turn to me and ask "how did he know that?"

And they think I'm weird.

FOOTNOTE: I've just finished reading Tim Moore's Nul Points, a celebration of those people who garnered nul points for their entry into the Eurovision Song Contest. How appropriate for a Pompey fan...