"X" MARKS THE SPOT

Oooh, the payne, the payne!

For much of the last 7 days I have been focused on trying to recover from this sciatica.

With that in mind, I have been a regular at the physiotherapist who has pummelled me, squeezed me, certainly hasn't teased me and has indulgently laughed at my half-hearted attempts at humour as I lay, walrus like, on this table with my head poking through a hole. This meant I had an uninterrupted view of the floor and my bottom in the air with a stream of “somewhere to park me bike" gags floating through my mind.

I have now developed a sympathy with people who suffer from chronic pain and can see how debilitating and wearing it must be.

In no way am I suggesting that what I am experiencing is anything other than a mild discomfort; a slight numbness around the knee coupled with difficulty in putting my sock on.

Recovery seemed to be going according to plan. The exercises had changed from knees-up-to-the-chest-and-turn-them-to-the-left-and-down in an attempt to free the disc in my spine which had bulged slightly, due to a lifetime of bad posture. So I have dedicated much time to lying otter-like on the settee with my feet up on the coffee table, watching TV.

After a few days, some improvement was noticed so the exercises changed to doing half-press-ups. This means not lifting the stomach off the floor, but just hauling myself off the bed with my arms and arching my back.

This was coupled with some acupuncture. Never had this before. Some people swear by it. Others put it up there with snake oil salesmen. Would I, after a couple of needles, leap to my feet in front of the carnival crowd, shouting "I can walk, it’s a miracle!" and throw my crutches away?

Well, lying down in a small room in a rather tatty office block in West London may not have the excitement, nor the crowd of a revival meeting, but the sentiment was there.

Would it hurt? Would I feel instant relief? Would it cause me any damage? A friend of mine some years ago let herself be used as a guinea pig for acupuncture and had a nerve injured by an overzealous student.

There was I thinking they practised on balloons. It’s a bit like being a bomb disposal person if you had to do that. Another thought strikes me. "What happens with very fat people?" You can be walking down the high street and suddenly there is a scream and an almighty explosion. Blood and offal rain down as another chubber explodes due to the wrong type of needle.

Apparently - and this is quite a good wheeze - they practice on each other.

Just think how good an idea this is. If you are a state sponsored torturer you would be expected to get a mate to pull your own fingernails out, or do a spot of water-boarding, before you headed off down the Students’ Union for more binge drinking and the Pyjama Hop during Freshers week.

Sniper? Well, your flatmate is drawing a bead on you right now......

The recovery was going pretty well. The acupuncture seemed to work and I even had a comedy bandage on my back to keep me in the right position.


I was getting the feeling back in my knee. The pain in my back was subsiding and it seemed I was pretty well on the road to recovery…until I had a visit from the fabulous "........."!

Yes, my gorgeous and rather shy girlfriend. She popped round the flat to see how I was on her way back from the office.

As she is shy, she is known for the purposes of this blog as, "Blank Space"

I had opened a bottle of wine and this is sort of how the evening panned out:-

Hello.

Wine?

Mmmm.

Clink.

Busy day?

Yes

rrrrrrrr

peck

double rrrrrrrr

mmmm

nyuk

phwaooar

hubba hubba

kissy kissy

clink

glug glug glug

zip

ping

woo hoo

sninggnititt



hhoooawwaheherrryy


Ajaccio ajaccio

left hand down a bit

TORQUEMADA!!!

Rattel ham rattel ham

gdoink

Spristi!

Hellvelyn

Ggggggggwweeeeeeeeeaooooorrraasaakkkkk!

mind me.....

hungalouis.

Bonstiky

Yeeeoowll

Gotta go see you later.

Peck.

Carkkk!


And that, ladies and gentleman, is why my recovery has been put back awhile.

Or, if you came in halfway through this blog…

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how the elephant got its trunk!

NERD NIGHT...SLIGHT RETURN

Wow! All the grumbling seems to have paid off. Every couple of months the DJs hit town for a night of drinking, eating and Nerding. (Nerding: being horribly obsessive about stuff that, by rights, should bore you to tears).

This time we headed to Brighton. As I have outlined before when we do these events, we get a rush of enthusiasm with a lot of people initially saying they will attend. On the night, after a day when the mobile is red hot with people cancelling, it is usually down to the "Magnificent 7".

This time, there was a mega turn-out. And what is more, there were women there!!!!

I have met women before and they are nice! I have also spoken to women about their men and hobbies.

Never quite sure about hobbies and men. Do they do it because they like it or do they do it to get away from their women?

Do the women like the hobbies as it gets the men out of their sight? Or do they resent the hobbies as it occupies the men who should be doing important stuff like putting up shelves or kissing them?

Which would be the perfect hobby? I once interviewed a number of women whose husbands and partners were radio amateurs (Not Hams. They don't like this. It makes them sound like Nerds).

They liked this as a hobby as it meant they always knew where the men were. In their "shack", which could be a shed, attic or spare bedroom.

This worked on all levels. As a hobby it was clean, relatively quiet and close-by. This meant that, although they were in proximity, they were not under the woman’s feet. They were close enough if the woman suddenly felt the urge to have some new shelves fitted or were desirous of a kiss.

From the blokes point of view it meant that their "shack" was a little oasis of calm away from "the wife", however, close enough if he suddenly decided he wanted to put some shelves up and needed advice on where in the house to do so. Or he felt the sudden urge for a sandwich.


The hotel in Brighton was on the sea front which is a good location. Although my room was small it was clean and tidy and boasted yet another sloping floor. This time in the bathroom. I have lost count of the number of sloping rooms I have stayed in over the years. When I went to "Guilfest" a couple of years back, I stayed in a room that sloped so dramatically it had a warning sign on the wall, in case you suddenly lost your footing and found yourself hanging by your fingertips from the windowsill like Harold Lloyd.

Predictably it was raining hard as we trudged from the hotel to the restaurant and then to the pub and then back to the hotel.

No idea where the time went but I found myself and the excellent James Walsh from "Kerrang" still chewing the fat at 4.30 in the morning.


Now we are into the new year, the gigs and showcases are starting up once more and so it was off to the basement of a boozer just near the BBC to see Arno Carstens from South Africa embarking on a solo career after being in the band, Springbok Nude Girls.

Janice Long invited me to the Roundhouse in London to see a special reworking of the Beggars Opera by Charles Hazelwood, with people from Portishead and the Unthank sisters, among others.

The word "opera" usually strikes terror into my Philistine hide, but Janice assured me it would be fine. It was a revelation and Charles introduced each item and explained his vision for the music and the treatment of certain tunes and the history. The man is obviously mega clever. The sort that makes you feel you have a hand inside your head squeezing your brain whilst you listen to him. He gave huge detail in a fascinating and amusing way without notes.

The only downside is that the seats were none-too-comfortable, as a by-product of my back going "ping" as I put a sock on the other week. I now have sciatica which is rather unpleasant and not to be recommended. I have been going to the physiotherapist which, ironically, is up four flights of stairs. Purple faced and limping, I made it into the surgery the receptionist asked "how are you" and being British I replied, "fine". Then I corrected myself. "Well no, frankly, otherwise there would be little point in being here in the first place".

I am being manipulated and have been given some exercises to do which I hope will do the trick. It is rather a strange feeling for a middle-aged man to be apparently tied up in knots by a young woman who he has never met before who assures him that this is for his own good.

Just reading that back...nope its fine.


Shame on you for thinking that!!!!

AS I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP...

"What time do you sleep? I never know when to phone you!" A couple of typical remarks that I have received on numerous occasions over the years. The answer is, always call me at lunchtime. If I am not awake by then, I will probably have died so you won't be disturbing me.

With the new hours it seemed like a pretty good thing to try and cause minimum disruption to the bed time routine.

If you work nights you are probably aware how disruptive it can be. Another thing people often ask is: “how do you have a social life?” Well, for years I didn't, is the short answer. However, since moving back to London in 2008, I was determined to make sure that I had as good a time as I could, bearing in mind the restrictions.

Staying up all night and then starting the programme is not an option for me; it would mean that by the time we have got going, I would feel like going to bed which doesn't make for a very lively show. We are not “Radio Quiet”.

If you tune around at 2 in the morning, if there is music playing it tends to be the "let us soothe you gently to sleepy bo bo land 17 in a row here on Anodyne FM". Failing that, a shouty phone in with a selection of bigots arguing the toss for transportation to the New World for anyone caught committing even the most minor offence. “Parking on a double yellow? Not opening a door for a lady? Hang ‘em. Hang ‘em again then sentence them to life. That should mean life. Then hang ‘em a third time for good luck”. Being dead is the only way they'll learn!

I am sometimes amazed at how furious and unpleasant people can be, particularly behind a pseudonym on an internet message board.

I have had a quick look at a couple of the BBC and other broadcasting forums over the last week. From the tone of some of the remarks, Chris Evans appears to have beaten the Queen Mother to death with a litter of particularly cute puppies.

“What has this got to do with sleeping patterns?” I hear you cry. Well, Chris will have to change his for his new show. My new hours mean I haven't had a chance to hear him yet. Under the old regime I would get back and at 7.30 flip the radio on for a few minutes of Terry and then off to sleep.

Now I am back and up the wooden hill to bedfordshire before Chris starts. Better check out the iPlayer.

The side effects of this are that instead of being up at about 10.30, I can be fully awake by about 9.00. The whole day stretches ahead which usually involves a trip to the office, in case you think that we only do three hours a day.

I have been trying to stay up to my normal bedtime of 7.30 or 8pm. However, sometimes I have had it by about 7.

This means my bedtime is 30 minutes earlier than it was in 1966!


A world of opportunity awaits in 2010. Will this mean more brisk walking? Back at the gym with a vengeance? Daytime improving lectures or maybe some classes. I could learn Mandarin or how to play the didgeridoo.

On the evidence of the first two weeks, I have spent the time idling and watching such improving television programmes as Megastructures and Campervan Crisis.

Next week, I shall start to have a look at what live music is going on. Need a gig fix. Need to take myself in hand.

I would shake myself by the scruff of the neck.

However, it is still slightly sore having been hanged for the heinous crime of accidentally dropping a ticket stub as I got off the 51E one night in 1977 coming back from Birmingham after a night out.

"SNOW JOKE...A NATION SLITHERED TO WORK...AND OTHER CLICHES"

The weather seemed to have been the main topic of conversation over the last week.

It is difficult to get much of an idea on how the rest of the country fared when you are cocooned in a nice warm studio in London. Yes, it snowed. Yes, there was ice on the pavements. However, things were manageable.

It was only when I decided to head home to Hastings that I realised just how much of a fall there had been. The Kent corridor attracts bad weather like MP's to a brown envelope.

I was wondering why the trains were not running very reliably until I managed to get one that headed in two stages with a substantial wait in between all the way to the coast. It was a Perry Como Christmas out there!

What I did not understand though was why the train companies didn't just say, “Sorry - no trains today” rather than the indicator boards showing, “7.23 Delayed” at 9.30am. This actually meant no trains had been running that day. I was slightly concerned that on the first day of my new time slot I would not be able to make it back.

So Sunday morning I went to the station. The TV and the rail websites had said all was well. The indicator boards read, “Delayed”. Suddenly a train to London arrived and I hopped on.

Cancellations meant that plans had to be changed; meeting some friends in the pub on Saturday to watch a band turned into meeting a friend in a nearly deserted boozer for a few drinks before going home to watch the TV.

I was on my way to the pub – and I stress, on my way TO the pub - when suddenly I crashed to the ground.

There was some discussion on the programme this week as to whether I had slipped over, fallen down or "had a fall". The answer was I slipped over in the snow. I am at least 20 years away from "having a fall".

I like to think that "having a fall" kicks in at pension age plus 10.

You wondered why I had not taken the time to do a snow angel as I made an embarrassingly large hole in the snow. I was well wrapped up (he said in his Monsieur Bibendum defence).

Very simply I was never a daredevil kid and this has spilled over into my adult life. I have a very strong self preservation instinct. That is why, having been asked numerous times over the years to do things for charity such as bungee or parachute jump, my answer callously is: “I am not going to die on somebody else’s behalf.”

However, I think that God (other deities are available) may have got wind of this and exacted revenge. More on this in moment.

The reason I didn't try and stay in touch with my inner child and make a snow angel was that I was actually in the middle of the road. Albeit a side street hence the lack of grit, but all I needed was a yummy mummy and her offspring in their 4 x 4 to roar past in a cloud of CO2 and Monster Munch and I would have been channelling Flat Stanley.

Back in the big city and I decided to go for a walk in the park the other day. A fresh snowfall had meant it was looking pristine rather than that slightly moth eaten look that snow gets, rather like an actor making a special guest appearance in a show they left 10 years earlier; “Ooh, haven't they aged!”

I had forgotten that snow attracts youths. I was suddenly hit by a flurry of snowballs as the almighty exacted a terrible revenge.

You are supposed to laugh this stuff off, I think. Smile, shake your head and walk on.

NOW I KNOW WHY WE HAVE GUN CONTROL IN THE UK!

What is the law here? Tell me the etiquette. If there are three of them laughing at you, are you allowed to blast one of them back with snowballs as a lesson to the others? Or can you hire Mafia hit men to teach them a lesson?

Mustering what little dignity I had left I squelched away with their derisive laughter ringing in my reddening ears.


First week of the new time and it has been heartening to hear from so many of you contacting the "shoe". It is always difficult and upsetting when a programme schedule changes.

Some people are pleased, some are unhappy and most probably don't care much either way.

To me, the important thing is to carry on and make the best of it. After all, how important in the grand scheme of things is someone who plays records on the radio?

However I must share with you that I am a little concerned with Ss, my new producer. He revealed that he had had a dream in which his, erm, nipples had been replaced by, erm, ahm…two, um "cough"… "members". He is now known in the office as, Dr Strangelove!

HELP!!!!

GOODBYEEE AND WELCOME DEPARTMENT Ss!

So we reach the end of an era this week. And we have a few fond farewells:

Top producers Andy Warrell and Simon Tester are moving on.

Andy is producing the brand new Simon Mayo Drivetime show. (I have never actually met Simon but he did give me a "Tweet of confidence" the other day so that was kind of him. He obviously doesn't sleep too well.

Simon is off to the Claudia Winkleman programme. So I expect to see him on the red carpet in LA wearing a wide variety of hats.

They have been brilliant and a lot of fun to work with. It may have been early in the morning but we always had a good time. There are very few jobs I would imagine where grown men are paid to fool around. Apart from the Chuckle Brothers that is.

The knock on effect of the earlier start to the new Chris Evans breakfast show is that The Best Time of the Day show is starting and finishing an hour earlier. So from Monday I hope you are going to join me between 2 and 5. It will be interesting to see how the body clock copes with the change after 16 years in the current slot.

If this means that you now won’t be able to catch the programme if you don't surface until after 5, but all is not lost. You have a variety of options. The best one is to get up an hour earlier as that way you will get more done and, effectively, when you draw your terminal breath you can say to yourself, "You know, I lived more than others". You can also look at the health benefits: being up and active longer means you burn more calories. This can then be a trade off. Up earlier so as a reward another pint, another couple of chocolate biscuits or a bacon sarnie. Also, more time means better efficiency. You will get more done. The boss will love you. You will be promoted and so, therefore, will end up being impossibly rich and admired by lesser folk who don't demonstrate the same application, tenacity and single-mindedness that you do! It can only be a win/win situation.

If, for some odd reason, you are unable to make it you can always catch up on the show via the iPlayer and download the "Oddcast" every Friday.

We may be earlier but one thing will not change: the stupidity will continue!




So who is going to be joining the "Best Time of the Day Show"?

We welcome Stefano Softley. For this is his name. He tried to shorten it to "Ste". However, we were having none of that.

So I give you, "Ss"!!

This is my new producer and fwend, Ss. He is from Bradford in West Yorkshire, he likes badminton and the gym and he has a snake as a pet. The snake is called "Sss". He brings fruit to eat in the morning and he wears a woolly hat. He is not bald - it is just something young people do.

He feels the cold so sometimes wears his fleece. I think he needs to eat more lard.



2010 is barely a week old and already something good has happened. My mate Libido Boy came to stay and after the shoe on New Years day we went to get some breakfast. Whilst we were eating, a strange expression came over his face and he suddenly grabbed my cup of coffee. "I can smell it, I can smell it!!" he cried. Two years back he lost his sense of smell. Not through accident nor disease, it apparently is just one of those things that can happen. He has been taking some medication and it appears his sense of smell is on the way back.

I know this is not exactly throwing your crutches away at the medicine show and shouting, "I can walk praise the Lord". Nor is it the last scene in It’s a Wonderful Life. However, “it is amazing how much you miss when you can't smell,” he says.

He has now gone on a sniffing tour. So if a chap comes up to you and starts smelling you, don't be offended. That is Libido Boy just catching up.

".......AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Whilst most were enjoying an extended, and well deserved Xmas break, the "Best Time Of The Day Show" continued cranking it out. However as this is scarcely what can be termed a ‘job’, I’m not going to go down the “poor me I only had one day off over Xmas, woe, woe”, route.

I have ‘worked’ over Xmas on many occasions during the last 30 years. Perhaps one of the most memorable was when I worked at a small station in the North East in the 80's. On the 25th there was just me and the newsreader; no-one else in the building. The Managing Director in an attempt at bonding, decided to come in to give us the compliments of the season. He duly arrived with a box of 6 mince pies. However there were two missing, as the half hour drive from his palatial country home, had caused him to become a little peckish!

After that morning’s programme, I returned home alone and had decided to cook myself the full main course of turkey and all the trimmings. A tiny turkey for one looks like a baby when you dandle it over the tin! The tin was actually too large for the oven so I had to place the bird on the lid of an ovenproof dish, (It was that small!). Whilst it was taking its several hours to cook, what did I do? Queens speech? The Great Escape? Open my presents? Nope I tiled the bathroom.

I was obviously not in the right frame of mind. Some weeks later when I had somehow managed to lure a woman back to my place, she called to me whilst having a bath and said: "Look at the pattern in the tiles?" She was right. The pattern left to right read: "down, up down, up, down up, down down, up!" Also, after all that work and cooking the turkey dinner for one, it took four hours to cook and only 5 minutes to eat. Merry Xmas!

However this year things were different. Since my mother died back in 2002, my sister has taken on the mantle of doing the-do. She had a great tutor and it is an acme of what a stressfree day should be. I provide a small selection of cheese and biscuits. My Dad brings a couple of bottles of wine. Nell does the cooking and John my excellent Brother in law does the washing up. Now that is teamwork! I turned up at about 11am and my Dad arrived about five minutes later. Here is the Lester/Jones recipe for the perfect day:

Cup of coffee

Salty snacks and gin

Gifts

Big blow out meal with everything. This means ‘pigs in blankets’ two types of potato and three veg. Bread sauce, stuffing, gravy. Nothing is forgotten. Crackers with the usual terrible jokes: "What do you call a trembling ship at the bottom of the sea? A nervous wreck!" Nope - as I type, it still isn't funny. Xmas pudding, trifle brandy butter, custard. (My brother in law John is the world’s biggest custard aficionado, so it has to be spot on!)

Cheese and bickies.


Chocolates and tea

Wallace and Gromit or similar (optional). Usually more talking

Half-past seven and I am in the car on my way home

Along the way we have laughed a lot. Told stories, many of which we have heard before. There have been family jokes. We have spoken to relatives on the phone. It has been warm, unstressed, and above all, I am grateful for having such a terrific family.

As far as the loot was concerned, I was delighted to receive a laminator from my sister and brother in law. The reason for this will become apparent in 2010 as I have been ‘up to something’, over the past 12 months, and this will help in the future. I shall keep you informed. I promise!

This year’s bizarre gift was from ‘Pina the Filipina’ who I have mentioned before as we often go to gigs together, although she does have a curious musical taste which varies from dance to ‘X Factor’ contestants. She decided what I needed was a huge penguin.


Judging by this monster she has been secretly listening to the show for years. As you can see it has all the hallmarks of a ‘Best Time Of The Day Show’ penguin in that it is wearing a scarf! This became a feature of the programme some years ago when a friend of mine’s seasonal good cheer was replaced by festive pedantry due to the large proportion Xmas of cards he received, which depicted penguins wearing scarves and bobble hats. “They have blubber. They evolved to cope with the cold. They don't need to wear hats and scarves!!!"

This is the last blog of 2009. I hope you have had as good a time as I have over the last 12 months. There are changes afoot soon which I hope we can both cope with. More on that in a future post. Above all thank you for your continued support without you the whole exercise is one in futility I do appreciate all your input.

Enormous thanks also to Simon and Andy for their hard work and their unfailing good humour. Have an enjoyable and restful holiday season. See you on the other side! (By that I mean 2010. Who do you think I am Derek Acorah???)

SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS

Think I have done everything I need for the big day now. So was able to devote some of the week and the weekend to "leezure".

Friday I was invited to a posh do so had to put my suit on which frankly seems to be a little tight at the moment. I think the dreaded "tailor moth" has been at work. If you are unaware of this little known insect, they tend to hide in the wardrobes of the middle aged as they like the mix of cloth on offer and remove strips of material for their nests. However as a secretive species they repair the items after they have stolen so that the hapless owner does not suspect and go after them with massive amounts of swatters and deadly chemicals.

I was taken to the Hilton in London for the "Music Publishers Association" 50th anniversary lunch.

Lots of tables, lots of food and wine and speeches from luminariees from the industry who I did not recognise but judging by their suits were important, and they talked about others who I had not heard of apart from Tony Hiller who co-wrote "Save your kisses for me".

Everyone was a lot of fun and one of the best things about it was the impatience of the crowd wanting to get stuck into the food and drink. The end result was to hurry things along by blowing up balloons and releasing them so they shot around the room with a selection of satisfying farting noises.

Hugh Dennis was the after dinner speaker who gave an amusing speech and his best joke in my opinion was probably non PC as it dealt in a regional stereotype: "Any one from Norfolk here?...yes? Give me six!"

Then a rather florid Tony Hadley took to the stage and after a false start a backing tape began and he gave a stirring rendition of "Gold" then left to catch a plane. We went to the bar where I was horrified to discover a glass of red wine cost a wallet-weakening £7.

Got talking to a load of people including a selection of excellent old jazzers, who talked about the old days and bands they had been in and musicians that we all knew, including Malcolm Mortimer who I remember from Gentle Giant who I saw supporting the film "Jimi Plays Berkely" at Bradford St George’s Hall in the early 70's.

Another few glasses, luckily bought by others, and it was time to leave as another office party was filing in. I discovered it was 6.30pm although it felt like about midnight.

Up with the lark and then one of those things that you can't legislate for. Putting my sock on and suddenly "ping" - my back went. Scarcely wrenching it lifting a car to help someone trapped underneath, nor saving children from a flood hanging from a branch with an arm outstretched. Told a mate of mine and he said "this is the way it’s going to be"! Thanks!!

Went off to Hastings on Saturday morning by train, saw some friends in the evening and had a conversation with a man who had obviously been in the pub a long time. "what time you working in the new year Alex?" ‘2-5, then it will be Sarah Kennedy’. "Who will be on after you?" Sarah Kennedy. "What time is Sarah going to be on?" 5-7. So who is on after? Chris Evans. "What time is Chris Evans going to start". This went on for some time. Never sure what to do under the circumstances as it is always good to be polite but it can be teeth-grinding.

According to the travel info I saw trains running normally back to London on Sunday although no one had thought fit to tell the train operators or perhaps the public or perhaps somebody who knew who to talk to. No trains had run all day due to the weather so had to get he bus to Tunbridge Wells where the trains we were told were starting. When we arrived we were told that none had run all day and it was Tonbridge, two stops further up the line and we had to wait for a connecting bus. Then there was the wait at the station until the train eventually arrived. So it was a cold and rather irked me that made it back to the rental flat in London after 5 hours in transit. Compared to many of you I had it easy.

Sent all the cards off in advance and on time and so far have had only one from someone that I didn't send to. Odd as I thought we were both dead.

Family Xmas is well organised so have bought the cheese and biscuits as I am cheese monitor. My Dad is wine monitor, my sister does the cooking and it’s always marvellous and my brother in law does the washing up. This way no one ever gets too stressed which is a boon for a relaxing festive season.

Presents are wrapped and so it is time for me to go until next week.

Merry Christmas and here is hoping for a happy and peaceful new year to one and all.

My thanks to you for making the "shoe" what it is with all your input over the last 12 months and also very special thanks to the superb production skills of Andy Warrell and Simon Tester.

Unsung heros of the backroom so I thought it was only right that you should get to see and admire them: