SPLISH SPLASH I WAS TAKIN' A BATH!

At the start of the year I blogged that despite 2013 not being the best year of my life so far due to personal loss I was basically an optimistic person.  However the "Low Level Devil" appears to be out to test me in this regard.


If you are new to the concept of the "Low Level Devil". He is a creature who spends a few minutes every so often trying to undermine your life. Usually in small ways hoping eventually to push you to a tipping point where you become so frustrated, stressed and angry that you want to shout at nuns, box the ears of apple-cheeked kiddy winkies and steal cuttlefish bones from the bars of parakeet cages.

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In the grand scheme of things it is generally a minor irritation compared to the big things in life like: Are your family and friends OK? Do you have your health? Do you have a job? Do you have a roof above your head?

However it can get a little wearing after a while.  You start to become paranoid. Everything is suspect. That twinge. Is it the start of a major illness? No reply to that work email. Are you about to be downsized and replaced by a machine?

That fridge is making an odd noise. Is it about to explode? Your best friend hasn't phoned back. Have they really hated you all these years and have been laughing at you behind your back?


Those really cool clothes that make you feel like a million dollars. Did you just hear the shop assistant snigger as you left the store?


Someone glanced away momentarily as you were talking to them. Are you that dull? So unimportant they were looking for someone else to rescue them from your clutches. Or do you have halitosis so powerful it would fell an ox at fifty paces!

Your partner has 'a headache'. Is this because your best moves just don't hit the spot? Or they have been having an affair with the milkman? Milk woman? Milkman/woman's horse for the last twenty years and shortly hoof beats in the night will tell you your suspicions were correct and the only person on your street who didn't know was you?


Not sure how far along I am this route but its been quite annoying recently.

If you've been tuned to the "Best Time of the Day Show" lately, you will have heard that a month ago my car - the Ford Mid Life Crisis - decided to pick up a nail in one of the tyres. Sadly too close the edge of the tread to be repaired so it had to be replaced – and there was plenty of tread left on it!

Imagine my annoyance/fury/incredulity when I set off for the studio last week to discover I had another puncture.  Which also was too close to the edge of the tread to be repaired forcing the purchase of another new tyre.

Shortly after that the hands free phone system decided it wasn't going to let me call anyone any longer.  Admittedly the car is seven years old so maybe I should expect things to break. Perhaps it's been hacked by the Russians or even MI5?  Nah. More like my number is flashing up and no one wants to talk to me.

The Dark Lady is a firm believer in patterns. Hence she told me not to worry as bad things happen in threes.

"I'm sure you're right" I said as I got into the remains of my car and rattled back to the rental flat. You know the one where the boiler didn't work properly and expired the moment the weather got to its coldest this winter. Prompting a replacement a shivering no hot water week later.


It's was about 9pm Sunday evening when I got back and put the key in the lock.  Door felt a little stiff as I opened it. Tried the light switch. Nothing. No power.  So using the 'assisting light' on my not very effective and reliable phone which runs out of battery unaccountably in about an hour sometimes without me even touching it. At others it will go for quite some time despite me making lengthy phone calls.  Hmmm fuses had tripped.

Switched them back on. Turned on the light and the full horror was revealed:

The place had been flooded. Water had been coursing down the walls. There were stains all over the ceiling and the curtain rail had fallen down as the plasterboard softened with moisture. The central heating was on so had contributed to a rather evil hot house at Kew Gardens ambiance.

No light in bathroom due to the fitting being full to the brim with water. When I inspected it further, two pints of foul liquid splashed all down my front.  "Naice!”

Whilst I know this amount of moisture is small compared to the terrible flooding that you have endured in many part of Britain recently.  I do feel a little like the Queen Mother when Buckingham Palace was bombed during the war.

"We can look the East End in the face"!

It appeared that the person upstairs had used the handheld shower. Left it running and on the floor and had gone out!

So far the carpets have been cleaned and I've washed a load of sodden clothes.

Now I have to wait at least a fortnight until the walls are dry enough to redecorate. Somebody get me a nun!

Of the perpetrator no sign. I have banged in the door. No one has seen him....I know what they look like though:

 So where will he strike nex....!!!!

B#^{%]*]*[x!.....my computer has just collapsed.

"GET ME TWO NUNS....ONE JUST ISN'T GOING TO BE ENOUGH"!

BUT I WON'T DO THAT!

Just back from a week off and thanks to Nicky Chapman for taking up the cudgels.  A curious expression at best. I now have the cudgels back and intend to batter you with them for a while yet.

The first part of the week was spent in my spare bedroom filling CDs. The Dark Lady being busy with her work as a tycoon. From what I can gather she is usually in top level meetings. Yelling "buy rollmops! The markets dropped out of chest freezers! I don't like your price!"

Before slamming the phone down bawling out a minion and then lighting another big fat cigar.

I'm not entirely sure how her job works although I know she is nothing like that. I have merely portrayed her for comic effect as her contemporaries and her industry press will attest.

Personally my brief excursions into the commercial world have usually involved me being fired by someone who enjoys firing people.

That is why I have never hankered after a management job.

I've been "playing the buffoon". "Buffooning". "At the buffoon" since 1977 now.

So after three days of solid CD filing. (There are a lot). I still had quite a few to go.

I then found a big bag of them in the boot of the car and I hit the wall.  I went downstairs and watched TV for a bit and went to the pub.

It was the musical equivalent of dieting. It was all going very well and then you realised you just can't face another plate of lentils. So you went and bought a pork pie.

Luckily rescue came in the beautiful shape of my wife who knows me so well. So we hopped on the ferry and went to France for three days and trudged around in the pouring rain. Eating a variety of breads and drinking a variety of bottled wine.

We practice our terrible French by walking to the local boulangerie and pointing at French sticks.

We have been going through the card and a current favourite is "Festigrain" which is more of a granary than the usual baguette. Although we have yet to ascertain the difference between "Festigrain" and "Festive" which looks pretty much the same.

We booked an outside cabin for the overnight crossing as we have countless times before. This time the noise of the engines was deafening and we had little sleep. In the morning we complained and were told with a Gallic shrug.

"Next time request a different 'cabeeen' on a different deck, further away from the engines"!

We were six decks above the engine room. So no idea now noisy it must have been for people lower down.

One thing I've earned from you on the shoe this week was that the Gallic shrug should be accompanied by the word "boff"! (Pronounced Bowf).

We will practice this next time we are over.

Now back in harness and Monday after the programme Producer Kid Methuselah and I set off to Birmingham International for the last flight in the last surviving DC-10.  We met Janice Long and our mutual friend Chris. Janice had a closer relationship with the plane than we did as she was a "Laker Lady" cabin crew back in the 70's

The flight was packed with errr "enthusiasts". There are enthusiasts for everything pretty much. From Musical Saw Players through long distance pogo stickers to transport geeks.

The moment the seat belt light went off they were up and photographing every inch of this frankly decaying relic. I like aeroplanes and fly myself. However I've never had this level of enthusiasm for anything. It seemed to me to border on mania.

They were having a lovely time. Not that we weren't I hasten to point out.

Although the nice man from the airline was obviously aware of the PR value of this as he was interviewed to within an inch of his life about the planes and his plans which included brand new aircraft and a cut price fare to New York.

Just as well as this thing was so ancient and decaying. There were rather ominous stains in the cabin. Bits of trim were hanging out and the legacy of thirty plus years. A billion in flight meals. A gazillion cigarettes....this craft still had ash trays!  As well as hundreds upon thousands of nervous stomachs impregnated the tatty 70's Draylon interior. Giving the plane a rather unusual and not to say too pleasant odour.

We flew to the Scottish Borders and the enthusiasts applauded the take off and the landing. Something which perhaps we could try in other walks of life.  Try applauding the bus driver when he stops and starts. Clap loudly when you are served the first (and probably last) pint of the night down at the boozer. Whistling and hooting your appreciation when you ask a policeman the time.

This would make for a different and more polite society I think. Although rereading the above it may actually be misconstrued. So it's more of a calculated risk.

When we got back there was more applause for the long suffering cabin crew.  They must secretly be aching to get to work on the latest state of the art plane rather than rattling around in that old whiff bucket.

Janice was being interviewed by everyone with a notebook and a microphone as the enthusiasts realised they had real living history amongst them.

The Kid and I legged it to the train clutching our certificates

We'd had a lovely time and it was a privilege to be invited onto the last ever DC-10 passenger flight.  I can add that experience to two trips on Concorde. Travelling on the footplate of a steam engine and a Diesel Multiple Unit. Driving a traction engine. Living on a canal narrow boat for ten years. Travelling on the flight deck of an airliner from Teesside Airport to Heathrow and being allowed to turn one of the engines off upon landing. Travelling on the last ever Humber Ferry. Being allowed on the bridge of a cross channel ferry (twice) and going to Paris aboard the Orient Express...........

 

Oops.

My name is Alex Lester and I am a nerd.

DOWN CAME THE RAIN!

With the horrifying pictures and the reports coming out of the Somerset Levels and other waterlogged parts of the UK. It is difficult to imagine what it must be like if you are sitting at home in front of a roaring fire with a nice cup of tea and a Bourbon or two.

Across the various TV channels reporters in wellies are trudging through floodwater bringing us the grim news. Although rather irritatingly are often standing in front of it so we can't actually see the true horror. My genuine heartfelt sympathy if you are suffering terrible privations. I heard the story of a friend of the Dark Lady who's mother has just died and who's house flooded as she was ebbing away in hospital.  How cruel is that?


I know it's a particular bugbear of mine. Television can be a box crammed full of nice and often not so nice scenes. Why do people have to block the view by standing in the way?

I think we should call this the "Hello Mum" shot.

To my mind it serves no useful purpose but gets the reporter on the telly so their parents can be proud.

What other things serve no useful purpose?

(DJs aside that is. Thought I'd get that one in quick before you did.)

I seem to remember a 1977 film "Oh God"! with John Denver who somehow ends up communing with God played by George Burns. At one point when talking about how he created the Earth he's asked if he made any mistakes:

"Avocados. Made the stones too big.....and Ostriches. No use to anybody."

Hmmmm maybe you can help with this one.

Perhaps we could have categories such as:

1) Pointless

2) Useless

3) Ludicrous

4) Dumb

5) All of the above. However without them life would be somehow and unaccountably diminished.

This is not going to be exactly a scientific survey. Nor am I suggesting there should be some terrible witch hunt to track down and exterminate the culprits. Witness the examples I mentioned from the film above.  I like avocados despite spending a romantic Boxing Day in A&E when the Dark Lady managed to lacerate her finger attempting to remove one of the big stones.  Also Ostriches look funny and their feathers somehow set off hats worn by elderly women. Also providing tantalising cover for burlesque dancers.

So maybe they'd fit in category 5.

So, lets give it a go shall we?

1) Leaf Blowers. You spend ages blowing dead leaves into neat piles only for the wind to blow them away again.  Surely a rake would be better? Better still a bad a stiff broom and a pair of those gigantic plastic hands to scoop them up after.  You'd look rather silly but the job would get done.


2) Public phone boxes.  If you forget your mobile you won't remember anyone's number so you can't use them. They probably don't work anyway. They are horribly unhygienic having been used as public conveniences although in London anyway the only purpose they seem to serve is for Tourists to stand next to and be photographed and for Prostitutes to place their calling cards.


3) Sporting mascots and mascots generally.  Grown men in funny suits. This is somehow going to make you feel good about where you live. Your favourite team. Or somehow make you quit smoking?  I speak as someone who earned £3 per day as a green gorilla back in 1974. That was a long summer I can tell you. Friend told me of a guy dressed as a cigarette who was tipped up and rolled down the street by some rough boys.  Football mascots are all bonkers and as has been pointed out. If your team is called upon to observe a minutes silence before the start of a game. It is hard enough for footballers to refrain from rearranging themselves. Spitting. Chewing gum. Emptying their noses onto the pitch one nostril at a time without standing next to a 9ft blue and yellow chicken.


4) This is a category that is wide open. Every nation has its dumb folk. Be it a Neanderthal knuckle dragging attitude to others of a different colour or sexual pursuasion. Or a seeming inability to be self aware enough to realise they are a figure of fun. Reality TV is crammed with them pontificating about stuff they know nothing about. Or celebrities who feel duty bound to refer to themselves in the third person. Rap "stars" are good at this...oh and getting shot.


5) This is very simple and possibly boil down to one thing and one thing alone which fills all of the categories I've outlined:

BUNNY EARS!


Now over to you.

"I SAW A MAN WHO DANCED WITH HIS WIFE"!

Exciting weekend just gone as we went to a swanky "do"!

Dark Lady the Dark Stepchildren and I are not much for red carpets. Cocktail parties with People called Hengist or Pookie. We much prefer the simple life. Maybe a trip to the cinema. An average priced meal out or sitting at home watching the telly.

So we were very chuffed to receive an invitation to a castle!

Good friends of ours Martin and Julie were celebrating ten years of wedded bliss. So had decided to re-enact part of the big day by having a bit of a rematch at a marvellous Victorian folly in Herefordshire.

All we had to do was to get ourselves out to Ledbury where we booked into a rather fine coaching in called "The Feathers" which was very similar to our own wedding reception venue back in 2010 "The Mermaid" in Rye.

First we had to round up "the tribe".  They were staying with their Dad so DL and I had a very relaxing Friday  with a trip to a burger bar and the cinema to watch "August: Osage County" which was fabulous and I'm sure every family could identify even if only slightly with the horror of the family gathering as it unfolded in the film  Meryl Streep was as wonderful as ever and Julia Roberts was brilliant/ghastly too.

I had something to do first thing Saturday so we had to go I separate cars.  What I can never understand is that two sat navs programmed with the same address can take two cars in different directions. Although one thing is never in doubt. The Dark Lady will always arrive first!

It was going to be a dressy night so I dug out my wedding jacket and the DL poured herself into a long sheer black number (he slobbered). Ella at nearly eighteen and taller than both of us elected to wear heels and so towered over most of the male company of a similar age who were checking her out and trying to screw up enough courage to ask her to dance.

Jamie now 14 and buff after long hours in the gym receiving admiring glances from the younger end of the guest spectrum disappeared from view from time to time. The reason becoming apparent later on.




We got a cab to the castle and it was a fabulous venue. Huge vaulted ceiling in the massive hall where champagne awaited. I had already fallen in with bad  company back at the hotel. As my mate Steve Evans the truck driver who is built from boulders had already been testing the bar. So it would have been impolite not to have kept him company.

Whilst we were chucking back the champagne. We perused the wedding photos from a decade before.  I'd forgotten my glasses so couldn't really see. Everyone looked pretty much as they did today. Although two additions were Martin and Julie's 8 year old son Jack who has the energy of several so was whizzing around examining everything.  Well it was a fascinating place with cases full of stuffed animals and suits of armour among other interesting bits.  The other addition being me. I'd not had the good fortune to have met all these folk back in 2004.

Then there was food. Lots of it and delightful. We were on a table with our closest friends so conversation was easy and as entertaining as always.

Martin judging the mood perfectly made a short speech and as he is a demon quiz compiler informed us that there wouldn't be one as there was fooding and drinking and dancing to do.

So we did just that. We drank and we danced.  I've lost about half a stone since Christmas so felt rather more agile. (ie less lumbering) so was busting my best moves much to Ella's amusement. Dark Lady was very kind and held me close.

Jamie appeared on the dance floor from time to time. Swayed in time to the music and then wandered off.

Due to the volume of the music and my rather sensitive old ears. I elected to fashion earplugs from "bathroom stationary". That way I could enjoy it without discomfort.  I may have looked a mite strange. However I'm used to appearing a buffoon so there was no change there.

All too soon it was time to go. We gathered everyone together as the minibus arrived to take us back to the hotel......where was Jamie?

Ah there he was....being rather ill. So that's why he kept disappearing. He had found a secret stash of booze and was doing what kids do. Trying it all out. Without realising the consequences.

I drove a rather pale and nauseous young man back to London the following morning.

He had received the stern lecture from his Mother, a stern lecture from his Victorian Stepfather (me) and was about enjoy a third one from his Dad when he got home.

It was difficult to keep a straight face when I recalled my wallet being confiscated by my mother at a beach barbecue in Majorca when I decided that it would be a good wheeze to have a gin drinking competition with another teen......I was 14!

GERTCHA!

Well 2014 seemed to be progressing fairly well at Lester Towers. (Or "Lester Acres". We fab poptastic DJs have to refer to where we live in such terms as enshrined in the Wunnerful Radio 1 charter of 1967).

January is typical a time of attempts at organisation. Plans to be made and sadly big bills.

I think some years ago in a misguided attempt at efficiency I decided it would be a terrific wheeze to ensure that all the bills came at once. Car tax. Insurance. House contents. Building insurance. Subscriptions. And of course tax. This would be all out of the way in one fell swoop.

Then the rest of the year would be one of relaxation and frivolity.

I of course didn't factor in the total of all these bills arriving at once. When they are added together they form one gigantic humungous enormous whopper of a sum that means you have to sit indoors in the dark for the next three months living off a thin gruel.

(Before I'm leapt upon by the pinched mouthed "what about the starving"? brigade. Wagging reproving fingers in my direction  I would like to point out that I'm not equating my predicament with those who are suffering real hardship. So stand down keyboard warriors.)

The advantage of enforced time spent indoors rather than being out whooping it up. As much as the Dark Lady and I whoop it up. I reckon the Dark Step-children think we must sit on the sofa all day watching TV. One day I'm going to leave shattered underwear. Sundry apparatus. Bottles of Yak milk. Root vegetables  and a startled Walrus around the house and see what they make of that!

They'd probably immediately decamp to live full time with their Father. Traumatised and unable to watch a wildlife programme or Nigella ever again.

Oops digression. As i was saying. Staying in does have its advantages. The DL has become a dab hand at making soup. I have started filing CDs once more. In so doing am beginning to see what colour the carpet it is in the spare bedroom. I can also listen to a lot more music as well so choosing tracks to play on the show reinforces what a pleasure it is.

The house is tidier than it has been for ages. Plans are being hatched to get rid of a lot of unwanted clutter. After all I'm not entirely sure why I have bank statements going back to 1988 in the attic along with copies of "Waterways World" and "Canal and Riverboat Monthly" from the late 70s. Not sure my trusty Amstrad 9526 is going to see any use again either.

The local dump has been remodelled and upgraded so it's now possible to load up the car with junk and whip in and out and recycle lots of stuff which would otherwise end up as landfill. So it polishes my eco-credentials. This makes me feel marginally better when I'm in London at a posh restaurant eating Panda burger in Snow Leopard sauce.

On the subject of cars. As well as insurance and tax in January I'd artfully arranged for its MOT to take place in the first month of the year. Oh well fingers crossed it has been looked after so hopefully it wouldn't fail.  It sailed through. The only fly in the motoring ointment was the necessity to buy a new tyre having had a puncture the day before the test which totalled the tyre which was replaced at the previous MOT. Six thousand miles ago.

Still it never rains but it pours eh?

Oh which reminds me. As I was filing CDs. I noticed a damp patch on the ceiling. Yup you guessed. The roof needs repair.

Looks like the diet of gruel will last until Easter at least.

BACK 'OME

Xmas came and went in a satisfying blur of overeating and gifts. As usual I went to see my Sister and Brother in law,.who provided another spectacular lunch. Dad brought the wine and I was on cheese and biscuits duty.  Thank you. 

When I was a child my parents would look in as we kids tore the paper from our gifts.  Now years later and not before time my Father gets the lions share and we watch as he tears the paper off

Although at 87 he does say what he really wants for Xmas is; "someone to come round and take stuff away"! 

Returning to London and the bazoom of the family I got the gifts including a rather fine jacket which I've had to take to be altered as being rather er short. The arms made me look like Mr Tickle according to my step son Jamie

We had the best time and the Dark Lady is enjoying her new bicycle.
 
A thoroughly good time was had by one and all.  Only one day off over the festive season. Although I did get a lie in of an hour and an extra half hour tacked on the end of the shoe. Which was fun. However all good things come to an end and we are now back to abnormal!

So 2014 is now well and truly underway and everyone has crept back to work or their previous routine. People are making wild and exaggerated claims as to what they are going to do over the next 12 months. This is definitely the year they are going to do it. Whatever "IT" may be.

Rather then widdle on your firework. How realistic are we with our plans for a new year and why do we wait until an arbitrary date on the calendar to put these often futile "plans" into practise?

Why not have resolutions starting on the 18th March or 27 August?

This may have something to do with my lack of understanding of the calendar. After all this is the man who on Xmas day writing a cheque at a petrol station had to ask what the date was. This is the man who assumed that late May/early June it was summer everywhere. As he froze in sub zero temperatures in Yellowstone National Park ankle deep in snow in shorts and sandals waiting for the the Geyser Old Faithful to blow.

(Pedantry alert). Ok this may be general geographic ignorance rather than the lack of grasp of dates. Although I think there may be a tenuous relationship between the two.

At this time of the year. Newspapers, magazines. TV and radio stations are asking for "resolutions" as an easy way to fill their products. Followed by a deluge of people telling us their resolution is not to have resolutions (snirk snirk)!

We know you are better than that on the Best Time of the Day Show. Judging by your responses to the things we throw at you each morning. I have a sneaking suspicion people in the entertainment industry sit with their notebooks jotting down your best bits to use in their acts.

So what do I think of the turn of a year? It is a time to look forward with optimism.

2013 wasn't the best year I've enjoyed due to the death of my dearest friend and the resulting fall out with helping to sort out his estate. (Note. If possible don't die. It can be very complicated for those you leave behind).

It took rather a lot of time and energy and so a lot of other things had to be put on the back burner. So all being well things will go better this year.

If 2013  taught me one thing is that we all hang by a thread and we have to seize the moment. We need to have as much fun as we can. I'm very fortunate in having a job that qualifies as fun so half the battle is over before I start.

So if you make any pledges for 2014 perhaps it is to have more fun.

What constitutes fun though?  Does it have to be rip snorting side holding hyperventilating food coming down your nose guffawing. Or something simple that gives you pleasure. Or maybe must something very simple that gives you satisfaction.

This can be done in many ways. Not all expensive. Nor involving huge amounts of equipment.


Let your imagination run riot. Stroke the cat. A cup of coffee on the settee. A conversation with friends. Zumba. (Not sure if this qualifies as fun but some swear by it)! A walk?

Does this sound amusing?

Well it's certainly economical.  So that in itself should give us pleasure.

Re-reading the above I do realise that this is a rather poorly argued blog and if we were defending ourselves in court with an alibi this weak we'd probably end up in prison doing 100 years to life!

However I am going to try and not let little things get to me this year.

So traffic jams will not make me fume.

I promise not to get frustrated with people who stop at the top of escalators blocking your exit as they stare vacantly into space.

Will try not to explode when I hear smug self satisfied politicians talking in cliches:

"Hard working families"

(We aren't stupid. We know your spin doctors are telling you to get this into every interview).

Although that may be a bit of a tricky one to maintain.

And I will smile at 1am weekday mornings when the alarm goes off as I know that I'm about to have some fun.

Hmmm I have a sneaking suspicion that the above looks a tad like resolutions.

DOH!

Happy New Year.