Now it's getting even more stupid.
I'm starting to realise that whilst these books give you an idea on how to deal with people with Asperger's Syndrome, that doesn't mean that anyone else in the same working or learning environment should be treated differently. Provided they play it straight and are understanding.
There are people on my radio course who predominantly act as if they don't give a shit. They're not bothered. They don't want to know.
I'm not to offended by the ones with curses as I tend to use them for jokey purposes, but one of my teachers at secondary school had every right to be upset when speaking out loud about feeling upset when making suggestions and people were responding back to them saying that they didn't care.
Anyone who has responded like that to me, especially when trying to speak to them about my interest has ended up on my black list. There were even people at a Jingle Mad meet in London who were like that and they ended up leaving the pub earlier than myself, a guy from Peterborough called Aston who's insane "Freq-ky" in his own words, and two Daves. Dave from Jersey who has a great black book, (not black list!) of people in radio such as John Wells, Bruno Brookes, Adrian Juste and so on.
And another Dave, "Big Dave Nightingale" from Sheffield and I think his own jingle says it all!
These are great guys and because of the arrogance of other jingle collectors who will only collect stuff in super hi-quality, and are very specific on the amount of cuts that are in the package traded, I haven't really made as much effort to get to know them even further, despite going more further than anyone before.
Anyway, at that said meet up on a sunny Sunday in Central London I was in awe throughout.
I left cloudy Canterbury early that morning and headed into Central London and made my steady journey towards the George in Great Portland Street by going across the South Bank from Waterloo, relishing the lovely pain aux raisin I'd savoured, and crossed over the Westminster bridge where as I got to the end a six year old kid exclaimed "this is where Doctor Who stood!"
I knew already that this was going to be a brilliant day.
I arrived at the George at 12:15 to be welcomed by Freq-ky, Big Dave, and Dave from Jersey and another fella from Kent bordering into London, Martin Lester.
Shortly we saw the arrival of another legend, Simon Hirst who only had 4 hours before he was due to go on air with Katy Hill on Hit 40 UK!
And Sean Martin, who travelled all the way from Switzerland to be there and has to be one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He was responsible for getting this cut from JonesTM done for me as part of the iJingles project he runs.
Sean revealed to me a lot earlier that he used to be a psychiatric nurse and knew fully well what Asperger's Syndrome was all about. But unlike my dad he wouldn't get offended if I raised my voice about something that irritated me but was impressed that I could correct myself immediately, which I've started to develop a habit of doing in written form.
Sean also explained to me that a lot of people wouldn't "come out of the closet" about their Asperger's Syndrome and that it could "scare people" but explained to me that he didn't fit into the profile of a "traditional jingle collector" and has sent me tons of stuff and nicely labeled too!
Anyway, that Sunday afternoon...
A tradition of Jinglemad meet ups is when we record name shouts for each other and people who can't be there in person who can only dream of them! If I can find it I'll upload a video of us in action from that day and it's what I'd describe as comedy gold.
Instead of pissing everyone off in the pub itself, we went into a secluded staircase (which I've fallen down quite a few times) with the toilet door as our reverb chamber!
They recorded one for me as suggested by fellow collector Stacey Harris which went "Blammo In Harrow!" which I've never used for the life of me!
At around 3:00 quite a few of the "serious lot" decided to leave although so did Freq-ky but that was because he had to be up pretty early the next morning.
Myself, the two Dave's, Martin and Pete Wilson (and his missus) stuck around and I was interested at how open they got about the disapointment of them leaving early. This was a big day for jingle collectors which sorted out the men from the boys (rather ironic thing to say!).
We then divulged into other interests and I found out that I wasn't the only one who loved Swing Out Sister and Incognito! In fact Martin had even seen Swing Out Sister at the Jazz Cafe in the early 90s and I was ready to do the same in a couple of months.
Come 7pm we decided to head over to Leicester Square and the Yates Bar outside Capital Radio HQ. And the look on my face, Simon Hirst and Katy Hill! This was brilliant!
Katy even had the heart to end her mobile call and speak to us all and she was just as lovely as she was on televison and radio!
I can remember a certain Ross Powell a couple of months later on his show on Smoke with Dave Baldwin that "Blue Peter was never the same since Katy Hill left..."
Our next stop off point was the Boudicea bar at Charing Cross Station where we stopped off as I waited for my train back to Canterbury. At this point the bar was rammed by some very happy Chelsea supporters making a lot of noise entirely through the use of their chants!
The Blues had beaten Arsenal for the first time in years with the debut of Michael Essien and having always hated Arsenal, I was now fully converted. I even fell off my bar stool when they sung the chant about Arsene Wenger and the packet of sweets!
Everyone was laughing but I didn't take it personally. Luckily on the message board the next day I got this lovely response from Aston:
"Good to see you all and my apologies for not being able to stay the full hog this year.(Glad to hear about Katy Hill).
I'm was very sad to hear about Robin's little incident.Especially as Arsenal are not wearing red this season (It's redcurrent (or dark marroon) due to the team playing their final season at Highbury).Robin,the people who tried to antagonise you showed themselves up for what they are.Morons !!!!
I did manage to get through some of the CDs yesterday evening and so far,it's Mssrs Bolton & Furness that had me crying.(The Broadland & Metro stuff respectively).
I've placed a post it note on my computer this morning reminding of Mr Wilsons request and attempting to burn a CD for the benefit of Mr McGrath.
Finally,my prize received a nervous look from a couple of Americans sitting in the opposite aisle.(Ever get the feeling Arbitron strikes terror in the US more than ol' Bin Laden).
Oh well,back to work.TTFN."
I met up with Aston and Big Dave in Birmingham again in mid November on a cold but lovely day overlooking the canal in a pub on Broad Street near BRMB and Central.
This was much needed relief after a dreadful week trying and eventually succeeding to get an interview for my first radio assignment and two days before I recorded my first ever Soul Expression.
The guys were really supportive and we could balance happy and sad things but not let depression take over.
Being keen travellers (well UK wide anyway) we could link jingles, radio and television to events such as the Manchester bombings in 1996 and the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.
In fact this selection should give you a very clear perspective of the latter and the innapropriate use of the ITV's Results theme. You can't take everything seriously.
One year later when the second year radio lot were on our day trip to Richmond,
Jon was talking to us about his "work experience" at Radio Aire and I can remember him saying "'ere I've erd about Simon 'irst, he spends his time in pubs going on about radio jingles..."
I then realised rather sadly that I seemed to be the only one really interested in radio and everything that it was associated with.
But that didn't put me off going to these pub meets, the last one being in October which I hot footed it from Blandford to be there and still answering calls from soon to be departed Smoke Radio members at the same time!
Anyway, Sean was there as were Freq-ky, Big Dave and the Hodgey brothers, Mark and Ian from Doncaster. Big Dave had brought his laptop with him and I'd brought my hard drive so the jingles were really flowing! As was the beer of course! Didn't really eat much however, I'm more of a liquid person at these dos.
The next meet up should be in Newcastle in early October after the Great North Run and I'm definitely looking forward to the fifth of the Jingle Days since it's inaugaration in September 2003.
And these are not just trainspotters, well, they're not trainspotters at all. They know how to have a good time!
And yes, there will be a part 3!
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