"Bog Off You Moron!"

The journey back was worth it as the head WH Smith head cleaner did the job better than the one I bought at Maplins in Harrow yesterday. Possibly because it doesn't need any stupid liquid inserted into the tape.

Mum and Dad weren't home because they were taking Kate back up to Nottingham and it looks like my visit to Centre Parcs won't be the only visit to the area this year.

This is because just over a month later, the next Jingle Day will be taking place where I hope to meet the likes of Aston, Big Dave, Sean Martin from iJingles and many other like minded people chatting about radio along with a few beers. Or WKDs in my case.

Continuing with the radio theme I was chatting to Barry last night on the way to Moons about James Whale so I thought I'd take his autobiography to read on the train and it helped pass the time.
It's an interesting account of the radio presenters rise to the top and the many obstacles and setbacks he's had to face over his career, including an extra chapter about his sacking from TalkSport last year.

You have to hand it to his wife Melinda who throughout their 40 year relationship has managed to cope with the endless demands of location changes, new houses and has been ever supportive.

I never knew that James was responsible for starting up Radio Top Shop in Oxford Circus where one of the highlights was when a certain Paul Gadd came in with a record called "Rock And Roll".

The song turned out to be very popular with shoppers and resulted in a single release and an special in store appearance, the first of it's kind for the man who would go on to become Gary Glitter. And sadly for him, even worse things than that.

As you'd expect, the broadcaster is not afraid to give his opinions on others, including one Edwina Currie, who after her 1988 resignation as an MP, was invited by James to appear on his late night show on Radio Aire because she was a gutsy speaker and coincidentally had a love of currys oddly enough, and Leeds had (and probably still does) some of the best Indian restuarants in the country.

Unfortunately she had brought a large entourage with her, which ruined the intimacy, and by the late 90s she was presenting a weekend phone in show on 5 Live called "Late Night Currie" which I thought was appalling.

I'd risk saying that she could make Dotun Adebayo sound good.

Anyway she appeared with James at a talk discussing what made great speech radio and mentioned that James inspired her to get into radio. He wasn't impressed however partly because he thought it was stupid that a failed politician was asked to talk about how to make "great radio".

Thankfully her show was dropped around 2004 and was replaced by Richard Bacon.

Fellow Radio Aire colleague Chris Moyles however does get a few good words from the man who could be his father, partly because he's repaying the favour for what he said in "The Gospel According To Chris Moyles".

There was also a chapter on James's transfer to television with a late night version of his radio show produced by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network in the early 90s which got 3 million viewers a week.

The idea came from YTV producer Ian Bolt who had worked on shows such as "3-2-1" and "Through The Keyhole" and this lead to a very amusing moment involving a caller just mucking about;

Caller: "Hello?"

James: "Yeah, hello Barry?"

Caller: "Right, can I order the number 32, and a tikka masala..."

James: "Barry hang on, this isn't, we're talking about sex Barry"

Caller: "...and some large spring rolls"

James: "Barry, BARRY!, We are talking about sex! This is not a Chinese Takeaway!"

Caller: "Then do you do pizzas then?"

James: "Bog off Barry!"

I've only listened to James a few times but I was lucky enough to hear one of his shows after I'd bought my Bug in September 2004, when he started singing the song,
"# I am the morning DJ! At WJJD!"

A caller then rang up and pointed out it was actually "W.O.L.D" which was a song by Harry Chapin and it lead to an interesting discussion where James talked about when he worked at Metro Radio and fellow colleague Len Groat was a big fan of the song
(as you would expect) and used to sing the chorus in the same style as a radio jingle.

I'd only just found out about the song as a year earlier, Noel Edmonds made a return to the radio covering for Johnnie Walker on Radio 2 whilst he was recovering from cancer, and that was the first record he played.

I seemed to remember that Johnnie wasn't too impressed by his stint, highlighted by the fact that on his return he thanked Stuart Maconie for covering him but not Edmonds.

Back to Whale, and the book mentions that he was a big fan and friend of the late Bernard Manning who once appeared on his TV show along with Glenys Kinnock. The Manchester funnyman actually tried to defend his fellow guest when James started taking the mickey out of Glenys although that's probably because Bernard rather bizarrely was a Labour voter throughout his life.

I fully agree with James' views on Bernard Manning being a lot funnier than the alternative comedians that rose in the 80s as Arthur Smith would never sell as many DVDs as Bernard's videos.

Along with Tony Blackburn, I won't let James slightly right wing political views get in the way of my appreciation for him and I really agree with a sub-chapter in his book about immigration and those who come to stay in our country.

His main grudge was that he thought it was rude of people from countries in Asia to come here and not adapt to our culture through the clothes they wear and the food they eat. Or in other words, enforce their culture on us.

It would be like him going over to Italy, or China and insistent on only eating roast beef and Yorkshire puddings which is a fair point.

I also didn't realise that his real name was Michael, although he had to change it partly because there was another Michael Whale who used to read the sport on London Plus and then Newsroom South East.

Which leads on to another book that I'd recieved in the mail which was Johnny Beerling's book about Radio 1. However as my Paypal account has Dad's name on it Johnny signed the book with his name on it, so I may adapt Michael as my middle name from now on although I won't get arsey about it like the late Tony Wilson, or "Anthony H Wilson" as he was sometimes known.

There's also a lot of other stuff I brought back including loads of audio tapes, loads of DVDs/DVD-Rs and quite a few more VHS's as well.

I'll go through the more interesting stuff in the next post which will be a long awaited video post.

However, I've got the VCR sorted so I won't have to by a new one, and I aim not to leave the flat until Monday as I'm bloody tired.