A very funny man…

Rachel and I recently enjoyed a terrific evening being entertained (and more than occasionally challenged) by the terrific stand-up comedy of Marcus Brigstocke. During more than two hours on stage, he makes a point of encouraging interaction with the audience; he coaxes and even goads us into getting involved.  During the show, I responded aloud to three of his questions with the following answers…

“Michael Gove”

“Release the hounds”

“Is it Tuesday?”

You can find out what the questions were later…

I’ve liked Marcus Brigstocke for several years; his all-round righteous anger during guest appearances on The Now Show, his more eclectic turns on the CBBC sketch show “Sorry I’ve Got No Head”, and his hapless character Giles Wemmbley-Hogg. He’s definitely posh, a similar age to me, probably less bleeding-heart but definitely liberal.

His show The Brig Society takes on David Cameron’s supposed ‘project’ that supposedly aims to roll-back the role of Government in our day-to-day lives, replacing it (somehow) with individuals and volunteers spontaneously coming together to fill that void.

Brigstocke is clearly sceptical about both the actual progress made by the government on this, but also about the UK population’s willingness to get involved in performing tasks previously undertaken by the State. So the central thread of the show is his attempt to engage his audience in towns all around the country into actually doing something, or at least having ideas as to what they might do. In between this, he relates jovial anecdotes from Leeds or Nottingham or Chorley or Scotland to reassure his audience that they can’t be as insane as a previous town. He also intersperses the present-day discussion with tales from his childhood and everyday observations about our society today.

He clearly understood Cirencester and its middle-class conservative heartland, full of quiet reserve. But just as he lulled us into a deceptively comfortable place, chuckling along with his stories from Boarding School, he erupted with proper rage, getting very sweary and seriously challenging as he repeatedly decried George Osborne’s comparison of the murderous Mick Philpott with all Benefits Claimants as “F***ING UNACCEPTABLE”. The audience didn’t know whether they should laugh, applaud or just take a long hard look at themselves…

Throughout the evening he asked for volunteers to serve as Cabinet Ministers in his Brig Society, asking them for their policies. We had

• Chancellor: John, a teacher from North Swindon, who wanted to hunt down personal and corporate tax evaders
• Health:  Mary, a health visitor, who wanted to recruit more front-line staff for the NHS to improve standards of care
• Education: Amy & George, both teachers, wanted to hire more teachers to help keep class sizes down
• Transport: Rob, a train driver, who wanted to simplify the ticketing process for travelling around the country, and longer trains to improve the customer experience at peak times
• The Elderly: er, that was me. Eventually my loudly vocal interjections got noticed, and he picked on me for putting my head above the parapet…

However, having made such an impression that he called me “a very funny man” (among my proudest moments!), I then seemed to freeze. I had no idea what policies I might employ for The Elderly, whether funny or serious. I wish I might have said something along the lines of free toffees or designated ‘slow-lanes’ in supermarkets or on pavements. In the end I tried to be serious and claim that young people are in more need of help than the elderly.  Luckily he realised quickly that he should move on, but thankfully he chose not to mock my dullness.

What that embarrassing 90 seconds brought home to me is that while I might be capable of a solid one-liner retort, I’m much less good at being spontaneously funny…

What was also clear from the policies on offer was that his audience, even in the compact-but-bijoux Sundial Theatre in Cirencester, seem not to share the world-view of the Tories. We seemed to want the government to take the lead in running the country and providing public services.

Perhaps the highlight sequence in the show was when he brought the Banking Crisis to life, walking among the audience, taking money from their hands and pretending to lend it to others, paying off credit agencies for giving AAA ratings, taking insurance both for and against the borrowers defaulting, then demanding the money back from them at a second’s notice. Most compelling and hard-hitting was the conclusion in which (acting the role of the bankers) he blamed his customer’s greed for wanting a home loan, all the while pocketing the money he had gleefully accepted from both other people and the government. Most amusing was watching several audience members squirm as he seemed to ignore any suggestions that he might actually return their actual money…

For a combination of self-deprecating tangents,  good-humoured rants and observations about the world, and genuine anger at the hypocrisy and paucity of thinking within the Tory Government, I Reckon you could do a lot worse than Marcus Brigstocke.

And for those of you who’ve read this far, the questions that inspired my interjections…

“What is acceptable to find hanging from a railing?” (Michael Gove)

“How would you deal with the tax-evaders?” (release the hounds)

“What would you do to support the elderly, who’ve worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes…” (is it Tuesday?)

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I’m not outraged, I’m barely even surprised…

Over the last few months we’ve been joyfully re-viewing the whole boxset of The West Wing. In one episode, the White House Press Secretary C.J.Cregg was asked about Something Very Bad Happening in Saudi Arabia, and she replied

I’m not outraged, I’m barely even surprised

This almost exactly sums up my detached, unimpressed, resigned state of mind regarding Lance Armstrong.

I was going to wait until after his full interview with Oprah Winfrey, but it’s become clear to me this morning that there’s not a whole lot my words can add to the discussions. I’d recommend you look to excellent writers and journalists like CNN’s Bonnie Ford, The Sunday Times’ David Walsh, or the BBC’s Matt Slater. Nevertheless, for the record, this is What I Reckon…

The Look of Someone Who Knows Something…

I worshipped Armstrong during his career. I discovered the TDF in the 1980s as Greg Lemond rose to the top, Miguel Indurain then dominated, and Lance was the next hero. His story and his performances were amazing. That look he gave Ullrich, the improvised ride across the field, everything. I kind of resented L’Equipe and those who constantly sniped and sought to knock him, just because he was better than all the French riders. Except he wasn’t. He was a cheat, and more than that, a (now self-confessed) bully. He perjured himself under oath on countless occasions, won damages in courts by lying, earned millions in sponsorship and inspired a generation. Except he lied, over and over again.

I read “It’s not about the bike” last summer under the cloud of accusations and imminent publication of USADA evidence. Almost immediately afterwards I read David Millar’s autobiography, and the differences between the two books and men couldn’t be more clear.

When I read Armstrong’s book I was immediately struck throughout that it was a very partial version of his story, told on his terms, to create the memory and legacy he wanted. So many people he mentioned were described as “very good friends”. It’s as though the only people he ever met were very good friends. Anyone else simply isn’t important, or even worthy of comment. You’re either with him, or you’re nobody. This has been reiterated in the Oprah interview, in which she named all the names and he responded. Pretty much only George Hincapie emerged as a “good friend”. I wonder how George feels about that.

In complete contrast, David Millar lays everything out, from the doping to disagreements with Bradley Wiggins, from his own hero worship of Lance, to being ignored later. Millar talks openly about how his long journey to the dark side started, with vitamins and iron tablets, then injections, then everything else. He talks about the shame he brought on everyone who supported him, including Dave Brailsford, who was in the restaurant when he was arrested. Even now on Twitter he talks about what he has lost (his gorgeous house in Biarritz), and acknowledges that’s all his own fault. He describes his duty as an ex-doper to educate the sport and its leaders as well as new riders.

Armstrong doesn’t seem to accept, understand or even seem like he’s lost anything. He seems proud of his life, of his achievements. His tweets immediately following the publication of the USADA dossiers said he’s “unaffected” and merely linked to more news about his charity raising pots of cash for cancer. A few weeks later he came over all American Psycho and posted this stunningly arrogant picture:

It feels to me that he has felt his legacy isn’t about the bike. It’s all about the cancer. Because he can control that story. In that story he’s a hero.

But now, in a twist that even a hack Hollywood script couldn’t begin to justify, he now seems to blame the cancer for his behaviour; it was the cancer that made him a bully, that made him destroy fellow riders in the peloton who dared speak out against doping, that made him call his own soigneuse a whore and trash her name through the courts.

I don’t even begin to know what he hopes will happen now. He seemed to throw a line to the cycling authorities about testifying in the context of ‘truth and reconciliation’. He’s barely said sorry, merely admitted that he has done things wrong. But in his own mind that doesn’t actually mean cheating, merely doing what he had to, to achieve a “level playing field”. In that moral universe, does that mean I could steal money to put me on a level playing field with the very rich?

I was given Bradley Wiggins’ book My Time for Christmas, and while it’s certainly not the greatest work on the subject ever published, it again highlights the ‘unusual’ psyche of Lance Armstrong. Wiggins, like Millar and others before him, and the tremendous documentary Chasing Legends, recognises throughout everything he says how cycling is a team sport. Dirty or clean, no man can get through the Tour de France without a lot of people to help; team-mates prepared to sacrifice themselves for the team, support cars, coaches, drivers, mechanics, soigneurs, doctors, physios, management and sponsors.

Now on the one hand, that entourage that surrounded Armstrong during the years he was systematically doping must include people who knew what was going on, and haven’t come clean. More to the point, the sport of cycling then was so riddled with doping on every level, it seems impossible that the authorities were completely ignorant. I’m hoping some of this might even come out in the second part of the the Lance/Oprah broadcast…

…but on the other hand, I’m not holding my breath. From the very start, from the first words of his first book Lance Armstrong has told his side of the story, and it’s a story that focuses entirely on himself. With near psychopathic clarity he seems oblivious to ‘normal’ morality, and utterly lacking in empathy. He is a liar and a cheat on a massive, almost sociopathic scale. He was my hero, but I hope this is my last word on him. He doesn’t deserve any more of my time. I’ll point my daughters to newer role models.

Bonnie Ford’s piece for ESPN at the time of the USADA dossier is a brilliantly detached, but very sad summary. Case closed.

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All this, and it’s Monday night…

The first time I saw Thom Yorke play was in a corridor in a Hall of Residence at Exeter University in 1988. He was strumming a guitar to something like a Beatles song, and other drunken students were singing along. Before last Monday, the last time I saw Radiohead was under a semi-tropical cloudburst in Oxford’s South Park in July 2001. It’s been too long.

I understand why people don’t like Radiohead. Their songs can be non-traditional at best, Thom Yorke’s vocal style isn’t easy on the ear, and their musical experimentation leaves many people cold. Not to mention that they’ve been accused of being the inspiration for bands like Coldplay and Muse, in which case they do have quite a bit to answer for.

I understand why people don’t like Radiohead, but after seeing them in concert last week, I’m more convinced than ever that those people are wrong. This was the most affecting and effective performance I’ve ever seen. Radiohead are like an arthouse film auteur in a morass of lowest-common-denominator blockbusters-by-numbers. Here are a few reasons why I Reckon they’re the best, most adventurous and interesting band around…

Nothing is like the album…

If you turn up to Radiohead and are disappointed by not hearing all your favourites exactly as they sound off the album, maybe you shouldn’t be going to see them in concert. You’re clearly missing the point. Go and see The Rolling Stones instead.

Intimate, shuffling tracks from The King of Limbs (like Bloom & Lotus Flower) become super-charged, blasting soundscapes with driving beats and amazing lighting colour palettes. Feral and Idiotèque always promised to be dynamic live songs, and now they become genuine explosions of energy, complete with strobe lighting in bright green and white, a wall of sound and bass reverb, smashing percussion, and Thom Yorke’s manic stream-of-consciousness vocals and dancing ‘like noone’s watching’. Good Morning Mr Magpie also transforms from a subtle, almost gentle song on TKOL into a furious, breakneck rage, full of clanging guitars, as though they’d switched on their ‘Spinal Tap’ amps and turned everything up to 11.

Alternatively, Like Spinning Plates (almost completely electronic whirring and beeps in the studio) becomes a showcase for Thom’s rolling piano arpeggi with a beautiful hymn-like quality set to warm red-orange lighting. In Give Up The Ghost, he layers up different vocal lines such that he’s singing a four-part chorale with himself. This is one of my highlights of the whole show, wonderfully intimate, simply gorgeous.

Rhythm & Percussion

I’ve always thought Philip Selway was the most under-rated member of Radiohead, especially as traditional drums took a backseat to programmed beats and electronica during Kid A/Amnesiac. His performances on In Rainbows are nothing short of miraculous, and increasingly rhythms are at the heart of everything that Radiohead do well. They now have a ‘permanent’ second drummer onstage, and indeed in some songs four members of the band were beating out repeated, shifting layers of rhythm and syncopation. The overhead video images stayed fixed on twitching drumsticks, focusing our attention on every rim shot, every ripple of the hi-hat cymbals.

“Are you lost yet…?! Good!”

Just over half way through the concert, after a couple of rarer tracks strong on pulsing electronica and hypnotic lighting effects, Thom pauses to ask the audience how they’re keeping up. Apparently Radiohead get criticised for not playing more of their singalong songs more often, which I Reckon is like complaining that JK Rowling should write more of those nice books about wizards. From my vantage point it did feel like many of the people down in the standing section weren’t exactly getting into the music. Were they waiting for Creep or High & Dry?

Radiohead have never made consecutive albums that sound alike (except perhaps Kid A and Amnesiac, compiled out of the same recording sessions). Their tours don’t present their ‘greatest hits’ so much as their current musical world and its interpretation of their entire catalogue.

On Monday night at the O2, the 24 songs were culled from six albums spanning 15 years, plus two tracks not on albums and two new songs. So far, so very much like most other bands’ setlists. But the Big Difference is the choice of songs; nothing from the anthemic, verse-and-chorus The Bends, and only Karma Police representing anything like a ‘normal’ song. Many choices are the more obtuse, awkward, even inaccessible tracks. Both the extraordinarily bass-heavy Myxamotosis and the ambient twinkling and inaudible lyrics of Kid A came in the first five songs.

Bringing the music to life

While the stage set up looks pretty simple, the performance and presentation of these 24 songs is outstanding. A screen wall behind the band rises almost the whole height of the cavernous O2 Arena and create dramatic backdrops. Above these is a row of crystal clear video ‘squares’ that holds images, often cropped, of the band members, or sometimes elaborates on the visual theme for the song.

Hanging above the band and in front of the wall are more of these video screens. These move around between songs to form sometimes a low, intimate ceiling, focusing our attention on the band, or at other times a more epic feel, a grander space. The 12 screens offer awkward angles, voyeuristic viewpoints and closeups of Thom’s face, over Jonny Greenwood’s shoulder, fragments of the band and their performance. They are compelling and brilliant.

I am in awe of Mario Rimati for his beautiful set of images from a recent concert in Italy.

Each song has its own very deliberate lighting and colour palette to accompany the new arrangements. The restless, relentless 5/4 pulse of 15 Step starts blue and becomes a shocking pink midway through. After Thom introduces The Daily Mail as a song about “a quality newspaper” the stage is washed in furious red. Climbing up the Walls is perhaps the most disturbing song on OK Computer, and is genuinely menacing onstage as the distorted guitars and wall of sound are complemented by visual distortion in a sickly green, which again seems to explode into bright orange. The patterns during the spectral The Gloaming are spiky and harsh, while Separator and These are my Twisted Words are pulsing, softer patterns in red and turquoise, which constantly swirl and twist, creating almost hallucinatory effects, and probably motion sickness in some people…

Only when Nude opens, around halfway through the concert, do the images become static, giving our eyes some relief. This song (one of my favourites from my favourite album) is amazing, layers of sound building and building, topped by Thom’s astonishing falsetto that breaks through and silences the whole arena…

You’ll go to Hell for what your dirty mind is thinking…

Building to a Climax

The show, full of eclectic song choices and unapologetically avoiding the so-called ‘Hits’ is beautifully plotted. I Reckon any long-term fanboy (or girl) will have loved what it represented; a genuine, open and honest picture of where Radiohead are right now. As the main set finishes in a manic explosion of Feral and Idiotèque, the first encores start with the throbbing, virtually arhythmic piano chords of Pyramid Song, with Jonny Greenwood playing a guitar like a cello. Then there’s a brand new song, Staircase… I’m not sure how many bands choose to play new songs in a concert encore?! This features kinetic bass and percussion, which only serves as a warm-up for the frantic, furious Good Morning Mr Magpie, and a breakneck version of Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, which leads into the wonderful Reckoner, lit with dazzling silvers and golds.

This is dedicated to all of you…

The final few songs completely blow me away: the haunting vocal layers of Give Up The Ghost give way to a truly awesome version of There There, and the evening finishes with Everything in its Right Place. This is the song that opened Kid A, the album that followed the monster OK Computer, and shocked pretty much everyone in its apparent demolition of everything Radiohead had been, with its near-absence of guitars, melodies & choruses. Live, it’s an exercise in distortion and displacement. Thom’s vocals loop and fragment as if the sound system is broken and gradually the band leave the stage until only whirring electronic effects remain. It’s a stunning, complex, perfect finale.

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Shut up, legs!

I have been more than mildly obsessed with the Tour de France in the past three weeks. Now that Bradley Wiggins has become the first Briton to win this epic sporting marathon, especially devastating his rivals in the time-trials, and Mark Cavendish proven himself to (still) be (probably) the fastest sprinter in the world, and both Chris Froome and David Millar also won stages, apparently the whole of the UK has taken the sport to its heart. I can genuinely hardly wait for the Olympic Road Race this coming Saturday and Time Trial next Wednesday.

Life is so busy at the moment that I’ve barely had time to gather my thoughts or compile anything more coherent. But with the Olympic Games ready to start on Friday, please accept this slightly haphazard but honest collection of reasons why I still think the Tour de France is the greatest sporting spectacle of them all.

Team SKY… much as it pains me to shower adulation on anything sponsored by Rupert Murdoch’s money, I have nothing but admiration for everything Dave Brailsford and his teams, and especially the awesome riders of Team Sky have achieved.

The spirit, teamwork & discipline they all demonstrated during three gruelling weeks of this last Grand Tour is astonishing. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, from Chris Froome waiting for his team leader when he quite clearly was the strongest man on the mountain to Mark Cavendish, the reigning world champion and TdF Green Jersey (remember?!), taking turns to collect drinks and food for his team-mates, and accepting there would be no lead-out train for his sprint finish.

The collective ability and execution of a plan was breathtaking. Team Sky utterly dominated the race at virtually every stage, dictating how stages might be won, and usually by whom. They were the Chuck Norris of this year’s race. Maybe it got predictable, but it was truly awesome.

Bradley Wiggins is a champion. Having made his mark with Olympic medals on the track, it has taken him 4 years to become the leading force on the road. Fastest in the time trials by a country mile, he has also become a fearsome climber. He doesn’t have the explosive change of pace, but he does have the ability and confidence in his ability to stay with almost anyone, and more importantly, to pace himself at such a rate that he can outlast anyone. And then on the final two days of the tour, when previous champions would be staying out of trouble, he led out the sprint train for Mark Cavendish.

The final stage finishes with a helter-skelter series of 8 circuits around the Champs-Elysées in Paris, and it’s always a bun-fight of teams fighting to get their sprinters to the front for the last frantic charge for the line. TV coverage showed the Team Sky instructions from the car: get Bradley on the front from 1km… And so, at 1,100m from the finish, Wiggins took charge, leaving the other teams for dead, taking Cavendish and his team-mate Edvald Boassen-Hagen in his wake. EB-H (the Norwegian national champion and a mean sprinter in his own right) negotiated the two final corners, slipstreaming Cavendish into a clear lead before he even started his final sprint.

I will never tire of watching this.

Cycling is an team sport focused on individuals. Wiggins is the Team Sky ‘leader’, and the team is entirely geared to his success; getting him in the right place, protecting him from peloton crashes, pacing other teams and their leaders out of the race, helping up the difficult climbs. In what other sport do world-class athletes recognise themselves as “domestiques”, whose job is to follow orders, ‘bury themselves’ for their team and do a job that goes against all their natural self-instincts. Froome could have won the final mountain stage, but stayed to ride with Wiggins. Mark Cavendish stoically remarked “it’s like playing Wayne Rooney in defence…” of his team role. I doubt Mr Rooney would accept that role with such good grace, commitment and sacrifice.

Jens Voight. I’ve waxed lyrical about his attitude representing everything I love about pro cyclists. Nearly 41, he’s the oldest man in the peloton, but towards the end of the 3 weeks, and indeed in the final few laps of the Champs-Elysées, he was leading a break. He knew there was little chance of success, but he did it anyway. Time and again he stretched men 10 years younger with lung-busting, leg-crippling power. More than these physical exploits, I love his searing honesty. Halfway through the Tour, he gave a brilliant interview. Barely 48 hours later, his team leader, Frank Schleck tested positive for a prohibited substance. The spectre of doping leaves a heavy, heavy shadow over the Tour. Effectively door-stepped outside his bus, Jens said the only thing he could say. In this 90 seconds you can hear all his personal conflicts as a long-time friend is under suspicion. As Ned Boulting says “there’s never a bad time to talk to Jens Voight”.

ITV’s coverage is simply brilliant. With decades of experience, commentators like Phil Ligett, Ned Boulting, Chris Boardman and Matt Rendell provide a fantastic, on-the-ground view of the event. Interviews with riders moments after finishing, in-depth access to the more arcane arts of road racing which never talks down to the novice viewer but is constantly interesting enough for the experts.

The Tour de France has the best arena in all sport. Forget the Birds’ Nest Stadium, Monaco Grand Prix or London Marathon. France is an astonishingly dramatic country, and the organisers of the Tour know they have a job to promote its regions. Everywhere the regions turn out for the Tour and pay large sums to be a prestigious host town for a stage finish. Most impressively, I love all the efforts made by farmers…

Seriously, I think my perfect summer job might be to be a cameraman inside the Tour de France helicopter. That would be a great way to spend July…

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Daley Thompson + Iron Maiden = Marketing GOLD…

Design agencies must be having a field day this year. Just as the nation waits for major events on which to launch a branding bandwagon, two come along at once. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee has seen an outburst of media and marketing patriotism, at least in the multitude of ‘limited edition’ pack designs that have adorned our shelves. Everything from toilet paper to dishwasher tablets, from ‘Queensmill‘ bread to Tate & Lyle Syrup becoming ‘Hope & Glory‘; apparently nothing is too mundane or irrelevant to borrow the mood of the nation for its own ends.

Not all of them are terrible…

And in a few weeks, the 2012 London Olympics start, only with much, much tighter marketing and branding rules. From exclusivities on confectionery, soft drinks, fast food and even cashpoint machines, this is properly a corporate operation which is deadly serious and has billions of pounds at stake. But even that hasn’t stopped non-sponsor brands from trying to muscle in on the Olympic action, ‘acquiring’ sporting athletic values for themselves despite everything.

Poor in almost every way…

I Reckon just about the single greatest piece of marketing to (re)position a brand by borrowing imagery from sports is the stunning ad campaign by Ogilvy & Mather for Lucozade in the mid 1980s. Originating more than 50 years earlier, Lucozade was a drink designed as a source of energy to help children recover from illness, and it had always been marketed in that way. It was something that mums bought when their children got poorly. It came in a big glass bottle with a cellophane wrap. It was bright orange in a way that suggested there were no real oranges in the product.

Daley Thompson is one of the UK’s (if not the world’s) greatest ever athletes. Four-time world record holder in the Decathlon, he also won two Olympic Gold medals, as well as the World and European Championships. Competing in 10 different disciplines over 2 days, his sport is as tough as it gets, and he was the best.

Shortly after his second Olympic success at Los Angeles in 1984, Daley Thompson became the new face for Lucozade. I remember watching this ad that started with the traffic lights and the introduction to an Iron Maiden song “Phantom of the Opera” from their fairly obscure first album, and Daley Thompson training on some track in the middle of nowhere. In my teens I had an ‘Iron Maiden phase’, and I loved this track. What was it doing in an advert?! For Lucozade!?

This campaign repositioned Lucozade from a medicine for tired and poorly children (and their mothers) to a fuel for athletes. “Aiding Recovery” became “Replacing Lost Energy”. This was a product for grown-ups, for healthy people, for athletic people, for men. It was no longer a sign of illness or weakness, but a sign of personal strength. And what better personification of that strength than Daley Thompson? For good measure, the voiceover at the end of the ad is by Des Lynam, at that time the BBC’s flagship sports presenter. And in purely executional terms, it’s about as far from their adverts of the 1970s as it’s possible to be.

In one ad campaign Lucozade invented the energy drinks market, which is now worth over $7bn in the US and £1bn in the UK alone. In the few years following this repositioning, its UK sales more than trebled as people who had never considered the product started adopting it in droves.

A long way from a bedside drink for poorly children

Lucozade took on a new role that now is completely understood, but at the time was revolutionary. To achieve such a leap in people’s minds it clearly needed help, so it borrowed Daley Thompson. If anyone needed to replace lost energy, he was the man. He was exactly the sort of person who needed Lucozade, we just hadn’t realised it until then. This was a landmark campaign that enabled Lucozade to extend its presence into countless sports and even music festivals. I really doubt if anything we see this year will deliver even a fraction of that achievement.

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Don’t know much about history…

I Reckon Horrible Histories is the funniest show on television right now, on any channel.

Originating in 2009, it’s now in its 4th series, plus a few seasonal specials, a Prom concert in the Royal Albert Hall, and a transfer from the CBBC children’s channel to the flagship BBC1. Based on Terry Deary’s books, the concept has spawned countless magazines, CDs and more. It’s also the only children’s programme to win a British Comedy Award.

The latest series launched to much fanfare (in our house at least) last week, and it is hilarious. I’ve been recording every episode so I can watch them when I get home from work. The only other TV show I consider recording is the excellent but altogether different US drama Homeland. And so I’ve been laughing out loud every evening this week. One episode contained possibly the best 12 minutes of comedy I’ve seen in ages.

Cash in The Abbey was a brilliant explanation of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries that parodied a daytime TV show, swiftly followed by Hide and Priest, depicting Priest Holes in the style of a game “that brings Protestants and Catholics together – only not in a good way”.

Then HH TV News ran a near-perfect explanation of the Ascent of Man with a manically excited (Peter Snow?!) reporter, Bob Hale. This ran straight into perhaps my favourite comedy song of all time.

If someone can find me a better-written, better-observed, better-performed, funnier and educational piece of television, I’ll eat my proverbial hat (unless it’s another HH show!).

The show evidently owes a great deal to Monty Python, and like its ex-stablemate on CBBC I’m Sorry I’ve Got No Head, it steadfastly does not treat its viewers like children. Jokes come thick and fast with all sorts of historical truths and complexities woven in, but at no point does it talk down to its viewers. It’s been criticised for a seemingly trivial approach that talks more about poo than history, but frankly, I Reckon that’s bol***ks. The Darwin song explains Natural Selection pretty well in under 3 minutes, and carries off a fabulous David Bowie pastiche at the same time. Their Kings & Queens song even panders to the rote-learning so favoured by certain politicians…

History is at the heart of every sketch and song, but that doesn’t stop the writing from being funny. The show switches between micro- and macro-themes, from the impact of poor Saxon diets on their poo to The Pilgrim Fathers’ settlements in The New World. They ape (adult) contemporary shows with nuanced parodies. This week alone, as well as Cash in The Abbey, Historical Apprentice pitted Team Neanderthal against Team Homo Sapiens, Mr Shouty Man fronted an advertorial for the Victorian Great Western Railway and Queen Elizabeth I was seen online dating and in Oh Yea! magazine. And I really like this old episode of Historical Wife Swap.

But I think it’s the songs that get me the most. Wonderfully written and performed, with fantastic references to the originals, most of which are of my generation rather than my daughters. There are loads of these all over Youtube, and you could spend a very happy time seeking them out. But for your delectation I’ve already done this, and here are a few of my favourites…

Dick Turpin – a truly dandy highwayman?

The Aztec Priests (nice teeth)

Spartan High School Musical

Spitfire Pilots – Take That, Hitler!

My Name is… Charles II

I Reckon you could do a lot worse than setting your recorder CBBC on Fridays at 5pm. I will be, and my evening will be more than a little bit happier, sunnier, sillier for it.

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Think Different…

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, was one of the most important and influential businessmen of our time, or indeed any time. He died last week aged just 56.

Many, many words have been written about him, his approach and his legacy in recent days. In short, he revolutionised personal computing, pioneering the computer mouse. He revolutionised animated film-making through the genius of Pixar, and he revolutionised the way in which we acquire, store and listen to music through iTunes and generations of iPods and iPhones.

All of this came from a simple philosophy that was brilliantly encapsulated in one of my all-time favourite ad campaigns: Think Different, which was at least partly born as a deliberate positioning against the monolithic IBM and their ‘Think’ advertising of the early 1980s.

If you can tell a lot about a man or a brand by the company he keeps, look at the masters who allowed themselves to be associated with Apple.

Apple have many detractors, who claim their products are merely style over substance, late to market, or unsuccessfully copy the features of more technically specified rivals. They are mocked for the slavish devotion of their many, many fans. But all that smacks of trying to find some chink in Apple’s generally unblemished armour. Not only do Apple products work, they look and feel f***ing amazing. They work beautifully, intuitively. They feel liks a human being has designed them for other human beings to use.

In 2009 the satirical eyes of The Onion focused on Apple, and released a tremendous parody of a new Apple launch, a new MacBook Wheel,  whose leading feature was a computer without a keyboard. There are some terrifically barbed jokes in here about Apple’s notoriously flaky battery life, but compare those very specific jibes against this astonishing take-down of a Sony product launch (CAUTION: contains strong language throughout – NSFW or children!).

Noone ever talked about buying their 19th Dell or IBM or MS product. But Apple users buy across the range, despite the fact the products’ functions often overlap. On the other hand, their evangelism can be wearing…

…but then Apple products truly are things of beauty. Tactile, smooth, just lovely. And again judging a brand by its satire, would you rather be Apple, or Microsoft…?

Many years ago I read Business Beyond The Box by John O’Keeffe, which made a big impression on me. He railed against the incremental thinking of most of corporate America (of which he had been a part at Procter & Gamble), which took the status quo as its starting point. He argued for triangular thinking, which is in fact just a construct to pull his three key themes together…

• Picture a step-change(be dissatisfied with the status quo)
• Build know-how
• Be creative

As an example, he appealed to the amateur golfing audience likely to be avid readers of his work. In incremental America they might set themselves the goal of improving their golf game from shooting 95 to 90. That’s a healthy enough improvement, for which he suggested they might buy a new & better driver, maybe have a lesson with the club pro and try to play more often, at least twice a week.

But if they thought more powerfully, they might set a much sterner goal, to improve their game from 95 to 85, or even 80 – a true and significant step-change. This would require some very different strategies and altogether different resources. Instead of playing more and buying new clubs, they would need to revisit their entire technique. They should enlist an expert for an intensive series of lessons, go to the driving range to practise their new swing, and so on.

It’s that kind of thinking that developed the iPod, the iPhone and the sorts of films that Pixar so brilliantly produces, and is often a long way from what risk-averse companies practise. There are bold words and ambitions, but at the end of the day they are often apparently in thrall to the short-term power of shareholders, and to the next quarterly figures.

But, as I have written before, Martin Luther King had a dream – he didn’t have a critical path schedule or a revised quarterly forecast…

And that’s why I love what Apple stands for. It dares to be different, it celebrates it. And it’s properly human. Pixar films have more emotional connections in one scene than the output of entire studios. Apple aspires to be better, to do better. More than that, they seem to want to make our lives more interesting, and perhaps even a bit easier.  And for that, we should all be glad that Steve Jobs succeeded.

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Whatever you do, bring the truth…

A couple of months ago – on Sunday 17th July, just before 7pm I was outside a pub in Windsor and my heart was beating fast. I had driven 80 miles to meet someone I’d never met before, but whose voice I’d listened to every week for the past 4 years. I wasn’t alone: I was expecting to meet a group of complete strangers too.

I walked into the pub and looked around. I knew (sort of) what ‘he’ looked like from pictures, but couldn’t see him there. One guy was sitting on his own, and a group of about 6 people were sat around a large table, drinking and talking. I tentatively approached them. “Excuse me, are you guys Filmspotters?”

They paused for a moment while they tried to understand the label I’d given them, before politely laughing and saying ‘no’. Moments later they left the pub joking that they were “just in time to ‘spot’ the 7.14 to Maidenhead”… With hindsight it should have been obvious that they were all good friends, rather than a group of cinephile strangers with a more-sophisticated-than-average-taste-in-film-podcasts.

However, the guy on his own was one of those cinephiles: we introduced ourselves and sat down together. We were both there to meet Matty Ballgame, co-host of the very excellent Filmspotting podcast. His ‘other’ job had brought him from Chicago to the UK for a few days, and another listener had made the effort to invite him to a pub for a few beers.

They arrived a few minutes later, as did around half a dozen other Filmspotters, and until closing time we drank beer and talked about stuff – mostly films and music. My fellow Filmspotters are all very nice people, we had a laugh. Matty is charming and funny, and talks about pretty much everything he cares about with passion and commitment. What you see is what you get, in a very good way. He was also being very positive about potential acting opportunities which at the time made me wonder how long he could keep presenting the show if his intended career took off.

Malcolm, Matty Ballgame, Ellen, Danny and me

And so it now transpires that Matty Ballgame is leaving Filmspotting, at present for destinations unannounced. Filmspotting is my favourite film podcast by some distance (sorry Dr Kermode), because it has done more to broaden my cinematic knowledge and experience than anything else. I rarely make it to the cinema, and FS fuels my DVD-rental list months in advance. Even better, it has introduced me to directors and films I might never have sought out, but for the passionate, committed and considered recommendation of its hosts.

Filmspotting will survive Matty’s departure (sorry, Matty!) because (a) it’s a terrific format that has been consistently delivered by the fantastic Adam Kempenaar for 6 years, alongside 2 co-hosts and occasional guests, (b) it has a scale of supporters (including me) who love it, and (c) there will always be films worth talking about.

I don’t know Matty, but it feels like I do. His frank openness and honesty about himself, his work, his love life (or lack of) and his love of films make him much more than just a radio presenter or film critic (although he might deny that he’s even a film critic!). I want to wish him the very best of luck from all his Filmspotting fans. I hope he succeeds in his ambitions (whatever they might be!?), that he continues to Bring The Truth™ and that he can occasionally return to Filmspotting once in a while.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait to see his Lear. But we’ll always have this piece of broadcasting gold…

And if you want to hear the quality and range of his performance skills, you should really check out this gem of a Massacre Theatre scene from FS#258 (starts around 33mins).

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Birds flying high, you know how I feel…

There’s a lot of guff (and good stuff too) written about what makes the perfect pop song: the hook, the riff, the beat, the rhythm, the vocals, all of the above. Seemingly at random, a discussion started today at work about the best introduction to a song. And forgive the mashed up pun, but they really shouldn’t have got me started. It only took a few of us at work and via Facebook, and suggestions were flying in from all directions.

For that reason alone, this will be an imperfect selection, but these are some of the ideas that resonated with me and, for me at least, several themes or categories emerged pretty quickly. I’d love to hear about the glaring omissions I’ve made…

The Rockin’ Riff

This is full of examples, possibly starting with The Kinks  and others, going through Heavy Rock Classics like Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, to include David Bowie, Oasis and many more. It’s a powerful statement about what’s to follow, smacking the listener in the head, a declaration of intent.

The L-o-n-g scene setter

U2 often make a habit of these, building up an atmosphere before launching into the song. The long introduction generates anticipation, often not hinting until the last seconds how the song will be constructed, so that when the themes emerge and the vocals start, we are eager to immerse ourselves in the song, like in this piece of brilliance by The Rolling Stones. Other examples come from funk and disco, like The Temptations ‘Papa was a rolling stone’, and my Guilty Pleasure…

The Very Brief, but Very Brilliant

Sometimes less is very definitely more. The two beats of Maggie May are simply brilliant. Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way similarly doesn’t bother with an introduction, simply a few muted strums before hurling us straight into the bitterness of the lyrics: Loving you wasn’t the right thing to do… The Beatles don’t even give us that with Help!. These are all seemingly sad, slightly bittersweet songs, and my chosen favourite certainly continues the theme. It’s the longest of these at nearly 9 seconds, but it’s definitely inspired by Maggie May…

The Soulful & Funky…

Stevie Wonder features strongly here, as does Michael Jackson. Curtis Mayfield’s blinding Move On Up is pretty much unmissable, and I’ve always loved loved loved this one. I’m probably committing all kinds of sins for not looking up James Brown, but a personal favourite introduction followed by just about a perfect song, comes from The Reverend Al Green…

The Big Piano Intro

These came back to me so thick and fast that they came to require their own category. For a starter…, and then apparently inspired by that killer introduction, this. As a Queen fan I shouldn’t ignore Freddie Mercury, but I am going to. On a similarly epic scale, The Boomtown Rats topped the UK charts for what seemed like months with this cheery piece of timeless pop about a classroom massacre…

As I admitted right at the start, I’ve omitted things like The Stone Roses, The Smiths, Madonna’s Ray of Light and countless others. I’d love to be held to account for my omissions. Please let me know your favourites, dear readers. But let me leave you with perhaps (at least for today) my true and actual favourite.

Nina Simone sings a capella, with a voice so rich and soulful it could melt ice at 100 yards. It’s absolutely perfect, every breath, every pause. It seems ever-so-slightly mournful, such that when she announces “…and I’m feelin’ good” we can scarcely believe her. We’ve barely an instant to reflect when in comes the band. The brass and bass belting out that descending motif, interspersed with rippling high-hat cymbals and shimmering repeated piano chords. It’s powerful yet fragile, and her voice is sublime.

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Boing! Boing!

There’s nothing quite like an afternoon of sport where multiple games take place simultaneously, and yesterday’s ‘Survival Sunday’ was no exception. Five teams were in danger of being relegated from the English Football Premiership, but only two would actually go down. The drama across the country was amazing, and the BBC Radio 5 Live commentary, switching between the grounds, captured the tension, jubilation and despair brilliantly. With minutes remaining, goals were going in, fans, players and managers were discovering how their fate was being affected by others. Tremendous.

I’ve supported West Bromwich Albion since I was child in the mid-1970s. At that time Liverpool were dominant in England, winning the League Title 8 times in 11 years. Everyone supported Liverpool in my school. But for some reason, I liked West Brom. I’m not sure if I was just being contrary, but there was something about them that appealed. Perhaps it was the so-called Three Amigos – Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendan Batson – who were a rare sight in English football in the 1970s, three black top-flight players. They regularly suffered abuse from rival fans, but were legends for West Brom. Regis was a brilliant centre-forward, and Cunningham a truly gifted player with silky skills. Future England Captain Bryan Robson, and stalwarts like Ally Brown, John Wile and Derek Statham, not to mention their flamboyant manager Ron Atkinson, made The Baggies a force to be reckoned with.

It seemed for a brief moment in 1978/79 that they might even threaten to challenge the dominance of Liverpool. West Brom were second for most of the season, flirted with the top for a week, and only finished third by losing the last two games of the season. But it was mostly downhill for a long time from there.

West Brom’s supporters have traditionally celebrated goals with hilarious ‘boing boing’ bouncing, and this motif has seemingly been adopted by the club in recent years, by bouncing between the top two tiers of English football; getting promotion from The Championship into The Premiership, only to suffer relegation the following year.

In the era of The Premiership, West Brom have been in the top flight for 5 seasons and relegated 4 times, only surviving in 2005 with ‘the great escape’ on the last day. They were bottom midway through the season, at one point 8 points from safety. On the last day of the season they were still bottom. They won the final game, but still needed other results to help them out.

I remember that afternoon pretty clearly. I was in the garden with the radio on, it was bright, warm and sunny, and my mood swept from resignation to optimism to despair to exhiliration in about 30 minutes. I never want to experience that again.

Typically West Brom play lovely football, but leak goals like a sieve.  This season started in a familiar fashion, as we lost 6-0 to Chelsea on the opening day. However, only a few weeks later there was a glimmer of hope that this season would finally be different, as we beat Arsenal at The Emirates. For a few weeks were dizzy in the Top 5, but by February we were sliding into the Bottom 5, and we sacked our manager.

Roy Hodgson had achieved great things at Fulham, but nothing in a bitter spell at Liverpool. He was appointed with the sole task of Keeping West Brom Up. 13 games later, and we’re only goal difference away from finishing 10th. Hodgson’s record compared to what went before is terrific:

First 9 games: Won 4, Drawn 3, Lost 2. GF 13, GA 16 … a terrific start (15pts/27, 4th in the table)

Next 15 games: Won 3,  Drawn 2, Lost 10. GF 18, GA 31 …oh dear (11pts/45, slumped to 16th)

Hodgson (last 13 games): Won 5, Drawn 6, Lost 2. GF 25 / GA 23 … what a recovery (21pts/39, secure in 10th)

The difference this year has been (apart from The Hodgson Effect), in my mind, down to three  further things…

1. Scoring Goals: in previous seasons, we’ve never scored even a goal a game. This year we’ve scored 56, and only 3 teams have scored more than our 26 goals away from home . Peter Odemwingie scored 15 goals on his own, more than any player from Liverpool, Spurs or Chelsea. According to the Performance Stats, he has been the 7th best player in the entire league.
2. Resilience: we’ve continued to leak goals: indeed we’ve only kept 2 clean sheets in 38 games. But this season we’ve come behind from losing positions to draw 9 times and win 6 games, when in previous years we would have collapsed. Highlights have included winning from behind against Liverpool, and even on the last day of the season, with nothing but pride to play for, we came from 3-0 down against Newcastle with less than 30 minutes to go to draw 3-3.
3. Getting Results against the top teams: During our last Premiership season in 2008/9, we lost all 12 games against the top 6 teams, scoring just 4 goals while conceding 31. Ouch. This season wasn’t brilliant, but it was a big improvement. 2 wins and 4 draws included those great results against Arsenaland Liverpool, and coming from 2-0 against the eventual champions, Manchester United, to gain a 2-2 draw. West Brom were the only team all season to get a point at Old Trafford.

We’ve got work to do next season, but for now I’m basking in the glow of being ‘comfortably mid-table’ and able to enjoy the terrors of the Final Day of The Season in peace.

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