Dyer straits

I was meant to be on a train to Hull right now, but thankfully they were all cancelled. Not because I didn't want to go to Hull - I've never actually been - but because I really would rather be in the office. So here I am.

Anyhoo, let's talk about someone who never fails to irritate me and of whom I've picked the vainest, most stupid and utterly embarrassing picture I could find: Danny Dyer.

For those of you who don't know who that is - and for that I applaud you - he's a dreadful mockney actor who's never got beyond dreadful films about football hooligans and true life docs on Bravo about the same.

It's not that he's not a bad actor, although he's not the best. It's that he takes himself far, far too seriously. Have you ever read any interviews with him? He peppers his speech with mockneyisms, the latest 'street' language and epithets, all the while making out what a geezer his is, and what a brilliant actor he is who's always in demand. And this from the man who says he turned down EastEnders. He should be so lucky. Now he writes a column for Zoo magazine. Oh the glamour.

But the bitter truth is he's getting a bit long in the tooth for all this. He's not really a little bit woo! or a little bit whey! He's a cock, and the wrong side of 30 to be swaggering around like you're the man.

Can you tell I find him utterly absurd? Feel much better now.

Keeping the dream alive

Funerals are funny things. By turns they're devastating, highly emotional, give pause for thought and are hilarious, both intentionally and unintentionally.

The father-in-law's went without a hitch. Everyone's lips were quivering on arrival at the crem, but what did it for me was seeing how many people were there; all the old men in their golf club ties and blazers made me realise that I'd better join an association soon or mourners at my funeral will be severely lacking. He was a very popular man and will be much missed.

The service was lengthy, with hymns and despite him not being an overtly religious man was packed with prayer. I wouldn't have wanted to be the person who's mobile went off. Everyone turned around and glared but the culprit, whoever it was, did a good job of
being nonchalant.

At the reception later endless old bids I'd heard of but never met made a beeline and talked all about their dead husbands. Mother-in-law looked little and bewildered. I heard snippets of conversations along the lines of:

Buck-toothed woman to ex-teacher: Is you wife here?

Ex-teacher: She died 10 years ago.

Buck-toothed woman: No, your current wife...

Ex-teacher: We're no long together. She was doing up a house on the other side of the island and one day she went there and didn't come back.

Buck-toothed woman: Is that Rosemary over there...(darts off)

It all passes the time.

So now life goes on.

It's snowing here.

On Pluto

Already this morning I've had a Marmite crumpet and a cheese scone. A rhubarb yoghurt and two cups of tea, not to mention to tumblers of water and a banana and it's not even 10 o'clock yet.

I'm terribly hungry in the mornings. But that's good because after all, breakfast fuels the furnace for the day. I don't know about you, but once I left home I never used to have breakfast at all. I couldn't even entertain the idea of food so early in the morning. It was only when I went back to college to do my journalism course I thought I'd better eat something as I didn't know when the next chance to eat would come.

I remember that first morning: hot buttered toast with Rose's lime marmalade. I kept this up for the duration of the course.

I don't know what I was thinking. As chronicled before around these parts, I don't even like jam. Okay, marmalade, but it's still sweet and I'm really not a sweet tooth in the a.m. I'm far more savoury. Why didn't I have Bovril on it, or peanut butter? I've not touched lime marmalade since.

I remember when you'd go on holiday and one of the breakfast choices was 'continental', i.e., no bacon or egg. It usually meant chewy croissants or a sweet roll and little pots of nasty jam. There wasn't much savoury about it and that always put me off. But that seems to have changed now. I love those German and Scandanavian buffets. That sort of continental is my breakfast of choice.

You can't beat a fry-up of course, with lashings of Daddies brown sauce, and there's always room for a bacon or sausage sandwich in my life. But if I had to choose between serial or bread and cheese, it would be the latter that got my vote. Cereal's a bore and a chore.

Thank God our breakfast option are more varied than they used to be. Now you can pop into any Pret, Eat or Greggs and have a ham and mozzarella croissant (still can't say it properly) or a cheese and onion pasty straight from the oven. I'm all for it. I could eat breakfast foods all day. Has anyone been to a Leon? What do they do?

Anyway, that's it from me until next week. Enjoy your breakfast.

Jeremy Irons, Derek Fowlds, Holly Aird

How often do you change your sheets?

That's a shock question, isn't it? Probably not as often as you think you do. I should say we're very regular - better than we used to be certainly. I think I was jolted into reality when a friend told me he didn't change his sheets at university for two years. And he was entertaining more often than not. I felt bilious and went home and did a lot of laundry. I've carried on doing that ever since.

Of course having a cleaner who does your ironing helps. I know it's horribly middle class but we don't want to do it so we're happy to pay someone else to. She didn't start off ironing but she offered. She likes it. The nutjob. But she's good at it and she does sheets, and as we all know there's nothing quite so comforting as slipping into freshly ironed clean sheets.

We've never been good at cleaning or ironing. Mrs F-C has ironed perhaps twice in 19 years. Thank God for today's low temperatures. It's pure laziness. I'm sure my parents balk at coming to see us because they think our house is a tip. When I told my mum we had moths some years back she immediately said 'it's dust'. Translation: you don't clean enough.

Don't get me wrong; we don't live in squalor as those who have been to F-C Mansions will testify. But of course there's the odd forgotten corner that never sees a broom and probably never will. I hoovered under our bed the other day. Apart from finding six pairs of slippers, numerous cat toys and a bolero cardigan with leg-o-mutton sleeves, a Starsky collar and Punch & Judy appliques on it, there was enough dust to open a dust shop under there. Note to self: do that more often. In fact, no. Note to cleaner: do that more often.

I don't think it would cross her mind actually. She's a terrible corner cutter, but we mustn't grumble. Rather her than me. It's a dirty job, etc., etc.

Whistle and I'll come to you

So while we put all thoughts of funerals to back of our minds until next week, let's talk about whistling in song.

I was very pleased to discover something new today which is all whistling and pretty marvellous. Where The Rainbow Ends by the Tony Hiller Orchestra made itself known on my ipod, as I was giving my new Dutch pop hits of the 1960s CD a first listen. It's whistling throughout, in a semi-sinister way, something I'm all for, and sounds like it should be from a detective show or a film. So then I thought more about whistling.

But, I mused, when you think 'whistling in song', there's only one person who really springs to mind. That's right. It's Roger Whittaker.

Now, I'm a big a fan of gems like I Don't Believe In If Anymore and Durham Town (The Leaving) as the next man, but what or who else is out there?

There's 1969 No.2 I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman by Whistling Jack Smith (the clue's in the name), but it's been hijacked by an advert and therefore it's over. There's the cutesy naive bangwagonesque Roger Miller Sixties smash England Swings, there's the theme to Twisted Nerve, which someone walked by my living room window whistling once and it made my nerves twist, and er, there I've drawn a bit of a blank.

But I'm a fan. Help me out. Anyway, here's Tony.

This just in

Not much activity from me this week. The father-in-law expired last night, far sooner than anyone thought, and I'm away a couple of days this week, so blogging's been pushed way down the agenda.

I will however need a very large drink at the end of the week!

Night Of A thousand Drinks

No post yesterday because I was horrifically hungover from the National TV Awards. Luckily I'd booked the day off which was just as well. Usually I find it hard to enjoy these things a) because I'm awfully jaded; and b) because they're always mid-week or earlier and I have to get up in the morning.

But not this time.

I was a guest in a box with a great view right over the main stage. From the moment X Factor winner Joel McElderberry took to the stage to sing Don't Stop Believin' I knew I was in for a good night. That's the danger of free drinks. Consquently I don't really remember much else about the ceremony except Dermot O'Dreary was his usual ultrabland self and Jedward 'danced' with Vanilla Ice. I was talking through most of it.

Later on, I could be found slurring all over everyone. Poor Ken Barlow. I think he was backing away with his manbag over his face. I'd seen most of the attendees before, all except Jordan. She's a remarkably pretty woman, so tiny. But the tan and the dark hair have got to go. But I'm still going cold after remembering discussing the state of British drama with Shameless actress Annabelle Apsion of all people. I could barely string a sentence together.

But I actually had a super time. All I remember is staggering out the door to get a taxi. I could barely walk, let alone walk in a straight line.

So back to real life now, and because it's Friday, here's some music:

The marvellous forgotten Fad Gadget with Back To Nature

Don't call me baby!

We all know society's gone to the dogs, but apart from 'mate' or 'love', people don't really call each other anything in lieu of a name very much anymore do they, and a lot of people object to event that.

Not me. I want more of it. But I want to revive the things I heard in my childhood. I mean, when was the last time you heard a station porter call a sixtysomething woman 'duchess'? Or hear someone who didn't know how to act around a black bus driver call him 'captain'? I could be wrong, but it seems to be a practice that's dying out.

Can you imagine calling your any of your friends 'squire'? It makes you sound like you own a Romford timber yard. It's ludicrous to even think it. But it's a shame, as things like that always make me chuckle. I'd be thrilled if the man in the garage called me that.

Let's start a revival. I want shop assistants in their twenties to call me 'flower'. I want to hear barmaids calling customers 'duckie'. I want dads to call their daughters 'princess' and husbands to call their wives 'queen'. I want more 'hens', more 'pets'.

It's gentle, it's friendly, it's affectionate.

Any more I've missed out?

Another 'world'

When you think of the term 'world music', what do you think of? Peter Gabriel hand-jiving in shirtsleeves with Youssou N'dor? African highlife music on in the background at the veggie co-op round the corner from your student house? Perhaps you think of Andy Kershaw extolling the virtues of a Malawian bongo player in the days before he was stalking his wife on the Isle of Man, or it might just be the warming Heinz tomato soup sounds of Ladysmith Black Mazambo (sic)?

Unfortunately, so do I. Not that it's awful or boring, as I do like some of it. I mean, you can hear the highlife influences in Jimmy The Hoover's Tantalise clear as a bell. But why does it have to be like this?

To me, world music shouldn't just be about Damon Albarn worthily playing the lute with a bunch of tribesman in some dustbowl banana republic with a five-page report about how marvellous it all is in Observer Music Monthly; it should be about music from all around the world, whatever it is. Not just traditional stuff but pop too. We should be encouraged to enjoy stuff from Holland (Shocking Blue), Brazil (Os Mutantes), France (Serge Gainsbourg), or Greece (Aphrodite's Child).

In the spirit of this, I'm currently enjoying a fantastic three-CD Irish showband collection - all the hits and more - and a great compilation of Japanese girl singers from the Sixties.

Anyhoo, what I'm trying to say is, where does one draw the line? When is world music not world music? Is it just traditional instruments and songs or is it pop too?

While we ponder this vitally important question, here's Germany's Roy Black - surely the Fatherland's own Engelburt Humperdinck - with the very schlager-y Dein Schonstes Geschenk. It's got a children's choir in it, though those dollybirds in hotpants must have been added for light entertainment value by the producer.

Are You A Gleek?

After much deliberation, we finally watched Glee.

For those who don't know what this is, it's the US TV sensation about a High School choir, or Glee Club as they call it over there.

I wondered if it might be just too High School Musical and full of young love and showtunes. Well it is full of young love and the odd showtune, but it's more like The X Factor meets Election and it's great. Jane Lynch as the gym teacher is fearsome and the Matthew Morrison who plays the guy whose job it is to turn the Glee Club around is really good too. I urge you to give it a go. I hate to use the word, but it really is a feelgood show.

One song that popped up in the first ep was Journey's Don't Stop Believin'. This song is suddenly all the rage and it's got Glee to thank for it. It appeared in the show, then on American Idol then The X Factor and consequently it's shot up the charts, 27 years after being released. I remember it as a Radio Luxembourg Powerplay and have loved it since.

Here's the Glee cast puttin' on a show with said number. It works so much better as a duet.