Oh do be quiet!

All those pictures of Terry Wogan and Chris Evans with their arms around each other are not going to change the nation's minds. No amount of Wogan-endorsed 'you must like this man he really is marvellous give him a chance' pleading will alter the fact that Chris Evans is the wrong choice for the breakfast show.

Last week and this week he seems to be off for a rethink. Too many forced features, trying to make something of nothing and he's just not gentle enough. Everything mentioned has to be spun off into some zany challenge and everything's two-one to him or one-nil to Moira. It's horribly competitive for that time of the day. It's not his fault - that's his style after all. But it's not really working.

The high voice doesn't help though. I really don't think unless he brings it down 12 notches or so he stands much of a chance. Moira Stewart, not known for her humour or sparkling personality, and whose laughs are forced and uncomfortable is a disaster. And bringing that dimbulb sports plank as his sidekick was a mistake too. He's only there to make Evans seem clever and he's bullied like some sort of Karl Piklington figure. I miss Foxy the business girl. Thankfully she's on the Simon Mayo show that replaced Evans' drivetime programme and he's far nice to hear on your way home. A great interviewer and he plays some interesting music too. Evans was never about the music. Though I don't miss him he had a good thing going on drivetime.

I'm not fan of Wogan, but I did listen to the breakfast show while eating my yoghurt and his restful style took me right back to when we had it on in the kitchen when I was growing up. He still plays some of the old records. There's a warm familiarity about it and I find that comforting. I'm not alone.

Simon Mayo should do breakfast. He's mellowed into middle age gracefully and would be just the non-excitable ticket to leave the house to.

My campaign starts here.

Acceptable in the Eighties - but not now

I'm moved to post by ISBW's very entertaining missive about that awful Now That's What I Call 1983 TV programme that was on last Friday. I'm sure this was meant for an early Saturday night slot, but with it being so execrable, ITV sensibly buried it late-night. From this, and other Eighties-skewed disaster like Reborn In the USA and Hit Me Baby One More Time (which I went to, and which also featured Howard Jones), they have surely learned a lesson that revivals of this nature do not make good TV. They just make one want to die of shame and despair.

It has made me embarrassed to be a part of the Eighties, for that is what I am. I love Eighties music, but I think - the marvellous OMD aside, who are far too good to appear on any nostalgia tours or TV shows - I like to remember it all as it was. I learnt my own lesson going to see Fairport Convention a few years back, who disappointed me by not looking like they did in 1969.

I've been asked a million times to go to one of those package tours with Altered Images, ABC, Human League, etc., and, much as I like the music of all those bands, I realise I do not want to see them as they are now. Looking at Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw on the NTWIC83 show has really put the tin lid on it. As ISBW rightly pointed out, Nik Kershaw appears to be modelling himself on Gary Glitter '08, and Howard Jones looked like he now runs an ailing natural shoe company near Glastonbury. Both looked bored and bitter and like they needed the cash. But isn't this the case with any of the bands of this ilk who put themselves through this Hell?

Kim Wilde did herself no favours on those Holland & Barrett ads. Where there was once grace and beauty, pouting in a Breton top to Kids In America was a tubby dullard in ill-fitting mum-wear. No one wants to see her on stage like this.

I'm not keen on the way the Eighties are being remembered. It's all been lumped into one moment in time, whereas those of us who lived through it know better, as do a lot of the better bands of yesteryear. What must younger generations think? It's mortifying.

Enough already, before I burn my boiler suit.

Memory almost full...of crap

While music is indeed the soundtrack to our lives, songs don't just bring back memories of long, hot summers or teenage parties or that job you loathed.

They can also conjure up memories of very small, very dull moments too.

When I heard Fern Kinney's Together We Are Beautiful on the radio recently, it reminded me of waiting for my mum to get ready to take me to an early doors dental appointment. I sat in the hall while it poured with rain. It was miserable and March.

So to celebrate that most pivotal of moments, here are 10 other boring recollections sparked by certain tunes.

She's On It/The Beastie Boys: Reminds me of going to Kingston to buy a new Hoover.

Kiss You All Over/Exile: The plastering in the new extension was finished.

Live It Up/Mental As Anything: Sitting in a launderette while outside it's bright but cold.

A Watcher's Point Of View/PM Dawn: Washing up on a Sunday afternoon as the sun set, thinking about how much I didn't want to go to work the next day.

Wishful Thinking/China Crisis: Having glandular fever.

Le Freak/Chic: Cleaning out the rabbit hutch.

Gotta Pull Myself Together/The Nolans: French class.

Toast/Streetband: Lying on a rug by a radiator.

Silly Thing/Sex Pistols: Having a bath after Blankety Blank.

You Can Do Magic/Limmie & The Family Cookin': Dropping in on a friend's sick aunt, circa 1974.