Category Archives: Worlds Shortest Radio Show

The service is usually on Saturday morning with the big party on Sunday night. I live in North London. Lots of our friends and our kids’ classmates are Jewish so we’ve been to loads. This record has been played at just about every one. Yes, it’s a great track to kick off the dancing but […]

….but gently. Isn’t that a brilliant album title? And it topped the charts in 1968. When talking about the Irish love of Jim Reeves yesterday, how could I forget Ireland’s greatest ever vocal icon? Bono doesn’t even come close. So it was fish on Fridays, mass on Sundays and between the two, Val Doonican on […]

Welcome to the three staples of a London Irish upbringing in the 60s and 70s. It’s impossible to overstate how popular Jim Reeves was among Irish people of my parents’ generation, yet he was neither Irish nor Catholic. He just seemed to embody the warmth and decency the Irish people admired. And the fact that […]

Welcome to the three staples of a London Irish upbringing in the 60s and 70s. It’s impossible to overstate how popular Jim Reeves was among Irish people of my parents’ generation, and yet was neither Irish nor Catholic. He just seemed to embody the warmth and decency the Irish people admired. And the fact that […]

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Qantas? Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service. Solar? In this context, Sound Of Los Angeles Records. Solar was a disco label who had a string of hits in the early 80s. Their biggest stars were Shalamar and The Whispers, whose original 45s I still have with their distinctive purple labels. […]

A call from Brian Jenkins to say the pickled onions are ready. He peels and pickles them himself at home in Redhill, while watching TV with his family. Their eyes, I imagine, would be streaming so badly, that none of them can actually see the telly but it’s worth it in the end. Lucky recipients […]

……..Dickensian urchins on Kilburn High Road demanding a “Penny for the Guy”. And woe betide anyone who actually gave them a penny. Impromptu and unsupervised firework displays everywhere, rockets tied to cats’ tails and children on the news the following day having lost the tops of three fingers or the sight of one eye. Doesn’t […]

Neil is a builder and very “clever with his hands”. Which makes me educationally sub-normal. I’m comedically clumsy and quite unable to do anything practical. No idea why since I fulfil all the other criteria. Thick set, half Irish, slightly common and brought up among manual labourers. But no, the last part of the genetic […]

Yes, really. I went with my son because that’s where he wants to go and that’s what he wants to do next year. It was fascinating but every time the learned academics mentioned “The Greeks”, I kept thinking of all the North London Cypriots at whose weddings and parties I often DJ’d. Lovely people who […]

I met Noel Gallagher at Shoreditch House last night (one). I don’t know him but we’re both friends with Craig Cash (two). Before The Royle Family, Craig was a DJ on KFM in Stockport and was the first person to play Oasis on the radio. I used to work a lot with Craig and Caroline […]