CLOSE
mini-down mini-up

Category Archives: Worlds Shortest Radio Show

Worlds Shortest Radio Show

One of the world’s famous records. And yet we never hear it.

It was the fastest-selling single ever and the first to sell more than two million copies, making it best-selling single of all time. It’s still the fourth. Only Elton John’s Diana version of Candle in the Wind, Band Aid and Bohemian Rhapsody, given a second wind following the death of Freddie Mercury, have outsold it. […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

Hello, it’s Lucinda Hyphen-Hyphen from the Covent Garden Soup Company…..

…..I was just wondering if you were free to DJ at our Christmas party”. Her crisp, Sloaney tones suggested that this would be a very posh do. But the fact that it was at their factory in Harlesden suggested that it might be wise to fill my boxes with reggae. The party-goers, many from the […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

It hasn’t happened since 1888….

…..and apparently it won’t happen again for another 25,000 years. But today in America, Thanksgiving has fallen on the same day as the Jewish feast of Hanukkah. So let’s celebrate with a 60s novelty hit that’s both typically Jewish and very American. I am neither Jewish nor American but have a great love of both […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

We all know what a MILF is.

But my friend Vanessa, whose daughter is pregnant, tells me she wants to be a GILF. In the papers this weekend, we learned that Mick Jagger’s daughter Jade is, like Vanessa, expecting her first grandchild. And that raises a rather grisly question: Does Sir Michael now have ambitions to be the world’s first GGILF? Oh […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

Annie Mae Bullock is 74 today.

That’s neither a name nor an age you’d associate with Tina Turner but tempus fugit. She became a zillion-selling solo superstar in the 1980s but I think she did her best work with the despicable Ike. His history as a drug-abusing wife-beater is well-known. In fact one of the best TV lines ever was in […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

She said her dad was “a photographer”…

….but he didn’t have a shop or a studio. I doubt he even owned a camera. Whenever I called to take his daughter out, his firm handshake and vague aura of menace suggested a somewhat shadier occupation. They were a lovely family and I seemed to be the only one who had any suspicions about […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

Sunday night at at this particular bar…..

…..was jazz-funk night and the DJ played all the latest US imports. When he went on holiday, I was asked to stand in, but I didn’t have a jazz-funk collection like his. However, I reasoned, he wouldn’t have a dreadful old singalong collection like mine, so I brought two boxes of these instead. I put […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

But wasn’t Dr. Who always a bit of a joke?

Taken seriously by no-one over the age of ten. And even then, only by the geekiest ten-year olds. Well, you wouldn’t think so this morning as the BBC celebrates the 50th Anniversary of what is now the considered to be a serious drama. It was generally ridiculed rather than revered with things like this chart-topping […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

There’s really only one track you can play this morning…..

….as the world commemorates the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK. When I was a child, this tragedy was still quite recent. And because he was a Catholic of Irish descent, the people of “my community” took it very badly. In many Catholic households, a framed picture of the former president hung alongside those […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header

People say he’s “re-invented” himself

But he hasn’t. Rod Stewart is just doing what he’s always done. He’s singing songs, and singing them brilliantly. He was always a great interpreter of other people’s songs, like First Cut is The Deepest and Handbags & Gladrags. And he’s just kept doing it. Yes, he was spectacularly naff in the 80s, living in […]

Paul-Burke-Web-Blog-Archive-Header