It's Not What You Think (18 page)

10 Dudley Moore (
The Big Breakfast
)

  9 Jools Holland (
Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush
)

  8 Michael Caine (
TFI Friday
)

  7 Paul McCartney (
TFI Friday
)

  6 The Stones (made a documentary movie with them in the States)

  5 Cher (I once spent twelve hours in bed with her shooting some skits)

  4 Helen Mirren (another sketch for
TFI
)

  3 Peter O’Toole (
TFI Friday
)

  2 U2 (several times, two notably—more about those later)

  1 The Dude (Radio Radio)

Sara had now moved down to London
and we’d rented ourselves a flat just off the Camden Road. We couldn’t have been happier, we were back together and still very much in love.

Originally from Buckinghamshire, Sara already knew loads of people in London, including her best friend who lived just down the road from us in a mansion block in Swiss Cottage. She was thrilled to be back within spitting distance of her old pal and had no problem when it came to finding a job in news, securing a position even before she arrived; not only was she highly intelligent but she had a beautiful announcing voice as well. On top of this she spoke no fewer than five languages—three of them fluently! Alas, though, London and our new lives would ultimately prove to be too much for our relationship and within a year Sara and I would go our separate ways. I would continue to dive head first into my career while Sara went to live in France via a brief spell in Norwich of all places.

For the time being, however, life both at work and at home continued to be exciting and stimulating, although it was quickly becoming evident that, as a business concern, Radio Radio was about as much use as a glove puppet without a hand up its bottom. It was becoming ever more apparent that nobody either knew or cared about satellite radio—and probably never would. It was also clear that we were mostly
broadcasting to ourselves, a fact that didn’t sit well with some of the more well-known presenters—one in particular as I was about to find out.

In those first few weeks I had impressed my new bosses enough to be given a contract and was now on twice what I had been for presenting in Manchester for producing in London. With my new title of junior producer and more money, came more responsibility: I would now be solely responsible for the production of several of our shows.

I have highlighted the word ‘production’ because this can mean many different things depending on the situation. With some shows there’s little or nothing to produce, the DJ knows exactly what he’s doing and anyone trying to help will only end up getting in his way. The most useful thing for a producer to do in this case is to keep as low a profile as possible.

This was one such show.

The DJ concerned was more than capable to say the least when it came to being on the radio. He was and still is an extremely well-respected name in broadcasting—a legend in fact—but at Radio Radio he knew no one was listening and even though, like everyone else, he was being paid a small fortune to work there, he was not happy—this is not what he did, he was not on the radio to broadcast to no one regardless of the size of the cheque. He was also a realist. He hated bullshit and everything and everyone that went with it.

So I’m sat behind the glass in the control room one night and it’s like one o’clock in the morning. Now the week before I had met a man called Tim Blackmore, a very highly respected producer and another legend in the radio world. Tim was the person who taught me the mark of a good producer was to understand the person they were working with and then provide them with whatever they needed to perform at their best. If all that amounted to was giving them space and grabbing them a cup of coffee every now and again—then so be it. My guy was one of these guys: apart from a polite hello when he arrived and a genial goodbye when he left, plus the aforementioned odd coffee in between, there was nothing else he either wanted or needed from me.

I didn’t mind, I was just happy to watch him work. He was a maestro, an economy of words being at the heart of his style. Not that he was lazy, it was just that he could achieve more with less—the finest of arts. But then
there’s less and then there’s even more than less before less becomes so little it’s nothing—and this is what was about to happen.

The Dude (not his real name, but one I have chosen to use for the purposes of this story) puts on an album track and then tells me he’s going to the loo—‘nothing strange there’, I thought, and as the album track was by no means short, everything looked like it was going to be OK. When the track reached halfway, after three or four minutes, we were still OK and although I wasn’t yet concerned, I was beginning to become a little intrigued as to where my guy was.

Three minutes later and I’m very concerned. If anything went wrong on this show that I could have stopped but didn’t, I guessed that I was gonna get fired—and me getting fired was not an option.

Now bearing in mind my guy and his ‘style’ I am still reluctant to do anything about the situation because he is the man and he knows this game inside out and one second before the song ends—you just know he’s gonna slide back into the studio, slip back down into his chair before opening the microphone and no doubt giving us all another few choice words of infinite wisdom. If I was to do anything to stop that happening—getting in his way, ruining his karma or doing anything else that might put him off—I would be guilty of upsetting his cool, a crime for which he had been known to go absolutely ballistic.

I was frightened, I have to admit. I was frightened of the situation and I was frightened of The Dude. I was so confused as to what to do, I didn’t do anything at all and as the track faded out, the transmission monitor fell silent. I had failed to avert the ‘dead air’ situation that was now occurring. There was now nothing on the radio and, as I’m sure you’re aware, this is not generally what the radio is for. The shit was about to hit the fan, the vast majority of it I suspected heading right my way. The Dude was still nowhere to be seen. After several seconds, during which I was frozen with the prospect of my impending doom—the next track started—at which point I began to feel physically sick…

Alright, so now the ship had begun to sink, we had approached the iceberg and I, as captain, had failed to take any evasive action whatsoever. Anything that happened from now on would be all my fault. I had to do something and quickly—suddenly all my feelings of hesitation and
uncertainty abated—replaced instantly by pure fear, the fear of imminent unemployment and a one-way ticket back to nowhere.

I flung open the control room door and sprinted off down the corridor towards the toilets where I hurtled through the door, panting with anxiety, I scanned the urinals—they were all vacant, ‘Of course they are, you dick,’ I heard a voice in my head shouting—‘no one has an eight-minute piss!’ I rounded the corner past the sinks to check out the cubicles, skidding on the tiles as I did so.

All the cubicle doors were either open or ajar, all that is except one…Upon further inspection I could see the red mark on the lock signifying that this cubicle was indeed engaged and seeing as there was only me and The Dude in the whole of the building, I felt safe to assume it was probably The Dude that was inside.

I stopped and stared at the door, suddenly there was an eerie calm as I noticed cigarette smoke rising gently from inside.

‘Shit, fuck, fuck, shit, what do I do now, what in Christ’s name do I say? This is ridiculous.’ My thoughts were running wild, the music from the next track of the album taunting me as it piped through the crappy old speaker mounted in the ceiling.

I stood there stock still, staring at the door, wanting to cry but at the same time wondering what the hell to do next. Indecision becoming a new habit that I was quickly going to have to break, it was doing me no good at all. Thankfully I didn’t have to procrastinate too long. The Dude was about to speak.

‘Hey kid…is that you?’ he drawled.

‘Er…yes, yes it is,’ I replied (who the fuck else did he think it was?)

‘I know why you’re here,’ he went on. ‘You’re here to get me off this john and back into that studio. Well, let me tell you, I ain’t goin’. There’s nobody listening out there and that’s not what I do, so I’m gonna stay in here for a while until I feel like coming out again.’

I had to tell him the score—this was a monumentally important moment to me.

‘But you can’t,’ I said, ‘you just can’t—you’ve got to get back in there.’ There was a pause before another drawl emanated from inside the cubicle.

‘Give me one good reason why I should come out, kid, and I promise you, as sure as eggs is eggs, if you can I will, but here’s the thing—there
ain’t none. You know that and I know that, this whole station is a crock of bull.’

Of course he had a point and if I’d been him I might well have thought the same thing. He didn’t need to do this for a second but I definitely needed him to do this and I needed him to do it pretty fucking quickly. When all else fails, how about the plain old truth? This is all I had left to bargain with.

‘Dude, if you don’t get back in that studio and say something, I will lose my job and I really need this job—I need it like you have no idea.’

Again there was a pause, maybe five or ten seconds and then:

‘Ahhh—shoot, come on kid, don’t lay that one on me, now you’re making me feel bad.’

‘I don’t mean to make you feel bad, Dude, honest I don’t but it’s the truth. If you don’t come out they’ll sack one of us and it isn’t going to be you, it’s going to be me and then I’ll be fucked.’ I wasn’t exaggerating, I was deadly serious.

Again I awaited a response.

‘Shit kid…I didn’t ever think you were gonna say something like that…do you really think they’d do such a thing?’

‘In a heartbeat,’ I replied

‘Man…’ he sighed.

I could have said something else at this point but there was nothing left to say. All I could do now was hope The Dude would take pity on me. I anxiously awaited his verdict with regards to my fate. After a few seconds I could hear the sound of various activities taking place behind the door. The chink of a belt buckle, the zipping up of a fly, along with the random grunts and groans that usually accompany such a process, culminating in an explosion of water flushing down the pan.

Seconds later the lock snapped open and out strutted The Dude. He was still in no mood to be hurried but I couldn’t help feeling things were looking up, perhaps as a result of my little speech. I had been straight with him, a trait I knew he would appreciate and though he was a complex man, he was by no means a bad man. His beef was with the bosses and the terminal plight of the radio station, not with me, a junior member of staff and my fight for survival.

Without looking at me he went over to the sinks to splash his hands and face with water. After checking himself in the mirror he turned in my direction, he had a little speech of his own.

‘Alright kid,’ said The Dude resolutely, ‘you got me. Go back to the studio, I’ll be there in a minute.’

‘Before the end of the track?’ I chirped excitedly.

‘Sure, before the end of the track—now go and chill—and hey, none of this never happened unless somebody says it did and even if they do, it still didn’t happen—the lock on the john got stuck, you came to get me and somewhere in between we figured it out.’

At that moment I could have kissed him. Before the end of the second track, the Dude was back in front of his microphone in time for the next link.

As it turned out, no one noticed the gap in between the tracks or even the fact that both songs were from the same album.

The Dude was right. There really was no one listening.

10 Marcus Aurelius—
Meditations

  9 Deepak Chopra—
The Path to Love

  8 The Dalai Lama—
The Art of Happiness

  7 Bertrand Russell—
The Conquest of Happiness

  6 Alain de Botton—
Essays on Love

  5 Charles Dickens—
A Christmas Carol

  4 Ernest Hemingway—
The Old Man and The Sea

  3 Lao Tsu—
The Way

  2 Bernie Brillstein—
Where Did I Go Right?

  1 Sam Goldwyn—
The Goldwyn Touch

Inevitably Radio Radio tanked as we all suspected it would
and with it the hopes and dreams of satellite radio for ever, but hey, this was London so we had a party anyway. This city really was a strange place.

After Radio Radio disbanded, all the staff went their separate ways whereas I just went the one way—back to the flat Sara and I had rented in Camden. Only three months into our new lives in London and once again Sara found herself in the company of a boyfriend who didn’t have a job, but as always she continued to be brilliant, beautiful and totally behind me 100 per cent. She helped me prepare some new CVs, I sent them off and rekindled my old pastime of staring at our phone, willing it to ring. I had learnt a lot in the last couple of months, had mixed with some of the greats of my profession, but once again I was out of work and felt things going cold. I wanted more of the same and I was willing to do practically anything to help make that happen.

Some time during that night in the toilets back at Radio Radio I had obviously made an impression on The Dude and little did I know he was now out there working his magic very much on my behalf.

The old BBC Radio London had recently closed down and was to be relaunched shortly as a new, more cosmopolitan, forward-thinking station. It would also receive a new name—GLR, Greater London Radio. The Dude was to be part of the debut line up and the new boss who was
looking for fresh people with a fresh new vibe had asked him if he knew of anyone who might fit the bill. Along with a couple of other names The Dude had very kindly mentioned me, as a result of which I was contacted and asked to come in for an interview.

Wow, this really was something—I now had a shot at working for the BBC.

To get into the BBC was no mean feat, especially as a producer. It usually involved some kind of university education or at least a stint at broadcast school. To circumvent this type of route was almost unheard of but if the BBC were happy to see me, I was more than happy to see them.

When I said I was asked in for an interview, I ought to clarify that the BBC don’t have interviews so much, they have a process called ‘boarding’. It’s one of the typical BBC phrases that still exist to this day, like holidays are always referred to as ‘leave’, a surefire way of spotting a BBC employee and the use of which for some reason still makes me giggle.

To be ‘boarded’, a potential candidate must face an actual ‘board’ of people who will cross-examine them with a combination of different questions. It’s a very good idea that works well and with the make-up of the board often being a huge source of intrigue itself.

‘Have you heard who’s on the board yet?’ the whispers soon start to circulate.

The members of the board are usually cast from various departments from across the BBC and even the top jobs and internal moves are still determined in this traditional way, from the Director General all the way down to researchers and broadcast assistants. I was currently at the ‘all the way down’ level but this was a job with the most respected broadcaster in the world and I was preparing to give it my best shot.

My board was to take place at the radio station which was located in Marylebone High Street, a very swanky part of town, posh shops with the clientele to match, with lots of actors and other showbiz types residing in the area, many of them in the pretty mews houses which lay hidden off the main drag.

On the day of my appointment I had decided to walk there to help clear my head, the route from my house meant I could take in Regents Park along the way, the perfect place for a quiet think and for me to contemplate
what kind of questions they might ask me. The park, with its mighty trees and acres of green grass, helped calm me down and gain some perspective. I’m always exasperated at how few people make use of these amazing spaces and their beautiful surroundings.

As I arrived at reception, my peaceful preparation had worked—I was relaxed and focused, a good place to be. I was, however, minus one essential item.

‘Don’t you have a tie?’ said the guy who was due to go in before me. His name was John Revell, who happened to be the second person I had met after Carol on my first day at work at Radio Radio. John had previously worked as an in-store DJ at Virgin Megastore before moving on to the doomed satellite broadcaster. We had hit it off immediately that first morning whilst struggling to assemble a Revox tape machine. Neither of us had the first idea what we were doing and it resulted in one of those situations where you can barely talk for laughing.

‘No, why, do you think I need one?’ I replied, suddenly feeling on edge.

‘This is the BBC, they like all that, you gotta show you know the appropriate thing to do—the etiquette—and right now wearing a tie is probably pretty much up there at the top of the list.’

‘Shit, fuck—fuck, shit!’ He was right, I thought I had looked perfectly acceptable in jeans, a shirt and jacket but I had to put a tie on—it wasn’t worth the risk. I wasn’t going to not get this job because I wasn’t wearing a tie. I had the rest of my life not to wear a tie.

‘You can borrow my tie if you like,’ he offered kindly.

‘But don’t you need it?’

‘Yes, but they always take five minutes to discuss things after seeing someone, so you can have it after I’ve been in.’

‘Gee thanks man.’ What a star.

In he went and twenty minutes or so later he was out again. John said he thought it had gone well and that the guys in there seemed decent enough; he said it wasn’t as tough as he thought it was going to be and he advised me just to be myself and let them know how much I loved radio and wanted the job. He then duly took his tie off and handed it over.

‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Break a leg.’

The board was made up of three people—the new boss and two other suits, except they weren’t suits, they were smart casual—quite cool for
execs, all with a different line in questioning, serious but not solemn. My boarding got under way. The questions, few of which I had expected, came thick and fast. I’m sure I was way off the mark with most of my answers but I kept the bullshit down to a minimum whilst cranking up the enthusiasm to maximum. Towards the end of the session, their mood had lightened and I began to sense a feeling that they might even like me. Could I really be in with a chance of working for the BBC?

I finished with a flurry of how and where I had come from, experiencing the relative freedom and creativity of commercial radio which I suggested could be useful if married with the professionalism and resources of the BBC—it was just what the corporation needed. In my mind the Beeb presented broadcasters and producers with endless opportunities but was lacking in ideas whereas commercial radio was basically the opposite. This final argument, though a little audacious, brought a smile to their faces—always a good time to shut up—I decided to leave it there.

Matthew Bannister, the boss, thanked me for my time, congratulated me on my energy and positivity and informed me that they’d ‘let me know’. As I rose from my chair and turned to the door I wanted to punch the air—I may not get the job but I couldn’t have done any better and that’s all a person can ever ask of themselves—but then…

…just as I was about to press down the handle on the door to ‘escape’ along with remembering to breathe, which I had momentarily forgotten how to do, Matthew called me back.

‘Er, just one more thing…’

‘Shit—fuck, what was it? What was he going to ask me now? Please don’t let it be a sneaky last-minute question designed to trip me up,’ I thought to myself. I turned and smiled through gritted teeth, attempting to appear nonchalant but filled with a terrible sense of foreboding.

‘Sure, what is it?’ I squeaked unconvincingly.

‘Err…is that the same tie the last guy had on?’

Ha ha, very bloody funny, the three of them were in stitches.

‘No,’ I replied with a huge sigh of relief and a relieved smile. ‘Who on earth would be so stupid as not to turn up for a BBC board without a tie?’

Two days later I got the job, as did John—the tie was a winner—and so were we.