Posted on by JonnyB

JonnyB’s Holiday Snaps – #1 in a series of 3.

As somebody who regards themselves as a profound and thoughtful person, I’d always wanted to visit Lindisfarne. Recently I had found myself questioning a number of my core beliefs, having concluded that Keane were one of the best live acts in the big concert on the radio, and so a bit of spiritual stuff seemed to be in order.

Holy Island, on which the ancient priory is set, lies a mile or so out into the North Sea. The road to the island and the town thereon is accessible twice a day at low tide. Then the sea sweeps in and it’s cut off for five hours or so, the highway – road markings and all – eerily engulfed into the swirling grey water.

Like this.

I wanted to see the island. But I also wanted to see the high tide. So we made a detour.

“Doesn’t it come in quickly?” I observed profoundly, as I took a step back to avoid getting my feet wet.

The LTLP didn’t reply. She was looking out onto the road.

“I’m sure there’s something out there.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“No. There is.”

I looked and, sure enough, I could see a shape in the distance that appeared to be moving. A local fisherman or bait collector, wading waist-high through the water using their expert knowledge to ply their traditional craft. We watched.

He or she was moving towards us. I couldn’t see their waders or wetsuit or whatnot, but they appeared to be carrying something above the level of the water. A lobster pot, I thought. Or a bucket of sea-things.

It was only when they got much closer that I realised that it was an extremely bedraggled elderly Dutch tourist wheeling a bicycle.

By this point a small crowd had formed. People were pointing. One lady was taking photographs. The chap trudged towards us miserably. In fact, the word ‘trudge’ could have been invented for the situation. At around eight inches of depth, he attempted to mount his bicycle and travel the remaining ten feet to dry land on two wheels, which he did in a wobbly, uncertain fashion.

He dismounted next to me, shaking his head in confusion. Water was pouring off him. He made some cursory attempt to stamp and shake the water from his shoes, unsure whether to attempt to retain any semblance of dignity. I half expected him to reach back behind his head and pull a whole fish from his anorak hood.

“You’re a bit wet,” I pointed out.

“Yes,” he agreed.

Conversation stalled a bit after that.

“I think,” he said, “that I will go back to my caravan now.”

We’d seen his transport stationed yards away in the car park. He remounted his bicycle and pedalled unsteadily away.

Posted on by JonnyB

I have returned!!!

But I’m doing my unpacking.

Thank you, thank you, Salvadore for your week’s blogsitting. I sniggered like a girl.

I’ll be back on Monday. It’s odd when you go away for a week and don’t get to see a newspaper, or the news, or any blogs or anything. But I don’t suppose anything major has happened.

I suppose I could write something serious. But then they’d have won, wouldn’t they?

Posted on by JonnyB

Hello. Yes, I am OK, thank you, but currently checking out rural house prices – I hear that Norfolk is nice. Hope you are all OK too.

What I had actually planned for today’s post is now somewhat inappropriate – maybe it will keep. Combined with the fact that I wasted a lot of time in an edit suite (showbiz for “breeze-block-walled basement with a VCR”) watching actors’ improv tapes when all I found out was that I should really get my teeth whitened means that I must bid you all farewell now.

I can, however, give you the top 3 conspiracy theories that I have just made up:-

3. US wanted to move G8 agenda from poverty and climate change to security and terrorism.

2. Support was waning for ID cards.

1. French really really wanted Olympics.

Same time next year?

Posted on by JonnyB

Radio Gaga

I often don’t have much to say. The only place I might ever truly be considered the life and soul of the party would be a wake at a Trappist monastery. And only then if they let me at their homebrew. My career path has gone quite happily from computer programmer (sitting on my own, staring at a computer screen) to senior software analyst (sitting on my own, staring at a computer screen) to freelance writer (sitting on my own, staring out of the window).

So it was with some trepidation that I found myself being interviewed on live radio.

It all began on Friday in the National Railway Museum in York – a fantastic place, and also an absolute bargain as I discovered at the entrance…

ME: (suavely flashing NUS card) Do you do a student discount?

CONFUSED MAN: Er, no. It’s free for everyone.

ME: (suavely putting NUS card away) Good. Thanks very much.

Anyway, en route to the Royal Trains section I found that I had a voicemail message from the BBC. Not a “yes” to the script they’ve been reading for the last seven months (I’m really starting to empathise with John Kennedy Toole these days), but they wanted to interview me on Sunday about another play that I wrote last year.

I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t want to do it. I’d had enough problems doing a pre-recorded interview to go with the original play to the extent that I’d convinced myself afterwards that I’d got my girlfriend’s name wrong and had had to email them and ask them to check. Speaking live to the nation would be many times worse. Secondly, I had begun to see myself as the JD Salinger of pre-school television/minor radio plays and didn’t want to break the enigmatic façade that I had been cultivating. (Note to self – did Salinger ever write about his testicles on the internet?) Finally, I would spend the rest of my time in York worrying about the interview instead of enjoying looking at the Flying Scotsman like I had planned for this romantic break with my girlfriend.

So I phoned back and left a message on the producer’s voicemail to say that I was in York for the weekend and thus unable to make it to the studio. This was both technically and actually a lie as we were coming back on Saturday evening. But it got me off the hook.

Then, whilst taking a short trip down a siding on an actual live steam train my phone went off again. I didn’t want to conduct top-level showbiz negotiations in front of a carriage-full of children who were already staring at me anyway, so I switched it to voicemail. Then, after getting off and politely thanking the driver I checked my messages. They could do the interview over the phone. Clever, clever…

My Mum was right. You can’t just tell one lie. You always have to tell another one to cover it up. Then another one. Until you begin to wish that you’d never opened her damn make-up bag in the first place.

So, I started concocting tales of intermittent laryngitis. Of being on the moors out of mobile contact. Of being at a funeral. (Note to self – check they actually have funerals on Sundays. If they query it say it’s a Sikh custom. If they query that say you meant Jewish. Or just say enigmatically that it’s what he would have wanted).

But a little nagging voice (my Mum would call it my conscience) said that despite taking 209 days and counting to read fewer than 7000 words the BBC had been quite good to me. That I should repay a little of that by answering a few questions. So I rang the producer…

“Er, I thought I was away all weekend. But I’m not.”

Not put off by my obvious lack of eloquence he told me what time to get to the studio. Which is how I found myself sitting in the BBC reception area checking my pre-prepared, spontaneous answers (“How I got into writing”, “How I got the idea for the play”, “How to get out of doing live radio interviews”). After all, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail (©1998 Glenn Hoddle).

Just as I was called into the studio the producer casually dropped a bombshell…

“We’ve just lost an item so we’ve got some time to fill…”

I’d like to think that I was all right to begin with. My pre-prepared, spontaneous answers felt more spontaneous than pre-prepared. OK, so I wasn’t Alistair Cooke in his heyday (honeyed tones talking informatively, wisely, expansively and wittily on a cornucopia of topics), but then again I wasn’t Alistair Cooke now (completely silent).

Then we moved from the subject of writing to the general events of the day. Still with quite a lot of time to fill. Why had I started the papers that morning with the Funday Times instead of the Observer editorial? Why? My self-image that despite being quite quiet, I was still an erudite, interested, socially aware individual able to converse with anyone about anything was disappearing fast. I began to realise what it must be like to wake up and find that you’re David Beckham.

I hadn’t willed a clock hand to move round so much since double French, and with each slow second came a grudging respect for Vanessa Feltz, Chris Evans, even Terry Christian – anyone who can just keep talking about anything. My insightful, incisive, yet also time-filling answer on whether Steven Gerrard would stay at Liverpool?

“I hope so.”

I began to pray for any interruption…

INTERVIEWER: “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to stop you there as the news desk need to fill the rest of our time with a report about a deadly fire at an orphanage.”

ME: “That’s fantastic!”

Finally, finally, my ordeal was over and I slunk out of the studio. Back to sitting on my own, staring, I think. Or maybe I could join that monastery.