Guilty after 18 years

Petula Clark

Guilty!

LBC Listening Figures Sabotaged  

A true confession marking 18 years of Creative Radio, and CreativeRadio.com

By the year 2000 we were working privately for a number of companies outside of LBC Radio, where we were both working at the time.

Privately I wrote the quiz for Mike Allen on Talk Radio that just happened to air at exactly the same time as The Pete Murray show on LBC, that I just happened to Produce!

When the quarterly listening figures came in, they showed that Pete’s show was being slaughtered by Mike Allen’s Quiz hour.  I was hauled into the office. The boss said -  ‘What are we going to do about that bloody quiz?’  

I answered, ‘Why don’t we do a quiz of our own?’

‘Yep, good idea, you can write one.’ He replied

‘Will you pay me to write it?’ I asked

‘NO! you can write it in your spare time.’

Something I was not prepared to do, so there was no quiz.  This was the boss, by the way, who, when I told him that Petula Clark was on the show and that she wanted a cab, he said ‘Can’t she get a bus, I mean they stop outside the studio?’ – and he wasn’t joking.

So I continued to do work for Talk radio, whilst working at LBC, and poor old Pete’s figures continued to drop during the Mike Allen Quiz hour.

#Blog Alert I Saw Ron Moody's last performance.

I really enjoyed a celebration of 50 years of Oliver in 2010 at the Theatre Royal in Dury Lane now with Russ Abbot as Fagan, Rowan Atkinson had been the original Fagan.  The ensemble cast of kids were truly brilliant, the use of the stage and the sets and the clever way they played the murder scene all added to a terrific night.  Even though the Theatre was peppered with hardened members of the press we gave the cast a standing ovation and then something truly remarkable happened.

A podium was brought on and Russ Abbot walked up to and said ladies and gentlemen, please will you welcome to the stage of the Theatre Royal Dury Lane - the original Fagan - Mr Ron Moody, and on he came and spent the next twenty minutes talking about his life in showbusiness.  He held us in the palm of his hands, made us laugh, made us cry.  And then something truly remarkable happened.

The band struck up the first chords of 'Pick A Pocket or Two" the kids came on and a very elderly Ron Moody sprang, I kid you not, into life and danced and sung with the children as if he was thirty years younger.
 
I remember turning to Chris who was moaning about missing the last train, and saying "This is Ron Moody's Swan Song, we are watching his very last stage performance."  And again we all stood up and gave Ron a standing ovation.   

Listen to lovely Audioboom version of this blog click here for more

#Blog Alert Carry On Abroad

 I've just spent two weeks in a small, sleepy village that nestles in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain about thirty minutes from Granada and the mighty Alhambra Palaces.

So what has me bragging about my holiday got to do with Podcasting?  Well I thought I would set myself a challenge and try and record and publish a podcast whilst away.

My first challenge was to find a WiFi spot with some decent bandwidth.  My plan was to use a local restaurant but unfortunately their Telefonica - Movistar service wasn't working.  Internet providers have been the most complained about companies in Spain for three years running.  Telefonica Movistar offers a blistering 'UP TO' 4 mega byte download service, and 1 mega byte upload -  but today a fat nothing.

It's worth mentioning that if you are planning to continue to Podcast when you are away from base in most European cities you should be able to find reasonable internet services.  Places like Granada have fibre optic cable companies but out in the rural areas certainly Spain falls well behind even the paltry service found in the UK.

No worry I can use 4G - I looked at the local map and discovered that the nearest town - Motril offered 4G.  Mmmm well, I not quite sure where because all I could find was 3G or nothing.

Never mind let's forget about the task of uploading my audio - I thought I would get down to the business of recording.  I just need somewhere quiet and with a reasonable acoustic sound.

Well if you have ever stayed in a Mediterranean house, you will know that marble floors and wooden or metal shutters at the window make recording a challenging process.  What I needed was a quiet small place with carpet and soft furnishings.  The solution was obvious.

I took a trip to the underground car park and got in the passenger seat of the hire car, waited for a neighbour to burn rubber driving up the ramp out of the garage and with my trusty new iRig Pro with digital interface and iRig Recorder App for iPhone I made a recording,  Horrible to edit and a lack of an undo button was very frustrating. But I think it sounded pretty good technically.

CLIP

Now all I have to do is upload on 3G and I am published, well I tried for more than three hours to upload a small - just over a minute file and failed miserably - so consoled myself with a Vodka that at £4.20 a litre softens the misery that most Spanish face using Movistar.

 *Facua 

#Blog Alert Titter Ye Not

a long, long time ago, well 1989 in a smoky nicotine stained studio just off Fleet Street, I invited Frankie Howerd onto The Pete Murray Show.  Listen to this Blog here He, Frankie, was for some god forsaken reason.  I imagine a lack of cash, doing a one-man show in London.

Most of you probably remember Frankie as that gregarious comedian best known for saying:

"Titter Ye Not" and forever eyeing up nubile young ladies breasts in the BBC show 'Up Pompeii"   

I thought, what a hoot to have this legendary comedian in on the show.  Well it all started going pear-shaped when Cath the Programme Assistant came into the studio and exclaimed. "Eeee won't come down." She was northern by the way.  It turned out that Frankie had completely blanked her in reception, pursed his lips and returned to his coffee, ignoring her pleas to follow her down to the studio.

So a plan was hatched and young Chris was sent up to bring Mr Howerd to the studio.  And Frankie duly trotted down after Chris and then slumped himself in front of me.

I said a cheery - "Good morning Mr Howerd" 

"Mmmmmm" was the reply.

Oh I thought to myself, not such a hoot then. This had all the makings of a radio disaster.  We sat in silence as he waited to be ushered into the live studio.  I was strangely drawn to his hair, that was reflecting in the bare florescent strip that lit the studio.  It appeared to be a very light shade of blue.  I discovered later that it was a toupee made from nylon, which explained the odd colour.

So the news finished, Frankie shuffled into the studio and sat with his bent low opposite Pete Murray.  Pete looked at me in horror through the glass and I looked in horror back at Pete.

But as soon as the red light went on Frankie burst into life, ok he was a bit serious to begin with:

(Listen to Frankie Howerd on LBC Radio in 1989 here)

But he soon lightened up and became much more of his public persona.  I guess the poor sod was short of readies and needed to do the gig and of course had to do the surrounding publicity.  So he really didn't want to be in a grubby studio flogging his act yet again, poor dear Francis.     

#Blog alert We'll be back after this

I have been watching Peter Kay's new comedy 'Car Share.' Listen to this blog/podcast here The fictional radio station "Forever FM" features not only as a background soundtrack to the show, but is also intertwined into the dialogue.  We are treated to excruciating local radio commercial copy like:

"Ooo Doctor I've been feeling right down in the dumps, what should I do?" - "You need a new shed from The Shed Surgery."

and 

"Here at Hair Salon we don't just cut hair, we make love to it."

and

"Study at Brilington College, it almost sounds like brilliant, and in a recent Ofsted report we were rated acceptable that's just one down from good."

It does remind me of my only particular hit list of dreadful lines in radio commercials:

That include:

"What was that number again?"

"Our smashing sale at XYZ windows" (Also featured on Car Share)

"Open seven days including Sundays."

And any commercial with the word innovative in it, or the words biggest or best. Oh and those ads for music compilations that run off a list of artists finally including 'many more'  If I ever started a band I think I would call it 'Many More'

A well-worn phrase is an easy option, but cliché copy is best left to comedian's like Peter Kay.

#Blog Alert Sex and Angela Rippon

could Angela return to Top Gear?  She is keen to return and she would certainly bring a change of presentation style to the show but unless they cast her as an elderly dominatrix literally cracking the whip over Richard Hammond and James May, then I don't think she would be welcome back on that boys-toys show. LISTEN TO THIS BLOG at AUDIOBOOM

A few years ago Angela claimed that viewers didn't care about sex or age when it comes to presenters.  I beg to differ I think most men like to see boobs and a lot of women a nice slice of beefcake.

There are only a few presenters that manage to rise above the sexist, ageist, racist programmers of many of our main TV stations, and I would put Angela Rippon as one of them.

I worked several years with Angela, I remember I once left the most appalling edit in a high-profile documentary about China I was editing for her.  The edit unfortunately made it on air.

After the mishap had been broadcast I hid in a small studio tucked away in the LBC building ... but Angela found me and gave me the kind of ticking off that an elderly Headmistress might give you if you had done something unspeakable behind the school bicycle sheds.   Not only did I deserve it but I really quite enjoyed being handbagged by our Ange.

So Angela you get my vote as a new Top Gear Presenter, but I fear you might have to don some fish-net stockings and a pair of stilettos to get anywhere near that show. 

#Blog Alert The Phrase That Doesn't Pay

Or why traditional #radio #advertising no longer works for me.  Sweeping statement - but I am getting increasingly irritated by poor:

 'shout shout, money off, shout shout - website address - shout shout phone number' radio commercials.  Listen to this Blog/Podcast here

In an age where I get banner ads and content delivered to my phone, iPad and computer that are based on my browsing and buying history I am now getting used to more relevant advertising targeted towards me, and I am far more likely to click through or listen on places like Spotify to ads for products that reflect my interests.

Don't get me wrong I still love some of the traditional advertising - I watched that 3 minute long Dove commercial on YouTube and thought it was a great example of narrative advertising. Compelling - interesting and relevant to the product - but also had great content that would interest a much wider audience (me).

So if you make quirky, funny or human scale non-shouty commercials carry on.

If you are an advertiser cramming 40 seconds of copy into a 30 sec ad that mentions your website 3 times and the latest bogoff deal - you are doing it all wrong for me - back in the day when I only had a handful of radio and TV stations to choose from I would probably sit through your commercial, now I just swipe onto the next station or reach for the off switch.

BLOG ALERT Talk Radio and the Pooh Pooh theory

or the speculation of cunning linguist Max Müller.  So just how did language between humans develop?  Nobody is really quite sure and there are few scientific ways to measure development along the passage of time.

Step forward historical linguist Max Müller who in 1861 published a list of theories concerning the origin of spoken language:

Bow-wow. The bow-wow or cuckoo theory, which Müller attributed to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, saw early words as imitations of the cries of beasts and birds.

Pooh-pooh. The Pooh-Pooh theory saw the first words as emotional interjections and exclamations triggered by pain, pleasure, surprise, etc.

Ding-dong. Müller suggested what he called the Ding-Dong theory, which states that all things have a vibrating natural resonance, echoed somehow by man in his earliest words.

Yo-he-ho. The yo-he-ho theory claims language emerged from collective rhythmic labor, the attempt to synchronize muscular effort resulting in sounds such as heave alternating with sounds such as ho.

Ta-ta. This did not feature in Max Müller's list, having been proposed in 1930 by Sir Richard Paget - According to the ta-ta theory, humans made the earliest words by tongue movements that mimicked manual gestures, rendering them audible.

One thing we can be certain of, is without the development of spoken language Talk Radio would be a rather quiet place.

Blog Alert how to be a better #communicator

DJ, Presenter, YouTube host - Here are a few things that can make you better in front of the microphone or camera.

Great Content
Try hard to gather great stories, interesting and new material, it's not about grabbing a few stories from the newspapers or reading out from a broadcasters Almanac.  This is about going the extra mile, take ownership of the story find some archive recordings, think of ways you can directly touch the listener/viewer with this content, make it matter.

Look out of the window
Go out into the big wide world and focus on your target listener/viewer.  What do they like, love, hate? Make everything you do just for them, not for yourself or your boss.

Consistency
Hard to achieve, keeping the standards high and doing it everyday, we all fall down, have bad days and don't come up with great stuff, but allow yourself to be human and strive to be better and more consistent tomorrow.

NIT
Remember that your topical content should be driven by the following criteria:  Is it New, Interesting and True?

Exclusive
Give your listener/viewer something they genuinely can't get anywhere else.  Saying that: 'this if the only place you will hear this' when every other station or outlet is covering the story just makes you sound a complete dick.

Friendship
Your listener/viewer look upon you as a friend, someone they can trust.  Live up to that expectation speak to them, not at them or even worse, down to them.

Unpredictable
Surprise your listener/viewer give them something unexpected, twist a story, make them think.

Bad stuff happens
Do not be afraid to tell the truth when bad things happen - tell them.

Never be boring
If you are bored they are bored.

Emotion
Create genuine emotion, if you care they care.

Blog Alert A Cunning Plan

Baldrick always had a cunning plan, so ridiculous and stupid it added the important bathos to the broad slapstick comedy of Black Adder.  When it comes to the radio/TV interview you also need a cunning plan, but this one should be sensible and grounded.

One of the most important questions to ask yourself before you interview somebody is.. Why am I interviewing this person?  What do I hope to achieve and conclude from the interview?  Please write that down on the top of your page of questions.

Now the next move in your cunning plan should be to work out how you can get what you want from the interviewee in the minimum amount of time and effort from either party.

DO NOT

Just wander in with a microphone and a recorder running … you will walk out with hours of totally useless audio/footage that will take a chunk of your brief life to edit.

TRY HARD

To just ask the questions that gets the right answers… remember you know where you are going because you wrote at the top of your question sheet what was wanted and what conclusion the interviewee should provide.

ALL CHANGE PLEASE

If the interview goes off on a tangent but what they say is relevant or adds to the subject or is so good that it is worth keeping … that is fine.  But if they wander off subject without it being better material.. get them back in line like a sheep dog herding sheep into a pen.

Summary:

No wandering.

Try hard to get only what you need.

Allow change if for the better.

The most famous cock in the world

the @britishpathe news is crowing not once but 85,000 times as the British Pathé release its entire collection of 85,000 historic films on YouTube for free 

“Our hope is that everyone, everywhere who has a computer will see these films and enjoy them,” says Alastair White, General Manager of British Pathé. “This archive is a treasure trove unrivalled in historical and cultural significance that should never be forgotten. Uploading the films to YouTube seemed like the best way to make sure of that.”

British Pathé was once a dominant feature of the British cinema experience, renowned for first-class reporting and an informative yet uniquely entertaining style. It is now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in existence. Spanning the years from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage – not only from Britain, but from around the globe – ofmajor events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture. The archive is particularly strong in its coverage of the First and Second World Wars.

Alastair White continues: “Whether you’re looking for coverage of the Royal Family, the Titanic, the destruction of the Hindenburg, or quirky stories about British pastimes, it’ll be there on our channel. You can lose yourself for hours.”

The Full English

watched @GMB today with @Richardaarnold.  Breakfast TV is an acquired taste, I've always preferred the radio offerings, you can make your sandwiches, get breakfast ready and listen with relative ease in the bathroom.  We mostly listen to Nick Ferrari - he's been the Breakfast Presenter at LBC for more than ten-years and a personal friend for more than 20.  But only now is Nick getting his feet under the breakfast table, it takes a long time to really get to know and like a show host.

When I was working with Doug Urbanski he told me that at 710 WOR in New York they had a host who had been on air since 1926 and over those years, generations of New Yorkers' had listened and grown up with him, trouble was he was getting very old and they worried that at some point he would shuffle off his mortal coil, then they had the brilliant idea to co-host the show with his son. And when dad finally moved onto the celestial airwaves the son seamlessly carried on, preserving the generations of listeners to that show.

So we are on day 3 of "Good Morning Britain" - I quite like the set, it has a Next catalogue urbane look with a pretty view of St Paul's. Not sure about the glass desk they have stolen from BBC News - that acts like a great watery Thames barrier trapping an incredible number of presenters of this show behind it.  I am also worried about the cream sofa - that's going to need quite a lot of shake'n'vac to put the freshness back after a few months.

The content I saw started with a rather dour piece about gambling that ran way over time, thus squeezing Richard Arnold who finally brought a bit of fun onto the sofa (they seem to run from desk to sofa on this show) followed by the slick news sequence that also ran late. Then at some point after Andy Peters popped up live from some miserable part of Britain offering us £50.  There's just too much in the show and they have not identified their target audience very well.  The pace is frenetic but I am sure it will settle down and find its own style and cadence.

Visual imaging is really nice, the imaging theme a bit ponderous and slow and sounds a bit like a ripped-off new LBC theme but without the groove track.

So at only three days old ITV's "Good Morning Britain" is a much better looking show than "Daybreak" - give it ten years and it might turn into something really rather good.

Master The Social Network

it's easy, engage, be real and don't take it too seriously.  According to Michael Lebowitz founder and CEO of 'Big Spaceship' corporations make 5 mistakes:

Mistake 1
Faceless corporations do not have a sense of humour, they are not good at funny.  Or worse they get it badly wrong like Durex South Africa who allowed a tweet joking about female sexual violation to be sent out … oh dear, oh dear.

Mistake 2
They are too slow to respond.  In a world of instant gratification social media demands an instant response. Journalist Robert Jordan from Forbes gives the brilliant example of those pesky 'Tamagotchi' virtual alien pets that you HAD to feed and water, or they died. That's just like social media.

Mistake 3
Companies have no voice.  They are politically correct and inoffensive like a BBC Local radio phone-in.  Social media demands that your company has a voice.  Have fun, visualise and engage with your customer.

Mistake 4
They are nameless and faceless.  When a customer @yourcompany do they actually become part of a dialogue or are they just sending their @ into a virtual void? Be human and be polite - reply and engage.

Mistake 5
Companies try to reduce everything to a process and that includes social media.  You just can't do that, social media is a living breathing organism that you nurture and form a relationship with.

listener-centric

 the best way to create powerful compelling radio is to move yourself away from the cosy air-conditioned radio studio and become listener-centric. What do they (the listener) want?  What would give them the very best listening experience? How can you as a broadcaster or station boss give the listener more than he or she expected to hear and how can you deliver it using all the different carriage at your disposal.  (By that I mean your broadcast service, podcasting, visualisation and social media, etc.)

If you are an Amazon employee some of this sounds remarkably familiar. Love, tolerate or loathe  Amazon - it is a very effective global company.  Their corporate mantra is to be customer-centric and it has made them a very successful business that may not be particularly profitable - as again their mantra is to re-invest profits into growing the company ever bigger at the discomfort sometimes of government and individual.

Too many radio stations seem to put their listener at the end of the chain, rather than at the front. The BBC has traditionally given listeners what they think might be best for them, a Reithian ideal wrapped up in their charter and put into practice by 'a bunch of Oxbridge lefties who have never done a decent days work' to paraphrase a well know Daily newspaper.

So here in the UK if you are a commercial broadcaster you have a unique opportunity to be listener-centric and duck and dive around the BBC who have a habit of talking-down to the Great British public. Whereas you can fulfil need by offering a more direct experience.  I am not talking about 'dumbing-down' - after Producing more than 16,000 hours of talk radio I have witnessed first-hand (or ear) that some of the most euridite thinkers have had life-experience rather than academic achievement.

So let's take some of Amazon's best ideas and put the listener first.

Creative Space

we all need it here are some pics of awesome work spaces.  So why is the space we work in so very important.? Well I have just moved studios the big back bedroom in our house was the studio, spacious and quiet, now I am in a tiny box room at the front trying to make it work as a space, I am about half-way there.

My good colleague Steve Blacknell a fellow voiceover artist cannot work from home, he told me the other day. "I can't get the buzz or the performance at home, I need to be in a studio in London with real people directing me."

I know how he feels, however convenient my little voice booth is here at home, it's not the same discipline as being shoved in a booth in a Soho studio.  That doesn't mean with the right frame of mind you can't create a decent performance.

The key is to make the space apart from the house, make it a place that you go to work in.  Dear Darling Sandi Toksvig who has written a clutch of best sellers, toddles off to a shed at the bottom of her garden - a space away from the kids.

So why not take a few ideas from Google and the rest and make your space somewhere different and creative. Below Dr Who storage, Epic office reception - a mock tube train.  Google and their slide, Groupon and their TV set like space.

Social Vandals

@archiveatBBC most of us are aware that during the late sixties and seventies the BBC television archive ran out of shelf space.  Rather than build more shelves they decided to perpetrate the most appalling cultural vandalism and destroyed or wiped many shows that would deprive historians and the public for the rest of human time.

I have my own story about the LBC and IRN archive - a new owner at LBC decided that we had run out of shelf space and that the archive was to be pruned down to just a handful of 'important' recordings. (Familiar story hey?) I along with Chris Lowrie (still at LBC)  and Derek Cole (Now at Sky) were given the task to fill a very large builders skip with archive tapes.

The three of us decided that this would be cultural vandalism.  Derek went hunting around the building and we filled the skip with all manner of junk - old sound mixers even a broken dishwasher from one of the kitchens.  Then we layered a thin cover of tapes on the top - to make it seem we had emptied out most of the archive.

Then came the tricky bit making the archive room look less full of tapes.  Well by shoving a lot of tapes closely together and sliding reels on top and by farming off the whole of the LBC show 'Cinema Screen' to its former presenter - Carol Allen - we managed to pull it off.

Writing this I can still see in my mind Carol Allen's old estate car driving away from the underground car park so weighed down that there were sparks coming from underneath as it caught the concrete floor.

Fast forward to another time and place and our precious archive was now stored at Kings Cross - a bid for lottery funding had been put in to have the whole of LBC/IRN recordings from 1973-1997 digitally archived.  The bid was successful and Bournemouth University took on the mammoth task of cataloging all the tapes.

A few weeks ago I was teaching a student who had a masters in Journalism - I asked what their dissertation was about? "Oh comparing the BBC radio and Commercial radio coverage of the miners strike during Mrs Thatchers time as Prime Minister, did you know there's a fantastic audio archive of commercial radio on the University Library system?

As a footnote 'Cinema Screen' and all its tapes that had been sitting in Carol Allen's garage were lovingly collected by the British Library and now reside in their archive.

Vox Pox

Oh how I hate Vox Pops just heard some on a news bulletin.  Some years ago LBC and IRN were based at ITN and the bulletins were full of 'we asked people on the street what they thought'  Except they were people on the street outside ITN's studios at 200 Gray's Inn Road.

Gray's Inn people in the street tended to be lawyers or legal clerk's -  as the studios were close to the Inns of Court and a smattering of slightly drunk Irish people as there was a big Irish Centre nearby so the  result was a biased and editorially worthless bit of audio. Oh of course unless they said something bizarre or outrageous that is lol.

#Copyright Fright

the day #LBC973 got told off by the BBC.  It seemed like a good idea to play something to fill the small hours of the night when nobody called in.  It was a bad idea to pick "Hancock's Half Hour" but it had been released on record so what's the problem?

The problem was that the Producer in question decided to play a whole episode.  Three weeks later my boss Robin got a polite letter from the BBC it read something like this.

We notice that on the XX of XX you decided to play a whole episode of "Hancock's Half Hour." On this occasion we will not charge your radio station for this performance as we believe that you made a genuine error but for your reference here is a breakdown of performance cost that you will incur should you decide to broadcast again without permission.

It then went on to list every cast performer and their fees.  "The Estate of Kenneth Williams £80.05 - The Estate of Sydney James £90.05." and so it went on.  What the 5p was all about I am not sure.

So why did the BBC send us a bill for a properly released record?  I mean LBC had a PRS/MCPS licence .. aha BUT the BBC comedy releases were not signatories to BIEM (The world copyright protection society)  - This is the complicated world of copyright and how you can easily land yourself in a pile of copyright crap.

Shout Out

Yesterday I talked to a real #radio #listener about #LBC973.  It was another day of @Greateranglia delays and my fellow commuters started to talk to each other as we waited 20 mins for a train to arrive. The guy who always stands next to my for the last two-years asked what I did? When I told him, he said I love the radio, I listen more than I watch TV.

When I said I had been working for LBC 97.3 the last couple of weeks he replied much as he loved the format he "didn't want people shouting him at the breakfast table in the morning."  At first I thought he was picking on the big man - Nick Ferrari, but what he actually meant were the shout with too many words commercials that still populate the radio airwaves here in the UK.

I have just read a very good book by Tony (Radio Operators) Hertz "The 7 Secrets of Creative Radio Advertising."  He agrees with me that shouting radio ads with too much copy squeezed in to 30 seconds never worked and as each day passes sound out of tune with the way we consume advertising now.

So how pleasing it was to hear The Lloyds Bank commercial this morning, no shouting just a narrative about a man who started a winery in Kent, that was followed by equally natural and understated ad for Waitrose unfortunately on the heels of Waitrose was a commercial for a secretarial service with a woman screaming the many and complex benefits - edited so there was not a single breath in her delivery.  The industry is getting better at making commercials but we are not quite there yet.

Off the road

Or the time that #LBC973 radio slightly cocked up the Motor Show sponsorship.  Speaking of cars, we had a company car then.  It was a contra-deal originally for us to both work at breakfast without LBC having to pay for cabs from Essex. (Union requirement)  I remember us both going to what was billed as an exciting sponsorship meeting.

When we walked in it was just the boss; he turned to us and said -  "I'm taking your car away from you!"  We asked when did he want us to return it. "Now!"  "Give me the keys - you can get the train home tonight." So we pushed the keys over to him and told him it was in the car park.

Then 'Sharon' from sales turned up, "I ave some excitin news" she said.  "Got a really good sponsorship deal next week wiv the Mota Show, that's the yearly car show at Earls Court, you know?"

I remember saying that I had heard of it, but did she know that this year it was coming from the N.E.C. in Birmingham?

"Oh fuck!"she replied.

The boss turned to us and said, "Well you and Therese (the Presenter) will just have to drive up there then won't you?"

"But you've taken away the car"

With that he shoved the keys laying on his desk back to us and said.  "I'll let you keep the car for another week then."  In the next blog I will tell you about a Brummie landlady from hell and a free can of lager.