As I am now big in Kazakhstan this weeks song has to be my minor classic…….a copy to Lady Di…and more recently to Wills and Kate got me a couple of nice replies from the Palace…it got a play on Radio 1 and the World Service……and now it has recently been featured in a concert in the new opera house in Astana in Kazakhstan … .Still on a musical note….I have been watching “The Voice” and have been somewhat disappointed..males and females sing in different keys (hence you will generally get a subtle key change in male and female duets….for example “Islands in the stream” with Kenny Rogers and Dolly)… .Birkenhead Park has been under the local spotlight…to survive it may need voluntary help as the council needs to make cuts…y’kow to help pay towards the 15 billion underground in LONDON!! The tragedy of the two helicopters colliding during a reality show overseas has been on the news…three Olympic athletes losing their lives…this is so wrong…we’ve got a new reality survival show here featuring Bear Grylls……it only need a few feet of water to drown you…these programmes are accidents waiting to happen….it makes very uncomfortable viewing… I don’t get the latest major problem with “tweeting”…..first off I don’t really know what it is…but apparently peoples lives are in ribbons because of malicious “tweets”....Why don’t hey switch off their mobiles…and not “tweet”?....

The ditty I have sent you this week is called Mersey Man and is taken from a DVD I made a while back about the River&.I filmed the Mersey from start to finish........ Last sunday I compared a show at the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton ....it featured big band music performed by The RAF Swing Wing...they had a good front man and some great female vocalists doing all the old stuff.............The news has been featuring the two men who got arrested in some foreign clime whilst plane spotting....they have been thrown in jail and as usual we only get one side of the story............... The muttering actors in TV dramas has reared it's ugly head again this week.............my beef is with the producers of programmes like Strictly Come Dancing where Mr. Ego on the desk is flitting from one angle to another...missing most of the actual dancing....IT'S THE FEET WE WANNA SEE MATE !!..........PLUS MUCH MORE!

Don's song this week is another classic….”Geriatric Scout”....He told me..."I wrote this way back for the local gang show as I recall….when I listen to this stuff I honestly don’t know where the lyrics come from…….”my ging gang goolies goin’ out of tune”…they don’t write ‘em like that anymore. The obvious shortage of news means we have been told about the three teenage girls who have left the country to join ..…and while we are at it we could all pop over to New Zealand and help them save the beached wales seeing as that was national news. The “scientists” have been at it again….too much sleep can cause a stroke … they THINK….it’s not definite but it’s possible…...and…wait for it….to prevent us having peanut allergies it is suggested we feed our 4 month old babies peanut butter….again they THINK this will help in later life…WHAT IF THEY ARE WRONG??.... To reinforce my theory that most of us have yet to evolve….people are scrambling for a one way ticket to Mars….yes they are out there….perhaps we should have the opportunity to suggest who should go? I watched the Brits with Madonna doing a back flip off the stage….she was lucky she didn’t do some serious damage…I think the cloak will have gone straight in the bin…...It was nice to see the likes of Paloma Faith,Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith getting their just deserts…talented youngsters indeed, and I was well impressed with “Royal Blood”….sensational…what a sound from just a bass and drums….then we had Kanye West…

Got a call from a guy who works on The One Show asking if they could use a small section of my YouTube song about Una Stubbs….as she was a guest on the show…I naturally agreed and they used a small section of the chorus when she was introduced….was somewhat hidden by the applause for her but hey nice one eh? I wrote this song many years ago and actually got a record deal from a major record company….which didn’t materialise so I recently re-recorded it and put it on YouTube and on one of my quirky albums…I also sent her a copy and she phoned me up and thanked me…a national treasure indeed… I have been watching repeats of the original Hi-De-Hi series and can’t believe how good it was…it’s hilarious….the wonderful cast and classic scripts…absolutely brilliant…unlike “Benidorm” which has totally lost it’s way…thank goodness it’s finished…a 5 year old could write a better script…and by co-incidence Ruth Madoc was in the last episode…talk about one extreme to the other…let’s hope that’s the last we see of it…total waste of air time. I had to smile at the news of the daughter of the Korean Airline boss stopping the plane because she didn’t like the way they served the nuts….I think she is one herself….she made the pilot back up and told the purser to get off the plane…she’s now in jail under the anti terrorist laws…you couldn’t write this…they should have included it in Benidorm….might have got a laugh for a change. There was a slight slip up on the tele recently….it involved a scam which set up Bradley Walsh…the idea was to book him for a talk and secretly set him up…the guy said Bradley wasn’t too happy as he thought he was going to get 10 grand….TEN GRAND!!!...for a TALK!!!!....Bradley Walsh!!!...this is the problem these days…anyone who pays out that sort of money wants a reality check…it’s scandalous….I remember back in the day we put a charity show on at a local theatre for sick kids…the top of the bill let us down so we rang up a well known comic….who agreed to step in….(as he obviously had nothing else on with the very short notice)…all the groups and dancers did it for nothing…this guy…who gave a third rate 30 minutes…wanted 1500 quid…personally I wouldn’t have paid him 15 pence….greedy greedy. There’s a big hoohah at the moment concerning the Chelsea fans who kept stopping this black guy from getting on the train in Paris….of course the press are straight in…it’s RACISM…and the guy has come up with the usual ”It’s because I’m black…etc”……

The song I have found this week was the first record on my label back in 1980…BIG DEE RECORDS….this was BD 001….It’s called “You’re No Good To Me If You Can’t Boogie” and was sung by my good friend Pauline Daniels who went on to big things …it was on a 45 vinyl and I used a drum box alongside the actual drums….to my knowledge I was the first to do this?....happy days….watch the false break doesn’t catch you out…….it caught a few of the local DJs out at the time. 2.What have I been saying for the past two years…”There’s too much time devoted to news on the tele”….therefore most of it is padded out to fill in the 24 hours…..two half hour bulletins would do….NOW this is being discussed,,,,saying that there is not enough news to report…well well there’s a surprise. At the moment all we are getting is the NHS problems and all the illnesses 50% of us are likely to get….when you finish watching the news you feel like hanging yourself. We recently had 20 minutes on a girl who got some disease after having tattoos removed….NATIONAL NEWS?...I don’t think so. 3.Leon Britten has just died and he was allegedly involved in some sort of sex scandal…so what they are having to do is bury him in an unmarked grave in case the Neanderthals desecrate the grave…a sad situation but just shows the mentality that is wandering around…it’s like the beheading of Margaret Thatcher’s statue which we discussed last week…they are DEAD…what does these sort of activities achieve?...it’s pathetic. 4.The Mersey Tunnel is considering putting up the fee from £!.70 to £1.80….this is beyond me…you have a tunnel which has been there since the thirties and they constantly announce that they are still paying for it…..there are about 8 booths which each take £1.70 a minute right through the day…..that is a LOT of money…I would like to see a breakdown as to where it all goes….there’s not a lot of staff and don’t tell me it’s for maintenance…the tunnel through the mountain at Conway is FREE….how do they work that one out?....and Wirral Council are employing a new Chief Executive and he will be on £170 grand a year…so there will have to be job losses to pay him….good stuff eh?...that really makes sense….is someone having a laugh? 5.There have been a lot of complaints about “mumbling” actors on TV…which is what I’ve been saying for ages….”24” was the worst…one minute Keifer Sitherland is mumbling…next he’s shouting his head off…HE CAN’T ACT!! simple as that … and there is a programme called “Broadchurch” starring David Tennant….I can’t understand ONE word he says….apart from mumbling he has a Scottish accent … I may as well watch the test card….what happened to ACTING?....come back Sir Larry all is forgiven!!!!!

The song I have sent you this week is another from one of my local DVDs….Seasons…it is dubbed over film which matches the words…sunshine,snow..the lot.….it says it all…I write about the place I love which is why I live here…which brings me to my next point. .I watched Cilla Black and John Bishop on a chat programme in the week…I have to laugh at the way they both layer the accent on really thick and go on about how wonderful Liverpool is…says Cilla who lives in Surrey and J.B. who lives out in Cheshire….even The Beatles moved out as quick as they could and Ringo wont even talk about it. No matter what anyone says The Beatles put Liverpool on the map and the City certainly capitalises on it which seems to be the only reason people are so “proud” to apparently come from there so they can be indirectly linked to the fab four….lorra lorra laughs… I watched the Australian Open last Sunday….Andy was beaten by Novak who is the better player…full stop….WHY do we have to listen to commentators who think they are on the same level?..Andrew Castle…what’s he done?...…and John Virgo is another with the snooker…tells you what shot the player will play next and is never right….let’s just watch the game please… A poor little pensioner was mugged outside his house and received a broken collar bone….a young girl felt so sorry for him that she organised a charity collection and raised 250 grand!!...which shows how nice MOST people are…what should be done now is hunt down the dross who mugged the old guy and sling them in a cage for a month and feed them scraps…obviously the doogooders would be screaming human rights… After the film about the Enigma code with Benedict Cumberbach where the guy who solved the code and brought a quicker end to the war then was thrown in jail because he was homosexual…typical of the attitude of those in power at the time…well the upshot is there is a move afoot to pardon all those similar cases from back then….can’t see what the problem is JUST DO IT !!...

The song this week was one that came so close...it was inspired by a TV advert where two young girls asked their uncle Stan to roll his cap across his chest then round the back of his neck...I came up with this song which Norman Thomas played every day on Radio City...I sent it to The Grumbleweeds who said they would do it if the advert went national...sadly it didn't because the despite the ad being so popular no-one knew what it was advertising...which was British Beef...close but no cigar. Katie Price has been taking some stick in the news regarding her receiving benefits from the Government to pay for taxis to take her disabled son to school...despite her being worth 45 million. In my opinion she's earned her money and pays her taxes.......I admire anyone who makes their fortune...and it's always the scroungers who seem to complain . I watched The Voice last week and to my delight one of the contestants was the singer from Black Lace...he didn't get selected but I was a big fan of the group...BUT it was uncool to like them...in fact some of their songs were voted the worst records ever...THEY WERE GREAT!!...you can't argue with full dancefloors....my band ALWAYS did Agadoo and The Conga...guaranteed to get everyone up....loved 'em!!....it’s called entertainment…something a lot of bands these days could do with a lesson in, I have been watching coverage of the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust...it's hard to believe this happened...no matter how many times you see it. It displays how low humanity can sink with their treatment of fellow human beings....soon there will be no living survivors to tell the story which MUST be carried into the future so this never happens again... Further proof that there are many morons roaming amongst us..there is a statue of Maggie Thatcher in an art gallery which has been moved to a small corridor and cordoned off...because some bright neanderthals decided to behead it...no matter what you thought of her when she was P.M. what does that achieve?...and having street parties when she died just shows how some of us have yet to evolve.Looking for someone to man a one way journey to Mars?....look no further…

Massive world changing news this week…..”experts” have stated that they now know that more women than men believe in God…..yep we had ten minutes on this incredible information, ALSO there has been a change in the exercise situation….we don’t have to run…we can walk…and 10 minutes a day will do…so there you are…isn’t that worth the licence fee….and…wait for it….it’s TRUE... that carrots help you see in the dark….there’s something in them that improved your eyesight….Buggs Bunny will be delighted with this national news. The latest nonsense is the intention to pass a law requiring cigarettes to be sold only in plain packets….this will put people off buying them…the rotting tar covered lung on the packet apparently isn’t doing the trick. I watched some of the TV awards with the highly talented Ant and Dec getting their annual trophy. This was during a week where it was impossible to find ANYTHING worth watching….Stars In Their Eyes…or should I say The Harry Hill Show…I’ve always quite liked Harry Hill…until now…Harry (over the) Hill.. There’s a new programme about “fails” where they simply take clips off YouTube…then we have Benidorm…..oh dear … it was so bad I switched over to BBC 4 and watched “Top Of The Pops 1972” only to be greeted by Paul Jones followed by Rod Stewart and Freddy flamin’ Garrity…..life doesn’t get much worse. 5.Sad news about the death of Ann Kirkbride off Coronation Street….it had a lot of press coverage and is indeed very sad….but there’s a strange phenomena in this country where people actually BELIEVE that soaps are real life…they march and put up posters requesting someone or other be released from jail etc…..IT’S A PLAY…that’s all….they are ACTORS!!....and we wonder why he country has it’s problems…can’t say too much because I know you watch the soaps !!!!

The song I’ve sent you this week was the first one I presented wrestler Adrian Street with (in 1980) ……this was to result in me writing and recording 22 songs for him on two L.P. s and going over to the States and doing TV etc….the songs have recently come back to haunt me- as an independent record company want to re-release the stuff on coloured vinyl… Not that I watch big Brother…it’s about as bad as television gets…but the news has featured one of the celebs being removed because he made racist comments……which left me wondering what happened to free speech?....I think a large percentage of the population need to get over themselves… Our wonderful Government has announced that more schools are required because of the increase in the young population…and it will cost…wait for it….12 billion pounds….. to put it into perspective the population of the world is 7 billion….so if there is a spare 12 billion why not give the whole world a couple of quid each?... There is such a shortage of news the BBC are bombarding us with the latest scare tactics….we are all living longer…and there wont be enough money to fund whoever is going to look after us…HELP!!...but we can help by EXERCISING…. On a lighter note I have been contacted by an American TV company who feature unusual places to visit and have asked if they can use my Llanfair P.G. song…….I looked the company up on the net and saw that they have been nominated for an Emmy award…so we’ll see what happens.

The song I’ve sent you this week was the extended version of a jingle I did for Norman Thomas on Radio City. It was for a daily competition he used to have on his programme called “What have I got in my hand” whereby he would give out clues as to what he was holding and the public phoned in with their guesses….the winner getting 20 quid. It was really funny stuff and Norman did a great job…he sadly died a few years ago….I did quite a bit of stuff for him…he was a great bloke I watched the Michael Buble Christmas show just before Xmas and was well impressed…I thought it was real quality…unlike the John Bishop comedy show…whatever happened to FUNNY…he wasn’t even slightly funny and the string of comedians he had on weren’t much better….these guys are in serious need of good comedy writers…they seem to think they can do it on their own…they are wrong. I went up to Carnforth in The Lake District for a few days up to Xmas Eve to take in the ambience….it BUCKETED down so Bowness didn’t look too Chistmassy….then we spent a reasonably dry day in Lancaster…which is one of my favourite cities….it has a certain magical charm about it with it’s collection of shops and restaurants and the wonderful castle…great place to visit. I wish someone would start a movement to ban played out Christmas records on TV and radio….while travelling up to the Lakes we had radio 2 on….one after the other…simply having a wonderful Christmas time…all I want for Christmas is you….have yourself a merry little Christmas…etc etc etc…for goodness sake GIVE US A BREAK !!!…is there no imagination in the world…there MUST be new songs out there…thank goodness it’s over…I can’t take much more. The Krankies panto in Glasgow has received great reviews…they were on with John Barrowman in Cinderella….the panto includes all sorts of effects including 3D….where a giant spider wreaks havoc over the audience…The Krankies are friends of mine and I have written loads of stuff for them over the years…for this panto I wrote a parody of Miley Cirus’s “wrecking ball”…...I’d be on for a free ticket but it’s a bit far away.