Last Saturday Don went to the Empire to see “Jersey Nights” which is another version of “The Jersey Boys” which is on in London…"I’ll tell you what I was blown away…I’m well into The Four Seasons stuff and this show was the business…brilliant." The Mersey Tunnel tolls are going up AGAIN…this is for a tunnel which was originally supposed to be paid for in the 1940’s….needless to say there’s a lot of shouting but it wont mean a thing. It will now be £1.60 each way….I just don’t get it….it MUST make millions and there are only a handful of staff….where does it all go eh? MP Chris Hune has owned up to lying about a speeding fine he got last year….he said his wife was driving…then had a affair…OOPS!!...….he has resigned …but I wonder if he’ll pay the 15 grand he was given to cover him after leaving the cabinet…or the 50 grand he was awarded to fight the case…probably not as he lives in a different world to us… The Open Golf is coming back to Hoylake in 18 months and the tickets are now on sale…..no answer to that….they make so much fuss about this event when there are more important issues in the area…oh yes…I forgot …it will bring money in…yeah sure. Lastly…a mate of Don's backed into a woman in a petrol station and did NO damage…she was happy and that was that…next thing he gets a letter from her insurance claiming allsorts…crumpled bonnet…broken headlights etc…BUT he notified his insurance who checked the CCTV….nice one eh…the woman was told where to go…BUT my argument is that shouldn’t be the end of it….her and her insurance company should be taken to court for a false claim which SHOULD be a criminal offence….it’s too easy to accuse people these days…

We chatted first about Angie Mccartney's book launch at the Philharmonic in Liverpool which Don attended. T here has been a “victory” in the wonderful Lake District….the government wanted to build an underground nuclear waste dump near Bowness….which would create jobs etc….…HOWEVER the locals have gone on the march and reversed the decision and are celebrating….….someone suggested an ideal site for this project…just down the road from Prime Minister David Cameron’s house. Another Great British rip off has come to a head…petrol prices…..of the £1.37 per litre 80p goes to the government….which is approx 60%....seeing as oil has dropped in price this was put to the Office of Fair Trading…who found this was all in order….….greed greed. On the local scene this week I was at the traffic lights waiting for them to change when a car crashed into the back of me…fearing the worst I got out to be greeted by a very apologetic young chap…looked round the back expecting to find a huge dint and there wasn’t a mark…he had hit the towbar…..and hooked himself on to my car by his grill…I had to tow him out of the traffic then we had to jack his car up to get it off my towbar….as there was no damage and he was a nice guy I told him that as far as I was concerned just forget it………..the upshot of the whole thing was the young chap turned up on my doorstep with a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers for my wife…it’s nice to be nice. I went out on my bike yesterday…I get the train into the gale force wind and return with it behind me…I came back along the embankment and the tide was in and giving it plenty…the sun was out and it was paradise......then as I was enjoying the ambience I thought I’ll give Vince a few interesting facts….if you are in your car and you want to know the wind direction…a standing seagull always faces directly into it….and while I’m on the subject of facts DID YOU KNOW (I didn’t) that in 2008 the £1 coin was made with a shield on the back….and every other coin (1p,2p,20p,50p) all have a piece of the same shield on their backs…so if you set them out it forms the shield on the back of the £1 coin

I made a lovely podcast with Sir Paul McCartney's step-mother Angie McCartney, via an introduction from Don. ....http://vincetracy.com/angiemac.html Don first met Angie through a friend called Mike Banks who asked him if he would like to meet Leapy Lee …Leapy is a regular on my shows. They all arranged to meet at the New Brighton Rugby Club and Leapy rolled up with Lee and Angie with her daughter, Ruth…Leapy ended up getting Don a publishing deal with Evolution Records who had a few big names on their books. Don wrote a song for Diana Dors and The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band….then the company went under….a few years later Don was pushing his stuff to various publishers and one of them told him that a guy from his company had moved up North and set up a company in Birkenhead…so round he went…walked in and who was part of the company? - Angie and Ruth who signed him up….they managed Gary Glitter (long before his demise) and Don learnt so much from them that he ended up in 1980 setting up his own company....that's how showbiz works, folks! Don is also a friend of another of my podcast guests, Mike McGear. Mike is Paul McCartney's brother. On one occasion Mike was going down to London to RCA Records to push some of his stuff and asked Don to go along and push some of his own songs.….At that time Don had just produced a single for his wrestling mate Adrian Street . During the visit he played it to one of the bigwigs and watched his eyes slowly glaze over….... he said It was possibly the worst record in the history of music…Don asked him if hecould quote him on that..he agreed…so that went on the label….when Adrian moved to the States he made a video of the song. This is on Youtube along with the others Don did for him…it got MTV play and went into a film…..and paid off Don's mortgage…… ….Don had to laugh at the concert Paul McCartney did recently in New York….the show was running over time and he was halfway through a duet with Bruce Springsteen and they switched the mikes off! …. finally….Don's been working on a doowop song for a new friend in the States….His name is Doowop Joe Conroy and he has a internet radio station in North Carolina...he checked out Don's website and noticed Don writes novelty songs. He asked Don to write one about all the doowop groups….….the song is called “DooWop Days” and can be found on YouTube……http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83mEgF9W5VU

The news this week has featured a helicopter which hit a crane in London and crashed down into the street….the amazing thing about this is only the pilot and a pedestrian were killed…considering it was on a busy road in the rush hour…and the driver of the crane has overslept for the first time in his life…otherwise he would have been a gonner….lucky or what… There was a programme on parking fees which featured this bloke who refused to pay them…to make a point….he deliberately parked in places where the yellow lines had been tarmaced over and in parking bays where the line was worn….announcing that he was in his rights and intended to take the council to the high court…which he did…and lost…40 grand…oooh…..cost the silly boy his house. They had a mens' fashion show in London….there were blokes strutting down the catwalk with huge dalek-like woollen headgear with just their eyes poking out and a bare midriff…and another bloke had criss cross broken fencing across his face (looked like the result of a terrible motor bike accident)…and other blokes with hideous skirts…. English Heritage have stopped putting up blue plaques on famous peoples houses….they say it’s due to costs???...I would say it’s because they have to keep taking them down when the celeb is suddenly found out to be a sex offender…and if you want to go and watch a football match at Arsenal it will cost you 62 quid…plus the extortionate train fare…good value eh? ..finally….HMV have gone under….…the music industry has been far too greedy for far too long.They never ran with the pack and now they have been left behind…GOOD!!!....when I was working we had to go out and nick people for selling cheap pirated cassettes….when the record companies could have charged the same and still made loads…In the cassette days you would have to pay 10 – 12 quid for a cassette….the raw materials cost 17 PENCE.

.Just had a wet week in The Lakes….we stay near Carnforth which has a railway station where the 50’s film “Brief Encounter” was made…starring Trevor Howard. I’ve seen the film and it hasn’t aged well… but it’s interesting to see Carnforth as it was 60 odd years ago.......... MP.s have announced they deserve a 20 grand a year rise…this has gone down well with the public sector - kept to 1%....regular truanters should be rewarded for good attendance…with a computer/Xbox etc…….the ones who turn up on a regular basis get nowt. A couple of lottery winners who scooped 110 million have been in the news…they have had to close their music shop because of people/scroungers asking them for free money to “help them out”. ….apparently the interest on the money is something like 6 grand a day… On the showbiz front there is a new programme featuring Tom Daley where he teaches celebs to dive…it’s called “Splash” and has taken a battering from the critics…..I watched it and it was pretty bad. Dancing on Ice has also just begun and Pammy Anderson got voted out first…..she received 1000 pound a SECOND while she was on air….did someone say recession? finally….a classic…..some lad entered a fishing contest in the English Channel……….won 800quid for the huge bass he “caught”….someone thought the enormous creature looked familiar and started to check out the situation….it turned out the lad had nicked the fish from an aquarium….not much more to say about that….he got 12 weeks community service or something…he should go into politics.

Everyone is up in arms here about the train fares….they are going up by 4 – 10%....some geek from the rail companies insists they are not making a profit.…nothing has changed on the trains .. you still have to stand nose to nose at rush hour....and rumour has it they are stopping Bus and Train passes …looks like I’ll be making a banner and getting my marching boots on. Also car insurance is also getting silly for younger drivers…it can cost up to 3 Grand…. parking legislation has also been changed to include distance from the pavement….you have to be within 29 inches from the pavement or you get a ticket… There was a very interesting programme on tv about “The world’s richest songs”…it was the top ten highest earning songs….”Yesterday” was in there as was “White Christmas”….the 10 consisted of songs which had been recorded by multiple artists over the years thus making big royalties. The top song which has earned 30 million was…wait for it…”Happy Birthday”. The programme included interviews with people involved with the songs and one was “Pretty Woman” and they interviewed James Burton who played on the 80’s Orbison concert. The interview was at Fort Perch Rock on one of his visits…and at the risk of dropping a name I’ve performed this song on two occasions with Mr.Burton…so there!! Gary Barlowe had a show over the festive period “Gary Barlowe and friends”….great show…great band and a few surprises…James Corden did a spot with Gary and was really good…as was Peter Kay. What I love about Gary B. is he can do it live with or without a band…the lad is brilliant.

This has been the wettest winter on record;we are lucky here as we don't get the extremes but there is nowhere for the water to go so everywhere is muddy. The southwest has had it worst;.and as the train lines have been affected by floods and landfall there's been no way out or in to the place.and houses and villages have been flooded out..what was that about a drought? ;The two Aussie DJs who made the prank call thankfully will not be prosecuted;apparently the nurse in question has attempted suicide twice before; The traffic problems over the Xmas period has been horrendous;a crash on the M6 caused an 11 mile tailback;and the usual seasonal strike on the London railways has caused disruption;nice one guys holding the country to ransom at Christmas; Wirral Council have brought in some highly paid trouble shooter from Bolton who is going to sort out the financial problems by making cuts and getting rid of staff HOWEVER, ;this aint Bolton and they had a meeting at West Kirby Concourse and the crowd gave him loads of stick; The film Cockleshell Heroes was on the other night;.I saw this with my dad in about 1956-still a good story;so much so that I was inspired to go kayaking in Chester with my lad. Problem was The Dee is so full with all the rain it had a tidy old flow and paddling upriver wasn't easy ....

On the news recently…..an infant school was having a nativity play and 10 minutes from the end a copper trundles in and tells the parents they are illegally parked and if they don’t shift the cars immediately he would give them a ticket….this went down well with everyone complaining….good stuff…but if anyone had have got knocked over because of stupid parking there would have been an uproar. Also on the news an old lady (who is suffering from cancer) got burgled…they took the lot and her savings and she was really upset…after the TV report was shown she received all sorts of money and stuff from viewers and companies….a great story….There is going to be a remake of Dad’s Army with a woman playing Mainwaring…it’ll NEVER work….They have just erected a plaque on the Birkenhead waterfront in memory of The Cockleshell Heroes….one of which came from Birkenhead (Frederick Laver).It was my favourite film with Tony Newley and Jose Ferrer…a great story of bravery by the Marines…they shortened the war by 6 months by canoing out to the German fleet and attaching explosives to the ships…12 went out … two came back…Plebgate has again reared it’s ugly head…Andrew Mitchell always denied he called a copper a pleb….and now they have found out that the guy who “witnessed “ the event wasn’t even there…and he was a copper….OOPS!!....so it’s all kicked off again……

The dreadful shooting in Newtown USA takes precedence then...We lost Patrick Moore this week..Don had the pleasure of meeting him a while back when he was involved in programme for Radio Merseyside which took him to Tromso in Norway to see the Northern Lights-Tromso being the most northern town in the world..needless to say it was too cloudy so he didn't see them but Patrick was giving a short lecture while he was there and he had a chance to chat to him afterwards..and he was a delight and educated me on several points .Rod Stewart had a Christmas show on the tele..it was definitely the Rod show....no-one else got a look in .....he had a fabulous band for him to croak in front of..dreadful whoever told him he could croon needs arresting ..he had two guests ;Michael Buble and Kylie..who were each invited to sing a duet with old Rod and that was it ---also prattled on about how Scottish he was then proceeded to sing Auld Lang Syne at the end of his boring show and GOT IT WRONG!!...On the other hand McFly also had a show of their own and they were fabulous...great personalities and great LIVE music...those guys can play....and they had two guests...Bruno Mars and his band who were great and Al Murray (the pub landlord) who did his comedy act and was then invited to play drums with the McFly boys....and what a drummer..brilliant (apparently he started out as a drummer) ;THAT'S what entertainment is all about..;take note all you legends...I read that when Mike Tyson parted from his then wife Robin Givens he continued to call round and see her...he popped round one day unannounced and found Brad Pitt (before he was famous) in bed with her I'd have paid good money to see the look on Brad's face...DOH!!.....

The Royal couple are having a baby…and a radio station in New Zealand played a prank on the hospital. This has now escalated as the poor nurse who took the call has killed herself. Who is really to blame for this poor nurse's death? …. the advent of modern technology is turning the UK into a nation of morons….we don’t speak anymore because we are always on our ipads etc…There is a “helicopter” you can buy from Amazon which is radio controlled and has a small camera on board so you can fly it and take movies from the air which you can send directly to your phone…. There has been a national disaster….the DANDY is no more!!....the last copy has gone on sale!!....I think they are going to go on line.They tried the comic out on young kids who were not impressed…they said it wasn’t exciting enough….……however the annuals sell well according to bookshops………nowadays if you don’t run with the pack you are a gonner. I watched The Royal Command Performance … a little too much opera perhaps….…I like Katherine Jenkins …but for a completely different reason…in fact when she sings ballads in her lower range she’s great….I thought Diversity and the young dancing acrobats were really good and even the comedy wasn’t bad with a few exceptions (Rhod Gilbert and poor old Des)…but otherwise good stuff for our royal ruler to enjoy.