"Tales from a very minor celebrity"

On the 23rd February, 2023 is was announced the football commentating legend John “Motty” Motson had died at the age of 77.

He started working on Match Of The Day in 1971, and covered 10 World Cups, 10 European Championships and 29 FA Cup finals for BBC Sport before retiring from the organisation in 2018. 

I had the great pleasure of interviewing him in 2005 when he was promoting his latest book, Motsons FA Cup Odyssey which gave me a chance to sample first his incredible footballing knowledge and great love of the game. 

I’m a bit short of time this week so I’m just  going to okay you the interview without all the preamble that usually comes with my weekly podcast.

As you’re well aware I’m sure the World Cup has started and this week you can hear an interview I did with Uri Geller, the spoon bending physic who back in 2002 asked the whole nation to collectively try and heal David Beckham’s famous metatarsal injury which threatened his participation in that year’s World Cup competition.

England captain David Beckham suffered a broken foot playing for Manchester United in the Champions League on this day in 2002, sparking fears he would not be fit for that summer’s World Cup.

The United midfielder, whose stoppage-time free-kick in the last qualifier against Greece had taken the Three Lions to the finals, was on the end of a tough tackle from Deportivo La Coruna’s Aldo Duscher in a quarter-final second leg at Old Trafford.

Not only did the injury end Beckham’s domestic campaign, it also introduced most of the nation to the word metatarsal.

His recovery from that broken metatarsal was the source of daily interest, but Beckham eventually was passed fit and led England out against Sweden in their group stage opener on June 2……but did Uri Geller’s physic healing intervention have a part to play? 

Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 7 of this new season of Tales From a very minor celebrity, a delve into my celebrity archive a look back at some of my very favourite interviews from my career in radio and TV….

This week you’ll hear an interview I did with a woman who has a handbag named after her and recorded one of the most iconic love songs of all time, Je t’aime…she is Jane Birkin.

Born in London  Birkin began her career as an actress, appearing in minor roles until she met Serge Gainsbourg while co-starring with him in Slogan, which marked the beginning of their long working and personal relationship.

The duo released their debut album Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg (1969), and Birkin also appeared in the controversial film Je t'aime moi non plus (1976) under Gainsbourg's direction. 

Birkin would attain further acting credits in the Agatha Christie adaptations Death on the Nile (1978), and Evil Under the Sun (1982).

After separating from Gainsbourg in 1980, Birkin continued to work as both an actress and a singer, appearing in various independent films and recording numerous solo albums. 

Birkin has lived mainly in France since the 1970s. She has three grown up children and In addition to her acting and musical credits, she lent her name to the famous Hermès Birkin handbag.

When we met in 2004 she was promoting her latest album rendezvous  but it was that song Je t’aime that I started by asking her about….does she ever get fed up talking about it? 

Hi everyone….we’re up to episode 6 of season 2 of tales from a very minor celebrity, a look back at some of my favourite interviews during my 35 year plus media career.

Now Jade Goody was born 5 June 1981 and died 22 March 2009.  She came to public prominence in 2002 when she appeared on the third series of the Channel 4 reality show Big Brother. 

She went on to star in her own television programmes after her eviction from the show, which in turn led to her launching a variety of products under her own name. Immediately criticised by the British press for her perceived lack of decorum and intelligence, Goody was dubbed by multiple outlets as "the most hated woman in Britain".

The country's celebrity magazines were less derisive, publishing reports of her affable nature and competent school performance from those who knew her.

Public opinion of Goody reached its most negative in January 2007, when she was involved in the Big Brother racism controversy while appearing as a housemate on Celebrity Big Brother 5. 

Following her eviction, Goody made a number of apologies, but continued to get negative public reactions. In August 2008, she participated in Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother, but left the show early and returned to the UK after finding out that she had cervical cancer. 

By February 2009, the cancer had metastasized and she was terminally ill. She married fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant Jack Tweed on 22 February 2009 and died one month later, in the early hours of 22 March 2009, at age 27.

Public opinion of Goody had softened by the time of her death. Sky Living broadcast five tribute shows from 2009 to 2012, documenting her life from early childhood through her rise to fame and her final months. 

The last episode of Big Brother on Channel 4 featured a 15-minute tribute to Goody, praising her as the ultimate Big Brother contestant. She was one of several people to appear on the front cover of the final edition of News of the World on 10 July 2011.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jade on a number of occasions, on the final one she had her new born baby with her, Bobby and she was telling me about a number of new projects she was involved with.

Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 5 of this new season of Tales From a very minor celebrity, a delve into my celebrity archive a look back at some of my very favourite interviews from my career in radio and TV…. 

Michael Ciaran Parker better known by his stage name Michael Barrymore was born in 1952. During the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. he hosted shows such as Strike It Luck, My Kind Of People, My Kind Of Music, Kids Say The Funniest Things, and his own variety show, Barrymore. In 1993, he headlined the Royal Variety Performance.

At his peak he was voted the UK's favourite television star several times, and became one of the highest-paid performers on television from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s. 

Barrymore's television career effectively ended after the  death of Stuart Labbock in 2001 following a party at Barrymore's house in Essex.

He tried for many years to revive his TV career…he appeared as a guest or contestant in a number of celebrity style programmes which culminated with him being named runner up in the 2006 edition of Celebrity Big Brother

When I met him he was promoting his one man show at Londons Wyndham’s theatre back in 2003.

Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 4 of this new season of Tales From A Very Minor Celebrity, a  delve into my celebrity archive and a look back at some of my very favourite interviews from my career in radio and TV…. and as I always say I hope you will like listening to them as much as I did recording them.

Now this week my guest is not so much flesh and blood, but rather metal and oil…whilst working at a radio station in Essex I had the pleasure of being invited to do some very nice things…and a lot of the invites came from Ford…

Some of the things I was invited to were the launch of one of the company’s new transit van models, not that exciting you may think until I tell you that the launch was held in Spain, and 13 media types were flown over there in a specially chartered jet and spent a very pleasant two days driving around Jarez

I was also invited to to the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Shakespeare Theatre in London as well.

But on this particular occasion I was invited to drive one of the iconic Ford GT 40’s around the test track at Warley. It had been set up to celebrate the company’s launch of their new version of the GT 40 which we also had a go in, but it was the original that I really wanted to experience.

The Ford GT40 is a high-performance endurance racing car commissioned by the Ford. It grew out of the "Ford GT" (for Grand Touring) in an effort to compete in European long-distance races, against Ferrari, which won the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hour Race race from 1960 - 65. Ford succeeded with the GT40, winning the 1966 through 1969 races. The film Ford v Ferrari starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale is an excellent look back at that period in Fords racing history.

So join me as I have a trip of a lifetime in my dream car, the Ford GT 40

Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three of this new season of Tales From A Very Minor Celebrity, a  delve into my audio archive and a look back at some of my very favourite interviews from my career in radio and TV…. I hope you will like them as much as I did recording them.

This week you’ll hear an interview I did with a young lady called Tandile. She was performing with a South African group of musicians called the Michael House Big Band, 22 musicians travelling from the KwaZulu-Natal area of South Africa as a part of a 15-date tour of England and Wales back in 2007.

A fairly interesting story but it got a lot more interesting when I discovered that Tandile’s surname was Mandela, yes a granddaughter of Nelson Mandela

She was to be the special guest with the Michael House Big band and as you’ll hear a very accomplished musician and singer

Tandile was 29 at the time of this interview.  She was studying for a Masters degree in music and delighted crowds with her performance on the alto saxophone and keyboards, as well as playing several native African instruments too.

The money raised from the concerts went to help feed, clothe and educate Aids orphans in South Africa.

I’ll play you the interview with Tandile first and then you’ll hear two songs that she played for me exclusively using traditional African instruments.

Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 2 of this new season of Tales From A Very Minor Celebrity, a  delve into my celebrity archive and a look back at some of my very favourite interviews from my career in radio and TV…. I hope you will like them as much as I did recording them.

Now this week it’s the turn of Ruby Wax, the American-British actress, comedian, writer, television personality, and mental health campaigner. A classically-trained actress, she was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for five years and co-starred on the ITV sitcom Girls On Top between (1985–1986).

She came to prominence as a comic interviewer on television shows including The Full Wax (1991–1994), Ruby Wax Meets... (1994–1998), Ruby (1997–2000), and The Ruby Wax Show (2002). She was a script editor for the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous  (1992–2012), also appearing in two episodes.

She holds both American and British citizenship and has resided in the UK since the 1970s. In 2013, she gained a Masters Degree in mindfullness-based cognitive therapy from Kellogg College, Oxford and was awarded an (OBE) 2015 for services to mental health. 

Her memoirs How Do You Want Me? and Sane New World both reached number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

We chatted in early 2000 when she was hired to promote Duty Free shopping in airports…but that was just a small part of this very enjoyable chat that we had which stated by her telling me about a very amusing journey she had with Zsa Zsa Gabor, one of her guests on her series Ruby Wax Meets

Hi everyone, and welcome to a new season of Tales From A Very Minor Celebrity. Yes I’m back and this time I’ll be delving into my celebrity archive and looking back at some of my very favourite interviews from my career in radio and TV….now to be included as a favourite they can either be because the person is really nice, it was a particularly funny interview or just very interesting or even controversial for some reason or another… I hope you will like them as much as I did recording them.

For this first one you’ll hear a chat I had with everyone’s favourite globe trotter, Michael Palin…I think you’ll agree that he slots very nicely into the “everyone likes” category….I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say a bad thing about him.

I spoke to him back in 2004 about his latest series Himalaya which recorded his six-month trip around the famous mountain range. The trip covered  4,800 km (3,000 miles) horizontally, but involved a lot of vertical travelling, including several treks into the mountains. The highest point reached by Palin was Everest Base Camp at 5,300 metres (17,500 feet).

He admitted that although he’d done fairly arduous journeys before, Himalaya had its own particular difficulties!

Hello once again and thank you for once again joining me for another edition of ‘Tales From A Very Minor Celebrity’, a look back at my life in TV and radio and a delve into my celebrity archive looking back at some of the many interviews I have done over the years and continue to do as well..

This week is a bit of a milestone for my podcast, episode 20!….so I have decided to have a short break….it’s ok….I know there will be a weeping and a waling and gnashing of teeth with that bombshell but do not fret, it will be only a couple of weeks or so which gives me time to recharge the batteries, sort through some more celebrity interviews and decide which way I’m going to take this podcast in the future.

This week it’s the last in the series of interviews with some of the great musicians and singers I’ve interviewed and we’re going out with a bang…coming up some great lead singers of their respective bands and a pianist.

You’ll hear from Marti Pellow former lead singer with Wet Wet Wet, Tony Hadley and Martin Fry lead singers with Spandau Ballet and ABC respectively and Richard Clayderman…which is notable because I had no idea he was French until we started the interview…that was a bit of a surprise and a great example of what can happen when you don’t bother to research your guests….

But first it’s Judith Durham, lead singer with the Seekers before she went off to do her own thing and who sadly died just recently.