Phoneys
I hope time travel wasn’t invented twenty years ago.
More people are using tiny wireless headphones these days. They’re not all listening to music, a lot of them are talking on the phone.
Wireless headphones are getting smaller, you can’t always see them. I commute into central London every day and it looks like every other person is talking to themselves. Some of them get really animated, angry and loud on the phone.
If a time traveler arrived from twenty years ago, they’d walk around thinking that the city has been taken over by winos!
Craic on!
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Filed under: AFTRS, Alcohol, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, England, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, London, Media, People, Radio, Time Travel, Time warp, Transport, Travel, true story, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: Airpods, Blog, commute, Craic, Google, Graham Mack, Inspiration, Internet, life, Media, phone, Radio, Travel, wireless
Eye To Eye Contactless
“Did you just pay for that with your finger?” That’s what the lady at the Black Sheep coffee shop said when I paid for my order today.
I used my new K Ring: the world’s first contactless payment ring. I’ve been wearing it for about three weeks now and it’s great. A bloke called Steve put me onto it, he’s one of my regular callers on Fix Radio. He works for K Ring at their HQ in Welwyn Garden City. He said he’d send me one to try out for free.
I have to admit that when Steve first told me about the K Ring, I thought, no, I’m happy just using my debit card for contactless payments. I changed my mind after the Fix Radio Christmas party. I had to get home after being at a big do at Evolution London at Battersea Park. I walked to the overground station where I had to tap in. This was late on a Friday night and I didn’t really fancy getting my wallet out. Even if it didn’t get snatched, one of the colourful characters hanging around the station could have easily seen which pocket I keep it in. I thought, if I had a K Ring, I wouldn’t have this problem.
I decided I’d get one and only use it on the trains, tubes and busses. Now I’ve got it, I use it for everything. It’s brilliant, never needs charging and it’s waterproof so I never have to take it off, I even wear it in the shower.
Now that everyone at Fix is back in work after the Christmas break, they’ve seen mine, and they all want one. The two single lads who work in sales even think it’ll help them impress the ladies. This week five K Rings were ordered for people who work at Fix.
It does confuse a lot of retailers. I’m sure the bloke in my local stop ‘n’ rob convenience store thinks I’m ripping him off when I fist bump the contactless pad, say thank you and walk out with my stuff. It feels good though, it’s the shopping equivalent of a mic drop.
The only problem I’ve had was when I first got it. The K Ring showed up at Fix Radio on the Friday after Christmas. I was the only one in the building and was on the air in the afternoon. I was going to set it up after my show but couldn’t wait and opened the box while I was on the air. I logged onto the K Ring website, entered my unique security number, registered my debit card details and topped up £30 onto it, then I put the K Ring on. It was a lot tighter than I thought it would be and I was actually quite annoyed, the jewelers where I’d had my finger measured must have got my size wrong. No, I’d put the ring on the wrong finger, now I couldn’t get it off!
I went into the Gents, put my hand under the soap dispenser, pulled the lever, soap squirted onto my palm, ricocheted off and went straight into my eye. With my eye stinging from the soap, the ring still stuck on the wrong finger and the song on the radio running out, I raced back to the studio, just in time to start the next song.
I eventually got it off, put it on the correct finger and I haven’t looked back. Now I’m looking forward to using it on our round the world trip in March. I’ll be paying for things contactlessly in China, Australia, New Zealand and the USA without getting my wallet out.
I’m not being paid by K Ring to write this blog, but I did get a free K Ring to try out and they’re not getting it back!
So that’s one in the eye for contactless cards!
Find out more about the K Ring here;
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Chip and pin, England, Fix Radio, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Internet, K Ring, Media, Radio, Tech, true story, Uncategorized, USA, Wearable Tech, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blog, Computer, Contactless, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Internet, journalism, K Ring, marketing, Media, Radio, Travel, Wearable Tech, work
The G-Emmy Awards
Here are some highlights from the latest G-Emmy Awards which recognise outstanding excellence in entertainment. Nominees this year include:
Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, Wayne Rooney, Katie Hopkins, Greta Thunberg, Rebekah Vardy, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Cleese, Jeremy Corbyn, Noel Gallagher, Piers Morgan, The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Diane Abbott, Mauricio Pochettino, David Cameron, Jo Swinson, The Duke of Edinburgh and, Liam Neeson.
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, England, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Politcs, Politics, Radio, Time warp, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blog, Computer, David Cameron, Diane Abbott, Donald Trump, feedback, Fix Radio, G-Emmy Awards, Google, Graham Mack, Greater Manchester Police, Greta Thunberg, Inspiration, Internet, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jo Swinson, journalism, Katie Hopkins, Liam Neeson, life, Mauricio Pochettino, News, Prince Andrew, Rebekah Vardy, The Duke of Edinburgh, Wayne Rooney
Mack Nuggets
Here’s what I’ve been up to on Fix Radio lately, including:
The Queen confesses to Donald Trump about her sordid past.
The writing is on the wall for Mick.
A selfie with Wayne Rooney.
A special birthday song.
The stripper.
The sex festival.
Steve’s worst Christmas present.
Television New Zealand ripps of the USA but not quite.
John Cleese gets stuck into Piers Morgan.
Darren gets thrown out and Mark loses a tent and a friend at Glastonbury.
Craic on!
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Commercial Television, Commercials, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Memories, podcast, Radio, Social Media, true story, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birthday, Christmas, Donald Trump, Glastonbury, John Cleese, New Zealand, Piers Morgan, The Queen, Wayne Rooney
Unguarded Moment
Do we need guards on trains?
Up until yesterday, I didn’t understand why the RMT union were causing chaos on Britain’s railways by striking. The RMT are against removing guards from trains. I thought they were protecting the jobs of their members, and maybe that’s part of it, but it’s not the main reason we need to have guards on trains, it’s much more important than that.
Yesterday I was on the 7:26 Thameslink from Hitchin to Brighton. I ride this train every weekday and get off at London Blackfriars. I was at the back of the very last coach of a twelve coach train. About twenty minutes into my forty-one minute journey, the bloke opposite me collapsed and fell into the aisle.
Lots of people surrounded him to check if he was OK and someone shouted, “Push the button and let the driver know!” As the bloke lay unconscious in the aisle, they spoke to the driver on the intercom. He stopped the train between stations somewhere north of Finsbury Park. Luckily, a member of Thameslink staff happened to be in our carriage. She was great and kept things calm while we waited for the driver. She explained that the driver is in charge of the train and makes a decision on what happens, but first he has to assess the situation. We had to wait till he got there.
It seemed to take ages for the driver to arrive because he had to make his way along the full length of the train from the front, right to the very back.
He checked on the bloke who was drifting in and out of consciousness by now and made the decision to push on to Finsbury Park station. He would phone ahead for an ambulance. Then he made his way back to his cab at the other end of the train. I didn’t time it, but it felt like a long time had gone by from when the driver was first alerted to the problem, to when the train started to move again. If this had happened on a later, standing-room-only, train, he would have taken a lot longer or been forced to get off the train and risk his life, walking along the tracks.
The driver should never leave the cab. What if this was a terrorist incident and the man collapsing was a ruse to make the driver leave the cab so someone else could take control of the train? What if the man needed urgent medical help (for all I know, he did) and all of the time wasted stopping the train and having the driver walk the length of it twice had fatal consequences?
If there had been a guard on the train, they could have dealt with the situation, told the driver to keep going and the casualty would have been getting medical attention at Finsbury Park a lot sooner.
You’re a lot safer if there’s a guard on the train.
Craic on!
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Commercial Radio, Commercial Television, Commercials, Fix Radio, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Radio, Tavel, Trains, Travel, true story, Truth, Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Tags: Blackfriars, Blog, Computer, feedback, Finsbury Park, Google, Guards, Inspiration, Internet, journalism, life, London, Marshall, medical, News, Radio, RMT, strike, Thameslink, Trains, Travel, work
Here’s how to be offensive on the radio without getting into trouble with Ofcom.
Ofcom are the government body that regulates and licences broadcasting in the UK. They have effectively banned the song ‘Melting Pot’ by Blue Mink. They’ve found Black Diamond FM in breach of its radio licence after complaints were received about the station playing the song.
When Melting pot was released in 1969, it reached No 3 in the UK charts and has been a fixture on radio playlists for decades. But the song’s racial language, including references to “curly Latin kinkies” and “yellow Chinkies”, has been deemed inappropriate for modern audiences by Britain’s media watchdog.
It’s not the first time, Ofcom have dealt with this song. In August this year, Gold was forced to ban the song after Ofcom stepped in and said the song, “…would not be acceptable on a mainstream radio station”.
The thing is, “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues is playing on radio stations all over the country right now, uncensored, even though it contains the lyrics, “…you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot…”
Clearly, Ofcom considers the word “faggot” to be inoffensive in the context of this song even though a lot of the stations that play Fairytale of New York also play a censored version of Dire Straights ‘Money For Nothing’ with the word ‘faggot’ removed.
It’s a bit more complicated with the word “maggot”. In Fairytale of New York, it’s OK but in 2018, while I was on the air at BOBfm, I used the word maggot and was found to have put the radio station in breach of it’s licence.
https://radiotoday.co.uk/2018/08/bob-fm-in-breach-for-aggressive-speed-camera-rant/
If you programme a radio station and are unsure of the Ofcom rules, let me explain. – If you’re going to play an offensive song, make sure it’s homophobic rather than racist and if you want to broadcast the word “maggot”, don’t say it, sing it.
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Filed under: 1960s, AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Commercial Radio, Commercial Television, Compliants, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Ofcom, Radio, true story, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blue Mink, BOBfm, Chinese, Chinkies, Diamond FM, Faggots, Fairytale of New York, Gay, Graham Mack, Homophobic, Kinkies, Maggots, Melting Pot, Money For Nothing, Ofcom, Offensice, racist, Radio, Radio Today, The Pogues
If you don’t want to end up paying hundreds of pounds in fines, you’d better mind your Ps and Qs!
Last month, I had to rent a van for Fix Radio. There were two days where I drove through London’s congestion zone.
I made sure that our Accounts Director paid the £11.50 congestion charge for each day and he emailed me copies of the receipts. You can imagine how shocked I was when I was sent two fines in the post for £130 each.
I called up Transport For London and was told that I needed to pay the fines because the number plate was wrong. It turned out that our Accounts Director had entered a zero instead of a letter O by mistake.
Now that should have been an easy thing to fix on the phone. I haven’t attempted to evade paying the congestion charge, it’s a simple human error. All the person on the phone, sitting in front of their computer, had to do was change the zero to an O, cancel the fines and we could have both moved on and got on with our day, but that is not how TFL operate!
The system is, you have to pay the fines, then launch an official appeal. I was told that if I did that it would take months and as entering an incorrect number plate is, in itself, an offence, it wasn’t worth it and I’d end up in court where I’d lose anyway.
The system has been set up this way to catch you out. The current number plate format is two letters, followed by two numbers, followed by three more letters. TFL could set up their webpage so it doesn’t allow you to enter a number where a letter should be, especially with zeros and Os, but this mistake must happen all the time, so TFL make it EASY for you to make a mistake so that they rake in even more cash!
Making money is the only reason London has a congestion charge. Don’t let them kid you, it has nothing to do with reducing congestion. TFL’s own figures show that the amount of traffic that goes through central London is about the same as it was before the change was introduced in 2003 and it moves slower than it did back then as well.
London’s congestion charge brought in £229.8 million in the last financial year. That number will be even higher next year because of extra charges introduced for vehicles that exceed specific emissions standards; https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/charges-for-driving-in-london
There’s a lot of disinformation surrounding the congestion charge. My favourite is that it’s there to help the environment by encouraging people to drive greener vehicles (Electric vehicles are exempt). If they really wanted London’s air to be cleaner, they’d ban the most polluting vehicles. They won’t do that because there would be a cost in policing it, this way they MAKE money.
When I think about what a racket the whole thing is, it makes me feel sick to the stomach. – They should change the name of it to, the “ingestion charge”.
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Commercial Television, Complaints, Compliants, Conspiracy, corruption, Crime, Electric Cars, Fix Radio, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Internet, London, Media, Radio, Scam, Technology, TFL, Transport, true story, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: Congestion Charge, Congestion Zone, emissions, Fix Radio, Londo, racket, scam, TFL
Live And Get Pie.
“Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy”. – That’s just one of many misconceptions that are used as excuses for not going vegan.
At Fix Radio, another one of the blokes I work with went vegan this week. That means four out of the nine men in our office now only eat plant based food. On Friday, the newest vegan, Jack, ordered vegan pies to be delivered from Pieminister for our lunch. We asked one of the meat eaters if he wanted “in” because we know he’s a health freak and he said, “Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy”.
I’m not sure where the ‘vegan not healthy’ myth came from but the basic facts don’t back it up.
The number one cause of death in the UK is dementia and alzheimer’s disease.
Recent research suggests that Alzheimer’s disease is linked to the saturated fat, cholesterol and toxins found in meat and dairy products. People who eat meat and dairy products have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than vegans. The protective properties of chemicals commonly found in plants—such as antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals—help substantially lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. People who eat large quantities of saturated fats, like those found in meat and dairy products, have twice the risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Meanwhile, people who eat very small amounts of saturated fat in favor of more polyunsaturated fats (found in vegetables and nuts) have a 70 percent reduction in Alzheimer’s risk.
The second biggest killer is heart disease. According to The Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine, following a plant-based diet, reduces the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 40 percent and coronary heart disease by 40 percent. Blocked arteries are unblocked partially or fully in as many as 91 percent of patients and hypertension risk drops by 34 percent.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321992.php#1
So not only is eating meat the number one cause of death for animals, it’s also the number one cause of death for humans. What’s not healthy about that?
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Filed under: AFTRS, BBC, blog, Broadcasting, Commercial Radio, Commercial Television, Commercials, Farming, Fix Radio, Food, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Media, Radio, true story, Truth, Uncategorized, Vegan | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alzheimer's, Blog, Dementia, Fix Radio, Google, Heart Disease, Inspiration, Internet, life, medical, News, Pieminister, Radio, Vegan
Abbreviated Encounter
It’s time to ban all abbreviations.
Sometimes the abbreviation takes longer to say than the actual words. Stephen Fry pointed out that World Wide Web contains less syllables than “double-you double-you double-you”.
Then there are the short words that are abbreviated. What’s the point of using @ instead of “at”? It still means you have to press two keys on the keyboard because you have to hit the 2 key and the shift key. What are you saving there?
My biggest problem with abbreviations is there are so many for the same thing and that’s confusing. I worked at a radio station a long time ago that had a fleet of promotional vehicles called “Black Thunders”. Staff started referring to each one as a “BT”. I’m sorry but BT is British Telecom. It turns out that BT is also an abbreviation for the title of Baronet, Breakfast Television in Canada and the post code for Northern Ireland.
At that radio station, I was the “P.C.”, Programme Controller. That felt weird because, to me, P.C. was always a Police Constable. It can also stand for lots of other things including:
Personal Computer, Printed Circuit, Politically Correct, Professional Corporation, Postcard, Power Control, Program Code, Phone Call, Paper Clip, Press Conference, Private Chat, Personal Contact, Power Converter, Patch Cord, Prince Charles, Professional Component, Paradise City, Player Controlled, Primary Care, Planning Commission, Pussy Cat, Peace Corps, Pony Club, Purchase Card, Project Code, Pokemon Center, Powder Coating, Pocket Calculator, Parish Council, Presbyterian Church, Physical Contact, Principal Component, Panama Canal, Piano Concerto, Public Citizen, Paracetamol, Prostate Cancer, Passenger Car, Protective Clothing, Pitcairn Islands, Polycarbonate, Pierre Cardin, Portion Control, Previous Channel, Probable Cause, Photocopy, Patrol Car, Per Capita, Percentage, Communist Party, Poets Corner, Panasonic Corporation, Palliative Care, Petty Cash, Pepsi-Cola, Principal Consultant, Privy Council, Prime Contractor, Procurement Clerk, Precast Concrete, Pressure Chamber, Protective Custody, People’s Court, Plaid Cymru, Party Chief, Private Contractor, Profit Centre, Plastic Conduit, Partial Correlation, Peaches & Cream, Personal Carer, Point of Curvature, Provisional Cost, Pelvic Contractions, Petrol Cap, Public Convenience and Post Coital.
In fact all abbreviations are PC – Pretty Crap!
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Interview, Media, Radio, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: BT, Communist Party, P.C., Palliative Care, Panama Canal, Panasonic Corporation, Paper Clip, Paracetamol, Paradise City, Parish Council, Partial Correlation, Party Chief, Passenger Car, Patch Cord, Patrol Car, Peace Corps, Peaches & Cream, Pelvic Contractions, People's Court, Pepsi-Cola, Per Capita, Percentage, Personal Carer, Personal Computer, Personal Contact, Petrol Cap, Petty Cash, phone call, Photocopy, Physical Contact, Piano Concerto, Pierre Cardin, Pitcairn Islands, Plaid Cymru, Planning Commission, Plastic Conduit, Player Controlled, Pocket Calculator, Poets Corner, Point of Curvature, Pokemon Center, Politically Correct, Polycarbonate, Pony Club, Portion Control, Postcard, Powder Coating, Power Control, Power Converter, Precast Concrete, Presbyterian Church, Press Conference, Pressure Chamber, Previous Channel, Primary Care, Prime Contractor, Prince Charles, Principal Component, Principal Consultant, Printed Circuit, Private Chat, Private Contractor, Privy Council, Probable Cause, Procurement Clerk, Professional Component, Professional Corporation, Profit Centre, Program Code, Project Code, Prostate cancer, Protective Clothing, Protective Custody, Provisional Cost, Public Citizen, Public Convenience, Purchase Card, Pussy Cat, Stephen Fry
Free Cash From Fix Radio!
This is how Fix Radio celebrated National Tradesman’s Day this year. It’s a day that honors the men and women who use their skills and hard work build and maintain the world we live in.
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Britain, Broadcasting, Commercial Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Radio, true story, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blog, Fix Radio, Free cash, Google, Graham Mack, Inspiration, Internet, journalism, London, Media, National Tradesman's Day, publicity stunt, Radio, Waterloo Station, work
This is what happened when I spoke to a bloke who was protesting outside Britain’s suspended Parliament.
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Radio, true story, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Blog, Climate Strike, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inspiration, Internet, journalism, London, Media, News, Radio, Truant
The First Time
There are a lot of emotions involved when you do something for the very first time.
Fix Radio is made for the trade so we’ve launched new shows presented by tradespeople who’ve never been on the radio before.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what happened during our new programme for painters and decorators presented by Trevor and Ryan Mangan…
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Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Mack Nuggets
Here’s what I’ve been up to on Fix Radio lately including:
Piper and her screaming son; A football story; The watch scam; A fart at a funeral; Mark The Shark; Darren and the disrespectful driver.
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Fix Radio, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Radio, true story, Truth, Uncategorized, Youtube | 1 Comment
Tags: Blog, Fix Radio, Football, Funeral, Google, Graham Mack, Inspiration, Internet, life, Media, News, scams
Strictly Come Dancing will take over Saturday nights on BBC 1 again this autumn. A few years ago I got to interview one of the hosts, Tess Daly. I was on BOBfm in Hertfordshire with Amy Stevenson and Tess was on a line from London.
As you’ll hear, it didn’t go well…
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Filed under: AFTRS, BBC, blog, Broadcasting, Commercial Radio, Contest, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Media, Radio, Truth, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Amy Frost, BBC, Blog, BOBfm, Google, Graham Mack, Hertfordshire, Inspiration, Internet, life, London, Media, Radio, Strictly Come Dancing, Tess Daly, work
Mack Nuggets
Congratulations to Gaz Drinkwater who’s co-presenting a great new show on BBC Radio Manchester called “Talking Balls”. If you’re into Manchester United or City, I bet you’ll enjoy it, listen here;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07hnl2b/episodes/player
As I’m a Liverpool fan and Gaz is Man United, we didn’t talk about football much when we presented the Breakfast Show on Fix Radio Manchester together, here’s what it sounded like;
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Filed under: AFTRS, BBC, BBC Radio Manchester, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Fix Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inside look, Inspiration, Liverpool, Manchester, Media, Police, Radio, Roads, true story, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio Manchester, Blog, Cats, feedback, Gaz Drinkwater, Google, Graham Mack, Inspiration, Internet, journalism, Liam Neeson, life, Manchester Evening News, Media, News, Radio, Spice Girls, The Simpsons, Travis Perkins
Mack Nuggets
The longest I’ve ever stayed at the same radio station is five years. That was BOBfm in Herts, Beds and Bucks. Here’s some of my favourite bits from my last two years there, including: Disaster at Titanic the Musical; A stuck story; The ultimate protest song; Miscommunication; What was on the roof of the car?; The gender bender; Why you should pee on your tomatoes; Andy Summers from The Police; Skiving; Neighbour from hell; Siri doesn’t work; A school trip story; A left behind story; The talking whale; The truth about the childhood obesity crisis; The lady shaving her legs in a public pool; The workplace toboggan team; Israel wins the Eurovision song contest; Why Britain is the greatest country on earth; Minimum pricing for booze in Scotland; Wolf whistling banned in France; The Ikea wardrobe disaster; A special birthday request; The vomit comet; The nickname misunderstanding; Expensive photographs; The truth about World Cup pundits; The camel beauty contest;The odd shoe; The Queen and the baby elephant; Grabbed by the bells; Donald or Duke?; Cyclists; The girly men; Russia; The NHS; Boaty McBoatface; We Didn’t Start The Fire – Billy Joel Parody.
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Filed under: AFTRS, blog, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Google, Graham Mack, Inspiration, Radio, true story, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andy Summers, Billy Joel, Boaty McBoatface, BOBfm, Donald Trump, Eurovision, Ikea, NHS, Russia, The Queen, World Cup
Mack Nuggets
This is what I got up to on Radio Merseyside from 2016 to 2018, including: The end of the world; What Charlie said; Ricky Tomlinson talks about Mickey Finn; Liverpool’s zoo; Andrew Neil gets taken down; Connections to celebrity; Roger McGough talks about the Blitz; a journey from hell; The real reason why Liverpool fans sing You’ll Never Walk Alone; Paul McCartney’s surprise in Liverpool; The vomit comet; New Zealand; Neighbours from hell; Trees;The party without a DJ; A houseguest from hell; A bonfire night surprise; Cultural differences; A fancy dress story; Buyers remorse; Revenge on Henry Ford; The fourth dimension; A tribute to Keith Chegwin; Caught the bus, should have taken a taxi; Beatles biographer, Hunter Davies; The inspirational Gary Skyner; What happens when you sell your soul to the devil in Mississippi; A Father’s Day story; Using the wrong word; Donald And Melania Trump’s; The lady responsible for the skiffle boom that started it all; Aunty Hazel calls in; Mistaken identity; Harsh rejection; A tribute to Chuck Berry; I can’t believe you’re doing THAT here!; The dangers of the Twist.
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Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, AFTRS, BBC, BBC Radio Merseyside, blog, Blues, Broadcasting, Comedy, Commercial Radio, Gerry Marsden, Google, Graham Mack, Hillsborough, Inside look, Inspiration, LFC, Liverpool, Liverpool Football Club, Media, Radio, true story, TV, Uncategorized, Youtube | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Neil, BBC Radio Merseyside, Chuck Berry, Donald Trump, Father's Day, Henry Ford, Keith Chegwin, Liverpool, Mickey Finn, New Zealand, Paul McCartney, Ricky Tomlinson, Roger McGough, The Twist, You'll Never Walk Alone
I thought I was going to be killed by an armed policeman this week.
As you can see by the video above, Fix Radio recorded a promotional film with “Boris Johnson” at Downing Street. We didn’t have permission and as I was in charge, an officer with a very large automatic weapon asked me what we were up to. Without thinking, I said, “It won’t take long, we’re just going to shoot the Prime Minister!”
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Smart Arse!
The greatest legacy of the first moon landing is the inspiration it gives to us all.
50 years ago this month, Apollo 11 touched down in the Sea of Tranquillity. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the surface. I was five years old when I watched the grainy black and white pictures broadcast live from the moon. Even at that age, it felt like from that moment on, anything was possible.
It happened because of four things; motive, provocation, a clear goal with a deadline and resources.
Let’s break them down:
Motive
The Americans had to beat the Russians. The consequences of coming second to an evil empire were unthinkable and very real. When the decision was made to shoot for the moon, the US was a long way behind Russia. In fact, they were barely even in the Space Race.
Provocation
The Russians were the first to put a satellite into orbit and the first to do the same with a human. When Yuri Gagarin returned to earth, he became a global celebrity as big as any Hollywood movie star. It was a body blow to American pride.
A clear goal with a deadline
On the 25th May 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood in front of Congress and said the US “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. – It was uncomplicated and the deadline was crystal clear.
Resources
In the 1983 movie, The Right Stuff, astronaut Gordon Cooper, played by Dennis Quaid says, “You boys know what makes this bird go up? Funding makes this bird go up”, to which fellow Mercury 7 astronaut Gus Grissom, played by Fred Ward, says, “That’s right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers”. – NASA had the resources of the US taxpayer behind them.
Just because the goal was simple, it didn’t mean it was easy. When Kennedy set out his objective, the sum total of America’s experience in manned space flight was just over a quarter of an hour. Twenty days earlier, Alan Shepard had become the first American in space when he was launched on board Freedom 7. Unlike Gagarin, who orbited the earth, Shepard went up and came straight back down again. From launch to splashdown, it was all over in 15 minutes and 22 seconds.
Kennedy clarified that his challenge was not going to be easy to achieve. In a speech he gave to a large crowd at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962. He said, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.
And it was REALLY hard. It took hundreds of thousands of people, working together to achieve that goal. Lessons had to be learned from scratch, new materials had to be created, plans had to be constantly changed and adapted, personal sacrifices had to be made, relationships suffered and three astronauts died in a launchpad fire including Neil Armstrong’s best friend and next door neighbour, Ed White.
I wish I could find an acronym for motive, provocation, goal with a deadline and resources, MPGDR isn’t really snappy enough. Unfortunately, in today’s world if you can’t boil something down into a clever abbreviation that can be turned into a powerpoint slide presented by a creatively disabled middle-manager in a suit, it doesn’t catch on.
I once worked for a large broadcasting company that insisted that all goals had to be SMART. That stood for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. If President Kennedy was forced to make his goal SMART, America would never have gone to the moon.
Let’s break that down:
Specific – There was nothing specific in Kennedy’s challenge. The spacecraft, mathematics and planning involved in getting to the moon and back hadn’t even been thought up when he issued his challenge.
Measurable – It’s not possible, even now, to measure the effect the first mission to the moon has had on the population of earth.
Achievable – At the time, the most powerful rocket America had launched with a man on board had flown to an altitude of only 117 miles. That’s nowhere near the 238,855 miles that separate the earth from the moon. One of the greatest things about the goal Kennedy set was that it seemed so unachievable.
Realistic – Landing a man on the moon is so unrealistic that even today there are people who still think it’s impossible and believe the “live” pictures from the moon were faked on a Hollywood backlot by Stanley Kubrick.
Timely – Going to the moon and back wasn’t timely, it was an achievement well ahead of its time. Your smartphone is millions of times more powerful than all of the combined computing NASA had in 1969. They didn’t even have pocket calculators. The watches the astronauts wore on the moon had to be wound up because they were clockwork.
SMART is DUMB, Dimwits Underestimating Man’s Brilliance. SMART should stand for Small Minds Afraid, Restricting Targets.
We shouldn’t think small, we should always think big. As long as we have a strong enough motive, the right provocation, a clear goal with a deadline and the right resources, we’ll get to wherever it is we want to go. Along the way we’ll have to make sacrifices and there will be devastating setbacks. We’ll have to accept them, learn, adapt and move on. As long as we don’t give up, we’ll see that anything IS possible.
See you on the moon.
Craic on!
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