Danskcolin: Friday December 20th 2024 "Are YOU too scared to be a caller on a BBC radio chat show?"

Dear Reader, have YOU ever dared to call in to one of the BBC's radio political chat-shows? Most of us haven't had the courage to, have we, especially here in rural West Worcestershire, often out of fear that we may be knocked or mocked, even (!), for our country-bumpkin-ish, "The Archers"-style accents (!). Am I right? Or am I right!

Well, make sure you're listening tonight, dear Friends, when a local man, who wants to be known simply as "Bob", is going to try and break through the "bumpkin barrier" (!), by phoning in a question to BBC flagship top-rated national radio political phone-in chat-show programme "Jonathan Pye's Inside Politics", no less!!!!

Did you see the story about it in one of last week's Onion News (West Worcestershire Desk) print editions? It was on page 94, if my memory serves me (!).

Well, I would imagine the whole of West Worcestershire will be tuning in tonight to hear the show, and to see whether local man Bob's typically frank question will get through the BBC Switchboard's known "big city" biases, and finally breaking the so-called "bumpkin barrier" at last, and not before time (!).

local man Bob, who will try to break the BBC's "bumpkin barrier"

tonight with a call-in question on local train delays to the BBC's

flagship radio chat-show "Inside Politics with Jonathan Pie"

In the event, I'm sorry to say that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I forgot all about tuning in to Pie's show this evening, so if YOU heard it, do drop me a postcard and tell me whether Pie's political guests had a good answer to give to poor Bob. Or just give me a phone-call, as long as it's just a "quickie" - I haven't got all day, you know, so keep it snappy haha! In fact, don't tell me, I'll google it tomorrow haha!

Ironically this evening, Lois and I sit here on the couch watching a television chat-show: excerpts from the "Queen of Chat-Show" Caroline Aherne's programmes over the years - of which more later!

[I can't wait! - Ed]

Well, we've got a good excuse for missing radio chat-shows this evening, because today proves to be another frustrating 24 hours for us in our attempt to move from our new-build home here in Malvern, in rural West Worcestershire, to a house on the fringes of the London commuter belt, in Liphook, Hampshire, in a way trying to break the "bumpkin barrier" in a more physical way (!) than poor local man Bob (see story above!).

Liphook, Hampshire, where my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I

want to buy a house: Liphook is officially "almost in London's commuter belt"

because you can get to central London in the morning with a "mere"

2-hour train trip (!) - what madness !!!!

In our house purchasing efforts, it's another money problem that Lois and I are facing today.

Yesterday the "big bucks" needed to pay for our new house eventually reached Oliver, our "big city" London lawyer, via our bank in Swindon, but it took an agonising four and a half hours, with us having to check our bank balance online every 15 minutes.

flashback to yesterday: the money needed to buy our shiny new house takes

4.5 hours to get from the mortgage firm (bottom right) to our big-city

lawyer Oliver (top right) via our bank in Swindon, Wiltshire - what madness !!!!

Today, it's the same story, but with the "medium-to-big bucks" needed to pay the Government's stamp tax and Oliver's bill - a mini fortune in itself, to put it mildly! This sum takes an agonising 22 hours to arrive, and doesn't get to Oliver till after the banks have closed for the weekend, some of them for Christmas week also, would you believe!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

today we find it's a re-run of yesterday's agonising wait, while the "medium-to-big-bucks"

for the Government's stamp tax and for Oliver's bill take a staggering 22 hours to arrive.

What madness (again) !!!!!

The upshot to the day's agonies and ecstasies is that Lois and I just fail by about 30 minutes (!), to clinch the deal and become the proud owners of our new house - and that that will now all have to wait till Monday. At least however we make progress today with organising the marketing of our current house here in Malvern, and we also book a removal firm to come and pack up our furniture and belongings, now set for January 3rd.

Busy, busy, busy!!!

20:00 Evening falls and an exhausted Lois and I want something light to watch on TV, firstly, this week's Christmas Special edition of "QI XL", the comedy quiz show.

Luckily veteran TV presenter and chat-show guest Gyles Brandreth is on hand tonight to raise a chuckle to two from us, (and also from his fellow guest panellist 1960's singer Lulu), to put it mildly. And he does that with one of his trademark risqué Christmas anecdotes, this one all about his friend, the late comedian Bob Monkhouse.

Monkhouse, Gyles tells us, was worried about his sperm count just before Christmas. So he went to see his doctor, who asked him for a sample, sending him home with a sort of empty jam jar with a screw top, and asking him to come back with his sample the following day.

Aha! Stories like that - they just never get old, do they haha!

21:00 We go to bed on a moving documentary about the late comedienne and chat-show host, Caroline Aherne.

Lois and I used to love Caroline's chat-show "Mrs Merton", which featured the still only 20-something Caroline, in her iconic "Mrs Merton" old-lady persona.

Famously, Caroline was never afraid to tackle sensitive issues on her show, as this snapshot vignette quickly demonstrated, at the end of her very first late-night show for the BBC:

And who can forget "Mrs Merton's" iconic interviews with the stars, like the one with the lovely Debbie McGee, assistant to the critically acclaimed but cerebrally challenged conjuror and magician, the late Paul Daniels?

Here, Mrs Merton gets straight to the point, at the same time deftly avoiding a fatal 'spoonerism' in her now-famous introduction she gave to Debbie:

Caroline of course, as is well-known, died tragically at the young age of 52 from lung cancer. But Lois and I didn't know that in her private life, Caroline had always been very close to her grandmother, and that when her granny sadly died in the 1990's, Caroline wrote a scene inspired by this sad event into the sitcom she was writing at the time, "The Royle Family".

Remember these touching scenes in "The Royle Family", where granddaughter Denise is comforting her dying "Nana", by singing with her the old Doris Day song "Que Sera Sera, Whatever Will Be Will Be, The Future's Not Ours To See"?

Caroline's long-time collaborator Craig Cash recalls the touching sitcom scene for us tonight:

Later in the sitcom's moving "Farewell to Nana" episode, granddaughter Denise asks hospital nurse Barbara what her Nana's last words were:

Awwwwww!!!!

And, finally, to end tonight's tribute to Caroline, her long-time collaborator Craig Cash movingly recalls a favourite quotation, by WH Auden, that Caroline had pinned up on a cork notice-board at her home.