Baker's Treat

I don't much like Britain's Got Talent or The X Factor but they get massive ratings. As I settled down in front of the TV and looked through the 762 channels on offer, I finally get it. There really is nothing else on. I know it's a cliche but Casualty or some reality show about fat people or the latest CSI:Romford or the Police Stop Action real life equivalent are not decent alternatives. It's all just different kinds of crap.
So Britain's Got Talent it is, with three kids who, every time some oddball comes on, say to each other 'your date's here. hahahaha.'
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But there is hope elsewhere. On Radio Five this morning, Danny Baker returned to the airwaves after his cancer battle which, he didn't dwell on at all to his credit. He made a comment that good radio is not just TV without pictures. If only someone would tell Fearne 'Amazing' Cotton, Chris Moyles and the rest of them.
Radio's an interesting one. I know a lot of people who religiously listen to Today on Radio Four and lecture me about it. Yet they remain some of the most unempathetic and ill-informed people I know, particularly when it comes to current affairs and politics. I don't bother with it and they think I'm missing out. But if I want to know the mainfesto of each political party I'll simply read it instead of listening to MPs read it out parrot fashion to any question on any subject they are asked by the egotistical interviewers who like the sound of their own voice a little too much for my liking.
Then you get Danny Baker come on and remind you what it's all about. This morning he interviewed Paul Merton about a TV series he is doing on silent movies (which admittedly is one thing that wouldn't work on the wireless.)
To hear two, intelligent, men talk about a subject on which they are both passionate was refreshing and brilliant radio. They bantered, swapped information and their genuine love of the subject was evident through the speakers.
Because it was radio, because it was allowed to run and because it was an intelligent interviewer who did not rely on an autocue, it was wonderful.
And funny. Don't forget funny. He kept making wonderfully inventive jokes about injunctions, introducing the concept of retrospective ones, claiming Ashley Cole has taken out a number of them so that he must be referred to as still married to Cheryl Cole.
I like the radio. Apart from Today and The Archers (if you are under 60 and you like this badly acted crap then you are merely pandering to a middle class stereotype and you should snap out of it immediately) I don't dislike Radio Four as they still produce things like The News Quiz which has the same jokes as Have I Got News For You? but a couple of days earlier. The real hidden pleasures, though, are to be found on the most bizarre networks. There's a soul show on Radio Oxford on Sundays which I think is called The Soul Prescription and Smooth had a three hour Northern Soul special recently. Then there are various other titbits. Radio Five's football coverage still knocks TalkSport into a cocked hat, and that's despite rather than because of Alan Green and Robbie Savage. Test Match Special remains forever unrivalled even though it is hidden away on some obscure bit of the network that my car radio can't reach. Radio One has absolutely nothing to recommend it. Mark Kermode's film reviews are very good and Simon Mayo is an excellent foil to him on Five Live.
And there are also a million regional gems hidden away around the country that I haven't yet found.
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Exclamation marks. They are meant to show surprise or astonishment. At a push, they can be used to show a shout - they were often called 'screamers' by sub editors.
But they are not meant to be added to a comment on Twitter referring to something that everyone already knows about. Like 'it's Monday!!!' or 'right, off for a drink!!'. Or, as I heard someone mention, after Liz Taylor died, thousands posted messages ending in 'RIP!!'. Screen icon dies. Fair enough. But the RIP is not an expression of shock or surprise, is it? Liz Taylor's dead. REST IN PEACE!!!!!!
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Took the kids to Portobello Road market today. Fab place. I've never been. Spent my whole life in London and been to the Notting Hill Festival and the Gate Theatre and other parts of this part of the world but never been to the market. The girls loved it, too. Although a lot of the stuff there is vastly overpriced. The boy wasn't as keen but then it meant a few hours away from his Playstation.
Market traders are a miserable lot. You watch them. It used to be that they were happy with a customer and as soon as the customer left, would curse and cuss. Now they don't even bother to wait until the customer goes. As soon as they think you're not buying, they sit there looking like you've just bitten the head of their pet budgie.
The older ones are better. They remember the service ethic. Not one learnt on some marketing course in Milton Keynes featuring teachers called Julian and Amanda. One that comes from standing on a stall in freezing weather trying to make a living.
I had a brief Saturday job on market stalls. I did one week selling shirts at Lea Valley, to help out a mate, and a couple of weeks around Christmas as a 15 and 16-year-old helping another friend's uncle at the world famous Romford Market. We sold handbags, purses and small leather goods like wallets or gloves. I remember I was working there on Boxing Day just after my 16th birthday, freezing cold and selling to men who had forgotten to buy a Xmas present for some female member of the family. I also remember it for other reasons. Not least because it was 1978 and I had committed myself to work there before realising Spurs were playing Arsenal that day. It was the match that we lost, at home, 5-0.
I loved the market experience. Even as a young teen, I soon got the hang of it. The calling out, the jokes, the flirting, the wide boy language. The other stallholders were brilliant. There was an air of community. Everyone watched each other's backs. But it was bloody cold and about the same time I got a weekend job for a press agency as a messenger and my whole life changed.
Otherwise, who knows, I could have ended up as a kind of Romford Delboy.
Lovely jubbly....Solly