Only four more sleeps till the National Insomniac Conference on December 14th.
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Driving the kids to the shops and Born to Run comes on the radio. Possibly one of the best songs to singalong to, particularly in the car. The kids? Straight over their heads. No interest whatsoever in the lyrics, the tune, the artist, nothing. Turn into the trading estate, one sings 'Where in the world?' and the whole car joins in, in unison 'PC World.'
I give up.
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A lot will be written about Jimmy Savile over the next few days, including some not very nice stuff I suspect. I can remember Tony Blackburn, many years ago, playing the song 'Young Girl' by Gary Puckett and saying afterwards 'that one's for Jimmy Savile.'
I think the transcript involving Savile from Have I Got News For You? was a hoax. And I'm not convinced about all those rumours involving the children's home in Jersey and Edward Heath. Though he was happy to be pictured with mass murderer Peter Sutcliffe and admitted to dealing with trouble makers in his nightclubs by tying them up in the boiler rooms.
That wouldn't be allowed these days. Health and safety gone mad I tell you.
However, he did invent the disco, at Ilford Palais, a club I used to know well. Back in the 1950s musicians had to perform live to audiences. Their union had it all sewn up. Down at the Palais Savile noticed people danced more to the records in between the live bands than the bands themselves.
So he paid the bands NOT to perform and played records, on what is believed to be the first ever twin turntable, and hence the disco was born.
By the way, the rowing boat dance to Oops Upside Your Head was invented at Lords nightclub just down the road from the Palais.
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Of course the death of Jimmy Savile, adding to those of David Coleman and Tommy Cooper means that Bruce Forsyth is the only living Briton that everyone in the country can do an impression of with any confidence.
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For some reason Jamie Oliver is presenting a cookery show, as I write, wearing a stupid hat. My missus reckons it's to divert attention from the fact he looks so fat these days.
Personally, given the choice between trusting a chef who is carrying a few pounds and looks like he enjoys his food or one who runs marathons and seems to spend more time up David Beckham's backside than in the kitchen, then I know which one I'd go for.
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The great thing about the John Terry case is that he can deny he's a racist until he's blue in the face - and I'd like to ask Ledley King for his opinion on this - but we all have the choice of whether or not we believe him.
We can base this opinion on what he says. Or we can base it on what we know about him from his 'previous'. We can decide to believe his club manager, Senor Doogie Howser. Or we can make up our own mind by looking into Terry's thin, cold, lifeless eyes as he speaks. Obviously there's not enough proof to write that John Terry is a nasty racist from a nasty criminal family. But we can think what we like. In context or out of context.
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As a treat for my daughter, I took her to see Alice Cooper being interviewed on stage at the NFT in London about his love of horror films. He was great and his fans were, well, weird. Dressed up like their hero, some in full make up with horns and everything.
The interview was followed by a screening of the original Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis. It seems corny now but it comes from an age when horror was about making you jump, not trying to make you vomit with CGI gore and special effects.
It's funny watching a film with a cinema audience of arty film buff types. They openly laughed at the more cliched elements of the film. The bits where teenage girls take their clothes off when it adds nothing to the plot but satisfies the need, at that time, for a bit of flesh.
And one moment in particular united the audience. Jamie Lee Curtis stabs Michael Myers who falls to the ground. Now we all know that no matter what you do to him, he gets up. But in the film, Miss Curtis stabs him. He falls. She sits down, back to the body of Michael Myers and slowly drops the knife to the ground. At this point the whole cinema audience audibly groaned.
It was the funniest mass reaction to a scene on screen I've ever come across.
Don't have nightmares....Solly
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