(Almost) Famous for fifteen minutes...

...I was once interviewed for BBC TV who were doing a series called "I love the 70s". The particular episode was 1978 and they had tracked me down from a Web posting I had made on a Fan site.

Thus is revealed my dark secret, I am a Dean Friedman fan.

Actually, Fan is not strictly true, as I find his voice _almost_ unpleasant, lots of his lyrics rather twee (with some really atrocious rhyming) & dislike his use of Harmonica. Having said that, I'm a sucker for electric pianos, love songs & thoughtful intelligent introspection to a nice tune. I particularly liked "Lucky Stars" which while widely loathed (being neither Disco nor Punk, the two battling chart styles of the time)replayed a typical pillow conversation of martital discord followed by a serious session of Mr. Wobbly hides his Helmet.

Back in 1978, I was twenty, did a bit of DJing, had a great social life (despite living in Coventry) & was also discovering the joys of Mr. Wobbly so the year and music are particularly poigniant.

Back to the late 90s, I'd been to see Deano play a gig in Yorkshire on somewhat of a whim & I can honestly say it was the most surreal gig I have ever been to (& I have previously worked in a #1 touring rock venue for two or three years so I have been to a lot of gigs). It is worth a blog entry in itself (if I can be arsed or anyone else was even remotely interested).

Anyway, I wrote quite a lengthly piece on it online (now lost to Google or a determined sort through my backup tape library) & a BBC researcher picked up on it.

I'd had a bit of a two way e-discussion & phone chat and had agreed to attend BBC-TV in Manchester some time in August 2000. (Which struck me as cutting it a bit fine as they were already up to 1973 on-air). She sounded somewhat like the Chaletmaid out of Hi De Hi but I take as I find...

On arrival I was treated well, they let me park within their private pound (rather than brave Oxford Road Scratters) and I met the researcher who was the Director's assistant. I was rather surprised that she actually looked like Sue Pollard as well as sounding like her, but there again, she was surprised that I had turned up in a suit (having a business meeting in the afternoon). She was also slightly disappointed that I hadn't brought my Wife (who is a Deanophobe) however whilst it had been suggested in passing at an early stage that Karen might want to get involved she had never subsequently mentioned it in the further arrangements so we had been talking at cross-purposes. Actually, it turned out she may have been as scatter-brained as the Chalet Maid...

She took me up to their canteen & furnished me with coffee & toast then bustled off to sort things out. I then noticed two other blokes in the canteen who kept looking at me and conferring conspiratorially, which I found a smidge off putting as I had no idea who they were.

Anyway, I was collected after having indulged the budget "hostility" & taken downstairs- to a dressing room set up as an ad-hoc studio. There I met the Director (who was an earnest arty type aged about Thirty) & the crew: the two blokes who had been giving me furtive looks. They were the freelance lighting cameraman and the sound engineer, who had mistaken me for a Regional News presenter...

This post has been truncated (& the rest lost) due to Blogger throwing a wobbly so I'll finish it another time (& maybe type the body text first rather than trust the online tools).