2009 was definitely a lean year for me in terms of on-line presence.

There was not a single podcast edition of Clever Little Pod in 2009, which I really do regret, although I don’t think it could have been any different. The intention and motivation was definitely there to get six shows out from October to December. What went wrong were huge negative pressures in my work and personal life which eventually made it impossible to maintain the creative output I needed. It was a shame, because the new website was so nearly finished, and of course there was a superb competition run in conjunction with Steve Rack. Even though I wasn’t able to capitalise on it, I do hope it helped with the visibility of his sites as he’s an immensely talented artist and deserves huge exposure and recognition.

2009 was the year of the live show for me – with CLP continuing under the guise of ‘Big Stupid Radio’ on 1radio.org. Stupidly, I failed to put even a single trailer into the CLP feed to publicise these, although I understand that appointment radio is hugely difficult for many people to tune into. I also couldn’t podcast them, as they contain commercial content, which is only licensed when it goes out from 1Radio.

I also became involved with Rhubarb Radio, broadcasting a live one-hour show every Sunday. I’ve done 11 of these shows to date – ‘10 Items or Less’, which have allowed me to test out formats and features, although the last few of the year did suffer from the same pressures that made CLP podcasts impossible. I’m proud of the shows, though, as even when the material was a bit thin, I still managed to deliver a decent show.

In Birmingham, the seeds of something very exciting were sown with the first few ‘Coffee Shop Poets’ evenings at the Margaret Rose Abri Cafe in Digbeth. I came across these thanks to a flyer in the library, and as a result did my first public performance of comedy poems in November. There are further evenings planned here in 2010, more of which later…

So, to 2010.

One thing is certain – work pressures will continue to be huge for the next few months at least. I have to accept this, although I certainly don’t like it, and it’s making me take a long, hard look at what’s important to me, and how I want my life to run. So, the following intentions are made with the caveat that work may once again get in the way, although I will try my best not to let it.

1. My first priority is my show on Rhubarb Radio, and contributing to the station generally. Rhubarb is a superb organisation, providing the opportunity to work with some extremely creatively-minded people, and with the unbelievable opportunity of doing a regular radio show with full creative control. I have spent the last two weeks writing and recording further material for the show, and my aim for 2010 is for it to grow bigger and better than ever.

2. My second priority is to deliver live comedy. The cafe I’ve already mentioned is considering stand-up events, and so I have no excuse but to give it a go. I’m regularly noting down ideas for routines as well as good lines. The big unknown is whether to I should deliver them as a character or as myself, and whether I should go for monologues or a more traditional conversational style with the audience. There’s a lot to think about, and a lot of stuff to try out, but I have time to get it right, so that’s cool. I’m not so fearful of failing in this as I used to be.

3. My third priority is to get CLP back online, as it’s my most high-profile work. I doubt there will be more than a handful of CLP podcasts in 2010, but I want people to at least discover the latest show that will mirror the standard of work I’m producing for Rhubarb. The good thing is that they’re not topical, so there’s not the pressure to update that often. Oh yes, and ‘Dop’ will be back…

4. I haven’t mentioned 1Radio, although it’s been very important for me to do live shows from home (as opposed to the studio at Rhubarb). 1Radio has a very good set-up, and I enjoy broadcasting on there very much. The 1Radio shows were originally meant to be an off-shoot of the podcasts; it turns out that 1Radio will be enabling podcasts of shows in 2010, so this may one way of maintaining CLP.

5. Last, but by no means least, I need to reconnect with many of the people online who I’ve neglected in 2009. These include listeners, collaborators, fellow podcasters and, yes, friends – many of whom fit into the other categories too.

So, lots of new opportunities that carry on from progress made in 2009. The last year has actually been good in that respect – I’ve fought through difficult circumstances to keep creative plans on track, and I’ve learned lessons along the way.

Please keep an eye out- make that an ear – for gazuky projects this year. And thanks for staying subscribed…

It’s now been just over a year since I conquered my driving phobia, tootling around Birmingham and beyond in my red Nissan Micra, like a live-action version of Noddy (that’s the toytown character, not the lead singer of Slade).

Overall, it’s been a fantastic experience, not least because it’s freed me from the horrors of public transport. But I can’t help but get driven absolutely mad by stupid people on the road who come from the planet ‘thick’.

Here’s a particular example that drives me round the twist:

The Aston Expressway is a 3-lane motorway that is actually a feeder road for 4 different routes out of Birmingham city centre. It is fairly long, and has specific lanes for specific destinations. You use the left-hand lane for the M6 North, the middle lane for the M6 south, and the right-hand lane for local routes to Erdington and Sutton. These are marked on overhead gantries right from the beginning of the Expressway, and intermittently along it too. So why – WHY! – do people sit in the WRONG lane all the way to spaghetti junction, and then decide that they need to change just 100 yards from the point where the road splits? At that point, most people are speeding up because there is less of a likelihood of people changing lanes, but thanks to the one pratt who’s left it to the last second, everyone has to brake hard to accommodate the pillock who’s now slowed to 15mph so he can change lanes in time. It can’t be because they don’t know which lane to use – so why is it? It happens almost every time I drive down it! It drives me MAAD!

And to the person who drove along behind me, beeping their horn because I was patiently sitting behind a learner driver (who was about to turn off anyway) and who I saw virtually run someone off the road in an effort to beat the traffic lights: I hope you contract a case of haemmorhoids so bad that you wince every time you press your foot on the accelerator.

And why is it that Audi and BMW drivers seem to keep their lights on until about midday? It’s light, for god’s sake! Just because you’re wearing sunglasses in October, it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t see you.

I could go on and sound even more like Victor Meldrew than I do already, but I won’t.

It’s Sunday night, and I’m reflecting on a couple of months of absolute creative joy. Three projects have come to fruition over the last few weeks, bringing a huge smile to my face in each case.

The first is broadcasting on 1Radio.org. Tim, the station’s owner, has created a marvellous outlet for creativity in allowing a wide range of broadcasting talent to hold complete creative control over regular shows, right down to the booking of timeslots. The level of interaction possible on the station is huge, with a ’shoutbox’ that acts as a chatroom, mail facility and request form all in one. The satisfaction in being able to present a live show from home that’s part of such a professional outfit is huge, and I’m grateful for the opportunities it brings to test out material. Audience figures aren’t huge, but as the station’s reputation builds, 1Radio is sure to go from strength to strength. I’m excited to be a part of it.

The second of the three has been a competition I’ve been running in conjunction with character artist Steve Rack. Steve created a new character for Clever Little Pod that I’m going to bring to life on the show, and the character needed a name. The competition invited people to submit suggestions, with original artwork from Steve on offer as the prize for the winning suggestion. Working with Steve throughout has been a pleasure, and quite a buzz with over 150 people entering the competition. The winning suggestion – ‘Dop’ – was announced on a special 1Radio show on Wednesday. The new podcasts will follow next week.

Finally, earlier today I did my first show from a proper studio since my hospital radio days (13 years ago!) It was on the Birmingham community station ‘Rhubarb Radio’ which broadcasts from the Custard Factory (which is Brum’s centre for the creative arts – it’s the old Bird’s Custard factory, hence Rhubarb Radio!) I had been looking forward to this for weeks, and crammed as much comedy as I could fit in to the hour I had between 5-6 today. Rhubarb has an added dimension to it, because there is a passionate local community behind it working hard to build the reputation of the station throughout the region and beyond. There is a culture of creative freedom that is rare in radio, and I am hoping that it will give me the opportunity to meet other people who are as passionate about comedy writing and broadcasting as I am.

So, you can probably tell I am feeling a huge amount of creative fulfilment at the moment, and I haven’t even started to put out the new podcasts yet. The new website is almost there (in fact, I should be doing it now!) and will be online in the next few days.

I’m now writing more original material than ever before, which is a massive leap from the early days of the podcast, when writing material was creatively fulfilling but so, so hard. It is still a challenge, but I feel I have more of a handle on my own ’style’ of humour now, which helps with generating ideas and turning them into workable items. It remains to be seen whether I can keep the ideas flowing on a regular basis, given that I now have two weekly shows to put together (although I’m sharing some material between the two.) Working to a set format for ideas also helps too.

The next challenges – apart from keeping the material coming – will be to grow the audience to equal and exceed the buzz – such that it was – that surrounded CLP when podcasting was ‘the next big thing’ in 2006-7. I said to someone the other day that I think there is more of a challenge in growing live Internet audiences than podcast audiences, but with the help of services like Twitter and Facebook, people can at least be reminded when things are happening.

Please, if you have a few minutes, check out the following:

1radio.org – try different shows! There’s something for everyone. Read the schedule descriptions and set up email reminders for the ones you want to hear.

steverack.com – Steve has opened a great new shop with original artwork for sale as well as T-shirts, badges and more. All featuring his unique, fun designs. Check it out and treat yourself!

rhubarbradio.com – soon to have a new website, but in the meantime you can ‘listen again’ to all the shows, and check out presenter profiles. My show is not detailed on the site, and only features on ‘listen again’ as the second hour of the 4-6 Sunday slot (which you can’t forward).

Radio. Comedy. Live.

Love it!

Like millions of others, I sat down to watch Derren Brown predict (correctly, as it turned out) the National Lottery numbers on Wednesday night.

After doing so, he promised us that he would reveal how he did it on Friday in an hour-long special.

Since then, there has been a collective outpouring of.. well, irritation, at how the explanation he gave doesn’t really seem to cut it. Apparently it was all about maths, teamwork, emotional involvement, and calculating averages.

Bollocks, in other words.

While there are a vocal few who cling to the belief that Derren DID actually predict the result, and so therefore should be given credit for doing it, most realise that he didn’t, and that it was a very clever trick. It is this group of people who are a bit miffed that he didn’t come on telly on Friday night and admit that it was a very sophisticated split-screen effect that took a great deal of planning, and some extremely good live (and risky) direction, but that is all. No maths, no possibility of failure (apart from with the execution of the trick which, presumably, had been rehearsed until perfect) and no mystical powers at work.

So should he have ‘fessed up’?

It’s a tricky one. Unfortunately for him, there was a ’smoking gun’ that rather gave the secret of the trick away, in that it is possible to tell, albeit only at one point, that a split screen effect is in use. A still shot of the predicted balls was, after the balls had been drawn, replaced with a live shot of the now-correct balls, which had just been placed there. The real balls, however, had not quite been positioned correctly to match with the still shot, and so at one point a ball rises up slightly out of place as the shot changes from still to live. Had this ball been a fraction lower, the effect would have been imperceptible and the debate would have been much more open. But modern audiences have sophisticated knowledge of TV techniques, and so the solution has been identified much more easily than Derren might have hoped.

Which leaves his follow-up show looking, well, a touch patronising? Dishonest? Irritating?

There is no doubt that we love being duped by magicians, illusionists – call them what you will. Most of them do not proclaim to have special ‘powers’, and Derren Brown is no exception to this – indeed, he states at the start of every show what his techniques involve, and often proclaims not to believe in psychic ability and so on.

But we also love magicians to be a bit fallible too. We like them to be clever, yes, and realise that they have the advantage over us every time, but when it gets to the point where we are being made fools of, they start to lose their audience. Which I think is what has started to happen here.

The Friday show was very entertaining. Before showing us his version of the Lottery ‘explanation’, he performed some great tricks that baffled and astounded as one would expect from Mr Brown. Even the explanation, which involved a group of people being made to believe that they could predict the lottery, was entertaining in its own right.

But there’s a difference in seeing a group of people on the TV being made fools of, and then realising that the magician isn’t crediting us with being able to see through this.

In a way, Derren probably couldn’t come clean anyway. Although he admits there is no real ‘magic’ going on, his whole act is to create the impression that there is. This has the result of creating a slightly odd paradox that doesn’t allow the option of going on TV to admit it’s just a camera trick, and actually it’s not possible to predict the lottery at all.

He can, it seems, reveal the true answer when the set-up is elaborate – and clever -enough to warrant it. In a previous show, it seemed that he was predicting the result of horse-races every single time, with the result that a woman was winning bets on every race. The ‘reveal’ was that actually there were hundreds of people who had also been chosen and hadn’t won on every race. The programme only focussed on the one woman whose result had come up each time – creating the illusion to the audience that all predictions were successful.

He also revealed how he managed to win several games of chess with grand masters by simply using their moves against each other, and not playing a single move himself. Again, a genius conceit that is clever and interesting enough to be revealed.

And that is the problem. In the lottery trick, there was not enough of a ‘wow’ factor in the reveal to warrant an hour-long show, and so one had to be constructed. The audience had higher expectations as a result of previous reveals, however, and so they are now pretty miffed.

For me, it doesn’t matter. I can still sit here feeling quite smug that I know how he did it, but revelling in the trick itself, and thinking how nerve-wracking it must have been for him to have carried it out. (Just think – it only needed a ball to be dropped, or someone to be out of place for the whole thing to have been ruined).

Next week, apparently, he is going to stick us all to our sofas so we can’t stand up.

Let’s see him do that with a split-screen…

I found this old film (scroll down) on YouTube of Telly Savalas voicing a promotional film for Birmingham from the late 1970s.

The city has changed, almost beyond recognition (thank goodness!). Here are a few things to look out for as you watch:

- The shot at 1:23 is from the top of the Rotunda. The entire area left of the main road is now the new Bullring. The 3 buildings around the top of the picture are (left and centre) the sole surviving parts of the old Bullring and (right) New St station, soon to be demolished and rebuilt.
- 1:42 is my daily drive into work! I’m excited now I know I;m going by ‘multi-carriageway motorway’!
- 1:54 you might recognise as Spaghetti Junction
- 2:10 is Five Ways island with Tricorn House in the background
- 2:40 – no words are sufficient…
- 3:30 to 3:50 – everything you see now gone except the Rotunda and the church!!
- 3:52 the ’sophisticated shopping centre’ is the Pallasades over New Street Station – soon to be demolished, and not a moment too soon!
- 4:15 useless fact: Dixons is now Sainsburys
- 4:45 is now Pagoda island – but where’s the Pagoda!?! The tall building in the background is now the Centre City building and hasn’t aged well. The definition of ‘concrete monstrosity’.
- 4:52 This final shot was hard to recognise, but is now known as Matalan island. A bit of a sorry tale if that’s the grand finale shot! Thank goodness Birmingham now has a bit more to offer!

If you’re really that interested (!) you can see how the Pagoda Island has changed here:

If you like your comedy extremely silly, but sharply written too, then check out ‘We Are Klang’, Thursdays on BBC3.

The British Comedy Guide’s review says you’ll either love it or hate it. I think it’s hilarious, and goes some way to redeeming BBC3 after the terrible, terrible crime against comedy that was ‘Coming of Age’.

If you search for clips on YouTube, bear in mind that ‘We Are Klang’ have done other things as a comedy group, and that most of the clips currently are not from this sitcom. Here’s a clip (not there, here!) that shows the cast breaking the fourth wall to interact with the ‘Department of Audience’.

Oh, and why has on one ever thought of producing a sitcom where the actors are free to corpse? It’s fantastic! (Greg Davies, especially.)

Britain’s National Health Service has become a focus of debate in the U.S. where it has been dubbed ‘evil’ by those who oppose Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms.

While I’m not particularly well informed about the new U.S. proposals, I certainly have an inside knowledge of the good work the NHS has done and continues to do. In fact, it has changed my life in many ways.

I come from a working-class background; not particularly poor, but not rich either – enough money to enjoy a holiday somewhere in the UK once a year, and enough to provide a home, food on the table and a few luxuries. If there had ever been a requirement to meet expensive medical bills, then they certainly wouldn’t have been met. And so treatment would not have been possible.

So how did the NHS change my life?

Well, in the late 1970s, when I was just 7, my grandad on my mum’s side underwent heart bypass surgery following a heart attack. Even today, heart surgery is the most serious kind of operation, but back then it was still being pioneered. My grandad’s health was bad before the operation – he had acute angina and could hardly walk upstairs. I remember him being out of breath doing the simplest of tasks. His life was in serious danger.

To gauge the impact of the operation on the family, you have to know a bit about the man himself. I adored him. Of course I did – he was my grandad, but the thing is, everyone adored my grandad. And everyone knew him, or so it seemed. In the small market town of Stamford, he had been a bus-driver and an ambulance driver before working in the bar for the Stamford Hospital social club in his final years. Everyone knew “good old George”.

He was a kind, gentle man who loved to laugh, and loved his family. Into his 60s, and through his ill-health, he took me on day-trips to the seaside, adventure playgrounds, walks in woods, along rivers and meadows, and best of all, around the arcades at the fair. It was my grandad who ignited my interest in audio technology; he had some great audio equipment including a Sharp reel-to-reel tape recorder and would use it to put on discos and dances for the hospital social club. I still have the recorder, and tapes of many of the reels he prepared to give himself a break from the live DJ-ing. If only he had lived to see podcasting…

When he died, in 1984, it left the family rudderless. A final heart attack, caused – of all things – by his insistence on laying a small piece of carpet himself, meant that as a 12-year-old, I experienced my first cruel lesson in life. The day mum came to pick me up early from school, tears in her eyes, was the day my childhood ended. She didn’t even have to say what had happened. I just knew.

The phrase to note in that last paragraph is ‘12-year-old’. This was five years after the heart surgery that my grandad received free on the NHS. Five years of day-trips. Five years of birthdays and Christmases. Five years of watching Saturday night TV together. Of watching films like ‘Star Trek’ at the cinema. Of eating chips on the seafront. Of sitting out in the garden. Of life.

The NHS has cared well for my family. It gave my grandad five extra years of life. And it gave me a life-time of happy memories that otherwise would have been missing.

I’ve recently been helping someone with their purchase of a new 42″ HD TV and am shocked by how much the general public are being conned. It seems that TV manufacturers and retailers are using a smokescreen of jargon to encourage people to buy what they think are state-of-the-art TVs, but that, in reality, are nothing of the sort.

For example – how many lines does your HD Ready TV have? If it’s 720, then you will not be seeing the HD picture in as much HD detail as the director intended. 1080 pixels is the minimum required for full HD, and even then there are technical complications with 1080i and 1080p.

What has shocked me the most, however, is the technical requirements for receiving HD on Freeview. HD is not currently offered on Freeview, but there are plans to include it by 2012, as the digital switchover progresses. Most TVs being sold as ‘HD Ready’ now include built-in Freeview tuners, but – and this is a scandal – not one of them on the market will be capable of receiving Freeview in HD. You will need – wait for this – a separate set-top box! HD Ready? I don’t think so.

Manufacturers of audio-visual equipment must be wringing their hands with glee. People spending a fortune on HD TVs now will soon discover they don’t have the kit they need, and will wonder why they have to spend extra trading in or upgrading to get the picture they thought they could already get.

I’m not complaining about the fact that technology moves on. That’s been happening for decades. But what I do find suspicious and unacceptable is the poor quality of information that’s available to the general public about what exactly it is they are buying. Most people aren’t tech-savvy enough to know what questions to ask, and many people don’t have the resources or the know-how to do detailed research on what products can actually do. They rely on good, solid information from retailers and manufacturers. And based on what I’ve seen recently from the big chains, that information is woefully poor – with much of it missing, uncertain or shrouded in unexplained jargon.

The best advice I can give is to do your research, and remember that you ultimately get what you pay for. That £399 big-screen TV may look like a bargain, but if there’s a similar one retailing for a grand more, you need to know why.

One of the great things about podcasting for me has been the seemingly random connections I’ve made with people around the country, and often around the world.

Many of these connections haven’t lasted for one reason or another; sometimes the interest will have waned, often people simply don’t have time to maintain a connection with so many people. Whatever the reasons, I always think it’s a shame that these connections are so transient.

Which is why I’m really pleased that ‘Worlds of Wayne’ has reached its 100th show. Ever since 26th July 2006, Wayne Brekke – a talented musician and artist from Omaha, Nebraska – has been producing this high-quality podcast.

One of the greatest strengths of the show is its quality of interviews, which are always executed in a way that pulls in the listener, being informally and intelligently conducted. The show is also a great supporter of talent local to the Omaha area, which adds further interest, and has rightly benefited the show, as evidenced by some local sponsorship present on the show’s website.

For my part, Worlds of Wayne has also presented me with some opportunities to work on some fun creative projects, for which I am extremely grateful to Wayne, and which I thoroughly enjoy putting together. These have included a stint as narrator on ‘Playhouse of the Damned’ for the 2008 Halloween Special (I was Gus the Ghoul!) and now the chance to open the 100th show, albeit with a very dodgy impression!

So congratulations to Wayne for 100 fantastic episodes of ‘Worlds of Wayne’. If you don’t already listen, then please visit worldsofwayne.com and give it a go!

I’ve won the British Military Fitness caption competition for June, which means I get a month’s free membership!

You can see my winning entry here.