Six Pact

I hope I find you in good health and full of the joys. You are looking fairly muscular these days are you still going to the gym, really, even this far into the New Year. I thought I could make out a bit of a six pack... its Stella isn’t it?
Anyway, I think I’ve probably buttered you up enough (just an aside, where does the phrase ‘to butter someone up’ come from? Please let me know, if you know...and yes I will be able to tell if you’ve googled it). Where was I, oh yes, I’d just finished buttering. Right, to the chase – I need you to do me a favour, and only you can help me. As you may be aware, some fool accountant at the BBC has decided that they can save a few quid by axing ‘the mighty’ 6 music. It is, of course, scandalous – no doubt some journalists (the lazy ones) are already calling it 6 MusicGate (it can’t be a scandal if it hasn’t got gate on the end). For those of you who are not familiar with its work – 6 music is a digital radio station whose target audience is 6 feet 2, 42 year old men called Harry. I am a regular listener via the world wide web thingy, and apart from the odd rebuffering issue and the fact that I have to have to wait until 8 in the evening to have lunch whilst listening to the lunchtime show it is very enjoyable. So where do you come in? Well, it’s really rather simple, despite the fact that I am an exact match for the target demographic the bean counters at the Beeb aren’t going to pay any attention to my entreaties to save ‘Radio Davo’. As a non-license payer who lives 10,000 miles away I don’t think that my lobbying of the Director General is going to carry much weight. So here’s my plan. I want you, my devoted fan club, to send letters, texts, mails, tweets, telegrams (if they still exist, Please let me know whether they do or not...and yes I will be able to tell if you’ve googled it) of protest to the big-wigs at Broadcasting House. I’m sure that once they have been inundated with your protests, both of them, they will do an immediate u-turn and this particular treasure will be saved for the nation. If, at this point, you are feeling flushed with benevolence and want to save the Asian network as well then feel free to do so – but I never listen to it so I really don’t care whether you do or don’t.
If you can do this little thing for me I would really appreciate it and if it should ever become necessary for me to lobby the money men at the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in order to save ABC Jazz on your behalf, then rest assured I’ll be right there in the vanguard of the protests.
Clearly though, the BBC needs to channel all of its resources so that it can continue to make yet more reality TV programmes about minor, minor celebrities who single-handedly save the brass banding World. As a reformed brass-bander myself (it’s 18 years, 227 days and 42 minutes since I last played a Sousa march. You can never really say that you are totally cured of brass banding – you just have to take it one day at a time). I used to play the cornet (please insert your own ice cream jokes here, and rest assured I’ve never heard any of them before). For those of you that were unfortunate enough never to hear me play, I can say that I was a pretty accomplished player. For those of you unfortunate enough to have heard me play, can I ask you to hold your own counsel; I think I might have managed to sell it to them here. Like most things, I was mediocre at best – but I tried hard, especially at the social drinking that took place before, during and after the concerts we played.
I was quite interested in the fly-on-the-wall documentary of Dinnington band because they were our local rivals and arch enemies. The docu-soap has caused something of a furore amongst the brass banding fraternity. The question being asked by most aficionados is how the BBC could be advertising the fact that they would follow Ms Perkins as she took the band to the National finals a full week before they qualified for the aforementioned finals? DinnoGate anyone?
If you have received the latest set of pics, you will have read that Wendy is trying to make me photo-monitor as well as blogmaster. I’m not saying I can’t do both (I will also be juggling machetes and reciting the poetry of Shelley, Colleridge and Hegley whilst doing so) but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for me to upload the photos – there appears to be more than two steps to the process, therefore the scope for things to go wrong is huge. I thinks it’s fair to say that if I do take charge of loading the photos the vetting system may alter somewhat. The likelihood of seeing pics like the one of me on top of a lighthouse looking like Methuselah’s older brother will be greatly diminished in future .
And finally, there is a chance of a shower next Tuesday (the first in about 4 months). That’s the weather, by the way, not me... I’m not due one for one for another week-and-a-half yet.