London Symphony Orchestra; tested to the limit

If I were a concert pianist I’d definitely have floppy hair. It's crucial for adding drama. During the energetic parts, when you're really putting your back into it, the hair flies all over the place; which looks great. The brilliant young pianist Daniil Trifonov is clearly in agreement with me; his is perfect. I saw Trifonov recently playing Tchaikovsky with the London Symphony Orchestra at a brand new venue in Guildford. 

The hair, I could do; it’s the genius piano playing I might struggle with.  What I could do, however is the cymbals. Now there’s an instrument I could master to the standard required of the London Symphony Orchestra. 

 As I sat listening and watching this magnificent orchestra I couldn’t help noticing that the whole team were working hard, except one.  The conductor was flapping furiously, the violins were working up a sweat, the pianist nearly falling off his stool with activity and then there was the guy at the back with the cymbals.  Every now and again he’d drag himself off his stool, take the cymbals off their stand and bash them together on cue. Then he’d sit down again for another 10 minutes. I reckon I could do that.  

You could imagine him at dinner parities couldn’t you... “Oh you’re a musician with the London Symphony Orchestra, how marvellous” and then they’d ask the killer question “what instrument do you play?”.... Ah.

Despite my obsession with the cymbals guy the music was quite incredible, the pianist looked completely at one with his instrument almost not aware of his surroundings with his eyes rolled, just showing the whites.  Which was just as well because right at the part of a particularly dramatic crescendo all the lights in the concert hall went out plunging us all into total darkness. The musicians couldn’t see their music or the conductor and yet they didn’t miss a single note.

Was this supposed to happen? No.  I had to fight hard to resist the urge to shout out... “never mind a doctor, is there an electrician in the house?”  There was at least 5 agonising minutes of music in the dark before the first light appeared on stage. One of the lady violinists somehow produced a small clip on light to illuminate the music in front of her.  Quite where she was keeping it in that dress is a mystery. Then there was the unmistakeable scuffling sound of stage hands squeezing past musicians carrying whatever lights they could muster from backstage.

I don’t know how they managed it but they continued to play out the first movement until the interval.  At which point the audience roared with admiration for the sheer professionalism of the musicians.

Trifonov however then decided to do a ‘Cliff Richard’ and started up an impromptu recital to entertain the audience who were all still sitting in the dark.  If it had been me, I’d have chosen something easy, but no.  So again without music or light he played a brilliant rendition of Listz’s minute waltz.  Not a single soul left the auditorium to rush to the bar; they were all transfixed by this brilliant 20 year old pianist playing in the dark.

The gremlins however were not ready to give up just yet.  When finally we all shuffled into the bar for a drink, the lights went out in the whole building amid screams of panic.  Why do people scream when lights go out? Luckily, this being middle class Guildford there was no looting.

Up to this point the ‘management’ had been very quiet, so no-one knew what was going on.  Were we under attack from extremists? or had they simply not paid their electricity bill?

Eventually there was a quick explanation but the second half of the concert was carried out with the house lights on rather than the stage lights, which wasn’t quite as atmospheric.  At this point I was rather glad my tickets had been free press tickets.  Had I paid the £41 ticket cost I might have been a bit irked.

At the end of the concert the management however, pulled out their trump card to smooth any ruffled feathers and announced there was a complimentary drink in the bar for everyone after the performance. Nothing like a free drink hey, everyone has their price.

I blame Jeremy Clarkson

There are certain events and people in a young man’s life that will never be forgotten. Three of the big ones for a teenage boy are: first car, first girlfriend and the day you pass your driving test. For me, these three were all connected with disastrous consequences. 

If I ever get invited on to BBC TV’s Top Gear, I’ll have one hell of a story for Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘car history’ line of questioning.  I see it going something like this.

Clarkson: So Nick...First car?

Me: *claps hands together smugly* 1972 VW Beetle.

Clarkson: Oooh something for the cool wall, very nice....Top speed?

Me: About 69mph...I never got caught speeding.

Clarkson: *laughs out loud and asks me to present the next series with him*

For a 17 year old boy a VW Beetle was uber cool.  I saved all the money I’d earned doing my gardening round and bought it for £150 when I was just 16.  Even all those years ago this was still a good price; needless to say it needed some work.

I spent the next six months bashing out dents, welding on new parts and generally making it roadworthy.  I took my driving lessons in it. I passed my test in it.  I loved it. The other boys were green with envy.  The summer of 1988 was one of the best for me, I used to swivel the windscreen washer points around so that when I drove past cyclists I could squirt them with water.  I was 17 and not only had I passed my driving test but I had a car ready to go.  As is often the way in life, just when you think you’ve got it sorted...you know the rest. 

I wonder what the Guiness world record is for ‘the fastest time between passing your driving test and being involved in a road traffic accident’. I think I might be a contender for the title. I took my test at 9.00am in the morning. By 9.50am I was listening to the words every young man wants to hear “That’s the end of the test; you’ve passed”.  By the time the rest of the school was out on their morning break; my car had crashed into a concrete post.  Not just any concrete post, but the post that held up the school gates and what’s worse...I wasn’t driving it.

We’ll call her Claire, shall we!  She had been on my radar for a while; all I had to do was ask her out; something that would be infinitely easier, if I was driving my super cool car. As soon as I passed the test I drove straight up to school to ceremoniously remove the ‘L’ plates from the car bumper and lap up the praise.  A small crowd gathered and a few of the girls climbed inside.  Claire pleaded with me “Oh let me take it out for a spin; I’m a really good driver”. “I didn’t realise you’d passed your test”. I said.  “I haven’t yet but I’ve had loads of lessons; I’m really good”. I can’t believe I fell for such an unsubstantiated claim.

 So off we went, a small convoy of the chosen few who had cars went out to ‘hit the town’. It wasn’t a good decision. However in my defence, it was made by my ‘other’ brain and they’re not as good at decision making are they.  I was sat in the passenger seat and contrary to her claims of ‘I’m a really good driver’, I found I had to change gear for her as she ‘hadn’t mastered that bit yet’.  This was alarming.

After what seemed like an eternity of driving around the local high street, squirting cyclists and beeping horns we headed back to school. The school was on a busy main road which meant a right turn. 

I can still see it today. We approached the turn too fast, swerved across the other side of the road, up onto the pavement *loud scream from Claire* and straight into the school gate post...which we knocked down.  All this happened while the rest of the school was out enjoying their morning break; far too many spectators for my liking.

Luckily no-one was hurt.  There was of course the trifling matter of: she hadn’t passed her test, she wasn’t insured and we didn’t have ‘L’ plates on the car. I did what any other 17 year old upstanding member of the community would have done...I sped off as quickly as I could. If I remember correctly, there was some cursing on the way home. 

It took all my powers of persuasion to calm the situation down. The worst bit for me however was not having to face the music with the headmaster or the police but having to walk back to school.

Crippling Fashion

I can’t believe it’s happening so soon.  That thing I swore wouldn’t happen to me, well it’s happening already. It must be my age...I’ve started looking at what young people wear and asking myself; “what the hell are you wearing?”

I was in the outdoor cafe in Richmond Park the other day and I could see a wedding reception being held in a sectioned off area. It’s a beautiful location with a great view so unsurprisingly it’s popular for weddings. Although sectioned off, the guests are still very much in view to the general public.

There’s something intriguing about seeing guests arriving at a wedding and clearly the rest of the cafe were enjoying the relaxing art of ‘people watching’. The guests at this particular reception clearly had money.  Money yes, grace and style...err, no.

It was a warm day so fake tan and skimpy dresses were everywhere. They all seemed excited about the big event. Then a car pulled up and out got a very beautiful girl.  She was helped out of the car by what I assume was her gallant husband and she started walking across the car park towards the venue.

I immediately took pity on the poor girl; I could only see her head and shoulders but from the way she was walking she looked as though she was recovering from a bad accident that had rendered her without the use of her legs for a while. I naturally assumed the poor thing was still undergoing intense physiotherapy as she gradually learnt how to walk again.

“Good for you girl” I heard myself say, I admired her pluck amongst all the glamour pusses. However when she cleared the car park and came into the open the full horror of her ailment became clear.  She wasn’t in fact wearing callipers or correction shoes or anything of that nature.  Her hobbling gait was completely self- inflicted by the most ridiculous high heels I’ve ever seen.  She presented such an obscene spectacle that everyone in the cafe stared at her as she painfully walked by. She had all the grace of someone walking barefoot on a pebble beach.

Initially I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt; there’s always one who doesn’t quite get the whole fashion thing and takes it too far but then even more girls showed up wearing exactly the same heels.  They were all hobbling along with their expensive dresses and their fake tans, it was quite a sight.

For the record I’m not one of those men that likes women to look like they belong to the Amish sect; I love to see a woman in high heels; they’re as sexy as hell.  But surely the point of high heels is for the wearer to look and feel sexy, beautiful, graceful or elegant; take your pick from any of those.  These things make women look anything but.

What I don’t understand is before they left their homes’, they must have looked in the mirror and thought they looked great. How could they have missed such a massive flaw in their appearance? These girls were obviously under immense peer pressure.  

As a society, how have we arrived at such a ridiculous state of affairs, where young attractive women will wear something that forces them to walk like cripples just to fit in? Why did none of them question the fact they could barely walk, never mind how fashionable these shoes are.

The designers of these shoes appear to be missing something.  When they first trial them on the catwalks around the world even the models fall over and they are people who walk up and down for a living; they’re paid to do it, they’re professionals.  You’d imagine they would be experts at walking and yet even they can’t work out how to walk normally in them.  And yet still these shoes go into production, do the shoe designers not care about the people who are going to buy their products?

I know a lot of women have a ‘thing’ for shoes but isn’t this entering into ‘emperor’s new clothes’ territory?

Prince Edward....is that you?

My brother works for a very rich family.  Part of his work involves attending high profile social events, especially horse racing events.  A few years ago he was asked to drive his boss to the races.

He dropped him off at the royal enclosure in a convertible Bentley and was told to meet him back in a few hours time.  However while he was waiting around chatting he noticed a couple stop and stare at him and start discreetly gesturing over to him. He thought this was odd but didn’t pay it any more attention.  I should point out at this juncture that my brother bears more than a passing resemblance to Prince Edward.  This was during the time Prince Edward was dating Sophie Rhys-Jones so media interest was higher than usual as they were speculating on the couple's possible engagement. 

My brother knew he would have a few hours to spare before he needed to collect his boss from the royal enclosure so had pre-arranged to meet his girlfriend in a posh nearby restaurant for lunch.  When they arrived they were shown to their table and while having a quick drink he noticed the couple he’d seen at the race course come into the restaurant and sit at a nearby table.  “What a co-incidence” he thought, “there’s the couple from the race course who were staring at me earlier,” he said to his beautiful Italian girlfriend.

A few moments later the mysterious couple discreetly took out a camera and started taking photos of him and his girlfriend having lunch.  Finally the penny dropped; convertible Bentley, royal enclosure at Ascot, Prince Edward resemblance; this couple had followed him to the restaurant thinking he was Prince Edward and were now alarmed to find him not meeting Sophie Rhys-Jones but an Italian beauty instead. 

Knowing he was being watched, he realised he could have some fun so furtively looked around and then gave his girlfriend a kiss.  He could hear the camera clicking frantically as he did it.  He then summoned over the waiter and asked him to pass a note he’d written to the excited but very indiscreet camera clicking couple.

The note said – ‘the waiter who delivered this note is one of my bodyguards and the couple to your right are members of MI6.  I saw you take those photos and I’ll ask you to relinquish the film before you leave, if you refuse, they will be forced to take action.’

He folded the note and the waiter took it over to the table.  As soon as they read it, their faces plummeted and they anxiously looked over their shoulders for the MI6 agents. It only took a few moments for the fear to start working and they humbly came over to the table where he was sitting and immediately apologised in broad American accents.  The lady even attempted a curtsy.

“Oh your highness, we’re so sorry.  We were just so thrilled to see y’all and the lovely Sophie, we hope you two get together you’re such a lovely couple.  We just wanted a souvenir photo to show the folks back home”

When he realised they thought his girlfriend was Sophie Rhys-Jones, four words popped into his head... Lambs.To.The.Slaughter. He immediately adopted his best Prince Edward accent and said “Oh yes of course, I completely understand – it’s just one has to be so careful, there’s so much media interest in one at the moment”  he then gestured to his pretend MI6 and royal protection officers ‘everything is fine, no need to take action’ and said “Just called off the dogs, so to speak, don’t worry you and your husband are quite safe”

“Oh thank you your highness” and with that the Americans bowed and curtsied their way out of the restaurant, looking anxiously over their shoulders the whole time.

Never give up hope

With the doom mongers still enjoying the upper hand at the moment, I thought I’d share a cheery story with you about never giving up hope.  I learnt it from a goldfish.  A few months ago I was chatting with a friend in his kitchen, when right in front of our eyes a huge heron swooped down into the garden. For a moment we stood admiring this magnificent creature, until we noticed that in fact it was eyeing up the handsome goldfish in the pond.  Before either of us could get out there to shoo it away, quick as a flash, its head shot forwards into the water and emerged wrestling one of his prized specimens.

We both instinctively ran out of the kitchen into the garden. I don’t know why; what did we think we could do? The minute we got outside, with a cursory look towards us, it flapped away.

However, all was not lost because we could still see the fish sticking sideways out its beak.  It hadn’t quite managed to get a proper grip on the fish and was still trying to manoeuvre it into the right position to swallow it.  As it jerked its head backwards and forwards, it lost its grip and dropped the fish.

Under normal circumstances this might have been our chance to put in a daring rescue attempt but you see, when it flew off, it had landed on the roof of a neighbours’ house.  We both looked on in horror as the fish rolled down the roof, hopped over the guttering and plummeted down into the neighbour’s front garden.

Again, I don’t know why, but we both ran across the road into the front garden where it had fallen.  Dispensing with the usual drills one learns in first aid, of first talking to the victim to see if there’s a response, I picked up the fish and ran back over the road towards the pond.

Gently I lowered the fish back into the water, fanning water over the gills as you’re apparently supposed to do and I’ll be dammed the little thing swam off to tell its friends of its adventure.  Then three seconds later, it told them again.

When I was on Steve Wright in the Afternoon

A few years ago the BBC Radio legend Steve Wright started one of his shows a bit like this... “I was standing outside the studio the other day when this bloke came up to me in the street and said, bold as brass “I’d like to come on your show and talk about gardening with you.” He seemed like a nice bloke so I chatted to him for a while and he talked me into it.  So here he is...”

The bloke he was talking about was me.

I was running a gardening business at the time and a few weeks earlier, completely out of the blue, I was contacted by BBC Radio 4 to talk about a gardening issue on their lunchtime programme. 

Ever since I was a boy I’d been listening to Steve Wright in the afternoon.  His shows were brilliant.  Every show made me laugh.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d get to meet him, let alone be on his show.  He was one of my heroes; and normal people don’t get to meet their heroes do they?

On the morning of the Radio 4 programme, I went up to broadcasting house near Oxford Circus and went into the studio.  The programme went well and afterwards one of the production assistants showed me out.  However, the building is a veritable labyrinth and the door I came out of, was not the one I came in through.  The excitement of having just been live on national radio had given me a sudden rush of blood to the head and I was momentarily lost.

Across the road I could see the entrance to the other broadcasting house building so I went over to ask for directions.  Outside the entrance were two men leaning against the building, smoking cigars.  I didn’t recognise either of them.  I asked one of them for the directions and as soon as he started speaking, I knew who it was.  It was Steve Wright, large as life giving me directions to the tube station.

Although I had listened to him many times on air I had never actually seen what he looked like and after a while I decided I didn’t want to know. That was part of the magic. I had already built up my own image of what I thought he looked like. So the man in front of me was just another member of the public as far as I was concerned, until he started to speak.   

Anyway, I don’t know what came over me but in a moment of bravery and opportunism, after he’d given me the directions I said to him “I’ve just been talking to your producer about coming on your show to talk about gardening”. 

To say this was a fabrication of the truth is an understatement.  I had been thinking about contacting his producer and had got as far as finding out her name. This however was just enough crucial information for me to sound confident.

“Yeah, Julia and the team are all really keen for me to come on but she says it’s up to you” I smiled enthusiastically. He looked at me, paused and said “Ok but I have to let you know, I hate gardening!” “Well if you hate gardening you must be doing it wrong” I chirped.  Luckily he laughed. We chatted some more and fortunately we clicked.

“Ok I’ll have a chat with Julia, see what you want to talk about and I’ll get in touch. Have you done any radio before?”  “Yeah loads". Again not quite accurate but I was on a roll and I'd got an ace up my sleeve. "I’ve just been on ‘You and Yours’ programme across the road” I said pointing to the Radio 4 studio.  “Oh right, so I can have a little listen." He said. "Ok friend let’s see how we get on.”  We shook hands and he went back inside the building to chat to Julia.

Two words; excitement and fear. I quickly phoned his producer Julia and told her ‘I’d just been chatting to Steve and he’s keen for me to come on the show, I hope you’ve received my emailed ideas about the feature and the gardening factoids?’  Unsurprisingly she hadn’t.  “Ok don’t worry I’ll send them over to you again. Steve is keen and he’s on his way now to talk about it.”

Amazingly my ruse worked and two weeks later I was sitting in the studio recording a programme with Steve Wright, Tim Smith and The Old Lady. Sometimes dreams do come true. They must have liked me because they asked me to come back on two separate occasions.

Penis envy...

I was listening to the radio the other day in the car, when Gardener’s Question Time came on.  This made me chuckle to myself.  It reminded me of the time when I went along to one of their recordings and asked ‘the panel’ a question with a difference.

Have you ever been to a BBC radio broadcast?  It’s quite exciting but completely without glamour. The outside broadcasts are usually held in some obscure village hall, where the local gardening society or Women’s Institute fills the room with plastic chairs, silver hair and diseased plants.  At one end of the hall there’s a table with a green ‘snooker style’ cloth over it.  This is where the panel of experts sit. 

When the crew arrives with all the recording gear there’s a noticeable difference amongst the audience, nerves start to tingle and the sight of the equipment causes a buzz of excitement in the hall.    

This set up process also does something extraordinary; it makes the people in the audience regress to 1950’s England. If you’ve ever heard Gardener’s Question Time you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Everyone in the audience is obsequiously polite.  They all suddenly speak with clipped ‘BBC’ accents and they roar with laughter at the weakest of jokes from the panel. 

The members of the audience that get to ask a question go even further, just as the microphone approaches, you can see them nervously twitching and then on cue they revert to a language not heard since the days of black and white TV...“I recently purchased a flowering cherry tree...!” Purchased....there’s a word I haven’t used since, well the 1950’s frankly.   

Most of the audience are posh women, keen to show off their gardening knowledge by using as many Latin plant names as possible.  However because they are posh they like to pronounce those names in a slightly different way to the commonly accepted pronunciation.  At the recording I went to, there was a very proper lady with pearls and a squinty eye, who asked a question about her Scots Pine tree.  Being posh, she of course used its Latin name of Pinus sylvestris. However she pronounced it as Penis sylvestris.  It went something like this... “I have a magnificent Penis sylvestris but it's leaning to one side” She didn’t even flinch.  Nor did the rest of the audience; I damn near wet myself.

This pronunciation tolerance got me thinking and immediately a plan hatched in my mind.  I had brought with me, two plants with diseased leaves and I was hoping the panel could tell me what was wrong with them.  I knew what they were called but they didn’t know that. 

When the next question opportunity came along I shot my hand up and managed to get the attention of the man with the microphone; sure enough he came straight over.  “I’ve been given these two plants as presents but I’m not sure of their correct Latin names” I said loud and clear through the microphone.  “The friend that gave them to me says they’re called Biggus dickus and Sillius soddus but I wanted to know, is this correct?”

This was met with polite titters from the audience...well it was Gardener's Question Time; anything else just wouldn’t be cricket what, what!