Looking for the phone number of a musician last night, I couldn’t find it.
Should have been in a big black spiral address book that I haven’t lifted from the shelf in 12 years but… it wasn’t.
In the back of the notebook I was amazed to find a Certificate saying that the Palmer family had kissed the Blarney Stone on August 16th, 1965.
Also found a few cuttings.
One was a book review, torn from the New Statesman of June 8th, 1962.
I was a sixth former at Alleyne’s Grammar School in Stevenage in 1962 and must have ripped the page out of the magazine and somehow kept it for 53 years.
The headline was One Hand Clapping and reviewer Frank Kermode was slaughtering Franny And Zooey by J.D. Salinger.
The other cutting was something I wrote in April 1986 and headlined DJ in a Wembley Spin:
As you may have heard, I’m enjoying a new career as a disc jockey. You know the sort of thing. I play records, quote gossip items about Wham and EastEnders from the cheap newspapers, and chat amiably to imbeciles who phone in.
It’s the easiest job in the world, and I’m getting more famous every day. And how’s this for good news? My agent has got me a gig at Wembley Stadium tonight!
Incidentally, many thanks for all your requests from north of the border. Yes, of course I’ll be playing all your favourite songs, like McStay With Me and Speedie Gonzalez and Thank Nevin For Little Girls.
Generally, I enjoy the trendy lifestyle of the second division celebrity, with lots of free records, tickets, premieres and parties, although it does make you a bit jaded and cynical.
You get the idea, the piece chatters on and on and on:
Ted Croker has just been on the phone. Fantastic! He’s confirmed that I’ll be staying in the hotel in Monterrey with Bobby Robson and the lads. He asked me to play Waddle You Wanna Make Those Eyes At Me For tonight for his pal Jimmy Hill. Ted, you got it!
Basically, there will be lots of foreign DJs there tonight, looking to steal my repertoire, but since I don’t have to declare my Top Twenty to FIFA until May 28, I’ll be keeping my rivals guessing by playing obvious numbers like My Boniek Lies Over The Ocean and A Hard Rain’s Tigana Fall.
Holland haven’t qualified this time, but I might give Jesus Cruyff Super Star a spin, just for old times sake.
Very odd to realise that 1986 was long before the internet and satellite sports stations and blogging and Twitter. Mainly remember it as a Scottish year. The wonderful Frank McAvennie with Tony Cottee, George Graham taking over at Arsenal in the August.