Trevor Dann

Apologies for the hiatus. I was told that the only way to stop the spammers invading this blogsite with messages about useless stocks and unfeasibly large plonkers was to launch a spam catcher and shut down for a fortnight. While I’ve been away I’ve worked out how to turn the BBC ‘listen again’ feature into my own private radio station (yes I know I’m the last kid on the block to do this, but it’s REALLY liberating). In the last few days I’ve enjoyed Clive James’s brilliant essay on martial arts, Feargal Keane’s moving dispatch from Dublin in From Our Own Correspondent and some fabulous wriggles from BBC producers on Feedback. All were broadcast at times I couldn’t have listened to them live, but in this on demand world there they are on the iPod alongside the Guardian’s weekly football podcast, Fighting Talk, Nick Barraclough’s country show and all my other favourites.

Talking of BBC wriggles I enjoyed the internal sour grape emails about the RTS Awards. Do they really think these things can be manipulated? God knows I’ve tried. But apart from wangling Nick Drake into the Times’ list of the 100 Greatest Albums, I’ve never had any joy. I’m busy judging a category of the Sony Radio Academy Awards at the moment and I have no idea who’s going to win. Long may that be the case.

Driving home tonight I heard the first cuckoo of spring. Or at least something equally remarkable. Chiltern FM were doing local programming, talking about schools closed in the morning and road blocks and all that stuff that independent local radio used to do so well. A nice chap called Gaz played some records he didn’t seem to like much, but he sounded genuinely concerned about the good burghers of Beds and beyond and the show felt warm and intimate and useful. Well done them. 

Snapshots from a lovely evening on the south coast attending a meeting of The Space, a monthly gathering of Brighton’s boho media folks:

1. The taxi driver who took me to the hotel and turned round as he wrote out the receipt. “Word to the wise,guv,” he said in an accent straight out of Dixon of Dock Green.”If you’re going out tonight, turn left. Those clubs down there,” he glanced to the right, “they’re all gay bars.”

2. Meeting the lovely Maggie de Monde who asked me if I remembered an 80s band called Swan’s Way. “God yes.” I replied, “they were rubbish.” “Oh, I was the lead singer,” came the dead bat. We laughed about this at the La Tasca later so I think I got away with it. Just.

3. Seeing Briggy Smale, the former entertainment guru at Radio 1, still flourishing.

4. Getting three different emails in the morning describing my talk as “inspirational.” This was quite unexpected. I do waffling and the occasional funny story about Noel Edmonds, but I’ve never been accused of inspiring anyone before.

I’ll be back in Brighton on the 21st for a talk about Nick Drake with Iain Cameron who knew Nick and played with him on the long lost Radio 2 session. Please come along and be, er, inspired!

This week’s RAJAR figures revealed an uncomfortable statistic. At 55 years old I’m now officially the same age as my mother. She’s 84, lives alone, watches Deal Or No Deal every day and likes Alan Titchmarsh. We have nothing in common at all so why does RAJAR lump us together? Wouldn’t it help stations like Smooth, Classic Gold and BBC Local Radio if they could break out the 55-64 year olds? Many of us have teenage kids, laptops, credit cards, iPods, even sex now and again. We are ‘economically active’ as the marketeers say. And what’s the statistical sense in including the influential baby boomers in the same category as their parents? 

I’m back on the promotion trail plugging the new paperback edition of my book about Nick Drake. Most of the interviews involve sitting in an unattended studio in Broadcasting House or at BBC Cambridge talking down-the-line. It’s always slightly unnerving when an interview starts. I’ve done enough of them to know that most radio presenters won’t have read the book, many will be doing the interview because their producer told them to and some will try desperately to include you in their show. Last year, flogging the hardback edition, I had “while you’re here can you pick the winner of our limerick competition”, “so who exactly was Nick Cave” and “well we haven’t got any of his music on our core so here’s the Bee Gees.”

But this week has been better. Robin Young on National Public Radio in the US was terrific. She’d read the book, she had some carefully edited clips of Drake songs to play in and she kept me on my semantic toes. You can hear it at: http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/02/20070201_17.asp

I also enjoyed chatting to Matt Jamison on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. Once a week Matt and I meet in Dunstable to record my show for Classic Gold. It’s a typical presenter/producer relationship - I bring in the old Jethro Tull albums, he suggests I play something a bit more eighties. But on Sunday mornings Vinyl Matt of Classic Gold Albums is transformed into the smooth host of Matt’s melange of music and mirth, three hours of radio revelry in which anything can happen and probably will - copyright local radio billings passim. He does the 9 to 12 slot which I did myself for a few months in 2003 and for the first time in my life I got to review the papers. Blimey that’s good fun. Ranting against the Mail On Sunday, bigging up the Arsenal, a quick pop at Fariah Alam and Prince Harry and back home for bacon sandwiches.

Incidentally Darker Than The Deepest Sea (published by Piatkus/Portrait, available at all good bookstores, and some poor ones) has sold more than Ashley Cole’s and Chantelle’s books put togther. Which doesn’t say that much for any of us, though I expect they got a bigger advance than I did……..