A thoughtful offering from the boffins at BBCi - a retrospective of classic Mark and Lard moments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/radcliffe/audio_archive.shtml

The only thing that's missing is Tony McCaroll's Classical Gas. So check it out... Gas!

Last night was the first workshop for my new improv show. I think it was a great success. People were nervous beforehand, including me, but actually everyone came out firing. There was an awful lot of talent on display.

The theme for last night was basic improv skills. I tried to stress the need to be ordinary, to be boring, to do whatever it takes to remove the burden of trying to be funny because that is what cripples people on stage. My motto is always "Try to be fun, don't try to be funny." And anyway, funny starts with fun - can you see what I've done there?

So I appointed "boring monitors" whose task was to shout "Boring!" when people weren't being boring enough. If people were being too crazy, taking too giant a leap they got heckled for trying to be too funny! The point is that I don’t want things to be boring come showtime and I don’t want to replace or crush people's creativity. But I want to establish first of all that boring is good, once you feel liberated enough to go out and be boring then you can be truly liberated to say anything.

What a start to the day. The first thing I heared when I turned on the radio was that Mark Thatcher had been arrested for planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea. These are strange days.

And then there is an email waiting for me at work with a link to this extraordinary weebl and bob episode: Kick out the jams..

I said before the Olympics (although I didn't say it here so you'll have to take my word for it) that the only thing I really wanted was for Kelly Holmes to win a gold medal.

And she did!

What an amazing, tough, down-to-earth character she is. She's one of the people that makes me feel good about being British. I see something I aspire to in her: unpretentiousness, grit, a sense of humour. I was so delighted for her. Yay Kelly: you go girl!

One other Olympic bon mot. To my lasting joy I learned last week that the nickname of the New Zealand basketball team is.... The Tall Blacks! 's true!

I've had to turn the telly off. I couldn't bear to watch Paula Radcliffe in that much despair. After all she's been through and all she has achieved I can't imagine the pain she must have been feeling to make herself stop. But I'm glad she did: I'd rather she stop than come fourth again. I saw her run in London, she's an extraordinary athelete and I just hope she can get over it. She's still a hero to me.

Must give 'nuff respect (to quote Linford Christie) to the Japanese winner Mizuki Noguchi. To burn everyone off going up hill, in that heat and then have enough to hang on till the finish is quite incredible. I hope after this she will spend her days in quiet contemplation, perhaps with the monks on Mount Hiei.

Terrible scenes in Kernow with all the flooding in Boscastle. But I couldn't but help be surprised at the pronounciation of the village name:

"Boss Castle" - exactly the way it is spelt!

I mean this is England right? There's no way it should be pronounced the way it is spelt. I was hoping for at least "Boxall" or maybe even "Bozzle". I feel cheated.

On to slightly more important news: Mum is out of hospital and feeling fine. I'm away home to check on her. :)

Just got back from being at the hospital with mum. Her operation has been and gone and it seems to have been a great success. I almost cried with relief on the way home. And when I say 'almost', I mean 'actually'.

I had planned to come back home in the evening so I went to work this morning but as soon as I got there I knew I was in the wrong place. I couldn't bear the thought of Ma being alone in the ward waiting for the op. about which I knew she was nervous. So I went back to Oxford and went with Ma to the hospital. I was so glad I did, it just felt right being there. After about 3 hours they wheeled her in. This was long enough for me to wonder just who schedules the music at the John Radcliffe NHS Hospital Trust and what they were thinking. First up we had "So Lonely" by the Police. Which is always nice when you are lieing alone in a hospital ward. Then later we had something by Stiff Little Fingers. I couldn't help but applaud this bold playlisting. But they let themselves down by then playing an hour of the Corrs. At which point I felt sick and was about to demand medical attention myself.

The operation itself was over in a flash. I'd been to have a cup of tea and some biccies. I got back half an hour later and she was already back in the recovery room! Half an hour after that she was up in the ward. Once she was settled in there and the nurses briefed about everything they needed to know I came home to see dad.

So it's been a good day. I've said it before (and I'll say it for ever): my mother is an amazing woman. She did so many little things today that so inspired me, again and again. I don't know how she does it.

:)

I'm back in Oxford as per usual on a Friday. Mum is having an operation on Monday to insert a Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy (PEG). That's a feeding tube to you and me. She can't wait! She's actually counting down how many more meals she has to get through before she can be fed through the tube! She is so incredibly brave. She has been forcing herself to eat, to keep her going, for probably 3 years now. But she hasn't enjoyed it and now that she is finding it harder to swallow the Doctors think this step is necessary. I think it is quite common in people with her condition (that's Multi System Atrophy in case you weren't sure).

It's apparently quite a routine procedure but obviously it is a little worrying because she is quite frail. Just recently she seems to have lost movement in her left arm and this is causing her quite some pain, in the shoulder and the wrist. It must be hurting for her to even mention it: she never complains otherwise. She gamely takes an array of pain killers but admits they don't seem to make any difference.

Throughout all of this somehow she remains positive and even cheerful. I wouldn't say she is enjoying life, but she can still find pleasure and enjoyment in it. She still loves watching cricket and during the last test, when Freddy was whacking the ball to the boundary, I could hear her murmur with delight at the most magnificent shots. I hope I never forget this.

It's just struck me that I'm listening to lots of music right now. I think for a while when I was in Canada and just after comming back my music consumption seemed to drop from its normal levels. But it's got right back up there, the green shoots of recovery, endogenous growth (that's right - never a frown with Gordon Brown).

So what's rocking my world this summer? Well it's certainly a motley crew - but without any Mötley Crüe.

Shapeshifters "Lola's Theme". Yes I know, I know. But I'm sucker for massive summer dance anthems and those strings and muted trumpets are just the touch you need for something truly epic and grin inducing (if you can't crow-bar in any bells). Unfortunately the only place I get to throw any shapes while listening to it is at my desk at work. So I'd like to apologise to my colleagues: that fluorescent builders jacket and white glove must be off-putting. Not to mention the gurning and the shouts of "Come on you nutters". I like to kick it old skool.

John Prine "In Spite of Ourselves". This is an album of country songs and it convinced me the country music is fantastic and it's all Mark Radcliffe's fault. The songs are so simple and just so honest. They are almost entirely devoid of ANY metaphor or imagery. They just tell it like it is. Some are sad, some are funny and one makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. On that particular track John Prine's voice is amazing. He sounds like he's experienced every emotion there is and he's going to tell exactly how he feels. And you can't but love songs with lines like "We're not the jet set - we're the old Chevro-let set". Viva America.

A Girl Called Eddy "A Girl Called Eddy". Not my usual cup of tea. Got Mark Radcliffe again to blame for this. She's an American singer and she makes, to quote one reviewer, "pop music for grown ups, by grown ups". And that's a good thing - right? And hats off to whoever it was designed the CD sleeve. It looks all faded and worn in such a way that you can see the impression of an LP inside. Cool.

Peter, Paul and Mary "If I had a hammer". Eh! What the hell am I doing listening to this on almost a perpetual loop? I've no idea what's going on. But I've been desperate to get hold of it since seeing Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. So all together now.. "It's a hammer of Justice! It's a bell of Freedom!"

Rock. Or should I saw Rawk!! I'm listening to loads of rock at the moment and the question is why haven't I always? I think I foolishly related rock to metal in my giddy youth. A few things slipped through but I have clearly seen the error of my ways. I think thats thanks to my mate Dave and his band The Electric Shocks. Also I reckon the Darkness and School of Rock may have helped along the way. Long time rockers will I'm sure be shaking their heads (and doubtless their ample manes) and writting me off as a n'er-do-well Johnny-Come-Lately. But what's done is done, ask yourself "What Would Satan Do?". And of course the wonder that is Hayseed Dixie has helped me rediscover the wonder of AC/DC by playing their hits in a Bluegrass style. Why don't all songs start like "Highway to Hell"? Along with all that I've been enjoying high energy thrills courtesy of the Ramones and a little Joan Jett. Good Times

Belle and Sebastian "Asleep on a Sunbeam". Summer :)

I'm also giving The Fugees "Ready or Not" heavy rotation. Some dreadfull RnB crooner uses the same haunting sample. But the Fugees did it best.

Had a fantastic weekend in Edinburgh to bid farewell to Sean and Keitha on their return to Canada. We visited charming Dumbiedykes...


It was a full-on Canadian fest as Ashley was over as well for the party. She has the honour of being the first person to experience the luxurious new carpets at my swinging Shepherd's Bush batchelor pad when she stayed with me earlier in the week. We even went to see a Canadian play. Well it was free and the show we had planned to see had been cancelled. It was the tale of a woman writing about her past and the imposing figure of her alcoholic Scottish aunt who bestrode the family scene like a boozed-up Colossus. Not the most promising mis-en-scene maybe. But it had its moments.

I was only up for the weekend so we didnt get to see much else. But I loved the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. It's the kind of show that Fringes were invented for. Mom and Pop Trachtenberg and daughter Rachel (10) on the drums. They are your average New York "Conceptual Art-Pop band". Their art is to plunder yard sales etc and purchase the slide collections of UDPs. Thats Unknown Deceased Persons to you and me. Then then set the slides to music and take the tour out on the road. The one thing you dont want is for BA to lose most of your clothes, instruments and slide projector somewhere between New York and London. But the show must go on and having got a replacement slide projector, it did. Good stuff.

But mostly the weekend was about hanging out with friends and saying goodbye to Sean and Keitha. Smarty had organised a party (cheers matey!!) and Simon and da Noog came up from London as well. Donald (whose pie making exploits cemented his reputation as the metrosexual's metrosexual) and Adele were there plus some of Keitha's friends from her 16 month tour of duty at Scotmid in Leith. Now that's a character building experience. Here's our happy couple with Ashley, ithout her none of us would have been there!


And I got to spend time in Ediburgh again. It's odd how just being somewhere can make you feel happy and Edinburgh does that for me. And that's not the Red Kola talking. Although that helps.

I achieved a long standing ambition of mine in the toilet of the London to Edinburgh train on Friday. And it's not what you're thinking - dirty boy.

I've long wanted to find somebody's wallet, put some money INTO it and hand it in. So that's what I did. I'd love to think that the chap in question will be re-united with his lost wallet and then be pleasingly baffled to find that it has slightly more money in it than when he lost it. Of course he'll probably never realise but what the heck: it made me happy!

On Friday I talked to Peter Pritchard on the telephone. He subjected me to the usual torrent of crazed classical imagery, foul and abusive language and dubious innuendo that I have come to expect from our phone calls. It's what the telephone was invented for.

Some people will do anything for a write-up in aTeaButNoE

Subway are opening a new branch in Twickenham, directly beneath my office. A poster in the window says they are recruiting for the position of "Sandwich Artist".

Sandwich Artist!

This causes me "acute psychological dismay".