Week Thirty-Nine In Which I Have Been Doing More Talking on The Wireless

Regular readers may know that I grew up in a house where mummy was on telly and on the radio from an early age. I thought it was quite normal. A dear family friend was Patty Coombs who played the straight part to Dick Emery’s Bad Nanny. She was in the Carry On films as well and again, it was not until I was six or so, that I learned it was not the normal thing. (You can go do net-searching to learn more about them&;) When mummy was leaving to go to Broadcasting House, she would tell us she was going to ‘do talking on the wireless’ and this became the family term for media work that took you from home.
Except these days, it often happens down the phone as they are clearer than they used to be. That said, they always prefer you to be in a studio or on an ISDN line for broadcast clarity. So I get one of those Unknown Number calls that turns out to be a BBC Radio producer and she is asking me about the X1 number plate. I spout some stuff and opinion and said I saw A1 once, well a few times actually, near the Coroners’ Courts in London and she said they would have me on Radio 5Live in the morning. The phone rings at 06:40hrs and I pretend I am awake and broadcast some scathingly sharp comment before crashing out again for another hour. Only to awake and wonder if I dreamed it. I was bloody rude about personal plate users in general in a jocular kind of a way and I got another ‘unknown number’ call later that morning from a BBC local radio station. Then another and another In all, I was on two national and two local BBC Radio stations talking about X1. I reckoned Regtransfers – who I managed to utterly avoid naming as they did not need that much oxygen from the Beeb – had pulled a masterful marketing stunt. I quoted the company’s Angela Banh who said ‘It could be someone who thinks they have the X-factor, someone with the Chinese surname Xi, or a company with a name beginning with X – like Xerox.’
And of course, being kind of focussed on the story, I spotted the plate on the front of the lead car in the X Factor cavalcade at the weekend! Now, am I the only one to see this? Calls placed to Freemantle Media (even applied in writing nicely, too!) and the Regtransfers boss who was quoted.
Meanwhile, it rolled around to the dreaded MOT time again and I need new rubber in all directions. Not a failure but an issue, along with the bushes and other evidence of it being dug in with fat bloke on board, through a million roundabouts. I find out later if I get it back today, as they are sourcing some arms or something. So I finally call a chap at Yokohama UK, who I have hob-nobbed with here and there at shows for the last decade (more than that!) who is in charge of their awesome marketing/shows pantechnicon that they take to the bigger car events. Not being daft, he knew immediately why I was on the phone and like a rubbery doctor, I confessed all my urges, sins and actual behaviour to the Marketing man.
It was deemed that my deep-seated fear of ice and snow driving could be allayed with the current fitting of winter tyres. To whit a set of four lovely Yokohama W.drive V902 winter tyres in my 195/65/15 size. I live on the steepest part of the hill and just getting started in an upwards direction as I have to, is scary in the snow. I even bought bloody snow chains in case we get hard-packed stuff. But the Yokohama W.drive tyres are about a more complex compound involving Micro Silica and Flexible Polymer as well, that is softer in cool conditions and is superior in the UK for at least eight months of the year. They also feature 3D block construction to the tread. It’s all dead cunning and I am a lucky dude. Here’s some more information about this sort of tyre and why they are such a good idea. link
I am piles of stuff behind, including a few lovely executive toys from Parrot. Now, after a recent and very pleasant meeting with my chums at Alpine, it is clear I have to up the game and evolve the reviews into a short form that can even, dare I say it, be reprinted in PDF form and sent to dealers! It’s not a big ask and I can always have a link – hell even a QR code square to a fuller review. As long As it hangs under something that makes full sense in the short form. So expect all the authority but two thousand words per product may just be too many! Plus, I also think some pure TV-based reviews would be a Good Thing.
I’ll go get on.
Adam Rayner On Line Editor