News flash: About a Boy

Well, our baby was born yesterday - 20th October - at 9.42am (and 38 seconds). We have a boy. Both mother and child are doing amazingly well.

All the cliches one has ever heard about being at the birth of your child are true, so I won't bore you by repeating them here.

So, our wonderful son is nearly a day old and, guess what, he still hasn't got a name!

The great search continues....



m/f

Hap-Les says No. He's Sikh of it.

Following the radio gold "interview" with Alan Partridge wannabe Les 'Hap-Les' Ross and Hardeep Singh Kohli, I did the decent thing and put in a request to interview Les myself.

I felt that the world needed to know more about this icon of the airwaves and hear his side of his unintentionally hilarious down the line chat that is fast becoming one of the most popular links on Access Interviews.com.

Alas, Les was on air when I called BBC West Midlands yesterday, but I spoke to his programme editor Jeremy Pillock - who was just a tad touchy about the subject.

"Why do you want to interview him? Is it about the Hardeep Singh Kohli thing?"

(Oh, nooo! I just suddenly wondered: Who should I interview today? Brad Pitt? Madonna? No, my life-long dream has always been to interview my hero Hap-Les.)

"Well, yes. It would be good to hear his side. Besides, I reckon Les would be a great interview..." (I mean it. I know there is a story there...)

"No. He will not want to do it."

"Shall we ask him anyway?"

"No. I am telling you - Les will say No. So this is his answer. No. He is sick of it all..."

Surely he means Sikh of it.

So, there you have it. The great interviewer, with the legendary "shooting all over the place" style, is not talking.

Pity. I quite liked the idea of him hanging up on me.

But there's a scoop waiting for some demon interviewer. Hit the phones, lads.

Who's the Head with Hirst?

I popped along to Sotheby's yesterday to see the Damien Hirst exhibition - I mean, pre-auction preview. It is well worth the visit. Works such as the spin paintings in "household gloss" don't do it for me, but I admire Hirst's showmanship and his courage. And some of the work is spectacular, not least the Golden Calf. I'd never seen his formaldehyde works up close and they are stunning. The sheer volume and projection of the entire exhibition is quite phenomenal. Sotheby's had to reinforce the ceiling to accommodate the Calf. Its weight has forced me to reconsider buying this piece for my third floor guest bedroom.

By total fluke, Hirst passed by me as I left. With seize-the-moment chutzpah, I introduced myself. I have done a bit of this cold calling over the years and you can quickly get the measure of a celebrity by their reaction. Hirst offered a friendly handshake. He was pleasant and down to earth and looks you in the eye. We chatted for a few minutes. He lives a hundred yards or so from my home. "Do you fancy doing an interview some time?" I asked. "Yeah. Could do. But it would have to be through my office." This is standard and fare enough. He produced his Blackberry and gave me his PA's number. "Make sure you tell her we've spoken." He offered me another handshake and was on his way. Decent bloke.

One item in the sale is a painting of a photo taken of Hirst with the head of a corpse during his time at Goldsmith's art school. My guess is that this would have been around 1982-3. Tracey Emin featured this photo in her room at the RA's Summer Exhibition. When I saw it there, it bothered me that a photo - albeit such a dramatic one - could be regarded as "art". But it also made me wonder: Who was that man? What was his life?

When I saw the painting of the photo yesterday, I found myself wondering the same. Clearly, I will ask my new best friend Damien if we meet again, although he won't know. Maybe someone out there can help me find the story behind The Head with Hirst...

Baby Names Dilemma Article

Here's a piece I wrote for the Daily Mail on 22nd August. I suddenly realised you could read it here, or on the Mail's website. Although they are pretty similar!


Named and shamed: trendy or fuddy-duddy, your child's name is a life sentence. No wonder it's such agony to choose one

How I laughed last week when I read that several names for children had become more or less extinct during the past century. The likes of Walter and Percy, Edna and Olive have all but disappeared.

This tickled me because, as a soon-to-be father for the first time, I have wilfully rejected hundreds of names for being old-fashioned, dull or just plain naff during, ooh, the past fortnight alone.

Such is the ruthless nature of the baby name game. In fact, a good name is so hard to find I'm amazed anyone gets named at all.

I realised that naming our baby would be an experience to remember when my wife, Emma, and I chanced upon a meaty paperback in a second-hand bookshop in the earliest days of the pregnancy. I groaned when I saw the cover: 40,001 Best Baby Names. Surely we had the individualism and imagination not to resort to such crass measures?

But it's just a starting point, it will give us some ideas, said Emma. Forty thousand and one - a starting point? I nearly passed out.

I accepted the book's purchase - for a princely £1 - on the condition it was not opened until this baby was definitely happening. I did not want to jinx anything.

Sure enough, the name game began after the 12-week scan, during which I had unwittingly doubled our workload by insisting on us not knowing the sex.

It is the one time in life, I concluded, that you can actively choose to be surprised. Yup, and it will come as no surprise that you also get to spend countless hours searching for a name that will never be used - unless you really want to call your son Amber.

The naming started at a gentle pace with occasional suggestions arising at random moments. A silence during a car journey: 'What about Myrtle?' 'Er, no. Myrtle-the-Turtle. She'll never live it down.'

Or, out of the darkness during a sleepless night: 'How about Ernest?'

'What? Er, no. Hemingway. And Ernie - the Fastest Milkman.'

'Orson?' 'No. Welles. Goodnight.' Soon, the big book came out, and thinking up names became something of an obsession in our lives. Not an unpleasant one, it has to be said, because we do have fun with it. But it's fair to say that I have not been participating quite so enthusiastically of late.

The romantic in me wants to stumble upon a name in a cosmic moment - like when I look into my baby's eyes - and find that it fits ('Oh, hello - Sharon').

But I suppose we have to be a bit prepared, so I go with the flow while Emma calls out names. She puts them up and I knock 'em down. I have become the resident Mr Negative.

In fact, I have been amazed to discover what strongly adverse feelings I have towards so many names. Some are like invisible pressure points that release a residue of buried memories.

James - no, he was a nasty snitch at school. Allegra - an ex-girlfriend (although, obviously, I've changed that name and of course I didn't reveal the real reason when it was initially floated).

Entire lists of names are instantly ruled out because they are friends, or the names of their children. Leaving parenthood as late as me, aged 43, you find that great chunks of the Best Baby Names book have already been annexed.

And it is alarming quite what a subtle impact celebrity culture has on your selection, too.

Louis? God no, Louis Walsh. Vincent? Van Gogh - great, although a bit sad, but it'll get shortened to Vinnie. Vinnie Jones. Enough said.

Jude? Jude Law. Cameron? Diaz, or worse, David. The association list is miserably endless.

Even if you dismiss all the preconceived ideas as hogwash, the baby book also gives the meanings of names, which presents yet another trap. We could probably live with Jude except that it means 'patron saint of lost causes'. Er, no thanks.

While we were watching television one night, I finally realised I had to up my tempo in this game. Emma was diligently plucking out names from the 40,001 bible like a bingo caller. 'Claude?'

'No, too French.' 'Xavier?' 'Even more French. Non!' 'How about Martha? Or Constance - that means loyal?'

'Hmm. Short-listers, definitely.' I could watch TV while editing scores of names. I was multi-tasking effortlessly and knew I could get this list down to 200 before delivery day. I do love a deadline.

'Isaac?' 'Er, no. Bit too biblical.' 'Job?' 'Blimey, no. Same problem.' Then silence. Phew, the name game was over for another night.

'Rob - have you got ANY suggestions?'

I paused. 'Umm. How about - Radiator? I'm sure we'll warm to it.' The book hit the floor with a heavy, defeated thud.

Since then, I have been more productive, but we are still alarmingly thin on the ground.

Anyway, what is it we are looking for? We are agreed that we want something that feels original, a bit rare, but not so out there - Apple, for example - that it will make us, or our darling little one, sound a bit daft. And the last thing I want to be is a pretentious Try-Hard.

A name with a worthwhile meaning would be a bonus, but does any of this really matter? These days everyone tries to be a bit different and the moment the pack is onto something, that's when I instinctively want to go the other way.

The good news is that we might have a name for a girl. It's a bit old fashioned, a classic, but it might just work. I can't say what it is or you will all nick it and before long it will appear on one of those Most Popular lists, then we'll all hate it.

Anyway, it could be utterly pointless because Emma is convinced she is having a boy - and we don't have one single boy's name without a line through it.

Hang on, I have just looked at that ever-so shortlist of fuddy-duddy dying names and, you know what, Percy is growing on me. Yeah, that'll do.

Happy Summer

The blog is going on holiday, while I toil away on www.accessinterviews.com and other stuff. Do feel free to join me there.

Until I see you again, along the way...

Love All

The grace, humility and sheer excellence in the face of extreme pressure displayed by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer was nothing short of awe inspiring.

I watched every minute, fidgeting from the sofa, to my feet, to the floor, anxiously willing Nadal to do it. I had been in pretty much the same state the day before cheering on Laura Robson through dewy eyes.

Ah, the heart-lifting innocence of her victory and the titanic triumph of Nadal's makes the world seem a better place. Anything suddenly seems possible when you see such personal fortitude in these young, brave people.

But it is the manner in which they both won - and how Federer took defeat - that is the brightest beacon. Such modesty and respect for their competitors - how rare it is see such qualities in our public figures. Arrogant celebrities with wafer thin talents and mendacious, vain political leaders should all have looked on in shame at these tennis stars.

My weekend of loving the world that bit more was rounded off sweetly just as Nadal collected the trophy; "The Inspector" called again with an up-date on my little complaint.

Well after 9pm on a Sunday, this fine gentleman was grafting away for the good of the nation. "Really sorry, but would you mind calling back? I'm just watching Nadal get the cup...?", I asked. "No, problem at all, sir." Blimey, what a diamond.

We chatted later and - after I had given him a match report - he informed me that he had discussed the matter with Snell's superior officer and she had been hauled in, along with her side-kick (Mick Lomax) and they were both carpeted for breaching various regulations and for generally being obnoxious in their duty. (Lomax has "gruff attitude" form, it would seem).

"Would I like to take the matter further?" No, I said. I like to think that these coppers are doing good work in general, so I would not like to wilfully blot their records. A bollocking is enough for me, thanks. "That is very big of you, if I may say so, sir," he said. Well, there you have it. Case closed.

The tennis proves there is much to celebrate in life, so I am moving on. Very big, I know.



ps: what a picture of misery Gwen Stefani struck in Federer's private box of supporters. I had the misfortune of trying to interview her a couple of years ago. She was pleasant enough but as dull as you get in my game. Now I see that she is not even moved by the greatest game of tennis, I will no longer berate myself for failing to get anything of interest from her. When we met not even a cattle prod would have woken her from her monosyllabic, jet lagged stupor.

Catch me if you can

Another day, another battle to fight. Yawn.

I wouldn't want you to think I go looking for trouble, or that I'm some sort of aspiring vigilante, or worse, a dedicated Mr Grump recently regenerated from the Victor Meldrew misery mould, but I'm buggered if I am going to live a life blindly turning the other cheek while the inconsiderate bastards of the world run roughshod over our daily lives.

The Scene: 8.30am this morning, I am getting into the car outside my home. A white van pulls up, a bloke with a blood-burst face in his late 50s steps out, hobbles a few paces then angrily hurls a poly-wrapped magazine in the direction of my front door. It lands in a puddle near the bins. I quickly retrieve it and see that it is my weekly edition of Press Gazette.

I chase after him. "Excuse me, do you reckon that's the right way to deliver this magazine?"

"Yeah. I'm double parked...it's a fucking nightmare here, what else am I'm gonna do?"

"So it's going to sit there all day in the rain, until I get home?"

"Yeah," he said getting back into the van.

"Er, I know the people who run this mag. The least you could do it put it through the letter box - like you are paid to do. Can I have your name?"

"Nah. Fuck off. I've got enough fucking problems..." Cue the screech of an engine and the burst of fumes. An absolute delight to make your acquaintance.

Now, do I forget about it and forgive this poor unhappy chap for the off day he is clearly having? Life really is hard enough, we all know. Or do I shop him to the hard-working, decent owner of the magazine who pays tens of thousands a year to the "courier" company that employs such an oik?

I'm not keen on being a sneak, but I think we all have a duty to help sift out the objectionable, useless grime that pollute the service industry.

One day it's the police, the next it's the courier business. I know, I am emerging as something of a Super (Local) Hero. It's not easy, but someone's got to do it.

Tomorrow: motorbikes.

Arghhhhhhh!

An Inspector Calls

Following the surge of interest in my 'interaction' with an officer of London's Met Police, I have an up-date and some interesting information for anyone troubled by such issues.

Powered by the energy of thousands of global readers connecting with my trifling strife with woman "officer" Snell (No: TL7449), I cranked up the one man revolution and took it to my local cop shop. The desk sergeant quickly informed me that a complaint against the police can only be dealt with by an Inspector - and the one Inspector for the borough was not available. He was in with the "Chief". Oh, OK, do get him to call me, thank you. I left not expecting to hear anything too soon.

After a stroll through the sales - Joseph, Conran, Harrods - I headed back, empty-handed, to HQ at the gasworks to continue developing the empire. Then the phone rang out: an Inspector called.

I will not provide his name, but suffice to say that our ensuing 25 minute conversation helped reaffirm my life-long belief that the police are, in the main, good and fair and deserve our support. This chap was open, articulate, understanding and wise.

Inspector X listened to my little tale and agreed whole-heartedly that I had a worthy complaint. It was not piffle, he said, but important for all concerned to get these things right. He was aghast at the conduct of the officer and lambasted her as "arrogant" "not good enough" and "infantile". "This is not the way we should be treating people and is not of the high standards that we expect" he added.

More importantly Insp X outlined a few facts that you all might find worth knowing:

1. It is most definitely NOT against the law to take a photo of a policeman in the UK. "We should carry on our duty irrespective of how many cameras flash away."

2. There is no law to say that you MUST give a policeman your name and address if they stop you. It is only required if you are suspected of an offence.

3. He revealed that the "Stop and Account" forms are likely to be scrapped in the coming months because they are unpopular with the police and proving counter productive in terms of public relations. Yep, they sure are.

4. Snell is not - as she claimed to me - a fully loaded police woman. Although full time, she is in fact a Community Support Officer (The number "7" in front of an officer's lapel code denotes this).

5. Most interestingly, Snell acted improperly by demanding to look through my phone files. This constitutes a "Search" and in her Support Officer capacity she does NOT hold the power to do this without instruction and observation by a PC. At the time of looking at my phone, her colleague (a proper copper) was busy "busting" the cyclist.

OK, so where does all this lead? Well, Inspector X was happy to relay an official complaint to the West End police where Snell is based, which would ultimately lead to her getting bollocked. Or, he suggested he personally haul her in and do it himself. "I could get her in, no problem, and shout at her, then let you know how it goes," he said. Oh, how civilised. "It might be that this is one of a number of complaints and might be the hair that breaks the camel's back..."

Well, there you have it. The obnoxious, officious, small-minded Snell is in the doo-da. The police, G'awd bless 'em, are on to her. They are there to fight for us I'm sure, even if it doesn't always feel like it.

I will report back. The 'Not Guilty One of Oxford Street' is nearly free.

Thought for today: anyone but Murray.

To Snell and Back

My recent 'interaction' with a particularly small-minded and supercilious officer (WPC Snell) in the Met's bicycle regiment has caused quite a spin on the internet. Since it was picked up by a kindly reader called "Chakalakasp" and linked on Reddit, the traffic to this blog has rocketed beyond all recognition.

It is clear that matters of police over-reaction and the wilful shattering of our civil liberties causes consternation around the globe. It is now a month since the incident and I regretfully confess that I have been slow to make an official complaint. Time assuages the injustice, as does indeed the attrition of getting on with life; basically, my time has been consumed by single-handedly running Access Interviews.com, trying - and failing - to move home in a collapsing British housing market, and dealing with the joys - and worries - of imminent fatherhood. My desire to take on the police and government has withered.

But I should be ashamed of my inaction. Trifling matters such as making a little life and a living are no excuses to delay the revolution. Certainly, the issues I raised in that blog are important and no revolution was won by basically lumping it and soldiering on.

The actions of police like Snell are the splinter at the thin end of a very nasty, giant wedge that will adversely affect our lives for generations. Hence, I will head to my local cop station tonight, bolstered by those thousands of readers, to lodge my complaint. I shall report back. Onwards into battle...!

Go, Davis, Go.

Hurrah for David Davis. As regular readers of this blog will know, I have been seething about the abuse of our civil liberties for ages.

The insidious poisoning of our basic freedom with the virus of CCTV cameras, largely installed under the false premise as an antidote to crime, is at the forefront of my anger. We have all rolled over and allowed it to happen. I can think of no other European country that would have been so pliant.

Now, at last, someone has taken a stand and Davis should be applauded. The swathe of support he is already enjoying is at last the voice of the great silent majority exercising weary vocal chords that have been muted for too long.

Let Davis speak. And prepare to hear the loudest echo imaginable across the country.

Is it cuz I'm white?

Congratulations to Barack Obama, a worthy winner of the Democrat nomination in the US presidential election - which he will lose to the man with the G-force face (botox, or tuck?).

Obama is a gust of much-needed fresh air in a country gasping for life beneath the bloodied stench created by Bush. He'd get my vote.

Every newspaper and media organisation around the world today proclaim Obama as "the first black presidential nominee". Have I missed something? Or am I colour blind?

Obama's dad is black. His mum is white. He is mixed race, or whatever other politically correct term you prefer to use - except, of course, that shocking pre-1990s gaff "half caste".

So, rock star Obama is as much white as he is black, yet the world is in thrall of his black 50%, while ignoring his white heritage. Imagine if it was the other way round. I suspect there would be hell to pay. And would the world's media rejoice in the same way if, say, a white looking politician - of an even 50-50 mixed background - suddenly ascended to rule an African country? I doubt it.

So, isn't this all a bit of medium-rare inverted racism? Or am I only thinking this cuz I'm white?

It makes no odds anyway: a bloke like me - a "whitey" as Obama's wife likes to call us on the sly - can't play the race card. To the world and its media, racism is only ever dealt one way. And it ain't to white people, innit.

Obama has always deftly avoided the race issue, but maybe he should take a leaf out of Tiger Woods's book. When the media was reaching for the cliche tin and trying to label him the first black golfing legend, he flicked it back with a swoop of his driver and intellect. He said he is not in fact black, but is proud to be mixed race: part black, part Thai, plus a watered down percentage of other races from his bloodline. In fact, Woods revealed to Oprah Winfrey that he had his own classification - "Cablinasian", as in Caucasian-black-Indian-Asian. A stroke of stunning and admirable individuality.

I'll come back to you when I have thought of a name that might suit the politically correct world of Barack Obama.



Ps: Just a thought - if Obama becomes President, will he make his mark and decorate his new home...so he can live in the Black House? Relax, it's a joke. Call it a bit of black humour.

One way idea

I bet Daniel Moylan, the pin-stripe suited deputy leader of Kensington & Chelsea council, could hardly believe the media coverage he got for his little idea about letting cyclists go the wrong way up a one way street. He is testing a handful of streets, yet it makes the news on everything from the Today programme to acres of newsprint in the nationals.

A great idea? Of course not. Just wait until the first kid is killed in a head-on collision during the dark of winter and the police prepare to lock up the distraught driver for causing death by reckless driving...because - wait for it - he was driving the right way up a one way street.

There's only one way for this idea to go: right down the pan.

Turn back Times, too

There has been much talk - and criticism - in the media and beyond about the redesign of The Times. I have had a few days to chew it over and I'm afraid, like others, I think it is a dog's dinner and a disaster.

I could go through various aspects bit by bit, but it is simpler to look no further than Times2, the focus of my principal grumble: all that white space and headlines in italics make it look like a stinking pile of vacuous advertorial features. What a way to project some fine journlaistic work.

As for all those new colour picture bylines throughout the paper; they may well have dragged some hacks into the modern age from the safety of flattering black and white, but unfortunatley it has revealed many (no names) to be tubbier and, ahem, a little ruddier in the face.

Big Boring Burchill

Wow, if ever you needed a laugh, check out the rambling, repetitive and confused piece by the "retired" Julie Burchill in The Sun today defending Big Brother. It runs to an unbelievably bloated 1,301 words. Talk about play to the crowd. Why on earth is this nonsensical, cliched tripe a centre spread in the Currant?

Burchill - who declares that she is "old and rich" in the article - rails against people who do not like Big Brother. She writes: "...hating Big Brother says far more about the hater than it does about the hated. BB-haters, in no particular order, hate the young. They hate the working-class. They hate gays and trannies. They hate people who have sex more than once a fortnight. And as with a lot of unfounded, ungrounded hate, envy is in there somewhere..."

Well, I hate Big Brother because it is boring, crap TV. Simple as. And I hate that article for the same reasons. It should have been five pars max - in the Brighton Evening Argus letters page - not the marquee spread in The Sun.

POLICE. NO CAMERA. OVER-REACTION

“Middle Classes Losing Faith In Police” screams the Daily Mail today amidst the coverage about the dissatisfaction law abiding people now feel with the police. There were a record number of complaints made in 2006-7: 29,637. Well, please add me to next year’s total after I was stopped and ordered to account for my actions recently. My crime: using my mobile phone in a manner likely to take a photo. I kid you not.

I was idly standing on Oxford Street contemplating an hour’s walk home rather than the fetid Tube when two officers on bicycles stopped a push-bike courier right in front of me. One officer (No: TL626) was unnecessarily obnoxious, which got the courier's back up, so I decided to ear-wig, as you do.

I watched this vignette unfold and considered taking a photo on my phone, you know, for the hell of it, as you do. I pointed the lens, then decided not to bother. In a blink, the other officer came over and accused me of taking a photo. This, I would find out, was PC Snell (No: TL7449), a petite woman of about 25 with short black hair beneath her cycling helmet. What she lacked in height, she made up for in officious bloody-mindedness.

I showed her my phone. She was excited because she owned the same model and instructed me through the image files. Nothing there. Ha! Unlucky, Super Cop. That should have been the end of it. Dixon of Dock Green would have laughed lightly at the misunderstanding and waved me on my way. Not so with Snell. She insisted on taking my details and filing a "Stop and Searches" form. It beggared belief.

I suddenly found myself in possession of a lethal weapon: fully-loaded sarcasm. I made her work for every sorry answer. At one point she said: "You know, we can do this interview somewhere else". It was a direct lift from The Sweeney, or Morse. Possibly Trumpton. She was threatening to take me down to the station for holding a mobile phone. Er, you might have to arrest about 50 million others. Besides, what was she going to do, throw me over her cross bar and pedal me to Paddington Green?

Snell’s hands were trembling as she filled out the form. Clearly a big "collar". Her shaking, spidery scrawl revealed: "Male was standing outside Sainsbury (sic). He appeared to be using his mobile phone and pointing it in (sic) myself TL7449 and TL626...". I picked her up on her grammar (“We was doing…”) and punctuation when she omitted the apostrophe in Sainsbury's. "I didn't get A-level English," she revealed. “No shame in that, but surely you can copy words?” It was in foot-high letters 10 yards away.

It went on. She asked for ID. I gave her a bank card. Done with the courier, Snell’s wingman TL626 came over to assist. He radioed HQ to get a match on my name after I refused to give my address. Exasperated, I gave them my date of birth. Looking at my Lloyds Card, PC Snell continued to bust me.

"So, Robin...".

"Well, it's Rob to my friends," I said cheerily.

The other copper mis-heard and butted in. From behind wrap-around mirror sun glasses, he snapped: "Ah. You are saying that this card is your 'friend's'?" He suddenly got a buzz thinking he had chanced upon a big time credit card thief impersonating as another. Then he began questioning me. Give me strength.

And so it continued. To think, a week or so earlier a young man had been stabbed to death at 5pm outside McDonald's a few hundred yards away. I bet these two cycling plods would have been indispensable on such a day with their pencils and laser criminal antennae. They would have probably alighted at the bloody scene and started handcuffing people for over-salting their French fries.

At one point, as we argued over my "actions", little Snell pointed to the sky: “You know we can trace what happened through the CCTV.” Where the hell do they get these people?

The police watch over us day and night through four million cameras, slowly destroying the trust and respect of millions of law abiding people, and then they have the audacity to get all shirty if you - allegedly - point a camera phone at them and do NOT take a photo.

They wonder why we complain. Before I had written this piece, I had decided not to file a complaint. I feel too bored and beaten by Big Brother Britain to be bothered, but now I have had second thoughts. Tactless, negative, spiteful officers like PC Snell need to be brought to book, or things will never change.

I have since found out that it is not against the law to take a photo of a copper going about his or her duty. So, from now on, I will be snapping them, not nicking us.

Britain's Got Semi-Talent

And, so, to Fountain Studios in Wembley for a seat behind the judges at a live semi-final of Britain's Got Talent. What an extraordinary experience.

I have dipped into the series since a night of undiluted hilarity at the auditions in Hackney, so the thought of some more live action was an easy lure.

A glass of pink champagne backstage got me in the mood for Simon, Piers and Amanda, and, boy, do you need some happy fuel to attend these shows; the crew get you clapping and on your feet constantly like demented performing seals to generate the feel-good vibe. It is an exhausting two hours which leaves you with raw hands and arthritic knees. But it is worth the effort.

Love it or hate it, BGT is one weird whirl of high purity entertainment - good and bad. It makes you cringe, laugh, cheer, boo and cry all in one fatal dose. You sink at the sight of some of the acts - the clueless Indian magician, that troop of a hundred hopeless dancers, the bin bashers, and Christine Hamilton going for it in the finale of You Raise Me Up. But then you are up-lifted by the endearing, untarnished talent of the chorister - you know, the boy with bad white heads. His Tears In Heaven made me water a bit.

You can't help but get caught up in it all when you are there. When the agonising moment came for Cowell to cast the deciding vote between Flava and The Cheeky Monkeys, I found myself shouting out loud.

My head knew it should be Flava - the half-baked dance act with "street" kids who want to make something of themselves - but my heart wanted the two cute little blonde kids who, let's be honest, are too bloody young to be appearing in an event of this scale. Their act makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. In fact, so uncomfortable, that I shouted out their name to help Cowell decide. I was so near to him that I seriously think my shout - and a few others - helped swing it. I was like a parent at a pantomime who had sunk one too many sweet sherries in the interval. Really, I should be ashamed of myself.

Season greetings

I kicked off the "Season" yesterday with a fine day at Chelsea Flower Show, as you do. I know for sure that the years are catching me up when my enjoyment of this event grows with each passing year. It can't be long before I am a crashing gardening bore, although I haven't even got a garden yet; they cost about £200,000 where I live with barely room for a wafer-thin border.

The Chelsea Flower Show is a slow, subtle hoot. It is all so quaint and antiquated and ever so, ever so white. It is like stepping back in time when everything was so much safer and quiet. It must be the only public event left that you can go to without being scanned or frisked.

Highlight for me this year was the hornbeam trees in the Best In Show Laurent Perrier garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith. I want some hornbeams now. I saw a bonsai hornbeam in the Pavillion so maybe that is the answer. I also want a tank of that pink bubbly his sponsors were splashing around after Tom won. Yes, a glass of pink under my very own miniature hornbeam in my micro garden, that'll do.

I had a fleeting chat with the maestro himself - Alan Titchmarsh. It is hilarious watching the older ladies fiddling with their digital cameras with tembling, liver-spotted hands whenever he is near. He really is a heartthrob.

One minor revelation was finding out why dear, dear Alan is so faultlessly fluent on those seemingly ad-libbed links from those little gardens: he has a mini autocue slotted onto the camera.

The alcohol Test

And so, to the second day of the First Test against New Zealand at Lord's for a happy reminder of one indisputable, joyous fact: a cricket ground is the only place where a man can open a bottle of red wine, sup a pint of beer, or pop a champagne cork at 11am in public and not be accused of being an alcoholic.

It is also the only place that a younger man can visit and be assured of seeing for certain what his future looks like if he continues on his ruinous path of grape 'n' grain. It looks like bloated bellies, thinning hair, burst cheek blood vessels and port noses. Not a pretty sight, but that's cricket for you: it's one of life's truly humbling levellers.

Will Self - the interview

Just a note to let you know that my filmed interview with Will Self is now on the Access Interviews website.

Rarely does a subject make me laugh as much as Will. His tone and delivery on the slightest of subjects cracks me up, as you will see on the film. He is also wonderfully articulate and many of his answers on a scope of topics are quite mesmerising. However frothy, I particularly enjoyed the Q&A section and his answer to "What piece of wisdom would you pass on to a child?" is particularly insightful and poignant. Will also talks candidly about his drugs past, his writing life, and the woes of being labelled a "grumpy old man".

Oh, and all luvvieness aside, I can sincerely recommend his new novel, 'The Butt'. Eloquent, highly original, dark, witty, fascinating, and quite a page turner. It is, ah, bloody brilliant, yeah. And it could make a great film. Will's wish is for Ed Norton to play both of the main characters. David Lynch to direct?