A jolly good read

Ah - the joy of books. Immersing yourself in a good read can be therapeutic. For me, the year is made up, amongst other things, of a pile of reading material. Some good, some indifferent but all of these books will attach themselves to a memory. The books that went on holiday with me, the books that accompanied me on Tube journeys in and out of London, the book I was reading when Mum died.

One name that appears several times on my 2018 list is Mick Herron. He has created a bunch of misfit characters working on the very periphery of the secret service. They are quite unlovely and yet addictive. I rooted for them in Slow Horses, cheered them on in Real Tigers and worried about them in Spook Street. There's more to come in 2019 so hurrah for that.

The scariest read of the year had to be Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Not having seen even a minute of the highly popular TV adaption, I threw myself into the book and was rewarded with a vision of chilling bleakness. It's a grim story and unnervingly believable. Equally downbeat was Charles Bukowski's tale of a man dragging himself around dead-end jobs in the USA, Factotum. You could almost smell the poverty and stale beer.

It's good to laugh though and there were giggles aplenty courtesy of two Joesph Connolly novels, Summer Things and Winter Breaks. The characters are Ayckbourn-esque and the petty snobbery of suburban life lends itself well to these stories. There were also unintentional chuckles in Georgette Heyer's hoary 1940s murder mystery A Christmas Party. This ticked all the required boxes of a mansion house killing - sour owner, flighty niece, scheming nephew and an acidic butler. He didn't do it by the way.

A slow burn of a read is also appreciated so thanks to Jon McGregor and Reservoir 13. The story follows the reactions of villagers over several years following the disappearance of a young girl. Everyone has their own take on the mystery. Many have secrets that need to be protected.

Agatha Christie featured on my list several times and one of the novels I read during the summer, The ABC Murders, was dramatised by the BBC over Christmas. The latter was a little more earthy than Christie's novel though. She didn't really 'do' sex. Death on the Nile and The Mystery of the Blue Train were also entertaining despite being the best part of eighty years old.

Other honourable mentions this year go to:

The Dark Circle by Linda Grant - tales of a post-war TB clinic

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch - what happens when the Met Police has to deal with the supernatural

Christadora by Tim Murphy - sex and drugs in Manhattan over a thirty year period

A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert -  a tale of hope from Nazi-occupied Ukraine

Theft by Finding by David Sedaris - collected ramblings from the master diarist

The Shelf go the Unread still takes pride of place in one of the spare bedrooms. A wealth of loveliness waiting to be explored in 2019.

Going for a song

Here we are then, on the eve of the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest. As I type, the twenty six finalists are rehearsing their socks off in the confines of Lisbon's Altice Arena. For me, it's my fortieth consecutive contest as a viewer. Fortieth. Good heavens.

My Eurovision 'journey' - and yes, everyone has to have a 'journey' these days - began in earnest on a Saturday night in March 1979. I was mesmerised by the song contest. Not so much the songs though. Checking the running order for the show, I notice the Ghenghis Khan singalong from Germany, three people playing garden implements for Switzerland and the UK's lovely contribution, Black Lace. No, I was agog at the idea of a TV show being broadcast live from Jerusalem. I remember thinking about what it would be like to actually be there, in the International Convention Centre. What the young me could never have imagined was that exactly twenty years later, I was stood in the very same hall at the 1999 contest. The 1979 me would have been stunned.

Jerusalem 1999 was also my final contest as an accredited 'journalist'. It brought to an end six years of fun and games, schlepping between concert hall and press centre. Lots of partying and official receptions too. Full marks to the likes of Iceland who, in 1993, got everyone horribly drunk on some potent embrocation called Black Death. 'Douze points' to the 1994 Finnish delegation for saving many of us from starvation with what appeared to be a hot buffet without end. Three cheers for the Belgians who plied us with beer, the Croatians who served up cocktails in test tubes and the Slovenians who tempted us with plates of cured horse meat.

Nowadays, anyone working on the contest has to be available for two weeks. I only just about coped with seven days. It's knackering. Quite often there wasn't time to take in the sights and sounds of the host country. In Israel I made an exception. With a military guard, toting machine guns, I headed off for the Negev desert. Was it warm? Yes it was - 44 degrees. I bobbed around in the Dead Sea and shuffled around a kibbutz with the Estonian delegation. The kibbutz proved to be an eye-opener in that one of the Estonians had once lived there and had less than happy memories of the place. Which he put to the manager. The visit was brought to a swift end and we were herded out of the compound.

Since 1999 I've only been to a couple of contests. 2010 in Oslo was an odd affair in a hangar of a venue that had little atmosphere. Being part of a 20,000 strong crowd made it difficult to follow what was going on, particularly with Armenian and Azerbaijan fans trying to outdo each other with oversized flags. The 2013 event in Malmo was fun even if the entries were forgettable.

As much as I've loved traipsing across the continent over the years, currently it seems to have come full circle and once again I'm in front of the telly watching from afar. If the bookies are to be believed, we are on our way to Cyprus next year. I've always fancied Limassol in spring.

Saturday Night's Alright?

A Casualty of Saturday nights?

It was as if empires had fallen and life, as we know it, was over. There has been much hand-wringing over the past week as numerous journos feasted over the demise of ITV light entertainment juggernaut, Saturday Night Takeaway. Although we soon discovered that the entire enterprise was on a one-week hiatus whilst the team adjusted themselves to being down a presenter. On the show goes but less so, the prospect of Declan Donnelly mugging away to camera alone will no doubt see a ratings increase next week.

Saturday night telly, we were told, had died. It has ceased to exist. The real issue here though is that the whole premise of 'sit down Saturday' had withered decades ago. TV critics attempted to hark back to glorious days of yore. Days that featured the likes of 3-2-1 or Noel's House Party. Seriously? Saturday night TV has been in the doldrums for as long as most people can remember. Indeed, you have to well into middle age (box ticked there then . . .) to recall a time when the BBC, even more than ITV, got it right.

Yes, we drift back to the 1970s when the BBC were happy to kick off the evening with imperial phase Doctor Who (Tom Baker dashing through an up-and-under garage door painted silver), the Generation Game ("so what are the scores on the door Isla?"), the Two Ronnies (middle aged men in frocks) and a pot-boiler drama series such as Juliet Bravo or the more earthy American series, Cagney & Lacey (a couple of women shouting in a filthy toilet).

Scores on the doors . . .

The whole edifice of Saturday night telly crumbled with the passing of such shows and their gradual replacement with joyless offerings such as the numerous National Lottery quiz shows, the ascent of Mr Blobby or ITV's early evening filler You Bet! I was fortunate enough (hmm . . .) to be a contestant on the latter.  A lovely evening was had with the likes of Sally James and Melvyn Hayes, yet I'd not seen the show before and never tuned in again. I didn't even see the episode I featured in until some time later. I couldn't be bothered. That was the way with Saturday telly from the 1990s onwards.The Beeb realised that they could kill an hour with the soapy goings on in Casualty. Three decades of Charlie Fairhead taring into the middle distance. They couldn't be bothered either.

All Bets are off

ITV countered the BBC's lack of effort with endless casting shows. They have dominated the schedule for the best part of twenty years, whether it be Pop Idol, X Factor or the unloved The Voice. If not them, then a plethora of vehicles for Ant and Dec which is where it's all gone wrong for ITV. Too many eggs in one basket? Too much trust in the enduring popularity of a double act? With Ant now likely to be sidelined for some time, the commercial channel has a chance to maybe rethink some of their stately old shows. ITV is unlikely to ditch Britain's Got Talent or I'm a Celebrity  though and time will tell if a change of presenters will help or hinder ratings.

Will the BBC take advantage of ITV's misfortune? It's unlikely. The much-touted revamp of the Generation Game has been cut to just two episodes and there's probably not a lot to shout about until the clocks go back and the familiar staples of Doctor Who and Strictly return. ITV's schedulers are not doubt plotting as we speak.

Fully booked

Well, not exactly a vintage year for blog postings, this being the first. It's been that kind of twelve months. No random jottings about foreign visits (torrential rain in Puerto Rico, norovirus in Malta), the joys of Eurovision (a well-deseved and long-awaited victory for Portugal some 400 years after their debut) and meanderings about the state of Coronation Street can be found on the rather wonderful blog site. I did meet Jenny Bradley and Pat Phelan though so all is well with my cobbled world.

Amongst all of this frippery though is the constant stream of reading material that passes through my life. There it is, stuffed into a work bag, accompanying me on the journey to and from the City. It accompanies me on train trips to the north and flights across the world. Wherever you are, you always know where you are with a book.

There were one or two stand-out reads for me during 2017. Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North was deep and beautiful. Also up there was David Lodge's rollocking The British Museum is Falling Down, where academia and contraception collide in 1960s Britain.

Eric Ambler's anti-heroes were out in force yet again. A usual, the exotic backdrops helped the action along in Cause for Alarm and The Mask of Dimitrios. There was similar tales of derring-do from Patricia Highsmith and her classic murder novel Strangers on a Train. It was never going to end well.

Some books can leave you with a sense of disquiet and unease. Step forward Len Deighton's SS-GB, the story of what might have happened had the Nazis won the Second World War. Equally unnerving was Mark Haddon's collection of stories in The Pier Falls, most of which proved enjoyable and uncomfortable in equal measure.

I always feel dejected when a book fails to reach expectations. Luckily these were few and far between in 2017. The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark was a thankfully short read. Likewise, I was happy to turn the final page on William S. Burrough's 1985 offering, Queer, a joyless romp through Mexico with a selection of self-hating gay men. Not good.

The ladies of Tilling provided distraction in E.F. Benson's Lucia Rising and Guy Fraser-Sampson's faithful, if unofficial, end to the series, Au Reservoir. Laughs aplenty too in Bruno Vincent's re-imagining of Enid Blyton's Famous Five, including Five on Brexit Island and Five Give Up the Booze.

Other notable page-tuners this year included:

• A Film By Spencer Ludwig by David Flusfeder - an intergenerational road trip
• A Raging Calm by Stan Barstow - eeh it's grim up north and then some . . .
• South of Broad by Pat Conroy - soapy yet enjoyable trip around Charleston
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler - fear and resignation in 1930s Vienna
• Enemies: A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer - life after the concentration camps

Plus, given the season, a fantastic collection of short stories from the likes of Ian Rankin and Val McDermid in Murder Under the Christmas Tree. Santa's coming for you!

Black and white and read all over - again!

Yes folks, there is no escaping the upcoming festivities. I'm knee-deep in unwritten Christmas cards, unopened online shopping orders and steely determination. One area where such determination may have wavered in 2016 is the need to read the huge pile of unread books gathering in the spare room. It's a feast without end. yet again, I will carry forward numerous tomes from one year to the next with the hope that they will sustain me on holidays, commutes into work or idle Sunday afternoons.

When it comes to reading, I don't tend to follow trends as such. Browsing the shelves of book shops, flicking through literary supplements and recommendations are what tend to steer me in every varying directions.

I always like it kick the year off with something fairly easy. Trudging through a James Joyce in January is never a good idea so I turned to Nick Hornby's Funny Girl. This was the seemingly simple tale of an unknown northern beauty queen who suddenly makes it big in a 1960s BBC sitcom. It's full of joy and optimism and delivers a 'fifty years later' chapter to round the story off well.

Three John Niven novels were devoured this year. Kill Your Friends is set against a backdrop of late nineties Britpop and the drug-fuelled excesses of the period. The humour is dark, morbid in places and yet still I laughed. Second up was The Sunshine Cruise Company, a sort of Carry On-style romp featuring OAP bank robbers. An odd premise yet strangely believable. There were more laughs courtesy of Straight White Male which served up the tears and giggles in equal measure.

It's always good to pick up a book that you've been meaning to read for years but never got around to. Step forward The Crow Road by Iain Banks. First published in 1993 and read by me twenty three years later, I initially found the dual narratives a little disconcerting. The Scottish names proved a little confusing to but I stuck with it and enjoyed Banks' examination of the deeper meaning of life. Quite funny in places too.

Not striking such a cheery note was Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. Set in an alternative world where Nazi Germany and Japan had won WW2, this proved to be an unsettling read. Presumably this was the intention but it was too troubling to be enjoyable.

Veteran writer Eric Ambler provided some of the most enjoyable reads of the year. The Light of Day was all thrills and spills set against a backdrop of Istanbul. As often with Ambler, the lead character was anything but heroic. Epitaph for a Spy also featured a flawed hero plus an ensemble of characters residing at a hotel in summer. Addictive stuff!

Linda Grant served up a more feisty lead character in When I Lived in Modern Times, the story of a young woman leaving the austerity of post-war London for a new life in the fledgling state of Israel. It turned out to be not quite the anticipated land of milk and honey.

Other books enjoyed during 2016 include:


Soho by Keith Waterhouse - great characters and lots of fun
Walk the Lines by Mark Mason - the London Underground on foot!
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh - a young girl gone sour
Joy by Jonathan Lee - why did a successful woman hurl herself from a balcony?
The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate - fear and loathing at a country manor
Memoirs of a Dipper by Nell Leyshon - the brutal life of a petty criminal
For the Love of Radio 4 by Caroline Hodgson - a jolly romp through the schedules

There we are then. Just some of my literary companions this year. Some were challenging, some were  just good fun but all were very welcome.

A prisoner of good fortune

Guilty pleasures. We all have them. Maybe a cheeky drink at the end of a long day, frugging around the living room to the sound of some 1980s disco or settling down to a TV treat that never fails to entertain. For me, the late 1980s through to 1997 were enlivened, television-wise, by the bottomless pit of pleasure known as Prisoner: Cell Block H. Shunted away in an 11 pm slot on ITV, PCBH became a must-see in my viewing week. Yes, I've heard all the nonsense about wobbly sets and outlandish plots but let's face it, EastEnders and Coronation Street are no strangers to the latter.

Of course, PCBH has recently had a revival and was relaunched on to an unsuspecting world in 2013 as gritty, edgy Wentworth. I love it but my fondness for the original PCBH has never waned. The show provided opportunities for many actresses who may have been consigned to 'mum', 'gran' or 'office worker' roles for years to come. Instead they were handed glorious roles - tough women with back stories and a tale to tell. Sheila Florance excelled as the wily poisoner Lizzie Birdsworth. Val Lehman ruled the roost for four hundred episodes as Top Dog and queen of the laundry press, Bea Smith and Janet Andrewartha crackled with menace as calculating Reb Keane.

A few British actresses also made the journey to the Wentworth Detention Centre including Annette Andre (of Randall & Hopkirk Deceased fame) as journalist Camilla Wells and the glorious Olivia Hamnett as psychotic doctor Kate Petersen. One actress who kicked the series off with a bang was Londoner Amanda Muggleton. She played tart-with-no-heart whatsoever, Chrissie Latham. The scorned Chrissie murdered one of the main characters early doors and wasn't seen again for several hundred episodes - but back she came. Chrissie managed to be hard-faced yet vulnerable and often lashed out when things weren't going her way. Initially an enemy of Bea Smith, Chrissie eventually learns the error of her ways, partly down to a sever bashing from corrupt officer Joan "The Freak" Ferguson.

Actress Amanda Muggleton left the series in episode 338 and Chrissie never returned. For Amanda, further success lay ahead on stage and screen. She took lead roles in Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine, winning countless awards along the way. Almost forty years after that first appearance in Prisoner, Amanda found herself at the wonderful Kings Head Theatre in Islington, as star of the one-woman play The Book Club. Written by Roger Hall, the play tells the tale of Deb Martin, a woman whose husband is knee-deep in a midlife crisis. With her kids off her hands and time to kill, Deb joins a book club peopled by a bunch of eclectic women. Whether it's haughty Meredith or homely Millie, all have an opinion. Muggleton gives voice to all of them impressively and despite her being the only woman on stage, you soon find yourself engaged with a plethora of characters. She also manages to fill the entire stage, stalking each corner and addressing members of the audience like long-lost friends. It's all rather impressive. There is much joy to be had in the play, laughs a-plenty, tempered by Deb's realisation that ultimately, no good can come from the decision she's made. Acting on a lifelong ambition is sometimes not such a good idea.

Initially I wondered about the decision to stage the play in such a tiny venue as the King's Head. Some years ago I ventured to the Jermyn Street Theatre and almost projectile vomited having been placed on the front row in the firing range of scary tribute act Simply Barbra. Any lingering worries I had last night disappeared within seconds. Amanda Muggleton made this a very inclusive experience. We were part of her book club as it darted between hosts. Deb couldn't have made us feel more welcome - but I think Chrissie would have knocked her teeth out.

Moments of silence: Eurovision goes to Stockholm

It's not often that a Eurovision Song Contest related story finds its way on to the main page of the BBC News website. Last week though, they updated us with Romania's expulsion from this year's event. An exasperated European Broadcasting Union, owed millions of euros by Romanian national broadcaster TVR, decided that enough was enough. Therefore the curtain came down on the hopes and dreams of one Ovidiu Anton, the singer who was busy packing his overnight case in preparation of representing his country in Stockholm. Europe will sadly not get the chance to vote on his particular slice of musical joy called Moments of silence. Plenty of quiet time for him and Romania from hereon in.

Overall, there seems to be a very competent feel to the 2016 entries. Nothing breathtaking, no real wow moments and only one very obvious clunker. Yes, step forward San Marino with possibly the worst song in the history of Eurovision. The individual elements are heinous enough - elderly Turkish man (yes, they must have run out of local performers in the micro state), talking rather than singing his way through a song with a hopeless 1970s disco backing track. At best, it's a comedy sketch but sadly, no one is laughing.

The only 'face' - and even that's stretching it a bit - taking part is Westlife's Nicky Byrne who will be flying the flag for Ireland. Sadly he does so with Sunlight, a flimsy and inconsequential slice of froth that leaves no trace.

Eurovision is often a reflection of music from the days of yore. Georgia has wheeled out Nika Kocharov and the Young Georgian Lolitaz (there are no women in the group) who have discovered some old Oasis tracks from 1995. The song may be doomed but at least it stands out. Also flying the flag for yesteryear is Poland Michal Szpak. Color of Your Love  - and yes, Michal favours (or should that be favors) the American variant - is some big, old-fashioned late 1980s Euro ballad which goes nicely with his big, old-fashioned late 1980s hair. Austria's Zoe seems to be harkening back to mid-80s Luxembourg entries and indeed, her song is performed in French.

There is a strong band of middling entries from shouty women this year. Azerbaijan's Samra trills her way through one of those contemporary 'oh oh oh' choruses and Australia's Dami Im serves up the musical equivalent to a bread pudding - stodgy, safe and generally unrewarding. On it plods. Switzerland's Rykka sings of being The Last of Our Kind and one can only hope so as she makes three minutes feel like six.

So who can we see as a potential winner this year? The bookies are favouring Russia's Sergei Lazarov. Apparently you pronounce his name as 'Sir Gay' which is just as well as You are the One seems to be flying the flag for gentlemen who dance at the other end of the ballroom. With recent Russian entries having been booed into submission by the middle-aged Holister t-shirted crowd, Putin has obviously succumbed in 2016. Dated it may be but the Russian song could easily take the title. Also keep an eye peeled for Sweden's Frans. It's sufficiently different to their winning song of 2015 to garner another victory. The Swedes are desperate to usurp Ireland at the top of the 'most winners' table and they seem to be well on their way. Another which may do well is Serbia's oddly named Sanja Vucic ZAA. Now Sanja has obviously been plugged into an Amy Winehouse back catalogue over winter and so this comes across as more 'homage' than original. A cracking if weirdly twitchy performance from Sanja.

Their's a nod to cod-rock this year too. Montenegro's band Highway attempts to be a tad grungy and shouty but it just sounds messy. Minus One from Cyprus are a sanitised, safe rock band. Nice song but a couple of earrings and a tattoo does not a Lez Zeppelin make.

I'm pinning my few quid on the Netherlands this year. The wonderfully named Douwe Bob could be on to a winner with the soft-country, Radio 2 friendly Slow Down. Europe tends to love this genre and to be fair, it's forty one years since the Dutch last won with the lyrically lovely Ding-a-dong. I've also a fancy for the Czech Republic's entry, I Stand. OK I'm a sucker for a shouty woman with a big ballad and Gabriela Gunčíková belts this one out with gusto. As does Finland's Sandhja complete with her jolly 'we're up for a laugh' backing singers. Sing it away will open the first semi-final on May 10th and it's fun.

The UK will be hoping, probably against open, for a place on the left-hand side of the scoreboard this year. Recent entries have been a bit of a disaster. We had tremulous old Engelbert Humperdinck followed by croaking Bonnie Tyler, 'rabbit in the headlights' Molly and then last year, Electro Velvet who performed well but failed on presentation. For 2016 it's Joe and Jake. No, they're not a couple of CBBC presenters but two personable young blokes who seem to have no problem in performing You're not alone live.  This one deserves some measure of success but this is Eurovision and seemingly the UK is just there to make up the numbers these days. Still we'll raise several glasses to them - and an extra one in memory of Terry Wogan during song number nine which was when El Tel used to break open the booze. Glasses charged folks - it would be wrong not to!

Kitchen knives and caretakers

Well, it's been quite a week for high drama. No, I'm not talking about the Dear Leader's tax issues or the gasp-inducing news surrounding the Archbishop of Canterbury's parentage. Mere filler surrounding the the main course (tuna bake anyone?) on the news agenda. For this was the week that Helen Titchenor got stabby in The Archers.

Don't worry, I'm not about to enter into a detailed scene-by-scene synopsis of the whole grim affair. In a nutshell, dear old Helen, knee-deep in tuna bake and shop-bought custard, took a carving knife to her abusive husband, rotten Rob. The cast of The Archers deserve all the plaudits hurled at them, not only this week but every week. Yes, I'm a fan of long-standing and Sunday mornings would not be the same without the omnibus edition. A time for ironing, copious amounts of tea and the chance to hurl insults at a parade of fictional characters.

In Helen's hour of need, the powers-that-be decided to surround her with some of the show's less than sympathetic characters. Take Susan Carter for example. No, please take her as far away as you can. This shrieking spit-bag was soon to hand, knitting at the foot of the guillotine and enjoying the spectacle of Helen being whisked off to Cell Block H. Also pouring meths on troubled waters was the delightfully awful Peggy, Helen's gran, a woman who reinvents the word 'crone' every time she opens her mouth. For Peggy, the best way to support her granddaughter was to fuss about sending flowers to the abusive husband, languishing in Holby City hospital or wherever was nearest. The third in this triumvirate of hags-most-horrid was the mother-in-law, Ursula, who during one scene seemed to be channelling the voice of Su from the Sooty & Sweep Show. Ursula is a Disney-style wicked step-mother type but Home Counties style. When she cackles you can almost picture her tie-necked blouse quivering. Add to this Helen's hand-wringing mother Pat, uttering the line 'were we blind to what was happening?' ('Yes, you ridiculous old bat!' I screamed at the radio) and you realise that the accused has no chance. Weep for her.

Drama of a very different kind on Saturday night though. I was at the Old Vic for Harold Pinter's The Caretaker. This seemed to be a marathon undertaking as we were promised two intervals and a running time in excess of three hours. What a three hours though. For those not familiar with the story, there are only three characters involved. Timothy Spall took on the role of Davies, a vagrant helped by the damaged Aston, played  by Daniel Mays. Spall played Davies as initially confused, wary and subsequently wily as he attempted to manipulate Aston and play him off against his aggressive brother Mick, played by George MacKay. All three characters have set pieces. Mays was particularly engrossing as Aston attempts to explain the horror of the treatment he received in an institution. MacKay's plays Mick as a sharp, hard and violent man who has a rather worrying detailed knowledge of floor coverings and soft furnishings. Susceptible to flattery, he laps up the faux adoration of Davies. Despite Davies being, ultimately, a despicable old man, Spall breathes humour into the role and is rewarded with his fair share of laughs. Mays shoulders the heavy dramatic scenes with ease but the actor was visibly distraught at the close of the production.

Full marks too to designer Rob Howell for creating the dingy eaves flat in which the action, as well as the distinctive Pinter pauses, take place. All's well that ends well? Not in the case of The Caretaker but I headed back to the Underground in the knowledge that three hours had been well spent.

A house in the country

The last few hours of the Easter break are now upon us and so ends our longest public holiday of the year until you-know-when. For me, it kicked off on Wednesday following a 5 am start, a session in the gym and then a full day at work. How better to end proceedings than with a 150 mile jaunt up the M1 to Derbyshire. As ever, traffic ground to a halt somewhere near Leicester and engines were simultaneously turned off. I fumed and had a little rant. What on earth could be preventing in me from starting my Easter break? Then follows the slow crawl of shame as I passed the burnt out car on the hard shoulder and the fervent hope that the owner made it out, safe and well.

To Derbyshire then and to a house only five minutes walk from my parents. For ten years this has provided a bolt-hole from all things London. Now though, it's time to say goodbye and the house is on the market in preparation for something new. Sad will be the day when the keys are handed in to the estate agent but needs must.

To take my mind off things, I visited another country pile, slightly more imposing than our semi. Chatsworth. Oddly, this would be my first visit to the house itself. There had been the obligatory school trip to the farm, way back in 1976. That had been a joyous day of mud, clipboards and beef spread sandwiches. Some kid showered the coach in vomit on the way home, Exorcist-style,  causing the appearance of an angry teacher with a bucket of sand. We followed her progress back down the bus as she rhythmically broke wind with each footstep.

There had also been a not-to-be-forgotten family picnic to the Estate, also in the 1970s. After enduring a bank holiday tailback on an overheated East Midlands coach, we settled down en mass under a tree and beside a large cowpat. En mass we then gathered up the picnic and escaped the flies that were happily attacking the cheese and tomato baps. At greater speed we then ran as fast as we could from the herd of cows menacingly trotting towards us. Not the best of days.

Since then, there have been a few visits including a horribly depressing Christmas when there was nothing much to do other than shuffle along the river bank in drizzle and a more recent visit to the pre-Christmas market which featured drenched choristers belting out Ding dong merrily on high, water gushing from their nostrils, in a torrential rainstorm. How we laughed. From inside the restaurant.

This time though, I was actually setting foot in the house, the seat of the Devonshires. Imposing entrance gave way to odd rock collections and odder art. A madwoman next to me insisted on capturing everything on her phone, presumably because the folks back in Hokumpokum Nebraska will be agog at endless pictures of an amateur geologist's findings. Upstairs there was great excitement  as we milled around the doorway leading to the bedroom where JFK once slept. "I don't think Jackie stayed in that room although she might have done" muttered a woman clutching a guide book.

Before long we arrive at the Cecil Beaton exhibition feature the late Dowager Duchess, known by the family as 'Debo' (the Devonshires that is, not my family. I did meet 'Debo' back in the 1980s and have a hazy memory of having bowed and curtsied to her at the same time). Deborah was the youngest of the Mitford girls and seemingly the most sensible. She helped establish Chatsworth as the 'must see' destination  it is today. Beaton's photos gave an insight into the life of Debo and her never-ending 'country set' guest list. Apparently she insisted that all house guests be 'interesting' and one can only wonder at the musings of Noel Coward and Vita Sackville-West at the dinner table.

Anyway, that was that. Box ticked, house visited. I celebrated with a jacket spud in the House's tasteful restaurant as I was entertained by a middle-class dad imploring little Molly and Isla to 'please sit down. Please, for Daddy'. I found them mildly 'interesting' but I fear that dear old Debo wouldn't have given them house room.

Black and white and read all over

It's been another year of groaning bookshelves. I recall wittering on last year about the number of unread tomes piled high in my spare room. 2015 saw me add to them. Not that I'm complaining. I love the idea of having so many to browse.

I'm a few pages away from finishing my festive read, Somerset Maugham's Christmas Holiday. Admittedly, I knew nothing about the book and it soon transpired that the story had little to do with Christmas. There's a bit of murder, a bit of finger-wagging at fascism and a gentle snigger at art snobs. Maugham wrote this in 1939 and it seems apt that I end the year with a book from that decade, given that I began it with Geoffrey Houeshold's Rogue Male. This was a tale of escape told at quite a gallop and despite the title, this bunch of rogues were often gentlemen.

The joy of any year is coming across something that has been in print for years but which you've never got around to reading. Or not as the case may be. I eagerly got stuck into Muriel Spark's The Ballad of Peckham Rye only to be left somewhat deflated. I didn't connect with the story at all, or with the oddly-named characters. Each chapter read like some theatrical performance and felt dated. Another which failed to hit the mark was Mike Pannett's musing on life in Yorkshire, Now Then Lad. Admittedly I grabbed this as an emergency read on Pickering railway station. Like the train I caught, the narrative ambled along without any sense of purpose. It was all bucolic mishaps and eccentric Yorkshire farmers. The only thing that resonated was the fact that I was travelling through many of the places Pannett wrote about.

The award for Bleakest Read of the Year, by a narrow margin, goes to Hubert Mingerelli's A Meal in Winter. This is a very simple tale about a group of German soldiers preparing a rudimentary meal in the depths of a Polish winter. Mingarelli manages to shock the reader in a quiet and efficient manner. The other Bleak Book was Nic Pizzolato's Galveston. Like Mingarelli, Pizzicato conjure up some wonderfully vivid landscapes. It's a collage of washed-out backdrops, cheap hotel rooms and heat-hazed beaches. This is one disturbing read.

Bobbing around in the Caribbean, I needed something much more light-hearted and so got stuck into Christopher Stephens' Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams. I didn't imagine that there would  be anything new under this particular sun. How wrong I was. Using correspondence between Williams and his friends plus reactions from those mentioned in the infamous diaries, Stephens managed to add flash to the bones of the familiar Kenneth Williams saga.

I also decided to tackle Hilary Mantel this year. Not physically, obviously. Hurling her to the ground during a literary awards dinner might have seemed a little drastic. No, a chunk of the year was spent getting to know Thomas Cromwell (or should that be Cremuel?) in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Both books managed to be absorbing and in places, truly shocking. The execution of Anne Boleyn was horrific. Mantel managed to make Tudor England an accessible place for the twenty first century reader.

There were a couple of excellent reads provided by Anne Tyler. She excels at the ordinary, family narrative and in particular, this was to the fore in A Spool of Blue Thread. Tyler pivots between wry humour and abject sadness but always manages not to be mawkish. As ever, I didn't want the story to end. Tyler always leaves you wanting to know what happened next.

In no particular order, other novels I trawled through in 2015 included:

Jiri Weil - Life With a Star - the grind of everyday life in Nazi-controlled Prague.
Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London - the occult meets the London Met!
Linda Grant - Upstairs at the Party - 1970s students and their subsequent life stories
Joseph O' Connor - The Thrill of It All - rites of passage again, this time for 80s teenagers
Patrick Gale - A Place Called Winter - Edwardian mental illness and stark Canadian landscapes
E.F. Benson - Mapp & Lucia - sweet naughtiness amongst market town snobs

Plus many, many more. As ever, I begin another year with George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier glaring at me, unread, from the bookcase. The war of attrition continues.

Teddy's Boys

So then to the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden and the Christopher Shinn play, Teddy Ferrara. As is the case with Donmar productions, less is more. No real set other than some doors, a few chairs and the odd pizza.

I knew the bare bones of this play - political activism amongst various gay students at an American college. There was the earnest one (Drew), the slightly shallow one (Gabe), the misfit one (Teddy), the unlucky-in-love wheelchair user (Jay) and the closet (Tim). In amongst these was the college's President with an eye on a senate seat, the angry salad-munching lecturer Ellen and the slightly dull Provost.

Unrequited love played its part and the underlying fickleness of all the main protagonists is what really let this play down. The entire production had the downbeat feel of one of those interminable 1990s films where the 'gay one' always dies, whether by suicide or AIDS. See Ordinary People or Longtime Companion for such misery. That's not to take away from the performances of those involved. Oliver Johnstone as Drew excelled as the serious young man maintaining his 'non-scene' stance. Ryan McParland's canker-laden Teddy made for painful viewing at times. Also a great turn from former Coronation Street actor Pamela Novete as the bitter Ellen.

The play ended with an odd scene which felt as though it had been grafted on at the last minute. It bore little relation to the rest of the story and provided no reason as to why one particular character acted the way he did. Rousing applause for the cast though, even if the audience seemed a little perplexed as it exited stage left into the wet London night.

"And after the break . . ." Happy 60th ITV

Yes, it's time to break open the bubbly and blow up the balloons as the 'light' channel, ITV, celebrates sixty glorious years of existence. Well, maybe forty of them were glorious but let's not quibble.

Scrub that. Let's quibble. For me, the ITV of 2015 is a very different creature from the one I knew and loved in days of yore. However much I try, I feel it highly unlikely that I will ever look back on The Cube with misty-eyed fondness or hanker for the good old days of Doc Martin. Nevertheless, someone will.

For me ITV is firmly stuck in the seventies and eighties, providing a backdrop to childhood and adolescence. More so than BBC, ITV became our default channel and that meant hoovering up everything on offer from our local network, Yorkshire Television. Ah - the chevron logo, the strident brass fanfare  . . . and then something as innocuous as Farmhouse Kitchen. Forget Mary Berry - we had Dorothy Sleightholme back in the day, shuffling around her faux country kitchen, preparing Christmas puddings in September. Bless her. In fact, many ITV memories seem to stem from those illicit moments spent watching daytime telly whilst perched on the sofa 'being ill'. A sick day (or two) usually meant the appearance of the 'sickness blanket', the vomit-inducing Lucozade in a crinkly amber wrapper and several hours of ITV.

The 'For Schools and Colleges' programmes ranged from the staggeringly dull to the petrifying. Remember the eerie them tune to Picture Box accompanied by a close up of Alan Rothwell? Or the ear-piercing screech on Experiment as the narrator instructed us to 'write it down'? Things improved at lunchtime with Rainbow (camp pink hippo, nasty old Zippy and hair bear Bungle), Pipkins (camp Hartley Hare, a Brummie pig, thieving monkey) or Hickory House (Alan Rothwell again). Best of all though were the shows aimed at the seventies housefrau such as Good Afternoon. This was a cornucopia of delights as Judith Chalmers or Mary Parkinson chatted with the likes of George Melly and Katie Boyle before offering up some consumer advice. Victoria Wood mercilessly sent this format up in the 1980s. Even more engaging was Houseparty, which was basically Loose Women on soft furnishings. The show would begin with the ding-dong of a doorbell which cued Mavis Nicholson to start mentioning the word 'womb' before segueing nicely into a discussion on flapjack recipes with Elaine Grand.

ITV was also the home for the dramas we, as a family, consumed avidly. I was too young for the original airing of Upstairs Downstairs but watched the re-runs in the mid 1970s. Ditto  A Family at War with the haunting theme tune and the closing credits focusing on a sand castle on a beach bedecked with a Union Flag. We gathered at supper-time to feast on Brideshead Revisited, Born and Bred or the latest US import such as Hill Street Blues. 7.30 pm was reserved on Mondays and Wednesdays for Coronation Street, in an era where the pub and shop didn't burn down or explode with monotonous regularity. If Ena Sharples' hair-net blew off, it was the talk of the playground the next day.

And we laughed. ITV kept us in stitches with saucy yet funny sitcoms such as Man About the House, Two's Company and Rising Damp. We found endless amusement tittering at Richard Wilson in Only When I Laugh or Peggy Mount playing yet another gorgon in You're Only Young Twice. At a time when, as a ten year old, I had little idea of the concept of political correctness, I found joy in Mind Your Language. Not so funny now though.

So thank you ITV - thanks for Crown Court, for Googie Withers in Within These Walls, for Meg Mortimer singing 'We All Need a Little Christmas' on the festive Crossroads, for Susan Stranks on Magpie, for the News at 5.45 with Leonard Parkin, for Dennis Norden every Bank Holiday, for Michael Aspel, Una Stubbs and co on Give Us A Clue, for Emmerdale Farm when it just about Amos Brierley and sheep-dip, for World of Sport and the endless diving from Accapulco, for the terrifying theme tune to World in Action, for New Faces every Saturday night, for Opportunity Knocks every Monday night, for Benny Hill, for the Krypton Factor and it's assault course, for Selwyn Froggatt, for Thora Hird's In Loving Memory, for dippy World War One drama Flambards, for Sooty & Sweep (with and without Harry Corbett0, for Name That Tune, for the unfathomable clues on 3-2-1, for the old ladies forever winning power boats on  Bullseye, for Jack Hargreaves and Bunty Miller on How, for Richard Whiteley and Austin Mitchell reading the local news on Calendar. Thank you ITV for accompanying my formative years. I enjoyed them.

Where the streets have no name

Here we are then, teetering on the edge of the season of mists and mellow fruits . . . or something. The kiddies are safely ensconced in school, the summer holidays are just a memory and Downton Abbey is about to enslave our Sunday evenings for one final season.

Like many people I know, September seems to being on a rush of activities. It's the knowledge that the good weather, such as it is, is about to blow southerly and that CHRISTMAS is just around the corner. We feel the need to fill up those dark nights and chilly weekends. For me then, a splash of music, a West End play and a winter visit to Britain's most famous street. Yes, that Street. Over the past twenty five years I've made several pilgrimages to the Corrie cobbles, both old and new. Some have been as a member of tour groups and others as part of a small group. There is something thrilling yet strangely odd about shuffling around Coronation Street when there is no one else around. I half expected Rita to come bowling out of the shop or Liz to be propped up outside the Rovers having a fag break. Needless to say, I forgot that it wasn't real and began jabbering on as if the characters were. More power to the show for making me a believer.

Of course, Corrie is a world away from reality nowadays but maybe it did have more in common with the Salford backstreets when it began in 1960. Although we can't shuffle back in time to experience it ourselves, I did the next best thing last week and paid a visit to the Photographers' Gallery in London. Women and Children and Loitering Men is an exhibition of the work of Shirley Baker, Salford-born and renowned for the works she did during the 60s and 70s. Baker managed to capture the essence of the disappearing Salford. No cosy old dears with hairnets on display, rather the grim end of a way of life. At the time, Baker worried that in fifty years time, her pictures would be judged as being nostalgic or even worse, obsolete. However, it's difficult not to feel some sort of nostalgia, especially if you lived in s similar area.

The women portrayed in Baker's photographs leave the strongest impression. Sat on doorsteps chatting, each one bedecked in the aprons and 'pinnys' of that era. Even the older ladies, beyond working age, were still dressed for domestic battle. Salford is seen as an area of derelict shops, netted bay windows, waste ground and grubby kids. Rising, as the backdrop to all of this, the unloved tower blocks.

A few of Baker's photos show pubs and shops, grimly hanging on in areas where everything around them had been bulldozed. The paintwork and windows are clean, the curtains are neat and yet everything else has gone. How long would these businesses, with their hopeful, pristine exteriors, survive?

What we don't know is whether or not the inhabitants of these long-forgotten streets were happy to leave it all behind. Did they miss the outside lavs, the tin baths and the filthy back alleys? Did they pine for kitchen ranges and coal fires? Probably not but people did miss their communities and what Baker achieves is to show us the slow dismantling of such communities. The exhibition was fascinating and many of the exhibits can be seen in her book Women and Children and Loitering Men.

We are the worst people: Songs from Europe

It's just three weeks until the delights of the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 are upon us. Well, not quite as some of the participating countries chose their entries last November. Eurovision - the gift that keeps on giving.

This year's is the sixtieth event and will be beamed to us from some anonymous looking stadium in Vienna. No doubt it will feature many familiar scenes - three presenters bellowing "Good evening Europe!" in unison. An audience of balding middle-aged men wearing unflattering Holister t-shirts. An interval act that leaves us shrugging with bemusement. A confused looking septuagenarian couple waiting for Katie Boyle to make an appearance.The usual stuff.

Given that we are celebrating sixty years of all things song contest, much of what is on offer is reminiscent of something else. For Sweden see Aviici, Belgium (Lorde), Latvia (FKA twigs) and the UK (Peters & Lee). Whereas Eurovision used to be very much a brand in its own, pleasingly naff, right, nowadays the contest is often an echo of the mainstream pop charts.

It's fair to say that some of the songs can be dismissed. Some more easily than others. In preparation for this article I plugged myself into Albania's entry, "I'm alive" sung by Elhaida Dani. I forgot every nano-second of it so listened again. Then forgot it again. No grand final for the plucky Albanians this time. We can also probably wave a less than fond farewell to Switzerland's "Time to shine". Singer Melanie  Rene may be polishing this particular turd for a while in order for it to glisten in any way at all. Portugal's Leonor Andrade managed to win her local final by failing to hit the right note for three minutes. Also seemingly doomed is Hungary's turgid plea for peace, "Wars for nothing", a song so banal that I wanted to launch a missile at it.

In years gone by many countries stuck tirelessly to long-held musical stereotypes. The Greek entries always veered towards taverna pop, Israel fielded numerous Hava Nagila/Hokey Cokey combinations and Belgium . . . well, whatever. This year it falls to Montenegro's Knez to serve up something moody and Balkan with a slightly shouty chorus and some stringed instrument gamely being plucked   in the background. It's old skool song contest and I love it.

Saccharine Disney-by-numbers ballads have featured for many years and the prime offenders this year are Spain and Russia. The Spanish entry, 'Amanecer' performed by Edurne promises much yet manages to deliver little, save for the endless utterings of 'corazon' and some drums. Russia, meanwhile, offer us blue-eyed, blonde-haired Polian Gagarina who seemingly kicks off her effort with the line "We are the worst people". Who are we to argue? No doubt there will be there traditional annual booing of the Russian entry whether it be for incursions into Ukraine (who are not participating this year) or the country's lousy record on LGBT issues. Why waste breath booing? Just stand in silence - a much weightier message. Songwise though, Russia ticks every Euro box - stomach churning lyrics, key changes, thunderous ending. Anyone fancy a trip to Socchi next year?

Russia aside, the hot favourites for 2015 appear to be Sweden, Italy and ... err, Australia! Yes, in honour of the 60th contest, the Aussies are being allowed in this year. Their entry is deceptively simple in an Olly Murrs kind of way. No clever tricks or sickly lyrics here - just a rather catchy pop tune. Guy Sebastian may just have what it takes to make "Tonight again" this year's winner. Italy has opted for popera, that rather dubious Il Divo musical pottage popular with the likes of "Britain's Got Talent" audiences. Indeed, the Italian entrants are called Il Volo and "Grande amore" is exactly what you would expect of this genre. Their biggest challenge though is from five times winners, Sweden. Måns Zelmerlöw's "Heroes" is about as relevant to the charts as a song can be and though it seems to have many detractors, the Swedish entry is the one that sounds most like a winner. Which means it will probably finish 11th.

Of the rest, you can look forward to a woman in a wedding dress and chunky headphones (Slovenia), the world's oldest looking 16 year old (Israel), two separate entries called "Warrior" (Georgia and Malta), some large specs (Cyprus), a second consecutive year of long hair and a beard (Austria) and huge cleavage (both his and hers from the Czech Republic).

As for the UK, well at least we go into the contest with singers who can perform and who are not trying to jump start a flagging career. David Mindel's "Still in love with you" will be performed by Electro Velvet, out first male/female duo since . . . well, since that year we came 26th with no points whatsoever. No chance of that happening this year though and we will steel ourselves for a possible spot on the left-hand side of the scoreboard.

Viel Glück in Wien!