nick nacks for Dick Heads in the new year.

Something struck me the other day, in this age of social networks, smart phones, texting, tablets, voice recognition, address books in mobile phones and so on; are we losing some of the skills of our forefathers and replacing them with useless ones?

I was watching a programme on TV called QI which is introduced by Stephen Fry who is surely the busiest actor/presenter/pundit/writer etc in Britain. Someone said the other day that he was due to be on TV here in Britain over 100 times over the Christmas period – he is also on lots of radio shows, plays and quiz games and this is not to mention that he is playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night in the west end.

On QI he asked his little panel of comedians what date was the first piece of music added to an advertisement; now you may think that it must have been since the radio was invented but you'd be wrong. It was a magazine add with words and music written out for the public to read and sing for themselves and it was sometime during the 19^th Century many years before Marconi even invented the radio.

Many people could read music in those days; they had pianos in their front rooms to entertain themselves; most pubs in Britain had pianos in the bars and people – the hoy poly (the plebs) – would gather there and sing along with the pianist.

By the way 100 pubs per week are closing in Britain and going out of business – that's the downside to social networking and cheap booze in supermarkets.

Pianos in pubs was quite common right up to about 20 or 30 years ago; in my childhood I would go to people's houses and there would be a piano there too. 

Someone in the house usually played and if it was somebody really good it was always a great experience.

I sat with a pianist at Butlin's Holiday Camp in Pwllheli, Wales, one day who was a Fats Waller fan and he went through his Waller repertoire for me and a few others - my brother included; I also sat with Jools Holland at the piano in Cannes when he played a boogie for a lot of people who had gathered around. On each occasion the one word that went through my head was 'practice' – I should have practised.

I could have sat with the same two people and they could have played me a tape of Fats Waller or lent me their iPod but it wouldn't have been the same.

I'm not saying we should all be playing pianos but I know that with the advent of automation we are forgetting how to do things. People used to write to each other; they still do but they don't write properly putting pen to paper, they use emails, in fact a lot of us never put pen to paper and have literally lost the skill.

I used to be able to remember all of my friends' telephone numbers, all the phone numbers of the TV Companies in London, the casting directors there, my National Insurance Number, my wife's, my Social Security number and my wife's in the USA and now – I don't even know my wife's cell phone number; it's in my address book on my mobile phone. I still remember all the other numbers in London but these days most of the hirers and firers have moved – to Manchester!!!

The only things I have to remember now are the PINs and where the lavatory is!!

And with texting words are being cut – 'n' for 'and' and so on. Words have always been cut; if you look at a postman's badge you will see the name of the city or town where he works such as LDN for London and BM for Birmingham and so on.

It would be terrible if the shortened words and coded phrases made it to the hard copy page – such as lol (laugh out loud) as this would ruin the language. The Americans have already ruined some of the English language with their Webster's Dictionary; I mean what was the point of that? What was the point of changing the word colour to color?

Leaving words the way they were educated us and we could find out where some of the words came from. Colour came from the French word coleur which, I suppose, came from the Latin colōr – so there we are going around in circles.

But we always did go round in circles - we started electronic communcations with morse code - -.-- . ... / .-- . / -.. .. -..

But I think you know what I mean.

One of the series on TV that Stephen Fry is in, is a show called Gadget Man in which he tries various gadgets. I haven't seen it as I am bored by those kinds of shows - and cooking shows, sports programmes etc. - but it shows the lengths people go to, to not do something. If you want to play a guitar like Eric Clapton it is perfectly possible to buy the guitar hero game and stand there pretending to be a rock star – or you can practice like he did and does and play it properly.

I have no idea where Stephen Fry came from; he kind of appeared one day about 20 years or so ago in sketch comedy with a wonderful 'RP' voice which he seems to be able to do whatever he likes with; he has gone on to be an author, compare, quiz show host, actor and general bon viveur but when I see him introduce the quiz show QI with his ridiculous good evening good evening good evening good evening good evening schtick, I can see a look of uncertainty in his eyes whereas I'm sure he would be better off just saying 'good evening' – I know he is supposed to suffer from bipolar disease and I'm not getting at that. In fact I'm not getting at him at all because he manages so many things at once, has so many balls in the air that I wonder how he copes.

He made a lot of money when he wrote the stage show 'Me and My Girl' which was a huge hit on Broadway and many other places and if you follow him on Twitter – which I did for a short while – you won't be able to keep up with him. He goes from here to there and back again all the time. Sometimes in Los Angeles, where he will do a few episodes of a thing called 'Bones' then off to Berlin to a Wagner concert then back here and . . . . I saw him one day in The Farmers' Market, Los Angeles, getting some food from one of the worst food places there; maybe I should have said hello and guided him to the French place.

The next thing is new year – 2013. As with any other year I wonder if I'll get used to that number. I don't usually make any resolutions; I don't smoke, I'm not fat so there is nothing for me to cut out, but I will think about it. Maybe not moan about coffee so much or stop telling my daughters how to boil rice or maybe even look for somewhere to live permanently – the lease runs out on this cottage in November!!

Happy New Year. - Yes that man above is the famous Robert Burns who wrote these words:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine;
But we've wandered mony a weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidled i' the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught

For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Happy Christmas

I have been writing this blog since September 2009 and I get plenty of hits; I use two counters, one comes with the software and the other you can see to the right at the top. The one that comes with the software says I have had 69,144 hits since I first started and 3611 last month. The one at the top of the page – Statcounter – says I have had 49,028 hits so it must be somewhere in between; that's good enough for me.

Let me just wish everybody who reads this whether on a regular basis or now and again, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I know it's politically correct to say happy holidays in America and it's hard to even buy Christmas cards but I find it quite embarrassing even saying happy anything to people.

So Happy Christmas, Happy Honika, Happy Quanza and Happy New Year.

Hope to be back in the New Year!!

And that picture above - that's my class in school when I was eight years old. Unfortunately I'm not in the photo but I recognise some of the faces.

Dave Brubeck.

Dave Brubeck.

Very sad to hear that Dave Brubeck died yesterday; he was 92 apart from one day. Today is his birthday. My dad died the day before his birthday; it was a bit pathetic as the birthday cards came in the mail to him and he wasn't there to read them.

Dave Brubeck upset a lot of purist jazz fans in the 60s; his type of jazz wasn't traditional enough for them – his stuff was too clever; it was called modern jazz. I haven't heard that description for a long time and the other crime he was guilty of was having some of his records in the hit parade, the top twenty, the charts in other words they were hits!

The thing I really loved about Take Five, which is what he is famous for, was the repetitive rhythm of the piano; doo dat doo dat doo dah – I loved this minimalist accompaniment to Paul Desmond's solo on his licorice stick; a solo which was a kind of fugue which gave way to the best drum solo on record by maybe the best drummer ever, Joe Morello, who died not too long ago.

Joe Morello was almost blind and wore those dark spectacles for sight reasons as opposed to looking cool; but he looked cool as did Dave Brubeck.

Of course there were other hits (how terrible for those purists) Blue Rondo a la Turk and It's a Jazzy Waltz – I think it was a Jazzy Waltz or a Raggy Waltz but a something waltz at least.

Dave Brubeck's rhythm influenced my taste a lot as I have been hooked on minimalism ever since and another of my favourite composers is Philip Glass the greatest exponent of it.

It's a strange thing, isn't it, when purists protest at something new – Dylan going electric, springs to mind. Up to the time of The Beatles, University students in Britain would only follow jazz and they would grow beards of the type which seem to be fashionable at the moment – I don't know what it's called; Van Dyke?

But back to the jazz – I am not the greatest jazz fan but I do like piano music of all kinds. I love Fats Waller (and Fats Domino) and his stride piano style of play. Stride piano is when the left hand plays the bass part plus the rhythm; so it's like a guitarist playing the bass and rhythm guitar at the same time plus the lead. The little finger plays the bass and the chord follows it to keep the rhythm and the right hand plays the melody – or the solo.

A great stride piano player, besides Fats Waller, was a middle aged woman who was fairly heavy in weight who had permed hair – yes my mother. But another one was a woman called Mrs Mills. But because she was as she was – middle aged and permed – she wasn't very popular with jazz fans but she was with piano players; she was an amazing player. I can't say the same about my mother but she could certainly knock a tune out too.

A few years ago – and I can't remember the exact circumstances – The Dave Brubeck Quartet were due to play at The Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles, and on the night they were due to play something happened to the flights from New York to LA – it might have been the volcano but the point is Dave Brubeck was in Los Angeles and the other three were in New York and flights were cancelled between the two cities. So Dave merely recruited a clarinettist, a drummer and a bass player in Los Angeles who did the concert at a moment's notice; they knew all the tunes.

So that's the end of the Quartet - I have forgotten the name of the bassist as I didn't want to search the Internet for this particular post – and one wonders if it will go on like The Glenn Miller Band; I hope not.

Bitterly Cold Weather.

Me in my 'Bates of Jermyn Street' Gatsby cap.

Recently I walked out of my front door and headed towards Eastcote Tube Station, and as I walked I could feel the icy cold wind at the back of my head. I pulled the collar of my leather jacket up but the wind caught the very top of my napper and it was then I realised that I had walked out without my very expensive Bates of Jermyn Street Gatsby Cap – given to me as a present, I might add, by the lovely manager of The Jermyn Street Theatre, Penny.

As I walked I knew that I had put it onto the radiator so it would warm my head when I came out the house and that thought made the icy blast seems even colder but then . . . . I remembered last year when I would walk out of my front door and think about my baseball cap. Should I have put it on to stop the sun from burning my hair as I felt the warmth of it on my shoulders? I was well protected with factor 30 sun barrier which would prevent that terrible red burnt look that tourists attract and which I would get if I ever forgot to use barrier cream and I was trapped in some place without shelter – from the sun and not the rain as in London – and as I thought of this in my imagination I got warmer.

I could actually feel the LA sun on my back and that kind of warmth you get around the ankles when you step off a plane in a warm climate. This was great as I carried on towards the station but as I crossed the road by Budgen's Supermarket a real big blast nearly knocked me off my feet and I was back in Eastcote.

It wasn't the coldest I had ever been. I remember once when I went to New York from Los Angeles on the red eye; this, as it sounds, is as it is; you get your flight from Los Angeles around midnight and land in New York at about 8:00 am New York time, and when we landed the temperature was zero. That's zero degrees Fahrenheit which is 32 degrees below freezing – or minus 18 Celsius.

The hotel we had booked wasn't ready for us till midday and we had to hang about, go and eat somewhere, browse a book shop and take coffee and the like till midday – Oh you should have come straight around, they said, when we told them as we were checking in.

For some stupid reason we went to the top of the Empire State Building; up there we could really feel the cold. We could feel it biting into our bones and once or twice we stayed out in the open air for at least one minute. I have to say that I took some terrific photographs in the crisp clear air but brrrrrr!!

One sort of silly thing happened: when we reached our desired floor, we were invited to have our photo taken in front of a picture of the building with the New York skyline in the background. I laughed at that but that was before I realised just how cold it was outside up there.

When we were in Los Angeles and I would see people attending theatrical first nights on the TV in London or New York I would wonder how they got to the theatre in the cold and ice or the rain but now I am back in London it doesn't seem too bad; especially after New York.

The one thing about London is that you dress for the weather and don't have to come to a decision about what to wear. No more do I have the inconvenience of having to dress in a black suit to go out for a commercial in the hot 100 degree sun and having to drive to the other side of Los Angeles in traffic with the heat and the . .. God was it really such an inconvenience?

I spent most of the time in Los Angeles in the car; you have to as it's such a huge place with very little rapid transport. Of course you can get a bus to any place but it takes so long – it's a bit like London without the tube.

So I would be wearing shorts most of the time and one day my agent called and told me I had to get to West Los Angeles and go dressed smartly in my suit as they wanted to see people about playing a King in a commercial.

So I drove home, went to the bedroom and grabbed my suit, shirt and tie and some black shoes. I put them into the car and headed out to West LA which was quite a jaunt. I got there with about five minutes to spare and got changed in the parking lot. It was a lovely sunny day and I was between two cars and I didn't care that people would see me in my underpants. Everything went smoothly till it came to the shoes. I had picked up two right shoes and one of them was a tap shoe.

I kept my sneakers on and didn't get the job anyway!!!