TheAppeal.co.uk

Back in my late teens and early twenties I was what local newspapers or radio stations would call a “budding comedy writer”. On two occasions I made a little bit of progress through BBC Talent and did various other bits and bobs, I'll do the full ego-trip some other time ... you lucky lucky people!

For now I just want to remind myself that I do like writing and I want to get back into the habit of writing comedy regularly again. Hopefully I'll read my own blog in a few weeks time (because I'm a bit weird like that) and it'll spur me on.

The reason behind my prompt is firstly that a new satirical website is starting up in May, theappeal.co.uk, and I was contacted by the bloke behind it to submit stuff to it prior to it going live.* We've stayed in contact with each other after both falling at the penultimate hurdle of a BBC Talent scheme a few years back. The second reason behind my forthcoming (potential) burst of writing is that a new show is soon to start on BBC 7 and it's open door.

I used to write pretty much every week in my teens and uni years, but my Masters put pay to that and for some reason I never quite got back into the swing of things afterwards with the occasional odd burst, as it were. I'm fairly certain I'll never try stand up again though...

Don't forget that this blog is mainly to allow to me to write stuff down that interests or inspires me before I forget it. If you happen to enjoy what I write even better. I am the key demographic, bully for you if you're enjoying the ride!

* Until it goes live the link won't work of course.

The (other) Trent Vale poet takes early retirement

To round off my fairly short series of posts demonstrating how I can string together something equating to a poem in a matter of minutes; below are my two earliest attempts.

At the bottom of this post are the links to my two previous entries on this theme, the first one gives a little more background as to who/what these poems were written for. And this is the link for the actual Trent Vale Poet.

The first one was themed around Coventry and Warwickshire, all I simply did was hijack a William Blake poem, the second theme was Weather. For the record Bob Brolly is a presenter on the station I was writing it for.

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
No
Until then, Stratford, Warwick, Leamington and Cov.
Will be the closest taste of Heaven here on earth
Us mere mortals will ever get to taste of the above
I wish I could say that it's filled my heart with mirth

An Indian summer, that's what my friend said she was hoping for last week
Her optimism was radiant but the sun wasn't, hiding instead behind thick dark clouds of peril
Watch out for surface water on the M6, I'm already sick of saying it
And yet there's still more to come.
Bob Brolly's namesake has been used extensively this week, the weatherman has not been good to him.
But however overcast we might feel we've got it pretty good here on this little island
Not lying on a faultline and not even the sniff of a tropical storm
Grin and bear it, it's the British way

http://gregsammons.blogspot.com/2009/04/trent-vale-poet-has-no-clear.html

http://gregsammons.blogspot.com/2009/03/other-trent-vale-poet.html

The Trent Vale Poet has no clear competition

Despite currently living in Trent Vale (Stoke on Trent) I really don't think the Trent Vale Poet has anything to worry about in terms of competition.

You can read the background to why I wrote these poems and where they were broadcast here. The photo is of John Butler, the presenter of the show I wrote them for. It should be fairly clear (but I'll say it anyway) that the two themes I had to write about this time round were Winter and Bonfire Night.

In the bleak midwinter
There's a fifty percent chance of snow on my birthday
There was a fifty percent chance of my fifth being the best
Aged five my dad proudly showed my present that year
Two yellow plastic sledges ideal for the nearby hills
The odds fell in our favour and it snowed all weekend
Allowing me and he to slide down those frosted slopes

But those blissful childhood birthdays are long gone
So has my love for those cold, dank, grim, short days
Worse still is that it's just begun, early days for winter
It's great to sit warm inside and watch the cold outside
But you've gotta go out sometime and taste that bitter air
It freshens my lungs as I wait for that next birthday sledge

Bonfire Night
As the firewood crackles around Guy Fawkes
My mind flies back to the days of the days of yore
The bang, the whizz and the smell of burnt meats
The gloves, the scarves and the wellies on my feet
It's been too long since my last fireworks night
I say I'm too old to have the same delight

That I had when I was ten and my fresh face went red
In the cold that felt so comforting like a warm winter bed

I know I want to go but I pretend I dont
So I imagine the night that wont
Be happening for real just in my head
I'm not outside having fun, I'm in bed

Dreaming that I'm ten again and not twenty four
So I won't be smelling that burnt wood anymore
Not til I have my own kids when I can be ten again
Standing in my scarf and wellies in the pouring rain

The other Trent Vale poet

At Trafficlink I have one of the least sociable work patterns you can imagine, earlies is 6am-2pm and lates on 2-10pm. Both shifts have their pros and cons however. On lates I used to do the travel for BBC Coventry and Warwickshire right up until 10pm, which is just plain daft as their stretch of roads are almost always silent by 7pm. One perk was the banter I got to have with the presenter, who would ask me such questions as “Greg, have you ever been in a shop?” or “Greg, what did you have for tea?”

On a Tuesday he had a poetry night and would challenge me to write a short poem on that week's subject, so at 8.20 he'd give me a topic and by 9.40 I'd have to read it out live to the adoring fans. Bear in mind, I had bulletins for other stations to prepare and present as well as for CovWar so these are far from polished masterpieces but for the next few Mondays I'll let you have a read of my unedited poems. The last two poems I wrote before the show was axed were just before Christmas and early on in the New Year. For some reason they asked me to write a haiku on the last show:

New Year Haiku
Another year gone
Another year to age more
Time moves too fast now

Christmas
I'd be happy if there was no mention of Christmas until the day itself
Although the world would be a much different place, it'd feel right eery
I take a positive view of life, but my enthusiasm seems to go on the shelf
When it gets closer to December and I'm reminded of those days dreary
When the days are short and weather gets colder, grimmer and wetter
As if some vision of yuletide festivities is going to make me feel better

But then, I'm rather missing the point of Christmas, as are most
Driven by commerciality is hardly how it all would have began
It's not to give presents, cards, to give those chestnuts a roast
It's to remember the birth of God on earth as a wee man
So when everyone else is enjoying their decadent pleases
I'll be singing my own song entitled Happy Birthday Jesus

You don't have to have a love of cliches to work here...

The place I work is, like most workplaces, full of in-jokes and rather cliquey and as such can be a rather intimidating experience for a newb but an absolute treat once you've been welcomed into the fold. I'll explain a little later what exactly my job entails.

There are so many Trafficlink-specific words and phrases that one of my colleagues has compiled a glossary. For me, I finally felt accepted when I got my first phrase into the hollowed text. It was an off the cuff remark I made about darts, a fondly loved 'sport' round these parts (Phil Taylor, Ted Hankey, Andy Hamilton, Adrian Lewis and Eric Bristow all have Stoke connections). You see, I love the way the darts caller says certain numbers. 180 is just hackneyed and obvious, for me the real gem is 45. The richer deeper darts caller can really roll the end of the fiiiive in forty five, that burr is a thing of beauty. A classic example can be heard here.

Now, for some reason it really tickled whoever it was I told. My impression deserved a repeat performance it would seem, and again, and again ... and again. It was soon the only the thing you'd hear of a shift at work, what fresh hell had I unleashed? It went to rather giddy heights when the whole office went out to the see the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton. Having said that, it was one of the best evenings I had in 2008! The ITV4 (yes apparently there is an ITV4) commentary even picked up on the fact that there were louder cheers on some 45's than there were on the 100's and 120's...

So once one catchphrase is embedded in the Trafficlink conscience where do you go next? Find another glossary term to get the kids raving and that's when I heard this promo on my way to work one morning. Lo and behold we had a daily Antiques Roadshow sing-a-long for neigh on a month ... thank goodness that one's finally worn off!

And what job is it I do? Well I'm one of the voices you'd hear when the traffic and travel kicks in on your car's RDS. I do various BBC local radio stations (although rarely on Stoke) and Talksport (which is a national station).

No doubt I'll bring you a few more work anecdotes in the coming weeks, including posting some of the the poems I had to write for BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, but don't worry I've still got plenty of deep spiritual and political stuff to share as well. And anyway, even if you found this whole post deeply worrying and not even slightly entertaining I know at least five or six colleagues who will enjoy my meanderings on this occasion.