Keep the home fires burning...

This is what's needed this morning, blogging by the woodburner whilst listening to Danny Baker...

I've been working on a cocktail called Grounds for...Demolition?

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I've mentioned before how much I love listening to Danny Baker on the radio. Imagine my delight when, a few months back, I discovered he was back on Radio 5 Live of a Saturday morning with a typical blend of quizzes, phone-ins, random guests and the occasional mention of football.

One of the current features (all of which are eligible for comment by listeners, regardless of how long they've been running or indeed any other new features which may have been introduced that day) is the saving of football grounds from Danny's Totalitarian State Wrecking Ball. Mr. Baker's theory is that we have too many football grounds in the UK and that 20 would, as the road safety folk say, be plenty.

The upshot of this is that listeners can call in and try to save the ground of their choice - when 20 are saved, the rest cease to exist! Many grounds have fallen already, some big names like Anfield and Goodison are no more whilst some of the "wee teams" from North of the Border (Brechin's Glebe Park, Alloa's Recreation Ground) have staved off extinction through the cleverness of their supporters. Intriguingly, any purely football related suggestions (cup finals being played there, Pele or George Best once graced the turf, etc, etc) are liable to immediate anhilation due to lack of colour! Eccentricity triumphs in Danny's Brave New World.

So it was that after many weeks of searching the web to ensure that my memory hadn't failed me, I was able to call in to save Partick Thistle's Firhill Stadium. Eccentric? You bet.

Why should we save it then? asked Danny. Let me tell you...

Some years ago, we had a brilliant management team of the great John Lambie and his assistant Gerry Collins. Many, many colourful tales emerged from the John and Gerry era - a concussed striker led Gerry to tell the boss "Gaffer, he doesnae know who he is!" "Well tell him he's Pele and get him back on the park!" - some possibly (!) apocryphal but the one I thought I remembered definitely happened. Here's the Sunday Herald's version of events:

Banned from the touchline, Collins appeared at a subsequent match standing, complete with hard hat, in the building site that was to become the Jackie Husband stand. His voluble contributions and throwing the hard hat into the air when Thistle scored attracted the attention of the referee. Collins produced his letter from the SFA and argued that the ban did not extend to the terracing. He had eventually to succumb to the rule of law but had shown his mettle.

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Not only did Gerry attract the attention of the ref, he was also spotted by the crowd. I don't think we helped his bid for anonymity by chanting his name!

This seemed to please Danny and his team and I was fairly certain it was job done but I was thrown a bit of a curveball. Mein Host asked me for a "generic" reason to save Firhill, what feature does it have that would make other supporters say "at least that still survives at Partick Thistle"?

Who'd have thought that dangerous, condemnable wooden seating in a 100year old main stand would ever come in so handy? Phew. Call off them wreckers!

Related articles by Zemanta

• 'I'm sensitive to being sat on' (guardian.co.uk)
• Gerry Britton set to quit Partick Thistle to become a lawyer (telegraph.co.uk)

Stupidity killed the radio star...

As someone who used to enjoy listening to Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 (and I'd stopped enjoying it long before he decided to offend the moral sensibilities of the masses), there's been a glaring void in my Saturday morning radio pleasure for a good long while now.

Where once the show played the very best of UK singer-songwriters, old school R&B (that's proper Rhythm and Blues like The Who and Chris Farlowe), Northern Soul and a weekly dose of classic Bowie, over the last 18 months or so this has given way to little more than a plugging in of the presenter's I-pod and pressing shuffle...

Radio Scotland's Janice Forsyth show just doesn't quite cut it - she's too pally-pally with people, though admittedly not in the same sickeningly psychophantic fashion as Ross, and the music is generally unimaginative to say the least.

Imagine my delight, then, when a couple of weeks ago, the legendary Danny Baker popped up to fill the void left in the Radio 2 schedule. Not only that, he'd brought along the lovely Zoe "Mrs. Fatboy Slim" Cook to revive the old Baker and Ball format from Radio 1.

It appears - sadly - that it will be a mere four week stint but what a stint it has been so far. From the man who brought us the great "misheard lyrics" features (Paul Young's "Everytime you go away, you take a piece of meat with you" anyone?) we now have the "Does your name appear in a song?" section. This really only works if you can hear it but the premise is that your name must have been heard, by you, in the midst of a song...Danny himself stakes a claim in Crowded House's "Chocolate Cake" where the refrain "dannybaker, dannybaker" can be clearly heard in the chorus.



And of course, who can fail to be impressed by "Birthday Poker" in which two contestants try to trump each other's collection of "here's what important thing happened on my birth-date" stories. Highlights so far including sharing a day with the fall of the Berlin wall, the death of Elvis and Boney M's "Rasputin" hitting number one...

This Saturday will be the last of what has been far too short a return to the mainstream for the great man. He and Zoe perfectly complement the Saturday morning cappucino and croissants.

Pretentious? Moi?