Small But Perfectly Formed
Busy week. Interviews with Haircut 100 (nice boys - tell lies like they’re going out of fashion), David Sylvian (we compared skin care tips, picked up a few handy hints using easily available household products), Modern Romance (they’re going through a pink suit phase - either they haven’t yet tried wearing pink suits in the streets of Streatham or else they are a lot tougher than they look) and Sal Sol - a man who looks like Uncle Fester on a diet and sings with a group called Classix Nouveaux whose music, I must say, is really pretty decent which is more, alas, than can be said for their hairdresser.But enough of work. The big news of the week is my acquisition of a new cassette recorder - a Sony WM-R2. This is so small you wouldn’t believe it! It actually fits in my jacket pocket. No, honest, it does. Only just fits, I would have to admit, and it’s true it does stretch the seams a bit, but even so... I mean, my last cassette recorder was about the size of a box of Kleenex and I had to carry it on a strap around my neck, whereas this little beauty can be held in the palm of my hand and weighs less than a pound (I know that for a fact as I just shoved it on the scales). You got to give it to them Japanese, they may not be hot shakes when it comes to pop music, but when it comes to small, there’s no beating them.
So small it fits in the hand! Whatever will they think of next...?
Anyway, I went down a shop on Tottenham Court Road to buy it. By a stroke of bad luck, who should I meet on the way in but Welsh Willy. Now, I don’t think I’ve mentioned him before so I’d better explain. Welsh Willy is, as his nom de guerre suggests, of Welsh origin.
There are, as I have often had occasion to point out, many fine and noble talents from the Land Of Song, such as Bonnie Tyler, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Shakin’ Stevens and that bloke who sings ‘Nessun Dorma’ while cleaning the gentlemen’s urinals in Camden Town. But Welsh Wiley is not among their number. By which I don’t mean that he’s not every bit as Welsh as they are but that he is, rather, notably lacking in the fine and noble talents with which those aforementioned luminaries are so plentifully graced.
I am, as it happens, myself of Welsh origin, so you may draw from that fact your own conclusions.
Contrary to what you may suppose, not all people of Welsh origin are characterised by the finer qualities of which I speak. You only have to take one look at Welsh Willy to see what I mean. He has one pierced ear from which dangles a golden ring. I think that says it all. He comes from Abergavenny, I believe, or possibly Abernant - anyway, one of those Aber-places, which, in my book, is another thing to hold against him.
He was all jaw as usual. He is one of those chopsy Welsh boys who give the rest of us a bad name. Once he gets jabbering, there’s no stopping him. Some swanky party or something he’s off to and did I want to come, he was sure he could get me an invitation if only he was to have a word in the right ear. I told him I had better things to do than to go to ‘swanky’ parties (his word, not mine) and fortunately who should swan into the shop just at that moment but Bruno Brookes, the Radio One DJ with whom I am the very closest of chums, having once interviewed him in Battersea Dog’s Home for Jackie magazine (a story for which the world is not yet prepared).
Bruno was browsing for a cassette recorder as it happened so, making my excuses and leaving Welsh Willy over in the batteries and accessories department, I shimmered over to Bruno and showed him mine and you could tell by the look in his eyes that he’d never seen anything like it before. “Japanese,” I said, “Rubbish they may be, when it comes to music. But when it comes to small, you can’t beat them.”
I don’t think it was the right thing to say in retrospect. Well, Bruno, you see, is what you might call somewhat dainty in stature and his manner towards me suddenly became quite frosty. “I think I’d prefer a British make,” he said.
“Suit yourself ,” I thought, “See if I care if you end up walking with a limp!”
Funny that, now I come to think about it. How all the Radio One DJs are so small, I mean. There’s Peter Powell, Bruno Brookes, Mike Read. None of them are giants.
I wonder what underwear Bruno favours? I suspect he’s a Y-Fronts man. I have a theory that all the Radio One DJs wear Y-Fronts. Apart from Tony Blackburn, that is. I’d imagine Tony in boxer shorts. For the freedom of movement, if you get my drift...
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