March 2005

Hi, how are you? All well, and full of zest for life? Good!

IT'S A LONG ONE THIS MONTH, BUT THERE'S SOME REAL GOOD STUFF HERE. SO IF YOU'RE TIGHT FOR TIME, SAVE IT FOR LATER, OR JUST PRINT IT OFF AND READ IT AT YOUR LEISURE.

THIS MONTH –
 CHARITY GIG COMING UP – STICK IT IN YOU DIARY. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY MEN AT WORK OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES... GIGS THIS MONTH INTERESTING ARTICLE, I THOUGHT: WOMAN'S OWN WHAT THE ‘L’ WAS THAT? SPEELING BECOME A MIND READER – IT'S EASY! STEVE HARLEY

CHARITY GIG COMING UP – STICK IT IN YOU DIARY.
As most of you know, I tend to only do corporate gigs these days. Increasingly, I'm asked: 'Where can we catch your show?' Well, by special request, I've been asked to do a charity gig, which is open to anybody and everybody. It's being organised by Dave Cairns, so if it all goes boobies up, that's who to blame! Here are the details, as passed to me:Place: Forest Cafe. 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh, EH1 1EY Tel: 0131. 220. 4538 Time: 6pm-11pm (includes a quiz night)
Date: May 6Cause: The Scottish Community Foundation (With all moneys going to community groups and local charities within Scotland.) www.scottishcommunityfoundation.comPrice: Donations at the door recommended £4.Dave says: 'I had planned doing the quiz in two half with Drew sandwiched in the middle. Drew can pick his own on-stage time and I will work round him.'So there, you know as much as me now! I hope to see you there! (You WILL say ‘hello’, won’t you?

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRYI was invited to perform at the Craigendaroch Hilton in Ballater – a long way away. Getting there involved a drive North into the splendour of the Highlands, through Perth, Blairgowrie, Glenshee and Royal Deeside. Funny, but I got to thinking about all the times I had taken that route before. And I realised that I had been that way with just about everybody who is dear to me in this life.

Perth has always been a favourite city of mine – a gateway to numerous adventures in the North. And when I was about seven or eight, I used to stay at my Aunt's in the village of Blairgowrie. However, Glenshee is the place I love the most. And while driving up that winding road, through a winter wonderland of blue sky, sunlight, thick clumps of snow that clung to the trees and lay as a mantle on the lofty mountains, memories came flooding back. Whether it was skiing. Paragliding. Walking. Or just standing. Trying to sober up, and admiring the breathtaking views.
From youth club days, my teenage friends and I spent many a happy weekend there. Staying up all night just chatting in The Compass Ski Lodge. My special paragliding chums, bedding down in the lodge near The Spittal. A romantic meal and superb company at Dalmunzie. Walks along the Dee near Balmoral... So many extraordinary people with whom I share so many special memories.

I swear, as I drove up that road, there was a long line of old ghosts who stood on the roadside snow-banks and waved as I passed by. Ahh – cherished memories: and there I was making a new one!

Sometimes, its a shame that change is inevitable ... except from a vending machine, of course!

MEN AT WORK
Anyway, while I'm on that subject, and before I get too maudlin, while I was driving I was listening to the soundtrack from the TV show Scrubs. There is one fabulous track by Colin Hay (Ex-80’s band 'Men at Work'), and I remember him telling me about it at the Festival last year. He said that an audience member had requested he 'sing the one about the goats coming and going.' Goats? What song was that? Eventually, he realised that his Number One Fan was talking about 'Overkill' in which the chorus runs:Day after day it reappearsNight after night my heartbeat shows the fearGHOSTS appear and fade away...

What's truly worrying about this is that there is an individual who, for twenty-odd years, actually though the song was about hoofed, bearded livestock!

OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES...Children; don't ya' just love 'em? After a recent show, one lady told me about her 4-year old daughter whom she had taken horse riding. When they finished, the trainer suggested that the little girl settle the beast and thank it for the ride by giving the horse a clap. The little girl walked over to the animal. Paused. And then gave it a little round of applause! Cute, huh?

GIGS THIS MONTHAnd then it was back up to Aberdeenshire... I drove to Aberdeen, for a welcome return to the Hilton Treetops Hotel and a little gig for Shell Oil. Next morning, I was off to Peterhead, and a gig for my old friend Mike Pickford, manager of the Waterside Swallow Hotel. The show was a load of fun for all concerned, and the after-gig session went on until the small hours. This would be a good place to stop and congratulate Mike on all the good things going on in his life right now. There's his new wife. A baby on the way. And his new job. Some guys have all the luck!

Besides the Aberdeen and Peterhead performances, other gigs this month included the Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh for The Oil Club, where I was on alongside top magician Scott Cuthbertson. If you ever get the chance to see Scott in action, grab it with both hands. One of the tricks he does, which I just love, is when he takes a rubber band, borrows a wedding band (wedding ring that is, not four-piece group!), feeds the ring onto the elastic....and there it is, the rubber looped inside the ring. The two are joined together like two links of a chain! How DOES he do that?!

Jay Scott Berry and Mark Fiskin, two hardworking magicians, asked me along to The Caves (part of the Old City under the streets of Edinburgh) to help out with a charity gig. They were instrumental in raising over £1000 for Edinburgh charity Waverley Care. Well done, lads!
Actually, to make it in time to the charity gig, I had to leg it a full tilt down the High Street from Edinburgh Castle where I had been performing for a corporate dinner. THAT's the reason I was out of breath!

When I was first approached for this one, I thought I was going to be playing Saughton Prison, and had thoughts of 'Hello, I'm Johnny Cash!' swimming in my head. However, it turned out to be Saughton Prison Officer's club. And what a fantastic night I had! Admittedly, a lot of that was due to Dave Cairns, who brought in all my equipment, and kept in full control of the sound all night. I don't normally play clubs, but some of you will know that this one was a personal challenge to me (As a young lad back in 1976, I died on that stage, and went off to the sound of my own footsteps!) However, the one-hour performance just flew past, and this time I left to cries of 'More!' One more ghost exorcised!

INTERESTING ARTICLE, I THOUGHT:The Psychology Of Repetitive Reading by A. K. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Psychology and Psychiatry, University Medical CollegeDemocratic People's Republic of KoreaINTRODUCTIONHuman beings can be induced to carry out many kinds of repetitive actions. In this experiment, the author asked 200 subjects to read a very repetitive essay. The essay consisted of a single paragraph repeated several times. Each subject was told beforehand that the essay was highly repetitive. The result was surprising. Ninety-two per cent of the subjects read the essay completely from beginning to end.THE EXPERIMENTHuman beings can be induced to carry out many kinds of repetitive actions. In this experiment, the author asked 200 subjects to read a very repetitive essay. The essay consisted of a single paragraph repeated several times. Each subject was told beforehand that the essay was highly repetitive. The result was surprising. Ninety-two per cent of the subjects read the essay completely from beginning to end.RESULTS AND DEDUCTIONSHuman beings can be induced to carry out many kinds of repetitive actions. In this experiment, the author asked 200 subjects to read a very repetitive essay. The essay consisted of a single paragraph repeated several times. Each subject was told beforehand that the essay was highly repetitive. The result was surprising. Ninety-two per cent of the subjects read the essay completely from beginning to end.© Copyright 2003 Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

WOMAN'S OWN
For those who are interested... There's going to be an article in Woman's Own, coming out on April 5 (Tuesday) covering some of the performers at The Medium Cabaret we filmed down in Liverpool last month. The interview was carried out by Nuala (a lovely woman) I just hope she's said nice things about me!

WHAT THE ‘L’ WAS THAT?
Ian McLurg is somebody who has managed to put my computer back together one more time than I've managed to break it... He passed on the following story to The Sunday Post:The IT department of a Dunfermline company received an emailed plea from an employee this week. 'My aptop computer keyboard has a fauty etter. Can you guess which one? Have you a spare? No urgency as I can pug a norma keyboard into the aptop.' He got his repacement - once the IT ads stopped roing on the foor aughing!

MY PRIVATE MAIL
Okay, usually correspondence with me is private, but I just had to share this one with you. It's from Stuart Farquhar, one of the most talented young writers around, who has now won much-deserved promotion. Here's how to write a thank you letter, should you ever need to:I’m leaving the Herald and Post soon to become special reports deputy editor at the Scotsman, which is basically helping produce one-off supplements, etc. across the titles.We'll still keep in touch I'm sure, but on this earth-shatteringly historic occasion, it seems only right that I thank you so, so, so much for all the help, advice, opportunities and most of all, friendship you have given me over the years - not to mention the moments of utter bewilderment at...1. how you bend spoons 2. how you "read minds" 3. how you get away with itand 4. how you fit soooooo much cool stuff into your life!
Speak soon!Cheers,Stuart
Brought a wee lump to my throat, that did!

SPEELING
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.(Thanks to David Lees for this – original unknown)

BECOME A MIND READER – IT'S EASY!
The one question I'm asked more than any other is: How can I learn to read minds, just like you? Well, I'm about to be made redundant, thanks to Tom Duffin and his amazing ability to hunt out new toys for his shop, Another Planet, in Edinburgh, I'm about to be made redundant. And so are all the other mind readers out there.

Tom kindly sent me his latest acquisition. It's about the size of an air-freshner, plastic, and it does straight mind reading. It's called 20Q, and all you do is think of an object – any object in the world (the more obscure the better). It then asks a series of questions such as 'do you wear it' and 'is it smaller than a golf ball?' You press the 'yes' or 'no' buttons. Then, within 20 questions, it says something like: 'You win... only kidding...' and then names what you were thinking of! I've tried – among others, soccer ball, clock, car, necklace, frying pan, school bus, radiator and dolphin ... and it's got me every time. Brilliant - and not very expensive. It's the perfect gift for the one you love (even if that's yourself!) I highly recommend this little toy, and you can order one from Tom by either visiting the shop or by phoning the shop on 0131 337 0072. Do it now, and put all mind readers out of a job!
(Of course, the damn thing can't bend spoons, stop watches, or drive a car blindfolded yet!)

STEVE HARLEY
And in closing – I know it's a long way away... but my very good friend Steve Harley (and Cockney Rebel) will be performing on November 2nd at the Edinburgh Usher Hall – a BIG venue! A word to the wise: put it in your diary now. I mean this: DO NOT MISS IT! For those who live too far away from Edinburgh to make it to that one, Steve will, I'm sure, be performing at a venue near you. You can check it out at www.steveharley.com (When performing at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh, the reviewer wrote: 'Gig of the year, if not the decade.' It's worth catching – got it?
ENDS