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spot the fib
i am sad to have to report to you that - despite my promises - we are going to be blogging for a while yet. the man responsible for changing the blog to a newsletter is up against it and is too busy building cyber-kirstys and fixing paddy o'conell's URL which has been on the blink for a very long time. so you are stuck with my cyber witterrings for some time to come.
but that does mean that i can share even more of my 'important moments in life' with you and this week i bring you news that eddie mair and i shared a caravan in Dunstable for three months during the summer of 1987. he was very untidy.
love and hugs to you all
fi
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28th April 2007
The delightful Muriel Gray kept Fi company during this week's show. And they were joined in the studio by Poet Murray Lachlan Young and Julie Reid - who spoke about what it was like growing up with blind parents.
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Marbles
There is no more glorious a toy than a new bag of bulging crunching marbles – shining like fish eyes, ready to roll and clink their way through an afternoon of mini boules, marble petanque and trying to retrieve them from under the sofa and the dog’s mouth.
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Missing Camera
Tim Allen wishes he had been more careful with a precious camera.
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Loudon Wainwright III
picks his Inheritance Tracks,
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Blind Parents
Julie Reid had an extraordinary childhood. Both her parents were blind and they managed to hold down successful careers and raise three children with hardly any outside help.
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Frozen Embryos
Claire Burrell's life was changed irrevocably by advances in fertility treatment that meant even though cancer robbed her of the chance to conceive naturally she was still able to become the very proud mother of twin boys – who are now coming up to 2 and a half years old.
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Muriel Gray
Author, broadcaster and businesswoman. Born in East Kilbride, the daughter of a merchant seaman. Educated at the Glasgow School of Art, Muriel went on to become Assistant Head of Design in the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh. She also followed a secondary career as a member of the rock group The Von Trapp Family and it was this which led to her appearing as a presenter on the Channel 4 television series The Tube.
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Murray Lachlan Young
Murray Lachlan Young has performed in many diverse situations: Mega festivals (and little ones), TV, film and theatre. From Shakespeare’s Globe to Speakers Corner via the main stage at Glastonbury. He has won over hostile crowds, been threatened with violence and even had to run for his life.
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thighs matters
I do hope that this week finds you well and happy in yourselves.
As Frequent Flyers with Saturday Live will know, this is one of the last blogs that will ever be filed on this site as over the coming weeks we are transporting ourselves to a newsletter format. Hence I have promised you ridiculously spurious, and quite frankly otiose, bits of scandal and intrigue from my life so that you have fond memories of the blg and dont just think it is the cyber ramblings of a twitty twit.Alastair Campbell and I once sat so close together that ours thighs touched. The experience was life changing for me. As it has been for you, I imagine. There is a longer anecdote about me almost asking him if he liked small dogs or big dogs but it would involve libelling a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ producer and with the new non inflatable licence fee I don't think we can afford any more lawyers.
I can promise you that the newsletter will have none of these moments in it. I hope you are looking forward to it as much as I am.
Best and all
Fi
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21st April 2007
Will Self joined Fi for this week's Saturday Live, along with poet Elvis McGonagall. We heard the tale of a man who accidentally ended up on the album cover of Dexy's Midnight Runners, discovered why snooping doesn't pay, and Tracey Smith told us about the delights of downshifting.
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Garry Richardson
Garry Richardson has been presenting the sport on Radio 4's Today programme since 1980. The track he inherited from his parents was from the 1955 film The Court Jester starring Danny Kaye. He would like to pass on 'Solace' from the film The Sting.
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Dexy's cover star
If you ever bought Dexy’s Midnight Runners first album then you have looked many a time at a photograph which captures the fear caused by the British government’s announcement in 1971 that suspects in Northern Ireland could be held without trial. It resulted in many people fleeing their homes in Belfast – one of those was Anthony O’Shaughnessy and the photograph of him and his brothers running from their home was used on the cover of Dexy’s debut album.
The pictures below show the album cover, the original photograph as it appeared in a newspaper at the time, and a recent photo of Anthony.
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Will Self
This week's guest is writer . His books include Cock and Bull, My Idea of Fun, How the Dead Live, Great Apes, and most recently, The Book of Dave. Will is a regular guest on Have I Got News For You, Shooting Stars, and Grumpy Old Men. He also used to draw cartoons for the New Statesman.
Will had the honour of featuring in the first ever edition of Saturday Live, in which he took us on a trip to Bekonscot model village.
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Gareth Lewis
More than 1,700 people have died as a consequence of receiving infected blood in transfusions during the 1970’s and 1980’s and an independent public inquiry this week has begun to hear evidence from the families of those affected – and from those who are terminally ill now.
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Snooping
One Saturday Live listener couldn't resist sneaking a look at her boyfriend's text and phone messages to check if he was being straight with her. She wishes she'd known that this is not the secret to a long lasting relationship...
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Downshifting
Were you aware that this is officially ? Do you care? Tracey Smith does. She is passionate about downshifting, and told us all about it in her Guerilla Report.
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Elvis McGonagall
Elvis McGonagall - poet, twit and armchair revolutionary does the rhyming this week.
Find out more about him on his .
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a collector's item
there is nothing quite so burdensome as the weight of high expectation and i have brought this upon myself by promising you a collector's item of a blog this week. this is because it's one of the the last blogs i shall ever write as we intend to reurn to a newlstter for Saturday Live in just a few weeks time. i don't know what happens to discontinued blogs - do they remain out there in the ether? can someone take this one and kind of squat in it? does it all just disintegrate into a pile of jumbled letters in cyber space?
i odn't know. anyway - in order to make these last few postings extra special i intend to tell you things that you didn't know and won't be able to find out about anywhere else in the world. ever.here is fact number one:
Gordon Brown once hung my coat up for me.see what i mean. exhilerating stuff. next week it's something about Alastair Campbell.
cheerio.
fi
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14th April 2007
Max was this week's Guerilla Reporter who wanted to say it was ok for cyclists to jump red lights. Daisy Wright told us how she regretted selling her story to the papers while Hugh Sawyer described living in a wood for over a year.
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Violinist
John Mitchell wishes he hadn't given up playing the violin when he was young.
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Cycling
This week's Guerilla Reporter is a cyclist called Max who argues that it's perfectly acceptable for cyclists to jump red lights.
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Piers Morgan
The former editor of the Daily Mirror and the News of the World picks this week's tracks.
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Selling Your Story
Whatever you think about the motivation behind anyone's decision to talk to the papers it’s hard not to notice just how powerful the press can be and how little an individual can control a story once it is out there. As knows all too well.
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Living In The Woods
Hugh Sawyer wanted to draw attention to what we are all doing to the planet through our centrally heated indoor lifestyles, and raise some money for green causes – so he decided to go and live in the woods for a year and a half.
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Racker Donnelly
Racker Donnelly is a comedy poet who plays comedy and poetry clubs In Ireland, America, Australia and the UK. He was the UK Slam Champion Poet in 2005/6.
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Louise Rennison
is the author of the angst-filled Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books.
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help
wednesday, 8pm - opened first small bag of mini eggs, meant for man-i'm-not-married -to - ate 4.
thursday 11 am - three more of above, considered opening Bob the Builder Egg, meant for gorgeous little one.
thursday 4 pm - creme egg on way home
friday 8 am - found another mini egg rolling round bottom of handbag, delighted.
friday 10 am - small chocolate egg with coffee.
friday midday - intend to go and buy huge egg for office colleagues (i paint myself here in a good light deliberately)and the above are 6 reasons why we are changing to a newsletter and why the blog bubble will burst.
love and hugs
fi
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7th April 2007
This week there were important lessons for all concerning chickens. Jamie Andrew talked about continuing to do the rock climbing he loves despite having had both his hands and feet amputated after a mountaineering accident. And we had a Guerilla Report from one of Britain's first Cuddle Parties.
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Catching Chickens
John Barker was living on a farm in Somerset when he was faced with the task of rounding up a flock of escaped chickens. After several hours of running around (like a headless...) he wishes he'd known that, when left to their own devices, the chickens would all come home to roost at dusk of their own accord...
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Patrick Moore
The track that Sir Patrick Moore inherited from his parents was The Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss. He would like to pass on the theme from his television programme, The Sky At Night, which is At The Castle Gate from Pelleas Et Melisande, by Jean Sibelius.
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Cuddle Parties
Sam Cowan is the UK's only certified facilitator. Cuddle Parties are events where people get together to share communication, intimacy and affection in a safe environment. Sam was working as a masseur when she attended her first Cuddle Party in San Francisco, and enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to organise her own party in England.
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Jamie Andrew
had been passionate about rock climbing ever since he was 16 years old. But in 1999 while climbing in the French Alps, Jamie and a friend got caught in bad weather and were trapped on the mountainside for five days and nights. His friend died of hypothermia, and Jamie survived but had to have both his hands and feet amputated after he developed septicaemia. In spite of this Jamie was determined to climb again, and in 2000 became the first quadruple amputee to climb Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, using artificial legs and sticks.
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DNA testing
Halle is a young woman with a complicated family background who thought that DNA testing would clear things up. She grew up believing that her mother was her sister, and her grandmother was her mother - before her brother let slip the truth after a row.
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Paul Roseby
This week's guest is presenter and broadcaster .
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Matt Harvey
In 1992 began performing poems and is now a veteran of the UK festival circuit.
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