Off -The Shelf 3

One of the problems of using (this) September to talk about what was going on off-stage in August – an idea sent in on a postcard from Canada – is that there is a risk that in October I will have to explain what was going on off-stage in September.

Then in November…. etc etc , blah blah and BItsnbobs – the Blog that leads, will be Bitsnbobs the blog that follows.

And we can’t have that!

Well, we could… but!

One of the problems about being on a campsite that has a “help your-self shelf” is that you, well – me, can become pretty obsessive and suddenly half your holiday is spent hanging around the shower block waiting for the shelf to be upgraded.

So, today it’s time to try to bring past and present into harmony.

Sort of.

By the way, whilst I WAS hanging around the shower block I noticed that someone had left behind their shorts, bra and knickers on the changing area bench.

They were there the next day and the next – a sort of supplementary help your-self shelf had started!

None of them fitted so I left them where they were but it did raise an interesting question about someone who was on the campsite.

Had they simply gone to the shower, showered and then wandered off naked ?

Unaware that they were?

And did no one tell them?

But – I digress.

Around the same time I walked in to photo the help-yourself shelf – fotr the ongoing photo project of which today is part three – and behold someone had added a radio.

I snapped it up.

Yeah there were no batteries but what the hell – I had some in a lamp and I like radio.

In fact I think radio was the golden age.

And, luckiliy, since there is still radio – it must still be a golden age.

I was listening to the radio today – well, not a radio as in radio but a radio broadcast streamed through a computer.

Broadcast – that’s a good word isn’t it?

Anyway, the help your-self shelf radio ws just that – a radio, you know – a transistor radio.

I think wireless is a better word than transistor but I have to be honest this wasn’t a wirelesss – it was a transistor.

Come to think of it though it didn’t have any wires so I could call it a wireless.

It didn’t have a tuner either – it had broken off – and this was probably why someone decided not to pack it and take it the long way home but shelve it instead and put it on the shelf.

I put two batteries in, switched it on, swivelled it around and heard “Radio 2” – in a radio 2 jingle sort of way.

Musical.

When I was younger I thought Radio 2 was for old dead people like my parents. Now that I’m older (if not ancient) I find that all the things I like about good radio are on Radio 2.

Unusual music.

Jazz.

I’m not sure what the difference between unusual music and jazz IS, but if you have to ask you will never know.

And Whistling Bob!

I couldn’t believe it!

There I was on a campsite in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with a transistorradiowirelessbroadcasting divice that had fallen into my laps from the help-yourself gods and I turned it on and there was Whistling Bob!

And even IF I hadn’t wanted to listen to Whistling Bob the tuner was broken and I couldn’t move the airwaves anyhow!

Whistling Bob!!

He’s one of my heros!

New Years Eves when I was a formative teenager weren’t the same without the Old Grey Whistle Test New Years special!

Whistling Bob Harris was the presenter and if you have never heard the man then get to this link before it disappears and here his programmes that celebrate the 40th anniversary.

As I did yesterday, and will today.

Sitting in an inside-out room listening to Alice Cooper explain why he plays golf, Cat Stevens explaining that he isn’t Cat Stevens anymore and Elton John sounding like a human being.

I almost forgave him.