As I drove to work today Radio 4 seemed completely bereft of anything interesting to listen to. In an unprecedented shock decision, I ended up listening to Chris Moyles; who has apparently revived the “Golden Hour” feature. This is a segment which was started in the 70’s and popularised by Noel Edmonds and Simon Bates. The concept behind The Golden Hour is that Chris and his award-winning team of half-wits and morons all select a record each from one particular year. Meanwhile, listeners see if they can correctly guess the year in question by texting or emailing, adding who they are and what they’re currently doing. So you might hear a guess from Lisa who is looking forward to the weekend, whilst ironing towels in Chalfont, that sort of thing. Like an aural version of Twitter, but with mundane strangers and no opt-out clause. Occasionally, one of them will simply contact Chris to merely to say something like “Choon!”, which I believe is a ‘yoof-speak’ appreciation for having heard a song which is good. Presumably the usual playlist on Radio 1 now so god-damn awful, that the playing of a tolerable record deserves some kind of congratulatory message.
You’d have thought the revival of The Golden Hour wouldn’t be particularly amenable to the technological advancements thirty years on. Over the 70’s and 80’s people might call or fax their guesses. Nowadays it’s all texts and email. Surely the same mobile internet technology used to submit answers would also make it easy to research the year in which songs were released. Yet astonishingly, the Chris Moyles demographic still manage to email the wrong answers. At the end of the feature, he invites his team to see if they can guess the year. Worryingly, even some of them actually guess incorrectly, despite having only just picked a song each from that year.
Is the feature so flawed, it collapses under the weight of its own paradoxes? Or is it a disturbing barometer of our nation’s increasing idiocy? I honestly don’t know. Nevertheless, as a simple concept “The Golden Hour” still kinda works for me. But then hearing records from a past time when one was full of hopes and dreams is probably ideal listening for someone who is so clearly approaching a midlife crisis.
Thu 3rd Sept 2009
The landlady of our pub was selling raffle tickets this evening, but it was a raffle with a twist. The tickets were numbered one to 300 and you had to pick a ticket from a bag. You would then pay an amount of money which corresponded with the number on the ticket. For example, if you picked ticket no.147, you’d pay £1.47. If you picked ticket no.80, you’d pay 80p, and so on.
The prize was a 14 inch television. I did not want a 14” television, but I also did not want to look mean by abstaining from a charitable cause. So I offered to throw £1.50 into the jar just to forfeit my turn, which I thought was a fair amount, being exactly average. I pride myself being exactly average, and thought the whole ‘donation without any motives of personal gain’ thing made me look quite generous. But the landlady was having none of this, she would take it is a flat donation, but insisted that I should pull out a ticket anyway. If I wanted to forfeit my prize, I could simply donate it back to charity. Her logic was too tricky for me to argue against so I succumbed to her ugly, bedraggled charms, thrusting my hand into her sack of paper numbers.
I pulled out ticket 299.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a spectacularly unlucky draw, being the second most expensive ticket in the whole bag. But I had made a standard flat donation of £1.50 donation in advance. I looked helplessly at the landlady, wondering what this would mean. “That’s ok”, she said as she scrawled the word “charity” on the back, “lots of people who didn’t have change had to round their contribution up, so there’s enough it cover the shortfall.”
So there you have it. In a tiny way, I briefly experienced what it must be like to have won a game of “Deal or No Deal” by playing safe and wisely accepting the banker’s offer at a timely occasion (albeit a game of “Deal or No Deal” where you have to pay money rather than accrue it). Whoever says fortune favours the brave? Technically, I had actually made a profit of £1.49! HA HA In your face, cancer charity!
Of course, some perfectionists could argue I would have made a higher profit had I drawn ticket 300. But I am quite please I only got ticket 299. I would not like to be the BEST at something. I fully intend to stay in the realms of anonymous mediocrity of any field. I’ve no desire to be a local celebrity. I wouldn’t enjoy the notoriety of having everyone pointing and whispering whenever I walk in the pub, being henceforth known as the man who pulled out most expensive ticket. I was on this occasion, by all accounts a winner.
The prize was a 14 inch television. I did not want a 14” television, but I also did not want to look mean by abstaining from a charitable cause. So I offered to throw £1.50 into the jar just to forfeit my turn, which I thought was a fair amount, being exactly average. I pride myself being exactly average, and thought the whole ‘donation without any motives of personal gain’ thing made me look quite generous. But the landlady was having none of this, she would take it is a flat donation, but insisted that I should pull out a ticket anyway. If I wanted to forfeit my prize, I could simply donate it back to charity. Her logic was too tricky for me to argue against so I succumbed to her ugly, bedraggled charms, thrusting my hand into her sack of paper numbers.
I pulled out ticket 299.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a spectacularly unlucky draw, being the second most expensive ticket in the whole bag. But I had made a standard flat donation of £1.50 donation in advance. I looked helplessly at the landlady, wondering what this would mean. “That’s ok”, she said as she scrawled the word “charity” on the back, “lots of people who didn’t have change had to round their contribution up, so there’s enough it cover the shortfall.”
So there you have it. In a tiny way, I briefly experienced what it must be like to have won a game of “Deal or No Deal” by playing safe and wisely accepting the banker’s offer at a timely occasion (albeit a game of “Deal or No Deal” where you have to pay money rather than accrue it). Whoever says fortune favours the brave? Technically, I had actually made a profit of £1.49! HA HA In your face, cancer charity!
Of course, some perfectionists could argue I would have made a higher profit had I drawn ticket 300. But I am quite please I only got ticket 299. I would not like to be the BEST at something. I fully intend to stay in the realms of anonymous mediocrity of any field. I’ve no desire to be a local celebrity. I wouldn’t enjoy the notoriety of having everyone pointing and whispering whenever I walk in the pub, being henceforth known as the man who pulled out most expensive ticket. I was on this occasion, by all accounts a winner.
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