Hello again, I hope all is well with you and that you have had nice couple of weeks. I have had another pretty busy fortnight myself and as a result the time just seems to have flown by. Talking of which this weekend sees the clocks go back and so the official end of British Summertime. It would seem that different people have different ways of using the extra hour we get. I spoke to one mate who was excited because he would get an extra hour to party on Saturday night and another mate who was equally as excited to get an extra hour in bed asleep. However you choose to spend your additional sixty minutes use it wisely this weekend is my advice.

I am actually on a Stag Do this weekend, so the chances are that I will be spending my extra hour drinking and dancing in a London club. So at least I will not be wasting it. I am really looking forward to it. It has been quite a while since I have been out with all my mates. And because it is one of my best friends that is getting married, we have similar interests and tastes. So the plans happen to include everything I like to do as well. Result. We are going to watch a football match first, then we are going for a meal at a nice Italian Restaurant, before heading off to a comedy club and then finishing the evening in an 80’s and 90’s bar. Which just happens to be easy walking distance from the hotel where we are staying. I will tell you all about it in a couple of weeks as there might well be a few other surprises on the way that the Stag does not know about yet, which we do. So obviously I can’t say any more at the minute. I do not want to be accused of doing what Michel Roux Junior did to the Great British Bake Off Final. It will be a lot of fun though that I can say for sure.

The England football team have qualified for the World Cup Final’s in Brazil next year after their recent victories over Montenegro and Poland. I was actually in working at Wembley Stadium the day after the Poland game and the atmosphere around the place was great. The Football Association are based there, so there were a lot of very happy people around and it felt fantastic to be involved with it all. I am still doing quite a bit of work behind the scenes there at the minute, which is great fun. Not least because you never know who you might bump into next there.

In the last week a TV presenter who was very much part of my childhood celebrated his birthday. That man was the legend that is Timmy Mallet. I have to confess that as a kid I did love The Wide Awake Club and Wacaday. And thinking about it now Mallet’s Mallet although it did ultimately involve being hit on the head with a foam hammer. Did have some educational value and possibly encouraged us to improve our vocabulary and sharpen our minds to reply quickly in conversations. It would be interesting to see how many former contestants of the game actually went on to do very well in their English GCSE’s. Over the years I have been lucky enough to meet Timmy on a couple of occasions. He is exactly as you see him on the television enthusiastic, lively and entertaining as well as being very friendly and nice. He is a top fella. He did some special radio shows for a station I was working at and I co-produced a couple of them. He was also brilliant to work with to, so good and talented. I did get the chance to wish him a happy birthday for which he did then thank me for. Which is something I never saw happening when I was ten year’s old and watching him on TV during the school holidays.

I have mentioned my use of Twitter before. I like it and think it is a fun way of staying in touch with people and having a laugh about life in general or certain TV programmes. In fact it is a great additional tool to use when watching the X-factor. I find it really does enhance my enjoyment seeing other peoples opinions on what I am also watching. And bare in mind that I do follow a lot of comedians. They always seem have lots of amusing observations to share. So I see it as a light hearted and fun place to communicate with people you like, and use it as a promotional noticeboard for things you or your friends might be doing. That I have to confess is why I find it hard to understand how some people treat it from time to time. If you dislike a celebrity or are making a joke about them or criticising them I think if you just write their name. That is kind of like having a chat with your mates and making that point about the person in question. Which I think is all right as long as it is not libelous. But it is when people do that but include their @ twitter handle in it. For as far I can see no reason other that to just be nasty or offensive, it is wrong. To me that is like walking up to that person in the street and saying it straight to their face. Which I personally think is totally unnecessary and pointless. I have seem some of the abuse that celebrities on the social networking site have been subject to and as far as I am concerned that is not what it is for. It is just there to follow people you like, see what they are up to, interact and have fun. And to keep in contact with friends.

A discussion I was having with a good friend of mine in the week reminded me about some of the things I used to do in my early career. When I was starting to go out do disco’s for the first time. It was when I was a volunteer at Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio. To help with fundraising, to keep the station on air me and some of my colleagues used to go and and perform at parties for a donation to the charity. As these built up we started to slowly add more and more things to the act. As we were giving our time for free. We did always make sure we had a good time and enjoyed ourselves to. And for that reason there were normally three or four of us who all went out together to events. Now I am not totally sure where it came from but somebody introduced a props box. Which among other things contained an Indian head dress, a construction workers hat, a policeman’s helmet and a cowboy hat. It also had in it some Afro style wigs. This led to us actually getting a bit of a reputation for and even receiving requests to perform are legendary YMCA and Blame it on The Boogie routines. We did these dances at so many parties and concerts over the years. I am worried that some video footage of one of those routines will appear at some point. So far it hasn’t but that is not to say it won’t in the future.

I have to confess I am still watching and enjoying this series of Strictly Come Dancing. Since we spoke last Vanessa Feltz and Julien Maconald have both left the show. Which means the couple I am supporting Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Brendan Cole are still very much in and in fact seem to be near the top of the leader board every week. It is such a good fun and entertaining show. As is the week day spin off It Takes Two. Which kind of sucks you in further to the whole thing. It is actually wanting to make me learn to dance despite the disaster of my previous one and only salsa class. Which was not pretty. I think I would need to be working at least nine hours a day with a professional dancer just like the celebrities are on the show to stand any chance of being able to put at least a couple of steps together.

The latest series of Newsjack ended on Radio 4 Extra on Thursday evening with me again having some of my material recorded for the show. There is something very thrilling about having your jokes read out to a live studio audience and then getting that instant reaction back from them. There will be a new series of the topical news show next year.

In the week I was having a twitter conversation with the TV Channel Gold that ended with them saying that I have a lovely sense of humour. Which is now a quote I intend using on any promotional material for my future stand up comedy gigs. Neil Quigley – “He has a lovely sense of humour” – Gold TV

There is currently an outside chance that I could me making a one off cameo appearance on stage in a play next month. I can’t say any more at the moment but if it does actually look like it is happening, I will let you know.

Have fun and we will catch up again in a couple of weeks. Cheers Neil.

Hi there, how are you doing? I trust the last couple of weeks have treated you well and you enjoyed the last bit of nice weather before the Indian Summer turned into the English Autumn literally overnight. Which has led me to finally accept that winter is on its way and it means I have looked out my big coat to wear. Which I have not actually needed since about April I think. I am already getting fed up of people telling me how many weeks and shopping days there are until Christmas. I already know. It is the same amount every year. Just tell me when there is only one day left and I will do all my present buying then. Like I always do.

The other Sunday I was lucky enough to be working behind the scenes and backstage at Wembley Stadium. When the NFL came to London for the first of two International Series American Football games they have taking place there this year. It was the Minnesota Vikings against the Pittsburgh Steelers in an AFC North League Match. It was a sell out with the tickets all going as soon as they were released. There were quite a few celebrities watching the game. I spotted Vernon Kay, Greg Rutherford and the comedian Milton Jones. I later found out that Cheryl Cole was there but unfortunately I did not see her.
I also managed to watch the pre-game entertainment while stood in the tunnel area . It featured  Tinie Tempah who certainly lived up to his name when he had finished his set and walked past me. He is very short. In fact any eagle eyed viewers of Sky Sports coverage of the event may have seen me standing behind the singer when he was being interviewed after he came off stage. Then singing the American National Anthem before the game was Kiss frontman Gene Simmons. Who was very friendly, nice and down to earth backstage happily posing with anyone who wanted a photo and actually going to get his own food from the canteen after his work was done. The noise and the fireworks as the two teams came out was insane. I am not sure if I have ever seen at atmosphere like it at a sporting event. And I had a great vantage point from where I was standing. Finally on the way out I did get to see and have a quick word with a lot of the Steelers players though I have to confess as I am not their biggest fan I could not tell you who any of them were, so I may have been speaking to some of the biggest sports stars in America without having a clue. To be fair to them they were probably more interested in their huge boxes of takeaways they were carrying back to there coach than me anyway. It was a great fun event and if you get the chance to go to an NFL game in England my advice would be to definitely go.

Some relatives of mine were over from Australia recently. So we had a big family party so we could meet up with them and have a good catch up. Obviously with them living on the other side of the world we do not meet up very often, in fact one of them I had probably not seen for about twenty-five years. It was interesting hearing their views and opinions on places they had visited while in the UK. Which we may be sometimes take for granted and do not always appreciate how good they really are. It was great hearing about Australia to. How things work there over there with regards to education, communities and the odd  fact that during parts of the year the country has three different time zones. Then the conversation turned to how many animals and creatures over there can kill you. Which would appear to be most of them if you are not careful. Though they did tell us the best way to catch Black Widow spiders in a jar. Which is something I never plan on trying. Despite the obvious dangers it has made me decide that I would very much like to visit them and the country at some point in the future.

I am looking forward to my duties as an Usher at my mate’s wedding next month. Last weekend we went to be measured and fitted for our suits for the big day. I always find it a little unnerving when the gentlemen who work in those sort of places can just look at you and tell you what size you are from just doing that. I actually do go shopping for my own clothes and still could not actually tell you what size I am. It was good fun getting dressed up and finding out that we all needed bigger waist sized trousers than we thought we did. My mates wife to be was there overseeing matters. I guess just to make sure we did not all turn up in clowns suits or something. But I think when she actually saw him dressed up in some wedding attire the whole thing suddenly became very real and it kind of hit her that she would be getting married in five weeks time. We however at this point were focusing more on the Stag Do in a fortnights time, so that is mostly what we were talking about and getting excited about.

It is another cracking series of Newsjack on BBC Radio 4 Extra at the moment, with some really good and funny topical sketches and observations. I have had some of my jokes recorded for the show this time round but they have not quite made the final edit as yet this run. But with two weeks still left to go I am still optimistic that I will achieve this accolade by the end of this run. It is very a good laugh writing a whole host of one liner jokes every week for it. For a sample of these at any time of the year you can always follow me on Twitter I am simply @NeilQuigley

I am really enjoying this year’s Strictly Come Dancing. Every year you do get to know the professional dancers better and as they get more confident their personalities come out more which seems to draw you into the show even further. So they become an even bigger part of the show. Plus I think that the combination of the different characters within the celebrities this year is really good. All have their own traits and quirks which makes them all pretty likeable and interesting while giving you enough information so you can easily decide who are your favourites. Great to see the couple I am supporting this year of Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Brendan Cole doing so well their Charleston last week was amazing for what was only week two of the competition. I am a little disappointed though that my favourite professional dancer Aliona Vilani has already been voted out of the competition but I am assured she will still appear in a lot of the upcoming professional dances so I will still get to see her on my television on a Saturday and Sunday night.

You know when you get days where things do not quite go your way and you just have to put your hands up and accept it as just one of those days. Last week I was just working on my computer in the middle of doing something important when suddenly the hard disk drive failed and the whole thing stopped working. After some research on the good old trusty internet via my phone I discovered that this was a fatal issue and required me to actually buy a new one before I could get the computer going again. Then later that same evening I had arranged to meet a friend of mine at a lovely little proper country pub that I knew of. And that if I am honest I had not been to for a while. I then turned up at said pub and found myself in the car park in total darkness looking at a drinking establishment that had clearly been shut for a while. This led to an embarrassing phone conversation where I had to tell my friend that I had actually invited them to a place that no longer existed and could we change the location at very much the last minute. Which we did and it was fine and I had a good time. But it did top off what had not been one of my better days.

In other news I was walking down the High Street in the town where I live the other day when I just happened to walk past JK from Jamiroquai. He was buying some fresh fish from the market. Having lived in the area for such a long time now he really does just blend in brilliantly. As the place where I live is quite small, so pretty much everybody looks familiar to each other. So nobody really pays any attention to him. Which I think might be why he has stayed here for so long. That and the fact that his house is in a great location and is really nice. We do have quite a few famous faces in the area who you can randomly see around from time to time including one of my acting heroes David Jason. Who I have seen around and been in the same room as on a few occasions but sadly I have never spoken to him yet. I am delighted to hear that he is bringing back his character Granville for An Open All Hours Christmas Special this year. Seeing him act in a comedy used to be the highlight of my festive period for many years when he was still doing Only Fools and Horses. You just know it is going to be brilliant.

Have fun and we will catch up again in a couple of weeks. Cheers Neil.

Hello again, I hope all is well and that you have had nice couple of weeks. As ever I have a nice mixture of things that have happened or are happening in the near future to tell you about. This will not include anything about Celebrity Big Brother as after the first episode I did not watch anymore of it. But I did notice that it was won by somebody who is only famous and I do use that term very loosely for living in a house where everything is recorded and then shown on TV. Surely then I can’t be the only one who feels that may be she had a little bit of an unfair advantage there. Next year I reckon David Blaine should enter. He is used to being watched for over a month in just a glass box hanging above the Thames. So an actual house should be a piece a cake for him. Plus people would not be able to fire golf balls at him in there. Shazam!!

Earlier this month I went and watched my mate Ben Langley perform his new show Ha Ha Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles at the Wycombe Swan in High Wycombe. Ben has written the show himself as part of the Ha ha Brand that he has been working on for the last five years or so. He stars in it himself alongside the very talented Andrew Fettes and the comic genius that is Joe Pasquale. It is a very funny almost old time variety type show with the gripping storyline, great jokes, audience participation, songs, slapstick and lots of ad-libbing. The cast look like they are having as least as much fun as the audience. I managed to catch up with Ben before the show and have a good chat to him. Which was really great for me to hear about how well things are going for him personally and professionally. And I also got to go and hang out backstage with him and the rest of the cast during the interval, as they got themselves ready for the second half. Which was a great experience to see the sort of things that go on and are talked about at this time. The whole cast were lovely and I did get to very briefly meet Joe Pasquale. Which is yet another King of the Jungle from I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here that I have now met. The show is touring all over the country for the next couple of months. I would recommend seeing it if you can, and if you just want a good fun and silly night out. Find out more here http://hahaholmes.com/

Now believe it or not there is another Neil Quigley in England. He is a big dance music DJ who as well as regularly gigging all over the world also produces and remixes new music. Weirdly he does look at little bit like me and it is fair to say we have very similar haircuts but I promise you we are not related. Normally then this name share causes both of us no problems at all. Apart from may be us competing with each other to see who has the most links to them from various internet search engines. However every now and again this can cause some confusion in the world of social media. For example the other week I was very surprised to get a tweet from a South African music label promoting a new house music album featuring a track mixed by me. Fair play they did realise their mistake quite quickly and worked out that they had got the wrong guy so sent another tweet apologising for this. However I do wonder if I can still claim any royalties for my “work” on this new track.

I made a return to playing Five-a-Side football last Friday as a guest appearance at one of my mates regular sessions. One day I will remember I can no longer run around and play like I am still a teenager. On the plus side I did manage to put in a decent performance scoring three goals in the process and on the negative side I managed to bruise my ribs so have not been able to do any exercise since. This is very much why I limit myself to only playing football about five or six times a year. I am far too injury prone nowadays. It’s still good fun though.

There are only a few television shows that I actually tend to watch but here is news of one I will definitely be seeing. A former boss of mine is going to feature in the next series of Come Dine With Me. Steve Carpenter who hired me for Ivel fm in Yeovil and who I worked with for the five years I was at the radio station has recorded an episode of the cooking show. Which is expected to be shown next month. I do always like watching people I know or who I have met on the TV. It somehow always makes it more watchable and interesting for me. This will be brilliant Steve is a great bloke, who likes a laugh but does not suffer fools gladly which makes me suspect there could be some interesting exchanges between him and the other contestants. He is also a very good cook and has made quite a lot of meals for me over the years, when we were working together. He is the king of the BBQ but do not just take my word for it, ask him and I guarantee he will tell you he is to.

This weekend sees the NFL International Series come to Wembley Stadium with the Pittsburgh Steelers playing the Minnesota Vikings. It is sure to be a spectacular and amazing occasion. And I am lucky enough to be working behind the scenes during the day at the Stadium. Which I am really looking forward to. I will tell you more about what I was actually doing and how it was the next time I speak to you. My main mission is to at least meet both the team’s cheerleader squads.

I am really not one for wishing the year away and do not like mentioning the C word to early but with Strictly Come Dancing and the X-factor Boot Camp Shows starting this weekend that does mean I think the countdown to Christmas has kind of unofficially started. As both of those shows will end about a week before the big day. So basically because I have met her and because he lives locally to me and I saw him at the Aylesbury Pantomime press night last year I am supporting Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Brendan Cole in Strictly this year. And I think we are due a female solo singer to win the X-factor this year, but I have no idea who that will be at this stage.

Talking about the start of the X-factor. Over the years I have ended up either hosting or being a judge for many different singing and talent competitions. And believe it or not I can actually sympathise a little bit with the judges on these types of television shows. You have to try and be positive and encouraging with constructive advice, but at the same time you do need to be entertaining for the audience in the studio and at home. And not say the same thing every time. Plus I do think you have a responsibility to be honest with people and if they have no chance or are not good enough you do really need to tell them. It is surely unfair otherwise. Now love or hate Simon Cowell when he was still a judge on the X-factor I rarely disagreed with what he said and he was normally just saying what I was thinking. However I do think I may have put it in a slightly nicer way sometimes. But he is there to make an entertaining TV show and get it talked about in the papers and on the internet. So again I can very much see why he does it the way he does. And although it is very public way of being rejected a lot of people who have been successful in the world of media will have be rejected or failed at some point Simon Cowell included. Before he dusted himself down and managed to lift himself to the position he know finds himself in globally. To quote what Sean Connery once said to Darius “You only fail when you stop trying”

Have fun and we will catch up again in a couple of weeks. Cheers Neil.

Hi there, how are you doing? I have had another very interesting couple of weeks including doing two things in particular. Which could not have been  more different from each other. So it looks like the weather may be turning then and Autumn is seemingly on its way. I like the way we can have almost eight weeks of sunshine and pretty decent weather. Then after just two days of it being a little grey and wet. We suddenly completely forget about them as if they never happened and then think that it has been damp for what seems like forever. Personally I refuse to accept this and I am still using my summer duvet and have  no plans to turn the heating on any time soon either.

The other week I was lucky enough to be able to go along and see the launch show of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing being recorded. At their brand new studios for this series at Elstree. Now not only did this mean as I went in I got to take a sneaky peak at the outside of the Big Brother house. Where Celebrity Big Brother is currently taking place. But it also meant I got to see what happens behind the scenes of one of the United Kingdom’s most popular television shows. Strictly Come Dancing not Celebrity Big Brother that is, just to be clear. The one hour and twenty minute show that went out on TV last Saturday actually took around eight hours to film over two nights. If you saw the show last Saturday the Red Carpet sequence at the start was filmed on one evening and then the main show, the bit I watched actually took around five hours to film the following night.

It was really interesting to see how they put it all together. As nothing you witnessed on the TV happened in the order it was shown in. To give you some idea about that if you saw it. The first bit we actually saw at the recording was the performance by Rod Stewart. In fact the only bit that was in the right place so to speak was the final dance and the final piece to camera. However when the show went out I have to say it was put together so well there is no way you could tell that at all. The team who make it and produce it are amazing. They are hugely talented. As are its stars. Sir Bruce Forsyth was immense his command of the audience and connection with them was first class.  He came on and did a little bit of a warm up for the audience featuring some jokes, singing and dancing before the recording started. Which showed you exactly why he has been where he has in show business for so long. The man is a legend. Basically it was a great evening out and really exciting to see the performances, celebrities and the dancers live. Plus I was delighted to see my favourite dancer Aliona Vilani back on the show this year. That was a very nice surprise to say the least. The dancers are all good fun and clearly work hard and love what they do. If you are a fan of the show you will be unsurprised to hear that Anton De Beke , Brendan Cole and James Jordan were being the most vocal in between takes and involved in a lot of very good banter with anyone who would care to join in clearly enjoying their work. The judges to all play their parts perfectly Bruno does not stop moving around he is a right live wire and they often turn round and have a chat to the audience behind them in any breaks from the recording.

I think it is going to be a really good series I like the line up. There are some very good dancers amongst the celebrities this year. As well as some great personalities. It will be fun and explosive from what I have seen already. And once again this year I have met one of the contestants before at some point in my life. Although it is not quite as straight forward as last year’s connection with Victoria Pendleton. I have met Sophie Ellis-Bextor before but it was a long time before she was famous or before she had her first number one song. Here is how it happened. When I was about ten my mum took me and my sister to see Mickey’s Christmas Carol and The Jungle Book in a double bill at the cinema in Richmond. As we were outside I spotted Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis. And as a big fan of the show I decided I wanted her autograph. All my mum had on her at that time was some scrap tissue paper and her eye make up pencil. Undeterred and armed with these items I got Janet’s autograph. Which she politely wrote out while leaning on my back. As this was happening standing next to her was a very confused looking six year old Sophie wondering what on earth was going on and who this strange boy was I imagine. I still have the autograph. I have actually interviewed Janet Ellis since for one of my radio shows and although she can’t exactly remember the incident she did offer to update my autograph for me. Best of luck to Sophie Ellis-Bextor in the competition. Slightly strange that both her and Victoria Pendleton got Brendan Cole as their dance partner. If there is somebody I have met in next years show, put money on him being their partner.

Here is the interview with Janet Ellis at the end of it I remind her of our previous meeting as explained above. Enjoy.

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Now from one extreme to the other. I was kindly offered the chance to go along and see England against Moldova at Wembley in the World Cup Qualifier the other week. An offer which I very gratefully accepted. Before then the last time I saw a match at the stadium was Yeovil v Blackpool in the League One Play Off Final in 2007. And I was presenting and commentating on the game for Ivel Fm that afternoon. I was technically working and sat with all the other media people in the press area, so could not enjoy the game as a fan really. Specially as the day finished with a disappointing land long coach journey back to Somerset with the fans to round it all off. So it was nice to be there just as a spectator this time round. Plus the last time I had been to an England game was to see England play Holland at the old Wembley Stadium. So I was overdue an appearance there. Got some great seats, which is not difficult as there is not really a bad seat anywhere in the stadium. The game itself was pretty straight forward England were in control from start to finish and probably should have scored a few more goals. It was nice to be in the ground when Ricki Lambert got his first competitive goal for England. Pretty sure England Captain Steven Gerrard waved at me at the end of the game to thank me for my support. Also thanks to the bouncer at TGI Friday’s, who when we went there after the game for a beer instructed us that if we wanted a drink, we needed to head straight to the bar as we as we went in. I am just thankful he was there as who knows what we may have done without his expert and precise guidance in this situation. It was a good fun night out and always nice to see England win.

I was walking round London recently when I actually spotted a celebrity which is unusual for me in the Capital. Unless I am in an area where I know particular people work or I will just not see them as a general rule. But as I was passing near Leicester Square I spotted an actress from one of my favourite films. Anna Chancellor, who was in Four Weddings and A Funeral walked past me. As I went past her I thought she looks quite dressed up I wonder what see is doing around here. When I then turned the corner and saw a massive picture of her outside the West End theatre were she is appearing in a play. I didn’t speak to her as she was with some friends and looked busy and not like she wanted to be disturbed by an idiot like me.

I like the fact Kylie Minogue is going to be a judge on the new series of The Voice. I think she will be really good at. She will be able to offer some great advice and who would not want to see her on your TV screen every Saturday night. Now I just need to find some way that I can get to work on that show. When Danny O’ Donoghue was on the first series of it. I bumped into him in the reception of a recording studio in London. I really hope the same thing happens with Miss Minogue during her first run on the show. Fingers crossed!

I am looking forward to catching up with my mate Ben Langley as I watch him perform in his new play also starring Joe Pasquale Ha Ha Holmes and the Hound of the Baskerville’s at the Wycombe Swan in High Wycombe. It will be nice to see him. He has had a very good and busy year, so I am sure he will have lots of good stories to tell me.

I have been spending quite a bit of time working on some new jokes recently. I have some more Stand Up Comedy Gigs lined up in October and November. Which I may look to try some of the new material out at. Good luck everybody.  Also BBC Radio 4’s Newsjack returns to the airwaves on Thursday 19th September, so I will be writing some more jokes for that series in the next few days.

Have fun and we will catch up again in a couple of weeks. Cheers Neil.

Hello again, I hope all is good and that you have had an enjoyable couple of weeks. I have as ever been busy working on several different projects. While still finding the time to get out and enjoy myself. Well you have got to get the work life balance right haven’t you? That is very important I think. Luckily I love what I do so even when I am working a lot I am always enjoying myself, which means it does not actually feel like work at all. I did have a rather nice evening off the other Saturday at my Aunt and Uncle’s 50th Wedding Anniversary Party. It was really nice to catch up with so many family members and friends and one thing is for sure. You can always rely on members of your family to help you keep your feet on the ground and make sure you stay grounded. I lost count of the number of times I was asked when I was going to get a proper job. I also bumped into the man who taught me to drive and promptly found out that he retired from the Driving Instructor game soon after teaching me. I am guessing he wanted a less dangerous occupation like lion taming or being Alan Sugar’s secretary.

I am hoping to be working with the BBC on a new project over the next couple of months and have already had a couple of interesting meetings with them about it. As a result of this it enabled me to get a tour of New Broadcasting House a few weeks ago. It is a very impressive place. The equipment they have in there is space age. The radio studios are like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Just on the way into the building I actually walked past Nick Grimshaw and then on the way out as I was leaving  I walked past Greg James. So in one visit alone I spotted most of the Radio One main daily presenter line up.  I also got to have a look at the newsroom that you see in view behind the television newsreaders finding out the rules that are in place for people who work in that area. So they do not embarrass themselves or the station on national TV. Not sure if this is a big secret or not but they told me so I am telling you the One Show is going to be moving to a new studio there in the near future and it will be set up in such a way that you will actually be able to look in to the set from the outside, which means they are quite exposed. Which could make for some interesting viewing I would imagine.

I also got to have a good nose round the Radio Theatre which is pretty amazing when you think of the history of the place and all the great performers and singers who have played there. I was in the dressing room there the day after the Stereophonics had done a special one off concert for Radio 2 and I have to say they had left the place very tidy. Newsjack is also recorded there. So I got to see the place where my joke was delivered and received by the live audience, to go with my recording of the audiences reaction to my joke. Newsjack returns in September and I am looking forward to offering them more material for the new series of the show.

I am quite excited as I have managed to get some tickets to go and see the Strictly Come Dancing Premiere Show being recorded at the show’s new home for this series Elstree Studios. This is the show where we will see which celebrity’s are taking part this year and which professional dancers they will be partnered with. My only slight disappointment is that my favourite Aliona left at the end of the last series, so she will not be there. I’m not exactly sure when it will be shown on TV but I am guessing it will be the Saturday after the recording. But fear not I will let you know when I know, so you can try and spot my face on the TV. I hope I am sitting somewhere near the judges. As I think they will be good fun both during and in between the recording of the show. It will be interesting to see if I have met any of the celebrity’s before. Just like I had on last year’s show. And below is a picture of this meeting to prove it.

I have to confess that I did actually watch the first show of this year’s Celebrity Big Brother the other night. I was not going to but I then looked at Twitter and felt I needed to witness it and see for myself what was going on. I will be honest I consider that I am quite knowledgeable about famous people and keep up to date with the popular trends but I have to confess I had not actually heard of around a third of the people who entered the house. I was surprised to see Louis Spence and Carol Mcgiffin in there, but the producer’s seem to always like at least one Loose Women in the house. (Insert you own punch line here) Good to see Screech from Saved By the Bell back on TV. I did used to like that show as a kid. Mainly I think because if I was watching it in the morning it meant it was the school holidays. And finally fair play to Abs from Five when asked by the presenter Emma Willis what made him want to do Big Brother he answered “Well I need the money don’t I” I salute you sir and wish all the others taken part were as honest as him. Respect.

Last weekend I went along to a free music concert that was put on in the centre of Aylesbury called Hobble on the Cobbles. Now in the past I have organised and hosted several big entertainment events there. So it was actually really nice to go along and just enjoy the event without any of the other pressures that are around if it is all your responsibility. It was great to catch up with some friends and also the stage crew from Class Act, who I have worked with myself on many occasions in the past. It was nice to see so many local and talented bands and singers performing and that so many people came out to watch and support them. The headline act were The Searchers, who I have seen before and who were absolutely brilliant. Such a tight and talented band with a great stage presence and a nice style when talking to the crowd to. Their current drummer of three and a half years service is Scott Ottaway who is from Aylesbury. So it was a really nice home coming gig for him. Both the crowd and the band seemed to equally enjoy themselves. And well done also to my mates Dez Kay and Andy Holmes for their hosting duties on the day.

Filming has been delayed once again due to other commitments for my appearance in the short film “Behind The Painted Smile”. It is now looking like this will be running on in to September, but I have spoken to the producers and they still hope to have it released by the end of the year.

One of the things I am currently working on is a new idea for a musical. It is something I do not believe has actually been done anywhere in the world before. This project is in the very early stages of planning currently. I have so far just written a very basic outline of the plot. I will be doing some more research first and then speaking to friends of mine who work in the musical world to help give me some guidance with it. I am not a song writer so rest assured it would be a musical that uses already existing songs. Which can work well as We Will Rock You and Mama Mia have proved.

Have fun and we will catch up again in a couple of weeks. Cheers Neil.