When Phillip Schofield got Petula Clark to 116 ...

Apparently it is News that Phillip Schofield has come out as gay.  However, I always thought he was and I’ve been racking my brain as to where I got such an idea... And why this is News.  I think it goes back to when he was in the broom cupboard with Gordon the Gopher… 

Yes, I know the out the closet joke has been done to death but…

Phillip was the first CBBC in screen continuity announcer and he performed this task from a broom cupboard.  As I remember there was a lot of dead air to fill… So Phillip came up with games.  One of these games was to promote Downtown as sung by Petula Clark every day on his show for no apparent reason.  

Now I don’t know if Petula is a gay icon but I suspected there had been a wink to the audience going on some years later when an act called "An Audience with Peter" (right) did a routine that involved singing alternative lyrics to Downtown with jokes about homosexual intercourse in.  Is she a gay icon?  Perhaps or perhaps not – these two things could have been entirely unrelated and I could be putting 2 and 2 together to make 5 … but because of this I’ve just assumed (wrongly perhaps except it now seems I was right) for years that Phillip was gay...  Then again it could be that Peter also discovered that record via Phillip’s relentless promotion of it and that Phillip gave Peter the germ of the idea…or not.

Of course it is entirely possible to have a strong interest in female recording artists and showtunes without being gay and so this may just have been stereotyping on my part.  As the broom cupboard segments were live apparently most were not recorded so we will never know quite how Phillip came over in those days (85 – so long ago he was still single) and I only have my memory to fall back on... 

 

But I’m not the only person to remember Phillip’s obsession with Downtown – he would play it every day and ask people to send in photographs of themselves down town...  

On one nostalgia video someone asks Phillip about Downtown and he responds that the choice to endlessly play Downtown was just “random” … Okay, it could have just been a good tune but Phillip’s playing of it got very serious.  He managed to get the record re-released as a single and apparently it got up to 116 in the charts. Maybe it just was a bit of nonsense to see how far you could get a track up the charts by relentless promotion...  That said the joke went a very long way...  He even got to talk to the icon Petula himself so here’s Phillip talking to Petula about her career and how often she goes Downtown…

…not that any of this is of the slightest important but it’s a little trip downtown...

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along.
So maybe I'll see you there
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares
So go downtown
Things will be great when you're downtown
Don't wait a minute more downtown
Everything is waiting for you

Update 29th May 2023

It seems an affair with a younger man was being covered up.  Apparently this is scandalous because Phil knew the young man as a child in his role as a patron of the theatre school... And they both lied to producers about the relationship.  It is common these days for employers to have rules that employees must declare their relationships if not on the same seniority level... there are accusations of things that I will not repeat here.  In the words of the late Mrs Merton : who knew what attracted Matthew to MILLIONAIRE Phil Schofield....

But perhaps the final word should go to King Solomon....

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts (Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22, NIV)

Sewage Leak - Suck it up...

So all the poo and smell of poo has gone now and all 12 flats are sewer gas free so Thames Water have politely responded to our previous correspondence denying any responsibility for the poo coming out the ground or the gasses escaping up our drains and into our bathrooms.  There being 12 flats affected they are still falling back on the line that they can’t tell us exactly what each complainant complained about because of the Data Protection Act.  Because poo needs privacy.  They also seem to be saying that since we didn’t give them the opportunity to clear up their own poo because we had to get a tanker to suck it up because it was an urgent health hazard then they can’t take any responsibility for their shit.  I’m pretty sure they have to cough up under the guaranteed standards scheme but you have to admire the quality of their bullshit … if not the qualities of the human shit they seem to be unable to control...

Claim: External sewer flooding

Dear …

I write following on from our discussion on 3 February 2020, about your claim for re-imbursement of your contractor’s fees. You’ve requested confirmation of our liability decision in writing. Please see below as requested.

When we spoke, I informed you due to a collapse in our sewer main, we’ve been carrying out some work in [your road]. This has involved a lot of pumping out of sewage and may likely be the cause of the smells.

You explained, the issue affecting your property in Croydon was first reported to you by your tenants on 21 January 2020. By this time, the grounds of your property had been flooded for two days. You contacted us on 27 January 2020, after your private drain engineers had attended to investigate the cause of the external sewer flooding. Your contractors spoke with members of our waste crew on site, who advised your waste issues were due to our works. I understand, your contractor’s fees are in the region of £1000.00, and you’d like to make a claim for this to be re-imbursed.

I’ve searched my systems, and whilst there are enquiries relating to foul smells, there’s no mention of waste blockage or external sewer flooding at your property. These calls were made by other members of the public, and therefore, due to GDPR 2018 I’m unable to go into further details.

Our investigations

When we attend to investigate and clear blockages, we do so at no expense to the customer. This is because, we pay our contractors to carry out our work. In the event of flooding to the property, this may be either external or internal, we also offer to carry out a basic clean-up of affected areas. I'd like to advise, in future you must contact Thameswater as the first point of call, to investigate any issues with your drains. After we've investigated, if there are any issues with your private drains, we'll let you know.

If you experience any symptoms of blockages, or imminent flooding, please call our 24hr Contact Centre team, on 0800 3169800.

Liability

You didn’t contact us at any point while you experienced these issues, so we’re unable to determine the nature and cause of these problems due to lack of evidence. We may only be held liable for waste related incidents where we’ve directly caused the issue or where we’ve been negligent. i.e., when we’ve been made aware of a problem, but didn’t do anything about it. Unfortunately, we weren’t made aware of your problem, so we were unable to investigate and resolve the issue for you. Therefore, we haven’t been negligent. I regret to inform you your claim has been denied.

I appreciate this isn't the response you hoped for, but I trust I've clearly explained the reasons for my decision. Your case is now closed, however, if you need to speak with me, please call me on 0800 0093814. Our offices are open between the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

We'd love to hear about your experience, please click here to tell us what we are doing well or what we can do better.

Yours sincerely

Vanessa

Which I think boils down to they think we have to suck up gettinga tanker out to suck up the poo... ?

Viewpoint

When I first started this blog it was meant as a repository for random pictures I took on my travels.  

However, no one seemed interested in that so I started putting words on it. 

But today as a break from my tedious points of view here is a picture of Viewpoint in Caterham as a counterpoint …

I took Ava Alexis up there yesterday and as we looked over the hills and the M25 I told her of how I used to have to go on cross country runs up and down the steep and winding road. 

Even in the snow.

“Why?” she said.   “Isn’t it exposed enough up here already without coming up here in shorts?”

I have no real idea why but I think that the problem may have been that while religiously Caterham School claimed to be affiliated to the United Reformed Church the actual religion of the school was sport - a vocation for which I had little inclination and nothing to offer but an embarrassing lack of physical coordination.

So although we were supposed to be running by the time we got to the top of the hill I was usually at the back walking with the stragglers.  Sometimes one would employ local knowledge to cut off odd corners.

When we got back to the pavilion the teacher would encourage us to run the last 200 yards to play along with the pretence that we hadn't just walked the rest of the route after we'd got out of his sight.

He would do this standing below the bank on the cricket pitch and one day a large boy responded to his encouragement by jumping off this bank and into a giant puddle at his feet.  This being a good 5 foot jump the teacher was completely drenched in freezing rainwater.

The same boy got suspended quite often.  One time when I was leaving late I found him in the school vestibule.  His parents were in the headmaster's study again and he was awaiting sentence for a crime I now forget.

"How's it going?" I said.

"Well, it was going okay," he said, "till Mr Smith said 'take a seat' and Mr Thorne [the deputy Headmaster] and I both tried to sit down in the same seat and fell on the floor."

I also told her also of how we went up the hill once from the school to play rugby on the field at the top of the hill even though it was snowing but it was so cold that even the teachers gave in and we had to go back again. 

On the way down the hill again some of us found a barrel of tar which was part of some road works that we could warm ourselves by… the toxic fumes weren’t as bad as the cold. 

I’d like to say I learned something from the experience but really I think we just got cold.

Still, I suppose I was lucky to grow up around such beautiful surroundings...

I think it was G K Chesterton said...

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head etc