Therapy For Me

W/C 27th February 2022 For one week only I am going to go with a lyric, rather than the actual song title for the episode name. The explanation for which comes in two parts; Firstly you have to watch this... MOTD FA Cup Introduction (or in better quality here if you are in the UK) And then you have to read this; The Greasy Chip Butty Song Oh and if you missed the game itself you might want to give...

W/C 20th February 2022 I have been literally dashing around all of this week, so everything feels a bit rushed and not quite thought through. As I type it's 05:53 on Saturday morning and I have a pile of stuff to remember before I jump in the car to head to The Guitar Show for the weekend. Of course I am bound to have forgotten something, but as of now I have organised the U10s football fixtures,...

W/C 13th February 2023 I love this song. And I never really imagined how I would get it into an episode title, but fortunately this week something unfortunate happened and here we are. I am a middling Peter Gabriel fan, I don't go al the way back to the beginning because I was never a Genesis fan, but I equally couldn't imagine a musical world without the songs that formed the seminal So & Us...

W/C 6th February 2023 I am going to have to use that phrase, that is becoming so well used that is now some form of self-induced irony loop. "we use the term legendary or unique far too often these days, but in the case of xxxxx it really is true" Of course I am going to fall into the same trap, and insert the name of Burt Bacharach into that particular sentiment. Not because I am a huge fan parti...

Five minutes ago I didn't know this song existed. When I decided on the title song for this week, I was thinking of the Paul Carrack penned track (recorded by Ace in 1974) and it was only when I was searching out a link that I discovered this gem by George & Ira Gershwin. Of course there are multiple versions too choose from, and although I am not a card-carrying Van Morrison fan, I do think t...

W/C 23rd January 2023 By the time you get 10 minutes into this weeks episode you will realise that I have been fulfilling a bit of an ambition. Of all the things that struck me in those few hours on Tuesday, the one I wasn't expecting was the attitude and approachability of the people that worked there. They were very friendly, and very helpful, and very engaging. I ended up chatting quite a bit (...

W/C 16th January 2022 There is a (welcome) return to rantiness this week, and it probably doesn't take a genius to work out what has got my dander up. I happened to listen to the The Counterweight this week, which is a really great Thea Gilmore album from 2017. The War is the final track of the album proper and begins as a lyric in response to the senseless killing of Labour MP Jo Cox, a few miles...

W/C 9th January 2022 I hadn't even realised it may be birthday week until I started typing the notes. Now you may know that I have a bit of a difficult relationship with the whole idea of my own birthday, but I am fairly relaxed about it as far as TFM is concerned. Of course I can't be 100% sure when the exact date is, and I imagine there will be divided opinion on the matter. Episode 1 was publis...

W/C 2nd January 2023 Imagine waiting for so long, years and years gripping to the greasy pole and then you moment finally arrives and a group of nutters decide to set about pulling down the decorations and bursting all the balloons. There is of course a much bigger point about a political party in chaos, a deluded faction that want to stoke emotions and sow division, and the spectre of elected rep...

W/C 26th December 2022 You will have to indulge me a little this week, for a few reasons but primarily because I am being just a weeny bit self-indulgent. I don't know if it's a hangover of lockdown, or a by-product of working from home in a fairly piecemeal fashion, but I seemed to have got into the habit of consuming quite a lot of content on a daily basis. Of course you know that, because I oft...

W/C 19th December 2022 Aside from being the greatest story ever written, A Christmas Carol is written not in Chapters but in Staves. This technique was employed by Dickens because it mimicked the traditional structure of Christmas carols, and as such was a bit of in-joke. He continued to play around with structure with his other Christmas writing, the Cricket on the Hearth was divided into 'chirps...

One of the things I happen to bang on about this week is the Christmas Radio Times, a festive perennial as far as TFM is concerned. Now this gets a bit technical, but it concerns the listing dates covered by this epic publication, because this year the first information it carries is the schedules for Christmas Eve - which I found a little odd. In my head I am used to having the schedules for the...

W/C 5th December 2022 I never learn. Clearly that isn't strictly true. In a lot of ways I am on a constant journey of discovery, development and hopefully self-improvement. Indeed TFM is part of that process, and the sheer act of assembling this podcast has positive consequences. But in other ways I never learn. Let me explain. I know I have a particular task to complete in early December every ye...

W/C 28th November 2022 I think I am getting a little giddy, a little bit unnecessary you might say. It could have something to do with an early start, a busy day and lots of things to be finishing off before I can get on the road. It could be the start of December, the excitement of the early morning Advent chocolate and the reappearance of the Elves. It could be the lingering bit of head cold I h...

W/C 21st November 2022 I am never quite sure if anybody actually reads these notes, I know that as a rule I don't for any of the podcasts I listen to. And it got me to wondering why I try and think of something creative to put in them every week. So this week I am simply going to ask those of you that have read them to let me know in some way (maybe a DM on instagram would work) and if it turns ou...

W/C 14th November 2022 Funnily enough the episode title is not a reference to trying to keep warm , without putting the heating on. It's actually a little nod to the gig I went to last night. I don't know a lot about Jason Isbell and I am only just discovering his catalogue, so I went as a bit of a blank page with no real expectations. First up he is terrific, as are his band, and the show was out...

W/C 7th November 2022 Let's go with a bit of Radiohead this week. I guess the obvious reason for picking them is the fact that Sir Gavin Williamson ('Gavin Gone the Third' as I wrote in my notes as a prompt) dominated the news cycle over last weekend and through the early part of the week. He really does seem a fairly unpleasant character, but then again so does Matt Hancock - a fact that will not...

W/C 31st October 2022 By the time you have listened to this weeks dense, but compact little offering, the choice of title will be self-evident. The challenge however is that for the first time (if memory serves) I can't share a link to the song, because I can't find one. I first heard the song Circular Ride in Manchester on the 30th November in 2007, one of only three times it was played on that t...

W/C 24th October 2022 Most of this weeks content came from two strolls through London, one from Kings Cross to Waterloo in the early afternoon on Tuesday and then the return leg on Wednesday morning. Walking through the capital still retains that wonder for me that it had the very first time I visited as part of a school trip many years ago. Back then it was all about the iconic buildings, and the...

W/C 17th October 2022 If I hadn't been to Birmingham this week then I wouldn't of thought about Birds Custard. If I hadn't thought about Birds Custard, I would never have discovered that the Birds Custard Factory used to be spread of fifteen acres of land in Digbeth, and that over a 1,000 people used to work there. If I hadn't been researching the Birds Custard Factory, then I wouldn't have found...

W/C 10th October 2022 When I woke up yesterday morning I didn't expect to be settling on this as an episode title. It was Pfizer this year, which means I have now completed the set (along with AstraZeneca & Moderna) of vaccines I have agreed to in an effort to throw a Ready-Break-like protective glow around myself. No particular side effects this time, other than the obligatory stiff arms (I h...

W/C 3rd October 2022 How do you feel when you are part of the Anti-Growth Coalition, and you get to Saturday morning with no idea what you are going say in your weekly podcast. Guilt? A sense of failure? Disgust at the fact that you are letting down podcasters everywhere ( not to mention anti-frackers, remainers, university lecturers, lib-dems, environmentalists and anybody who hasn't bought into...

W/C 26th September 2022 This week proved that we should never take local radio for granted, and recognise that it isn't some second tier form of journalism. It's just journalism. Damn good journalism. Clearly the PM had no clue what she was walking into to at 8am on Wednesday morning, as she undertook a whistle stop round of local BBC station interviews - the first time she had been heard from in...

W/C 19th September 2022 I am going to mention Only Murders in the Building again this week, and it just dawned on me that I should have called out the performance of Steve Martin. The whole cast is great, even the fairly wooden and monotonic Selena Gomez (a performance which shouldn’t work but seems to fit just fine). But the real star for me is SM. In contrast to the rest of the what is going on...

W/C 12th September 2022 Strange week. As you will hear, I am finding it difficult to process what is going on at the moment. It’s not that I don’t get the tradition and the ceremony, but it just feels so disconnected from whatever passes as the norm. I have probably struggled with this one more than any of the previous episodes of TFM, and I still don’t think I have managed to articulate what I am...