NEWS
How did that gobshite get on the telly?
With all that happened last weekend, I didn’t get a chance to blog about our big appearance on TV. Okay, it was for less than a minute and, okay, it was on BBC Scotland which possibly can only boast a daily viewership of three elderly women in Troon and a deaf sheep in Kingsbarns, but we were broadcast and potentially piped into every living room in the country.
At Granite Noir 2025, my wife Cat and I were both featured as ‘locals in the limelight’ which meant we’d open an event reading a noir(ish) story. Cat opened for James Yorkston and Belinda Bauer, while I warmed up for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. Additionally, we were asked to be interviewed for a TV featurette and, on the Sunday afternoon, we headed to the Music Hall where we spent half an hour with presenter Alice Cruickshank (who I was pleased to hear also hails from my native Elgin). The premise was fully explained to us: it’s a playful piece involving Alice conducting an investigation into the nefarious doings of “Tartan Noir” writers and, as young upcoming unknown writers, we should push the future of the genre, talking about contemporary writers and why Aberdeen is so perfectly a place to write it. I could have said something pithy about it doing for the genre now what Vienna did in the 1940s, or used it as a platform to big up some of my favourite writers but, instead, I giggled, stuttered, hesitated, deviated and repeatedly spoke utter tripe. ‘I’m all about fruit and veg‘ stands out as one particularly bon(kers)-mot.
Contrast the last time I was on TV, if you will. In 1984 the team from ITV’s Child’s Play were snooping around primary schools for characters and they chanced upon our class on a day where I was in a ‘show-off’ mood. I can picture them now, hot-footing it back to whichever region produced the show, grabbing Michael Aspel and crying ‘We got one!’ The only problem, of course, was that a few weeks later when they actually plopped me in front of a camera, I was in my shy, reclusive mode. So, the only footage they broadcast in the next series was me describing, in a perfunctorily po-faced and mind-numbing fashion, a hammer. ‘My Dad sometimes uses one,’ I mused, knowing full well this was an absolute lie. I’m pretty sure Liza Goddard buzzed in within a few seconds putting both me and the nation out of our misery.
Still, I’ve yet to end up completely on the editing room floor…and, just going back to the new interview, Cat is absolutely brilliant and more than makes up for me. Thank God!
You can watch the episode until the 8th April. Zoom on to 12:10 for the Granite Noir feature in full or 15:15 if you just want to see us. Note: the episode of Child’s Play linked above is not the one featuring me. If anyone does have that episode then please, please do send it to me!
