Pop Shield

At the end of a tense day in the studio, there’s nowt worse than back-timing your required sleep only to discover that you should already be in bed. Except you’re on the steamed-up top deck of a drizzly London bus in the dark in the middle of a tube strike and forty miles from home. Your hair needs washing and you are down to your last quarter tank of petrol.

So, I’m on the bus fiddling with my phone like every other member of the species. I look up ‘Cheeky Delinquent’ on Wonkypedia. We had Cheeky Delinquent in session for Shane Zealand today. And very good he was too. Something I did not appreciate during the session about Cheeky D is that his stage name was derived from the world famous online Woo Name Generator. Way to go.

Followers of this blog may recall the events of Mudstock 2011 when I somehow instigated what turned out to be the exclusive use of Woo Name Generator monikers by the Parallelogram Stage truck and stage crew. This ran throughout the line check for the Woo Woo Gang and indeed for the majority of the Mudstock weekend. It was the dream gang… Scratchin Leader and Smilin’ Dreamer on the knobs, Arrogant Conqueror and me on stage coms, with X-Pert Professional on the F ‘n’ Geoff. Those were the days when Shiny was a Ruff Begga and Eusabio a mere Undiscovered Bum.

If only I had known this fact a few hours ago, I could have happily called Simon ‘Thunderous Menace’ all day long. And, in turn, answered strictly to the name of Wacko Pupil. Oh well.

Quote of the day today is awarded, typically, to Mr Menace…

“Unfortunately the famous Corporation red light is broken. Just like the rest of The Corporation. So this is my mouth telling you that we’re recording. Which we are.”

And as I sit in a stationary train carriage in the middle of a failed signal in the Olly Polly area, it feels like the famous Corporation red light is not the only thing broken today. Next stop – daybreak!