Mister Bump UK

Tick Tock Tuesday (7 January 2020) – Kenny Everett

I thought I’d create a new challenge. It is a challenge primarily for me, because I’m new to this platform, and because you don’t really know me yet, nor I you. As my name suggests, I am recovering from a stroke, and I like to push myself in all kinds of little ways… including getting to know the Wonderful World of WordPress. Although this is something I will be doing, I invite you, if this idea takes your fancy, to play along with me and share with me some of your own selections.

My plan is: each Tuesday, until I run dry, I shall post some piece of art with which I have some connection – which has helped to mould me, which makes me tick. Okay, a piece of art is a bit vague – it might be a piece of music, a movie, a book, a painting, or ???? – so my phrasiology is deliberate. It might be anything – I will play this post by ear, so I’m not sure what I’ll think of each week. And, I’ll keep posting on the theme weekly until I run out of ideas.

My rules? Well, I’m not big on rules! My choice will be something with which I feel a connection. That’ll be the important thing, just having some kind of fleeting affection for something probably won’t be enough, unless I’m using my choice as an example of something bigger.

It will be one choice per week – I’m aware that long posts can be quite onerous to read, and I’m in no hurry to complete this so if I have two ideas, I’ll probably hold the second until the next week.

In that same vein, I’ve created this block as a Reusable Block, which I intend repeating for every post on this theme. The block ends with a full-width separator, so if you want to skip ahead each week it doesn’t really matter.

I probably won’t post any lyrics, or any kind of analysis – if you like my choice, the information will be out there for you. But I will try to briefly explain why I feel a connection to my choice, just to try and enhance readers’ understanding of what makes me tick.

I will tag my posts TTT and I will go looking for other posts with that tag. If you’d like to join in, please do the same, or comment, or pingback to this post, and feel free to reproduce my graphic. Lastly, I look forward to reading about what makes you tick.

A week into the New Year, and are we all feeling totally fed up? Let me try to bring that smile back!

Maurice Cole was born in Liverpool in 1944. He was about the same age as my parents. Born at that time, he was very interested in radio and made every effort to leave his hometown for the bright lights of the city. I later came to know that feeling well.

Cole changed his name to Kenny Everett. He became a disc jockey, learning his trade on Radio Luxemburg in the 1960s, before becoming an early joiner of the new BBC Radio One, the UK’s new pop music station which started in 1967.

He was known for his irreverance, and for being one of the people to massively grow the influence of the new station, but he was fired from Radio One in 1970 when he mischievously suggested that the Transport Minister’s wife, who’d just passed her driving test, must have done so by giving the examiner a bung!

Everett hung around the radio scene, however. In fact he remained in radio for the rest of his life, including primetime shows on the independent radio station Capital Radio, which broadcast to London and therefore gave him a large audience, and even working again for Radio One.

By 1980, Everett was also working in the field of tv. It was a good time to be involved, just because technically, we were making all sorts of leaps and bounds, and Everett could use this emerging technology to set himself apart from the rest.

And that’s about where I come in. By 1980, I was just starting to be aware of my own tastes in terms of tv programmes, and of course, caught Everett’s show. Not only did he become required viewing for me, but for a generation of other schoolchildren. He was still very irreverent, but that was a part of his attraction. And he flitted between the BBC and independent tv, when he fell out with one (as he surely would) he could just walk to the other – the format of his show was the same for any tv company. Each time, he’d push the boundaries with characters like Cupid Stunt – he later vlaimed that the tv executives were so out of touch, they didn’t understand the joke.

Everett had a colourful private life. At one stage he was married, but ended up living with two other guys in a three-way relationship. This was a risky time and Everett was found to be HIV-Positive in 1989. He eventually died an AIDS-related death in 1995.

I’ve got to say that, as an adult, I don’t care a jot about his personal life. It was his business, not mine. And I certainly didn’t give a jot as a teenage boy. I just loved his hilarity. He was one of a very few programmes which was simply required viewing every week as I was growing up.

So I present today a clip from Kenny. If you’re not already aware of him, I have to warn you that this is some very schoolboy humour – you know exactly what is coming but it is side-splitting anyway. Hopefully, you can see why a teenage boy would have been hooked!

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