LeftLion print ed. #5 - The Jo and Twiggy show
2007-12-09

This was printed in the December/January edition of LeftLion. I will post the link to the article once they put it online. It was heavily edited by the LeftLion peeps... too heavily if you ask me, they took out the bit about my father in law amongst other things. The article below is the original, I'll you be the judge about whether the edits were good ones or not.

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When the deputy editor at LeftLion asked me to spend a week listening to the Jo and Twiggy show on Trent FM for this column, I didn’t really know what to make of it. What is it about this show that he thinks is column worthy? The morning radio shows back home are certainly nothing to shout about.

I’ve never been a fan of morning radio. It comes on early in the morning, the music is atrocious and the scripted banter makes me want to stab myself in the ear with an ice pick. The last thing I want to hear in the morning is some chirpy twat’s cheesy jokes and weather updates followed by some spoiled teenaged brat’s pop song about how much her million-dollar life sucks. If Lily Allen and Avril Lavigne were killed in a drunken monkey knife fight, I wouldn’t shed a single tear.

The first day of listening to the Jo and Twiggy show had me thinking they were quite charming. Dim, but charming. Like an old, arthritic mutt that you’ve had since you were a kid. The kind of dog who would roll over onto its back looking for a tummy rub from a burglar. The Jo and Twiggy show sounds like it’s being recorded in someone’s garden shed, but it’s nice to hear a local accent on the radio for once. It’s certainly better than the honk honk wocka wocka bullshit that is North American morning radio. So I thought.

My introduction to Twiggy begins with a story about his family trip to a stately home. He moaned that after paying for admission, food and parking, he was out close to £50. My god, I think to myself, this story could’ve come directly out of my mouth. He then does this thing called “Twiggy’s songbook” where he sings excerpts from a book to a popular tune and asks callers to guess what the song is. In this case it was a book on raft building sung to “I will survive”. I laughed my ass off.

I have a terrible secret. Lord knows I’m not proud of it, but I feel I should make one thing clear before you read any further. I love Dad humour. I know you, my loyal readers, have come to think of me as a relatively cool dude, but it’s all a lie. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. A flashing tie and a horrible pun gets me every time. Last Christmas, we signed my father-in-law, John, up to a service that delivers real ales to him every few months. Being Northerners, the conversation inevitably moved on to how much it cost. My wife tells him “It was cheaper than you think, it was a good buy, actually”, John looks at his pint, says “Good bye!” and necks it. I love that. I call Al at LeftLion and warn him that I am in danger of becoming a Twiggy fan.

Having said that, I don’t have much time for Jo. The woman has (by her own admission) never been in a relationship, lives with her mother, and is obsessed with the X Factor. She’s not exactly what one would call complex. Do people seriously still watch that show? She strikes me as the type of woman who goes to McDonald’s in Mickey Mouse sweatpants and orders a Big Mac and a Diet Coke thinking they balance each other out. But like I said, this is morning radio, complaining about it is like beating up a kid in a wheelchair, or going to Rocky IV and complaining about the monosyllabic dialogue.

The next morning rolls around and I find myself actually looking forward to the show. I know it’s going to make for a boring column, but I don’t care. I couldn’t wait to hear what Twiggy was going to do for the songbook. I started referring to it as “The songbook” as I feel Twiggy and I are now good buds. Twiggy doesn’t disappoint. His singing of the mysteries of Egypt to “Wake me up before you Go-Go” is fantastic. Afterwards, he disses Jo for liking the X factor (yes she fucking brought that up again) by saying it exploits people. Testify, brother.

I think about getting an I :heart: Twiggy t-shirt printed up when just then, he says a couple things that give us a glimpse into his dark side. He admits to liking James Blunt and refers to the Daily Mail as “The Mail”. Liking James Blunt is pretty sad, but referring to the Daily Mail as “The Mail” is downright crazy. It’s like referring to Mein Kempf as “ol’ Kempfy”.

Alarm bells start ringing, but I ignore them. This is the happy guy that tells jokes to children and sings silly songs. His name is “Twiggy” for god’s sakes. He’s a step away from being a chuckle brother. Daily Mail reader or no, I’m willing to cut the brother some slack.

And then “Father Twiggy” makes an appearance. He recites a poem with a lisping Irish accent, dissing Gordon Brown and the inheritance tax while pumping up the Tories and David Cameron. If that isn’t bad enough, he finishes it with “I once bit the pillow when I was on a man date.”

Did I just hear that right? Pillow biter? I’m all for taking the piss out of people, but resorting to homophobic slurs? Damn, that stopped being funny some time in the early eighties, didn’t he get the memo? I imagine many of Twiggy’s favourite jokes start out “A priest, A rabbi, and a Polish guy walk into a bar...”

Twiggy’s lost me. Listening to the show seemed less like a joy and more like a chore after that. I set my computer up to record the next three shows and listened to them at once just to get it over with as quickly as possible. In that time, he and Jo took pot shots at gays twice more, slighted the Chinese, said the French ate their own feces, made a couple tit jokes and then had the nerve to call Americans hillbillies.

I can’t believe this show has won a Sony breakfast show award. Who listens to this shit? The minute the question passes my lips, it is promptly answered by a caller who says she thinks Posh Spice “looks good”. I thought James Blunt fans were rare, but a Posh Spice fan? Give me strength.

I had listened to three hours straight, skipping past the commercials, music and weather reports when my wife came in and put her arms around me. I shrugged her off and snapped, “Go away, I’m doing something.” She walked out of the room and it was then that I realised just how angry the show was making me. My teeth were clenched and I had the mouse in a death grip. I had a few more hours to listen to, but I turned it off and went downstairs and apologised to my wife instead.

She says I am hereby not allowed to listen to Jo and Twiggy anymore. She has nothing to worry about.