In my real life I accidentally let it slip that I am also a (mad) radio anorak of the old stylee.
Unfortunately this was at a rather large gathering of media types that I work with and it became the topic of curiosity and conversation for what seemed like hours but was probably a mere 10 minutes. My Christopher England persona is different to who I really am and it refers mainly to the past and certainly has no connection with real life or purpose other than being a bit of a smile from yesteryear, plus, of course, being an angry nome de plume from which to churn out reams of words without losing my real life credibility. Dunno why it’s like that, but it is.
So, for an excruciating 10 minutes I felt my cheeks turning red and I could feel the sweat on my back as I endured the stare of the sniggering Paxmanites giving me a grilling. Some were mildly radio enthusiasts, true, but current radio, and some had heard of offshore radio, but, with most of them being barely out of nappies, none were anoraks in the old fashioned sense. Sigh. There was only me.
Trying to justify my affliction, I could feel them looking at me as I look at the lone train spotter standing in the howling wind and rain on the very end of a platform at a busy junction on the rail network – with contempt and pity.
Realising I was on a hiding to nowhere, I changed tack to a defensive and apologetic mode, bowing my head and looking at the floor. I defended my personal position and explained how I was ok but everyone else in the anorak world was mad. This didn’t work either. I was firmly hoisted onto the rotisserie of derision and I was cooking fast.
I quickly changed tack again and held my hands up to having the disease of anoraksia that makes no sense to ordinary people.
Unfortunately, when the subject finally changed and the spotlight was moved from burning into my face, one gentleman pursued the matter asking if anoraks gathered together on the net. I mumbled deflective comments, but the very next day he was on my texts asking for links to places where wild anoraks roamed. I panicked and pointed him to Music Radio News and to the Garry Steven’s Free Radio Board, knowing that I never post to the first and have only posted a few times to the second, so he had no chance of sussing that I was aka Christopher England.
A few days passed and I again saw him and some of the original crowd that grilled me. He opened with, “Hey, guess what I’ve been reading?”
Oh no.
I knew what was coming, and there just wasn’t time to have him killed. So, in front of the hushed listening crowd he proceeded to tell the tale of the horrors he’d found by reading the anorak forums I’d pointed him to. “They’re all raving mad,” he excitedly explained. He then described to howls of laughter how old radio anoraks spend their time talking about radio stations that either don’t exist or have never existed rather than radio stations that are on the air and being listened to now. He explained that we are far more fascinated with transmitters and their locations and power and the names of old stations than actually listening to the programming.
He highlighted the aggression and bitterness over the radio stations that don’t exist or have never existed. He laughed at the constant telling of the same tales from 20 years ago over and over again. I felt like a child being scolded. But how could I make excuses? It’s all true. How embarrassing. And I’m no better than any of them; I’m one of them. I am a sad radio anorak and it’s the way I am, and now they all know. Sigh. My credibility is shot; I am a broken man.
England's England 