Bleeding Obvious Targets Vol 3: Danny Baker

JINGLE BY BREATHY (POSSIBLY FAKE) AMERICAN FEMALE VOICE: “The Danny Baker Show. I guess this is what the Manson murders must have been like.”

SEGUE INTO: “All Men Are Liars” by Nick Lowe.

BAKER: . . . um . . . er . . . fake attempt at spontaneous post-awake for 7 and 5/8 minutes bleariness . . . nah, it don’t work – the news and the news and the news you nasty Nazi redoubtable redoubtable Tony Nooley of course and can you tip a wardrobe full of used Mills and Boon novels – we won’t accept nooly minted ones, gotta ‘ave bin read and yellowed of pages thereon – off the top of that big tower what clogs up Colliers Wood at the roundabout ‘cos you know you know USEless carbuncle of a thing ALICE?

ALICE: Ye . . .

BAKER: Can you find me 10 useless blockades oblique eyesores on roundabouts the length and breadth of Britain? Don’t include America ‘cos that’s exotic mind you I have to say bought my £140 import DVD of Ocean’s Eleven – PAL only – from the old HMV on Wednesday morning and it is ROTTEN I mean it is appallingly RO’’EN scandalously abysmal thing so to compromise I bought five copies of the Sammy Davis Jr box set ‘cos you never know I might lose one need one for the car an’ all. So if you have a wardrobe and are standing abreast that tower thing at Colliers Wood this very morn, and it’s gotta be full of USED Mills & Boon books preferably ones written by future celebs – I mean, surely ol’ Ian McEwan and the Zadie Smith pumpkin, surely they must have knocked out a dozen or so to pay their student loans off? Surely? OK! Here’s the deal. USED Mills & Boon books written by future celebrities. I don’t just want yer hacks off the street who’ve been doing it since 1921 I want – I tell you who I want, did Iris Murdoch ever do a Mills and Boon. There’s a turn-up. That appallingly RO’’’’EN punk girl in The Sea The Sea and she says “awfully” – I mean, name me a punk name me an ORIGINAL Bromley Contingent punk wot said “awfully.”

ALICE: Would TV Smi . . .

BAKER: Ah the Adverts! Ground-rubbing ambulance chasers that they were. Alright the lines are open, and remember we want wardrobes, WARDROBES full of the Mills & Boon malarky and ALSO which universally popular song – it is a song known the world over, you’ve sung it maybe 2000 times in your miserable lives – categorically includes a lyrical reference to shooting up on the old heroin? Which song is that? It is obvious, and thou shalt kick thyself when thou hearest of it, innit, as Michael Jackson and do you know I was the last man to interview Michael Jackson as a human being? And it’s time for some anarchy and here’s Lucinda Williams.

SEGUE: Lucinda Williams into Wayne Hancock into that bloody barn dance thing from Heaven’s Gate.

BAKER: And coming back out of the news except that wasn’t the news but hey this is punk rock radio this is the spirit of ’76 incarnate. Where else, I ask you, WHERE else could you hear Lucinda Williams, Anthony Newley and Nick Lowe on a radio station? Well granted Radio 2. But Uncle Bob Harris ain’t never gonna namecheck Saint Perry of Mark is he? No this is BARRRRE knuckle radio and it’s a caller Lewis from Lewisham Lewis what can I do for you?

LEWIS: ‘Allo you was sayin’ about chucking a wardrobe out of Colliers Wood roundabout.

BAKER: Ah but I’ve suddenly decided to save that for the grand finale so if you’d care to hang on another 120 minutes or so, I probably won’t get back to you, but heh heh heh. So! The question is which song, WHICH international anthem of song, makes explicit and unambiguous references to drug-injecting? We’ve got Sam from Stanmore. Sam what can I do for you?

SAM: Hey Danny.

BAKER: Man it’s a woman! Postmodern – lick lips IRONIcally. Sam!

SAM: That song.

BAKER: Yeah?

SAM: Is it God Save The Queen?

BAKER: A good guess, a very logical guess, and in fact it is the right guess.

SAM: Ooer!

BAKER: So we’ll give you the Calexico box set wot’s been cluttering up this cubbyhole for the last two years –

SAM: Wow!

BAKER: - if you can quote the precise lyrics of said anthem namely God Save The Queen – and we mean the Queen Queen, not the Pistols, right?

SAM: Right.

BAKER: OK, ladies and gentlemen, here goes, Sam from Stanmore intoning the hitherto uncontroversial lyrics to God. Save. The. Queen. When you’re ready.

SAM: God . . .

BAKER: Of course you know Alice that Waylon Jennings never carried cash on him, dontcha?

ALICE: As a matt . . .

BAKER: And when he was nabbed at Walmart in Cohoes with a pack of tabasco-flavoured Doritos too many in ’74, well, Little Feat could have philosophied a song about it. Sorry Sam I was putting you off. Intone, if you would, the lyrics to the nooly controversial God Save The. Queen ladies and gentleman I thank you.

SAM: God save our gracious Queen –

BAKER: Yep so far –

SAM: Long live her stash of heroin –

BAKER: Now you see. That has been in the British psyche for centuries, nay eons, and no one has ever cottoned on to it, until now. Can you blame the man Harry for what he does? It’s instilled in him subliminally. So Sam, if you could just, firstly recite the words as though they were poetry, and then sing them again, and then for measure sing them in Estonian –

(40 minutes later, the last scrap of humour having been painfully extracted from this routine which was tired and unfunny to begin with):

BAKER: And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is anarchy. Gotta go and write another BP conference 20-minuter for Frankie Skinner boy and the Jones of the Vincent, so if you will excuse me it’s punk rock and here are the redoubtable Dan.

(to be heard on Saturday mornings on BBC London Live/Radio 5 Live for, oh, at least the next five weeks)