Live 8

Full marks to soap-dodger Saint Bob for putting together the Live 8 concerts. Must admit to being slightly miffed for not being top of the bill but I suppose Dame Reg needs the publicity more than yours truly.

A big up, however, for the non-appearance of the Spice Girls sparing us the sight of Ginger's gusset ten years on...

Public Image

So I'm in Imaculada's Portuguese BBQ & Sauna having a private moment when the manager calls me on the mobile. After an ear-bending of gargantuan proportions I get the message that yours truly has to get out there and earn some serious dosh.

Now you will recall that a Comeback Tour was mooted earlier in the year. Now that Cream has finished its gigs, I reckon the coast is clear for the some serious Grope Rocks! action. I get hold of Quentin and arrange to meet him at the White Lion to talk tactics.

I pitch up to find him bent over some gadget which he tells me is a raspberry or something. Apparently, he can be contacted by email at any time of the day or night to which my first question is 'Why?'. Anyway, I tell him that he needs to rustle up some PR pdq otherwise he'll spending more time with his strawberry in the dole queue. He does this little dithery thing for a few seconds and then launches into something about me getting a more consumer friendly image. Inevitably, bloody Clapton's name crops up. Now, is it me or does he look like a middle manager from an insurance company these days? There's a lot of 'over my dead body' from me and gentle sobbing from Quentin before I finally agree to a feasibility study.

So in the interests of consumer research, I'd like to hear any suggestions as how the already stella Grope image might be improved.

Keep it clean

Bath humbug

As today is the first day of the rest of my post-political life, I was not best pleased to learn that we are now no longer allowed to have a hot bath for fear of upping the second degree burns statistics at No 10.

Presumably there'll be an ESBO (Extremely Scalding Bath Order) in preparation as we speak.

Et tu Brute?

Well, the post-election knives are out and yours truly's been asked to resign his leadership of In Vino Veritas. Officially, it's to spend more time with my family but if you'd lived with my mum as long as I have, that's the last reason you'd give.

Truth is, there is a viper in our midst in the rather uneven shape of El Magnifico who has been waiting on the sidelines for VG to dig himself into a big hole. It all came to pass in the Diminished Fifth last Friday where we were foregathered for an end-of-week libation. I was on my seventh JD and Chocotino when the bombshell came. It fell to Quentin, who by now had taken enough Babychams to sink a battleship, to deliver the coup-de-grace by shouting 'You're out - gitface!' from the back of the bar. Now I know how Lady T felt. What followed was an unseemly ruck which resulted in the entire party being ejected into Greek Street but not before I made sure that El Magnifico wouldn't be writing any rhyming couplets for a couple of weeks.

So that's it for me and politics - give me the slimy, corrupt, exploitation of the music business any day

Party Party

Despite our best efforts Vino Veritas did not manage to win a seat in yesterday's election. There was a moment when we thought we might beat the Death Dungeons & Taxes party but I couldn't get my mum away from When Celebrity Nose Jobs Go Wrong in time to cast her vote.

Undeterred, we held a post-ballot party at the Somalian Barbeque and Private Book shop (all you can eat for £2.99 with a complimentary Special Brew) which I have to admit turned ugly at one point when Quentin and Old Cove got into a heated debate about our policy of free hair gel for the over 60s.

Anyway, it's all over for another 4 years and I wish our fellow campaigners all the best for the rest of the season.

Now I can get back to my normal lifestyle, I'm off to my favourite Gentleman's Venue for a bit of well-earned R&R.

Bring on the Swingometer

Well another week of canvassing has passed as the search for the elusive voter continues with only one day to go. I don't mind telling you that all this being nice to people malarky is beginning to wear a bit thin. I call a meeting of my campaign team at the Bigamist and Fancy Piece. According to the party treasurer, the battle fund, which consists mainly of a generous donation from my old mum's weekly pension that I lifted from her handbag while she was watching Celebrity Oven Cleaning, is all but spent - so we're on halves.

While we are honing the final part of our manifesto - no swedish students on the underground, a free coke with every meal for the under 5s, caravans for all - Quentin's mobile starts up. After a lot , 'yessing' and 'uh-huhing' he comes off the blower all excited. Apparently, we've acquired a new member who's jumped ship from one of the other parties. Some bloke called Kilroy-Silk who's given up trying to rid the country of johnny foreigner and wants to throw his lot in with us. Bouyed up by this news, we plan the final push which will be to address a rally of the faithful in the back bar of the Double Standard followed by group postal vote rigging before the last collection at the Mount Pleasant sorting office.

Isn't democracy a wonderful thing?

On the campaign trail

Regular readers will have noticed that the old diary has been a bit thin of late. As you can imagine, it's been a bit a week what with the Wedding of the Year (I hope Ken and Deidre make it this time) and the big event in Rome. To top it all, yours truly has been out in the hustings in the Battle Datsun Sunny chivving up support for my In Vino Veritas party.

It's been an endless round of kissing pensioners and promising free Werthers Originals to babies, without, I have to admit, much success. As you know, we are a compact group - me and El Magnifico, my Minister Without Cogent Thought. So I decide to co-opt Quentin from the PR company and Old Cove from the Planet Bollocks to help out with the manifesto.

We meet up at the Bar Rhumba for a drink with an umbrella to discuss tactics. Old Cove goes into one about focus groups and suggests a little 'blue sky thinking' about party values so that we can define the voter demographic. So I give them both barrels. At end of twenty minutes, it appears that I will not tolerate; children, foreigners, foreigners with caravans, young people or old people and I am in favour of; free pre-written essays for students, corporal punishment for people at the supermarket checkout without the correct change and a lifetime ban for drivers who hold everybody up in car parks waiting for someone to leave their space. OC and Quentin go into a huddle and come back with the result.

Apparently my target voter is a rather strange woman in Dungeness. I wonder if I can get her telephone number?

Grope dot com

I'm back from a few days away in my seaside retreat to find that all is not well at Camp Grope. For a start, the new web site and shopping experience is not online so I call up Quentin to get the latest. Apparently, there's been a big fall-out about how much to charge for the GROPE ROCKS! t-shirts and the web developer has had a hissy fit downing keyboards until everything has been sorted out.

I call an emergency meeting in the Bridge and Coda to see if I can retrieve the situation. Quentin turns up with a face like a smacked arse which doesn't improve when I point out that he's probably depriving a village of an idiot at this moment. This sends him off into girly sulk which doesn't help yours truly's cause one bit. At this point, Old Cove pitches up fresh from some skiing jaunt. Now normally, I find OC about as useful as a wrongly-dated Royal Wedding souvenir but for once, he comes up trumps by 'dear boying' Quentin back to some semblance of normality. Now we are back on track, I bring up the question of the web site launch date. I suggest this Friday which for some reason doesn't go down too well.

Is it me or does no-one have a sense of priority?

Can you keep a secret?

Now politics is not my thing. I only know the name of the prime minister because I was cornered by him at some drinks do at Number 10 when he was going through his cool phase. He's banging on about his Stratocaster and how half the cabinet are closet rockers while I'm trying to make a rapid exit. In the end, I fall over the drummer's guide dog and it all gets a bit unpleasant.

Anyway, I'm in the Maharishi Curry and Tanning salon having a quiet five minutes and I spot this article in the paper about MI5 having a bit of a recruiting drive. Apparently, we can now expect the nation's security to be run by ex-middle managers more accustomed to directing the incontinent to the customer facilities in Tesco.

Call me old-fashioned but yours truly was a lot happier when all this was under wraps. I don't really want to know that counter-terrorism is now being monitored by someone who was once in charge of enhancing my dining experience at the local Harvester. Give me a dodgy toff with a public school education and penchant for young men any day. With people like that at the helm, at least you know where you stand. Next thing you know, they'll be bringing in a SPECTRE card with points for the most spies bagged in a month.

It'll all end in tears, mark my words.

I'll have a P please Bob

Given the unseasonably warm weather, I'm sitting outside Yoshi's Noodle Bar and Colonic Irrigation Centre enjoying a post all-nighter reviver.

As I'm taking in the rays, I start to muse upon some of the big questions in life. Why are we all here? Do blue men sing the whites? Is Carol Vorderman really good at sums or do they stop the tape while she gets her calculator out? As all this is swimming around my head, the mobile starts up somewhat breaking the moment. It's the manager, trying to ascertain my whereabouts.

He tells me that he's got good and bad news. Apparently, Old Cove has done his back in snowboarding and the feasibility study's gone on the back-burner. When I ask what the bad news is, he says that is the bad news. The good news is that I'm up for some award. Not before time I say and enquire which glittering occasion I'll be attending as I have a new companion I want to show off. He goes silent at this point and tells me to jump in a cab and get over to the PR company.

I pitch up to find Quentin looking more twitchy than usual. I ask him what the award is and after a lot of umming and ahhing I find out that it's the Saga Personality of the Month. As you can imagine, this isn't quite as rock and roll as I expected and to add insult, it's shared between me and someone called David Dickinson - a perma-tanned barrow boy who's apparently made a name for himself amongst the permanently-bewildered, selling old tat on the telly.

The deal is that they want to photograph me and tango-boy for the Saga 2006 calendar. Quentin tries to convince me that this is good for raising the old profile but the prospect of being a pin-up to a bunch of coffin-dodgers hardly fills me with breathless anticipation. He then ushers in a woman in tiny glasses and a large scarf who proceeds to wander around me tutting a lot. When I ask who the hell she is, he tells me that she's in charge of 'getting me up to scratch' for the photo shoot. Now all this might be OK for Sir Bob who hasn't got a career to worry about anymore but I have my adoring fans to consider. So I make a rapid exit leaving Quentin and Makeover Woman to their hair products.

In the sanctuary of the Lost Chord I reflect over a large JD on the grubby world of celebrity and decide that Carol Vorderman probably can add up in her head, she just doesn't have any dress sense.

So that's alright then.

Lend me your watch and I'll tell you the time

So I'm in Svetlana's Private Bookstore and Vodka bar having a quiet afternoon when the mobile starts vibrating nineteen to the dozen. It's my manager who's just back from the accountants and he's not a happy bunny. Apparently, the Grope net worth is travelling rapidly south and he tells me to drop everything and shoot over to the PR company pdq for a meeting. So I do, leaving Svetlana waving a broom and shouting something at me in russian which I don't think was very complimentary.

When I get there, I'm ushered into the boardroom to find Quentin and an old cove in a pinstripe suit, hanky in top pocket - straight out of Jeeves and Wooster. It transpires he's a management consultant they've drafted in for a bit of emergency surgery on yours truly's failing fortunes. He starts telling me that 'we' need to realign the Grope brand bringing it closer to a higher spending demographic. As you can imagine, I glaze over at this point which is partly due Svetlana's home-brewed vodka and partly because I don't understand what the hell he's on about.

Anyway, he starts asking me a few questions about my career as a mega-star and gradually it comes out that he's a bit of guitar buff with some sort of a collection. Now this is about a snooze making as it can get because I reckon you only need one guitar at time - maybe two if you include an acoustic - and a ukelele . Half dozen stories about how he once fed Eddie Cochran's parrot or somesuch later, Svetlana's vodka's taking its toll and I 've lost the plot. In an attempt to bring things back on track, I ask what the plan is. Old Cove and Quentin start sniggering in a kind of pitying fashion at this. He starts 'dear boying' me and say that they have to perform a full feasibility study before any sort of recommendation can be made. I ask how long and he says three months.

I make my excuses and leave them to their blue sky thinking while I head for the daVinci Codebreaker for a reviving JD on the rocks. I don't know why we can't just put a few flyers on the tube but then I'm not an expert.

I've got a combine harvester

It's Red Nose day and I'm sitting in Grope Towers with mine which I didn't have to stump up a quid for because it's natural, acquired over 30 years of imbibing JD and coke. Be assured that I'll be doing my bit later at the 12 Bar in a sponsored Drinkathon when we'll be looking to raise a few bob for the cause.

Anyway, news that the bearded fairy from LOTR has landed a gig on Cornonation Street sent yours truly into a flurry of activity. Not to be outdone by some northern thespian, I start ringing around the long-running soaps (Eastenders, Hollyoaks, Today in Parliament) to see if they're in the market for a global mega-star. It beggars belief but no-one seems very interested. So I get on to Quentin at the PR agency and tell him to stop gelling his hair and kick-start the Grope board-treading career.

A bit later on, I'm in the Carpathian Tattoo and Fish Bar having my ex's name altered when the the mobile starts up. It's Quentin, all breathless and twittery, telling me to get over to the Groucho pdq. I pitch up to find him in a huddle with another meedjah type. Apparently, she's a producer on the Archers and they've come up with a story-line where I play Walter Gabriel's long-lost musician son, Peter, who's been living in the west country recording people banging logs and playing nose flutes.

Thinking that this is a result, I shoot off to the countryside - well Hackney Marshes - to commune with nature and hone my farming skills - milking sheep, mangling wurzels, that sort of thing.

Just as I'm getting into the swing of it when I get another call to say that they've had second thoughts. They've found someone more closely matched to the character and they'll be developing the idea with him. Well you could have knocked me down with a sledgehammer.

Duplicitious or what?


Blog of the Day - 10/3/2005

Leaving no turn unstoned

News that old codger Bill Wyman likes to spend his time waving a big wand in front of him comes as no surprise to anyone, I'd have thought. However, full marks to him for getting a book out on the subject.

Never being slow in leaping on any passing bandwagon, I give ideas boy Quentin a bell and ask him over to the Hernia and Roadcrew for a brainstorm.

First off, he puts me right on the terminology - apparently brainstorm could be insulting to people with a mental health problems so we have to call it mind mapping (which presumably pisses off anyone who hasn't got a mind or can't read maps).

Anyway, I tell him that he's got to find me a hobby so I can write a book about it. He looks at bit glum at this point but asks whether I have any unusual pursuits. Well there's the rubberwear I tell him but I'm not sure I can stretch that into a book. I then suggest one of my other pastimes which I quite enjoy, but this makes him go a funny colour and he has to breathe into a paper bag for five minutes.

We continue in the same vein for some time but everything I come up with is either illegal in most parts of the world or something you shouldn't try at home.

Exhausted by the whole experience, I send Quentin back to his desperately cool office and then take myself off to the Acropolis Massage and Grill for a bit of light basting with some baby oil.

You could write a book... I wish

Karma Cameleon

It's amazing what a honeymoon can do for the old karma, especially when you don't have to spend the rest your life with your holiday companion. Refreshed from the rigours of, erm, 'married life', the old Grope brain is swimming with new projects. On my return, I did manage to catch up with my old mates Crosby and Nash while they were in town and I swapped a few organ replacement stories with David. For those of you with a salacious turn of mind (you know who you are) , I'm talking livers, here.

Anyway, this set me thinking about how I could talk up the 2005 tour. So, I get hold of Quentin who's in the Rampant Rabbit comparing strategies with Lady Reg's PR - well that's what he calls it. I tell him that I need to up the old profile. He then starts wittering on about mixed media campaigns this; and cross-gender demographics that. At this point I have to stop him - mainly because I'm getting a headache - to say all I wanted was a few flyers to leave on the seats in the tube. Needless to say, he's crushed so I leave him to take consolation in a crate of Smirnoff Ice and I shoot off to a favourite Gentlemen's Venue down Shoreditch way.

You just can't get the staff these days.

Grope pulls plug on ball and chain

That's it. I can take it no more and I've called the whole thing off. Apart from the meddling from Witchy Woman indoors, the extreme makeover defeated all the top men in the business so I'm bailing out. After all, a man of my age position needs his space - which was in short supply when my ex-beloved was in the room, I can tell you.

So, yours truly's work/life balance is restored and it's on with the old routine which will no doubt bring a sigh of relief from the drinks industry. Mind you, I'm hanging on to the honeymoon because the barmaid from The Valve Driven Amp is looking a little peaky and might be in need of some R&R, if you get my drift.

Anyway, must dash - the road manager just turned up in limo to take me up West. Hope he's remembered the resuscitation trolley.

Vernon's Mum in no-show showdown

Word up! This wedding malarky is pissing me off no end. Latest is that my mum's decided that's she not going to turn up at the the town hall for the splicing ceremony. She says that it's because she thinks her presence will turn the whole thing into a three-ring circus but I know it's because there's an all-day 'Location, Location, Location Revisits the Mess They Left The Poor Sods In Last Time' on UK Shite. She's also obviously trying to wheedle out of coughing up for a gift. Miserable old bat.

Well, she's not heard the last of it. I've already changed the photo on her bus pass to one of Thora Hird and if she goes looking for the rat on a string she calls a dog, she's going to get a nasty shock (as did the hound when I crept up behind it with a meat skewer) .

Meanwhile, getting my beloved into a presentable state for the Big Day is taxing the experts somewhat. Last I heard, they were sending out for reinforcements and a large bucket. I've also been on the dog (and bone, that is) to the media to try and defray some of the costs. Hello! and OK! seem to be fully booked with King and Queen Chav's latest sprog and some old fogies' wedding which is apparently going off on the same day. Best offer I've secured is from What Caravan! who want us to pose for the photos in front of their latest Super Sprite 93 model. If I can get them to throw in a week's touring in Scotland, I might go for it. Mind you, I understand it's a bit windy around the Trossacks at this time of year.*


* insert your own gag at this point

Gotta get a witness

Plans for the impending Grope nuptials have hit a major snag. The idea was that we'd get hitched Chez Grope but the Thought Police have stepped in and ruled that we would have to get a license under some Act or other. This would mean that any chav dressed like a meringue could get spliced here for ever more. Naturally, my old mum's put her foot down with a heavy hand so we're forced to do the dirty deed down at the local registry office. Now I have to say that this has put the kybosh on my idea to host a new television series When Celebrity Fat Clubs Go Wrong which I was going to hold in the grounds post knot-tying.

On a separate note, I see the old welsh windbag, Tom Jones, has asked his female fans to stop throwing their underwear on stage. Now he says that it's because they don't even take the price tags off anymore. I reckon that given the age of most of them, anything they throw at him is most likely to have his eye out. Last time anyone threw something at me on stage, I had the best crop of rhubarb for years.

Where angels fear to tread

So the Norman Wisdom of rock has been voted a gong for the best song in 25 years. No doubt Peelie's rotating at some speed in his grave at the news of this one. Mind you, this was voted for by the tone-deaf wrinklies who listen to Radio 2, the station where presenters only leave when they join the choir invisible. Like most other right-thinking people, the old Grope head has been spinning at the vast number of songs that might just have pipped Angels to the post. Where was Agadoo, Achy Breaky Heart and the Chicken Song? Strikes me that standards are slipping. Bring back Jonathan King!

Grope to wed shock

So, yours truly has finally decided to take the long walk after years of public speculation. Now, it is well known that I'm no stranger to the old marital ball and chain having had several shots at wedded bliss in the past - 5 to be precise (that's not counting the goat in Las Vegas). However, I have decided that the time has come to make a bit of an effort commitment-wise.

As is evidenced in some of the newspaper shots, she's no oil painting but I've got a crack team of specialists on the job as we speak and I'm confident that'll we'll have a result come the wedding day. Of course all the top fashion houses have been sniffing around to get the wedding dress gig but after a closely fought bidding war, Anita from SarisRUs in Brick Lane has won the contract with a keenly-priced proposal.

There has been a bit of a ruckus over where the ceremony is going to be held and who's going to do the business. I gave the Archbishop of Canterbury a bell to see if he was up for it but apparently he's washing his beard that day. I've finally settled on a parson of my acquaintance who'll be available on the fateful day provided he passes his parole board.

The choice of venue has also been excising the old Grope brain but I've finally hit upon a stunning solution. Terry at the Roadie and Strumpet has come up with a stonking 'all-you-can-eat- for-4.95 wedding breakfast, including complimentary Snakebite' offer that would be churlish to refuse. So that's all sorted. I just need to get the old invites out to the glitterati. I'm thinking a May wedding as nothing of importance seems to happen around then.

Not surprisingly, there has been a considerable furore over how my beloved will be addressed as the new spouse of the King of Rock. I got Quentin down at the PR company to do a bit of a straw poll in the Wang Bar and apparently 6 out of 10 drinkers capable of coherent thought, felt that it was not acceptable for her to be known as the Queen of Rock. Bowing to public pressure, it has been decided that she will be titled Doreen: Princess Consort of Rock. Naturally, she will have all the privileges associated with the Queen of Rock including a lifetime membership of the Betty Ford clinic.

Smells like white spirit

So I am in the Capo and Plectrum having a quiet libation with one of my 'associates' when the mobile start ringing off the hook. It's Quentin from the PR company all wet and giggly because he's had an idea (about time). Can I rush over to the agency now for a meet? Now I wasn't best pleased at this intrusion but as a responsible media star, I have do it.

So I pitch up at the agency to find two more Quentins with identical Hoxton fins in a similar state of high excitement. They finally manage to tell me what the BIG IDEA is - a range of Grope fragrances. Now, I'm no stranger to the Lifebuoy but I strikes me that this is one step too far given your truly's macho image. Anyway, they start talking numbers and suddenly I'm interested. Apparently, they can make this jollop for peanuts and then knock it out for 30 quid or more! There's more twittering and then they start waving lots of little smelly sticks about. Now I wasn't exactly at the back of the queue when they were handing the hooters out [note to readers over the pond: before you get any ideas, this means nose over here] so I find my olfactory functions quite keen despite having shoved most substances up it over the years.

So they're banging on about notes and I'm sniffing away like Clapton in the '70s but none of it captures the essence of Grope. So I say this and there's a bout of group huffing from the Quentins. I gently point out that there needs to be less citrus and ylang ylang and more Jack Daniels and Marlboro Lights. There was this massive silence, the meeting was closed and I was back in the boozer 5 minutes later. Result!