“We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kind of seasick
The crowd called out for more…”

Above are the opening lines of “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”, first released by Procol Harum on the cusp of the ‘psychedelic’ era in 1967, since when it’s been a staple of nostalgia-based radio shows and stations playing golden oldies.  It’s had more airplay recently due to the sad death of the lead vocalist of Procol Harum, Gary Brooker.

He re-formed the band several times after their initial break-up, with various changes of personnel and also toured and recorded with the ‘supergroup’ Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings.  He played in Eric Clapton’s band, recorded solo albums and was also one of the rock music stalwarts who appeared on the memorable 2002 “Concert For George” tribute for George Harrison at the Albert Hall.

So, there were many more strings to Gary’s bow (and keys to his piano!) than being the unmistakeable voice on the classic pop song.

It was a UK No1 and a US A No5, so would have earned the songwriters Keith Reid and Gary Brooker a substantial amount from record sales and TV and film soundtracks.

It’s said in the entertainment world, “Where there’s a hit there’s a writ”, and Procol’s organist Matthew Fisher waited until 2008 to claim a co-writer credit for his distinctive Bach-style organ intro to the song. Musicians might describe it as a feud over a fugue!

He won the case and was awarded a 40% share in the song from 2008 onwards.

“A Whiter Shade Of Pale” has never dated because, unlike many ‘ I love you’ or ‘ You broke my heart’ romantic ballads which have remained popular from one generation to the next, it contains enigmatic lyrics that are open to individual interpretation.

Members of Procol Harum have given various explanations since they recorded it, many of which have been disputed by other band members!

I suppose we’ll never really know what the song’s about.

However, I have another question – one that’s never been asked or answered as far as I know.  What, exactly, is a Procol Harum?

This week’s column has come to you from the top of a glacier in Cervinia, a beautiful part of Italy.  Now this is where technology makes life easy for me and allows me to operate without any of the stress of meeting my editor’s deadlines.

The views are breathtaking and this puts me in the ideal mood to come up with some creative writing without too many distractions.  We are 3,000 metres above sea level, snow has fallen almost every day for the past three months and continues to do so.  Transportation is good, buses and cars are running as normal.

The local shops are well stocked with fresh food.  Bread and milk are in abundance and there is no sign of any panic buying.

The temperature here is well below freezing, but the local residents and visitors alike are thoroughly enjoying the winter season and all that it brings.

Clearly, if this was happening back home, we would all be in ‘shutdown’ mode and a state of chaos and panic.

Right, that’s enough taking the piste, I’m off to build an igloo!

When I saw a headline in a newspaper, ‘Drinking three cups of coffee a day can extend your life’, I thought it was too good to be true.  Nevertheless, I read on.

Researchers at London’s Queen Mary University and Budapest’s Semmelweis University discovered that drinking three cups of coffee a day provides a 17 per cent lower risk of us dying from heart disease and a 21 per cent lower risk of dying from a stroke.  A spokesman for Queen Mary University said that a moderate daily intake of coffee ‘Is not cardiovascular harmful – and may even beneficial’.

But as I read on, I saw there was a ‘Catch’.  And it wasn’t a small one…

Before I reveal what it is, I should tell you I like a cup of coffee and can always manage a second cup, especially when I’m in a meeting or working on some new material.

That newspaper headline caused me to wonder if I could manage a third cup later in the day – before I realised if the caffeine intake from three cups of coffee was racing through me, I’d probably be so wired I’d be up until dawn, unable to sleep.  This would put me off drinking another three cups that day, immediately putting paid to my brand-new, short-lived, health regime!

But that wasn’t the ‘Catch’ I was referring to.  This is ‘The Catch’ . . .

The experts behind the report specify that as instant coffee – and some other foods – contains a potentially-harmful substance called acrilamyde, their recommendation is that we should avoid instant and instead drink three ‘good quality’cups of coffee a day.

Now if you’ve bought a ‘good quality’ latte, Americano or whatever you prefer from a coffee shop recently, you probably paid around £3 for it, give or take a few pence.  If you buy three of them every day (I see the math’s experts amongst you are way ahead of me) you’ll spend £63 a week.

Perhaps the experts who prepared the report should have included a section explaining the effect that spending £3,285 a year on hot drinks has on the human body!

As we get older it’s so important to keep exercising in order to stay fit, flexible and healthy.  I’m sure I am not alone in hearing the snap, crackle and pop when I jump out of bed in the morning.  Unfortunately, it’s not my breakfast cereal, it’s my knee joints warming up!

We are told to keep mobile by so many medical professionals on a daily basis, but how many of us manage to fit in some daily exercise?

Use it or lose it is the motto. Now we can’t argue with that!

Unfortunately, the challenges of today’s daily living, plus the long, dark winter days and poor weather conditions does not help with the motivation needed to wrap up and get out there for some fresh air.  We can clearly see that phones are getting much smarter and thinner.  People, not so much.

Before you ask – I weigh 14st naked.  That’s if the scales in Boots The Chemist is anything to go by.  My case comes up next Monday!

I suppose it all started in 1989 with Michael Palin’s valiant and good-humoured attempt to follow the route of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg and go “Around The World In 80 Days”.

Since then, the format of a celebrity fronting a travel series has been copied many times, both on network and local TV.  Many of the ‘celebrities’ fronting travel series on the major networks are completely unknown to me and seem to have very little of interest to say.

Mind you, that also applies to some series featuring famous names, as was proven recently in a series featuring a TV star and his wife driving around the UK in a motorhome.  Their conversations and the situations they found themselves in (“Do you think we can make it down this narrow country road, darling?” “Ooh, I’m not sure!”) over six times 60-minute episodes were so mundane I thought the series was sponsored by a tranquiliser manufacturer.

A series in which another TV star travelled (seemingly just to patronise the locals) up the famous river that traverses Vietnam and Cambodia, was, in the celeb’s view, all about putting the ’Me’ into Me-kong.

“Here in Wales”, to quote someone we won’t mention on this page, our local TV stations send out weathermen, newsreaders, reporters, ex-rugby players etc., with a camera crew to explore our countryside – while struggling to maintain an interesting narration as they go – with monotonous regularity.
The format is just so tired and predictable now.

I’ve lost count of the occasions I’ve switched on BBC Wales or ITV One Wales to see a presenter in a red anorak, with the hood up to keep off the rain, rambling around the Welsh hills, mountains and coastlines, pointing at the same canals, beaches, rivers, islands, lakes, waterfalls and duck ponds we’ve seen in previous series fronted by different ‘Local TV Personalities’.

The Offa’s Dyke path has been filmed for TV so many times, Offa should have an Equity card by now and after watching a recent show featuring someone else I didn’t recognise confidently striding along the Dyke for 30 minutes, when I looked down…I had mud on my boots.

As a young lad, I was brought up in the days where everybody in the street on which you lived knew everyone else.  I am sure many of you reading this column can remember this time very well, often referred to as “The good old days” by the older generations.

However, times have changed and, unfortunately, there are so many of us today that don’t know who lives on the street, or in some cases, even who lives next door!

Gone are the days when you would pop next door to catch up on the gossip or your neighbour would pop in to share their copy of the local paper when they’d finished it.

My grandmother would always make the effort to check on her neighbours and get to know anyone new who moved into the street.  If she were still around today, they’d nickname her “Google.”

Keeping in touch with those around you was second nature.  This was networking at its best. Human beings are meant to live in tribes and look after each other.  Wouldn’t it be lovely to see this sense of community make a welcome return?

What do you think?

The Victorians were fascinated by spiritualism, mediums, ‘ghostly manifestations’ and all the other trappings associated with the pseudo-supernatural.

Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the world’s greatest detective, was a believer.  Which is odd when you consider Sherlock Holmes approached every case, even the terrifying “Hound Of The Baskervilles” with cool logic, dismissing any supernatural involvement.  As he wryly remarked in “The Sussex Vampire”: ‘No ghosts need apply!’

But if you think the Victorians were naïve in believing people with psychic powers had the ability to converse with the departed (after they’d been handsomely paid to) and that we’ve moved on since 1888, you’d be wrong.
Because the amount that Americans hand over annually to ‘Psychic Services’ is a staggering $2.2 billion and the market has grown 0.5% since 2017.

The great showman Derren Brown has made documentaries in which he unmasks charlatans who earn large amounts of money (which they sometimes refer to as ‘donations’) out of the bereaved by allegedly contacting their deceased relatives.

Although his jaw-droppingly impressive stage shows are packed with mysterious, apparent other-worldly happenings, he goes to great pains to explain they all have a perfectly grounded explanation.  He’ll be touring again soon and I urge you to go and see him if he comes your way.

I’m not saying that everyone who claims to communicate with the dead is a conman or woman.  I genuinely don’t know whether it’s possible.  What I do know is, it’s never been scientifically proved.

The late American magician James Randl was such a sceptic when it came to claims of psychic ability that, in 1996, he offered $1 million to anyone who could provide genuine proof they could speak to the dead.  While he was alive, the money remained unclaimed – and since he died in 2020 the James Randl Educational Foundation has kept the offer open.

To date, not one person has approached the Foundation to claim they could speak to the dead – not even to James Randl.

I’ll leave you with one of his quotes…
“Psychics use exactly the same gimmicks as magicians and they effectively deceive millions of people, to their detriment”

Do you have an opinion? Does it matter?

The world is constantly changing and so are opinions, which we often find challenging due to the fact that we also have our own opinions.

We are fortunate to be living in a country that, in the main, grants us freedom of speech and more and more people are now stepping up to the mark and confidently speaking up, which can so often be a double-edged sword.

We have discovered that social media is great for putting your opinion across, but it also gives idiots a voice, too . . . far too often without any repercussions.

This, in itself, is a modern-day curse and I have personally witnessed the downside to such shenanigans.  Keyboard warriors, who hide behind their screens and become very brave, are nothing more than modern day bullies.

Friendly debate will soon be a thing of the past, if our politicians, world and industry leaders don’t control their emotions and show evidence of professional respect, while setting an example for generations to come.

Education is key for a balanced debate and there IS always two sides to an argument (did you see what I did there?).

As a comedian I’m often asked, “What happens to jokes that aren’t funny? Well, they become politicians!”

Elections coming up, use your vote wisely!