Considering the thousands of performers who’ve appeared on TV talent shows through the decades, few managed to sustain a long showbusiness career.
I can’t recall from Hughie Green’s ‘Opportunity Knocks!’, its reboot ‘Bob Says Opportunity Knocks!’ (hosted by Bob Monkhouse) and ‘New Faces’any  more than a dozen contestants who became enduring stars.
Nevertheless, TV talent shows are very popular and require months of pre-production and auditions, during which the unpleasant nature of ‘interested’ parties can reveal itself.
I was given an insight into how obnoxious parents can be when pushing to get their offspring an audition by a friend who worked on a TV talent show that ran for several years.
Following the first series success, when Series 2 was advertised, the production office was inundated with letters, CDs and tapes from applicants.
One day my friend received a phone call in the office from a man he’d known slightly 20 years previously and hadn’t seen since.
As the ads for Series 2 clearly stipulated, ‘No ‘phone calls please!’, my friend was understandably irritated and his gut instinct that the caller was ‘up to something’ was justified when the man misguidedly addressed him like an old, close friend.
When the caller asked if he’d received a tape from his son, “Who’s a brilliant singer”, he was told it was probably among the hundreds of tapes the production team would eventually listen to.
This was not what the caller – someone with zero experience in TV production – wanted to hear. He abruptly said in what he thought was an intimidating tone “Don’t p*** down my back and tell me it’s raining!”
A Western fan, my friend immediately recognised the line from Clint Eastwood’s “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and that the caller wasn’t bright enough to realise he’d know this.
That the lad didn’t get an audition wasn’t due to his dad’s belligerence.
When the production team heard his tape, they realised something else the caller didn’t grasp was the meaning of the word ‘brilliant’.
Next time you watch “X Factor” think of the nonsense that the enormous production team has to put up with!

In a move that has left holidaymakers scratching their heads, ministers have unveiled plans to allow local leaders, like the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to introduce an “overnight visitor levy.”
Yes, you heard that right. If you thought your holiday budget was already tighter than a pair of skinny jeans after Christmas, get ready for a £100 hike in those pesky booking fees!
Greater Manchester is gearing up to tackle the tourist influx with a plan that’s as popular as a raincloud during a summer barbecue.
Gareth Isaac, a businessman from Llanelli, suggests it might be cheaper to jet off to a sunny beach abroad.
Of course, the real question emerges: will this levy make Britons consider holidaying at home, or simply inspire them to hop on a plane to somewhere with even more sunshine?
With travel costs rising faster than inflation, it seems the only thing that might keep people in the UK is a free pint, or at least a discount on the next round.
So, pack your bags, folks!
Just make sure to budget a little extra for that overnight visitor levy, because who doesn’t want to pay more to enjoy the joy of our beloved, occasional, rain showers?
Cheers to that!

Have you ever been so bored in a cinema or theatre you’ve walked out?
I’ve certainly seen some ‘critically-acclaimed’ films at the multiplex and after 30 minutes decided that some film critics don’t know their art from their elbow and discreetly left the cinema.
As for bad stage productions, I’ve seen plenty, but always waited until the interval before leaving.
Such ‘Theatre Etiquette’ appears to be going out of fashion.
Recently, while performing the dramatic final scene in the play “Inter Alia” at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre, actress Rosamund Pike was distracted by the sight of an audience member texting.
Rather than stop the show and break the tension, she carried on.
But, after the play had ended and she’d taken her final bow, she returned to the stage and gave a speech about the bond of trust between the actors and the audience that makes a play work.
Rosamund referred to the person who’d knowingly broken that bond, but refrained from singling him out and just pointed in his general direction, saying “You know who you are”.
For this she received a massive round of applause.
If you thought that audience member’s behavior was atrocious, consider what happened when Andrew Scott was delivering the “To be . . . or not to be” speech in a London production of Hamlet’ not too long ago.
A man in the audience took out a laptop and calmly started e-mailing, disrespecting the actor on stage and treating his fellow audience members with contempt.
On that occasion the e-mailer received both barrels from the actor.
With the phenomenal price of West End theatre tickets these days, I wonder if this ‘I don’t care if I’m spotted texting or e-mailing’ attitude, that such ignorant people adopt, is some sort of supercilious superiority syndrome?
They’re saying, “I’m so rich, the fact I splashed out £300 on a ticket means nothing to me, so if I want to text or e-mail during the performance I shall!”
When I’m King, I’ll issue a decree that photographs of these idiots are displayed outside every theatre in the land so they’re refused entry . . . for life!

Life seems to move at 100 miles an hour these days.
One minute you’re popping out for a pint of milk, the next you’re stuck behind a tractor doing 20mph on a country lane, wondering if you’’l ever see civilisation again.
Wherever we’re heading, whether it’s a trip into town, a weekend on the coast or simply nipping to the local shop, it’s easy to become wrapped up in our own little world.
But every day gives us the chance to make someone else’s day just a bit brighter.
The good news is you don’t need to win the lottery to do it.
A smile, holding a door open, letting someone pull out into traffic without muttering under your breath, or helping an elderly neighbour with their shopping can all make a real difference.
Even a quick chat with someone on a park bench might be the friendliest conversation they’ve had all day.
There’s an old saying: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
It may sound like something your grandmother embroidered onto a cushion, but she wasn’t wrong.
The funny thing about kindness is that it’s contagious.
Smile at someone and, more often than not, they’ll smile back.
Before long you’ve started a chain reaction that spreads far further than you ever imagined.
Unlike catching a cold, this is one thing worth passing on.
We never really know what battles people are facing.
The cheerful cashier, the busy delivery driver or the person waiting quietly at the bus stop may all be carrying worries hidden behind a brave face.
A little patience, a kind word or a simple, “How are you?” can mean more than we realise.
So, wherever your travels take you this week, pack a smile alongside your shopping list and your umbrella, because this is Wales, after all.
A little kindness weighs nothing, costs nothing and might just be the best thing you carry all day.

Somebody recently discussing the comedy duo Mike and Bernie Winters said, rather snootily, “They were no Morecambe & Wise”.
That’s unfair, because, as much as I admire Eric and Ernie, they weren’t infallible.
Their first TV series flopped so badly, a critic quipped “Television: The box they buried Morecambe and Wise in”.
Ouch!
The trio of feature films they made in the ’60s didn’t really work, while “Night Train To Murder”, the TV film that formed part of the ITV deal to lure them away from the BBC, is barely remembered,
Brothers Mike and Bernie split-up in 1978 after working together for three decades. They’d fallen out years before and by the end weren’t speaking to each other off stage.
Mike became an agent in Miami and died in 2013, while Bernie teamed-up with Schnorbitz, a huge St. Bernard dog that Bernie called ‘My favourite stage partner’, and enjoyed TV success with “Whose Baby?” and “It’s Bernie!” before playing Bud Flanagan in the TV movie “Bud and Ches” and on stage in the musical “Underneath The Arches”.
Bernie’s long marriage to Siggi could sometimes be volatile and one particular Sunday, after another huge row, Bernie was eating his lunch in the kitchen while Siggi ate hers in the dining room.
When the phone rang, Bernie answered and on the other end was Jimmy Tarbuck calling from the London Palladium.
Roy Orbison, booked to top the bill on that night’s “Live From The Palladium” was indisposed, so Jimmy wondered if Bernie could help fill out the show by doing a short comedy routine with him?
Bernie immediately drove to the theatre without telling Siggi, who was used to him disappearing after an argument.
That evening, following some dressing room rehearsals with Jimmy and his writers, the two comedians did their spot on the ‘live’ broadcast.
Siggi was watching at home, while wondering where Bernie had got to, so was shocked to see her husband walk out on stage and entertain the Palladium audience . . . and 12 million viewers!
What a pro ‘Choo-Chi Face’ Bernie was.
He died, much too young, at 58, in 1991.

If you’ve managed to book a family holiday this summer without taking out a second mortgage, congratulations.
You are either a financial genius, won the lottery, or have discovered a travel website the rest of Britain doesn’t know about.
For everyone else, the annual school holiday getaway has become less of a break and more of an extreme financial endurance event.
Parents still dream of sunshine, sea views and a week without hearing the words, “What’s for tea?” every 20 minutes.
The children, meanwhile, simply want reliable Wi-Fi and a pool big enough to film questionable TikTok dances.
Then, reality arrives!
Flights mysteriously triple in price the moment schools break up, hotels suddenly believe they’re five-star palaces, and a caravan in North Wales starts costing about the same as a small apartment in Monaco.
Travel companies insist it’s all down to ‘high demand’.
Families have another description for it, but it isn’t suitable for publication in a family newspaper.
With household budgets already stretched tighter than an airline seatbelt in economy, many parents are abandoning dreams of the Costa del Sol in favour of the Costa del Shed.
Why spend thousands on a Mediterranean resort when the back garden offers all the essentials?
There’s sunshine, occasionally, a paddling pool that deflates every afternoon, and the neighbour firing up the lawnmower precisely as you sit down with a cold drink. Authentic British holiday ambience.
Older readers may remember when summer holidays meant squeezing the family into a slightly damp caravan in Porthcawl or Barry Island. Luxury meant having a kettle that worked.
The toilet block was somewhere over the horizon, the showers alternated between Arctic and volcanic, and fetching fresh water involved carrying a container roughly the size of a small oil drum across the campsite.
Nobody complained because, frankly, everyone else was doing exactly the same thing.
Children entertained themselves with football, buckets, spades and arguments over whose turn it was to hold the torch during the midnight toilet expedition.
These days, if the holiday accommodation doesn’t have fibre broadband, a hot tub and an air fryer, there’s every chance someone will leave a one-star review entitled ’Worst experience ever’.
Of course, the great irony is that the moments families remember rarely involve expensive resorts.
It’s the burnt burgers on a disposable barbecue, the tent collapsing at 2am, Dad insisting he can assemble camping chairs without instructions, and Mam discovering she’d packed everything except the toothpaste.
Those stories become family legends. Nobody ever reminisces fondly about paying £8 for an airport bottle of water.
So, perhaps this summer, if foreign beaches are beyond the budget, don’t despair.
Fill the paddling pool, fire up the barbecue, chase the wasps away from the sausages and let the children loose with a garden hose.
With a bit of imagination, the back garden can become the Algarve, albeit with more drizzle, fewer palm trees and Dave next door asking if anyone’s seen his hedge trimmer.
At least the journey home won’t involve a delayed flight, lost luggage or a four-hour queue at passport control.
And that’s got to be worth something.

I have to admit that some weeks it’s not easy trying to come up with ideas (and enough words) to fill the allotted space that yours truly is given.
That I always come up with something, often at the 11th hour, and occasionally at one minute to midnight, is due to that old writer’s combination of 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration.
Fortunately, for those in close proximity to me while I’m working, I use a rather effective deodorant every day.
Other weeks, I have so many ideas elbowing their way to get a place in the front row of my thought processes, I don’t know where to start.
And then there are weeks like this when I feel the need to elaborate upon and ruminate a little more on a subject I wrote about a while back but didn’t have enough space.
So here’s some further thoughts on that most British of institutions . . . the Bank Holiday.
How many have we had this year already? Ten, at least.
With High Street banks closing all over the UK ‘because everyone banks online’ (I’m sure my nose just grew by two inches as I wrote that!), I don’t understand the need for Bank Holidays.
I don’t know this for a fact, but I assume they were created to give pressurised bank staff a few extra days off during the year. But, like thousands of unfortunate bank employees, they’re redundant in 2026.
If so many banks have permanently closed their doors, then the pressure is off bank staff who’ve entered new professions or taken early retirement and for whom every day is a Bank Holiday.
If we still want those extra days off so we can drive to a seaside resort we can’t get into because 20,000 other drivers had the same idea, they should reflect the new businesses that have taken over from banks in town centres.
The term ‘Bank’ Holidays should be replaced with something more honest.
I submit, for your approval, the following suggestions . . .
Cash For Gold Holidays
Turkish Barber Holidays
Vape Shop Holidays
And my personal favourite…
Coffee Shop Holidays!

Well, here we are again. Somehow another year has slipped by, and today happens to be my birthday.
It seems they come around quicker every year, although I’m convinced someone keeps shortening the months!
I’d also like to send a big Happy Birthday to everyone else celebrating today.
Imagine all of us scattered across Wales and beyond, sharing the same birthday without even knowing one another. I hope you’re all having a wonderful day and finding at least one reason to smile.
I’ve never understood people who say they don’t bother with birthdays anymore. Why not?
Every birthday is another milestone, another chapter, another reminder that we’ve laughed, learned, muddled through and made memories along the way. That’s something worth recognising, whether you’re turning 18 or 80.
Birthdays aren’t really about presents or making a fuss. They’re about taking a moment to appreciate life, the people who make it special, and the privilege of seeing another year arrive. Not everyone gets that opportunity, so I think it’s something we should never take for granted.
Of course, there will always be someone who insists they’re “not counting anymore.” That’s perfectly fine, but I suspect they’re still pleased when someone remembers to wish them a Happy Birthday. We all like to feel remembered.
And, before I go, here’s a little birthday truth that has never failed to make me smile: the people who have the most birthdays live the longest!
You can’t argue with facts like that!
So celebrate your birthdays, however quietly or loudly you choose, and never apologise for doing so. They’re meant to be enjoyed, and long may they continue.