Coming to a loudspeaker near where you live.....

When I opened Facebook this morning I found this had been posted on my timeline.

Josh, I am so proud to have you and your lovely Mrs Josh as my friends. With our new radio show we are going to take the world by storm.

Josh can I play a song for you ?

Driving home from the cinema last night Josh could not stop singing this song !  We had gone to the cinema to watch YESTERDAY. I am not going to say a lot about the film - BRILLIANT is the best word to describe our evening, Josh and I will be reviewing it on our radio show Monday 15th July.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight ?  Ahead of last night's feature there was a trailer for The Lion King which opens on Friday 19th July. Yep we are going to watch and review that film.

Then in August we are going to see this.....

Tomorrow - MONDAY 8th July 5am to 10am Josh and I bring you the first edition of START THE WEEK on CRMK.

On the first show Josh will be talking about his ADVENTURE at Willen's Extreme Challenge while I talk about Rocket Man.

Every week we will have something special to share, an ADVENTURE - a cinema review and a lot more. We are going to have tea at the Ritz - YES WE ARE - booked for November. We are going

to the top of the Shard then returning to the studio we will report on the view. We are going to dance The Lambeth Walk on The Lambeth Walk and make a video blog of it all.

Tomorrow - 5am to 10am www.crmk.co.uk - make sure you are listening.

We have a feature of songs for all of our emergency services. We have something for The Food Bank, for all of our homeless and rough-sleeping friends, we have something for our adopted Piggie at Curly Tails Rescue Centre and we will have a special weather report.

I have operated a YouTube channel for a while, we are now turning this into the forum for our regular video blogs to promote our show. Once we have it established YouTube will give us a cut of the advertising income.

Since the day I passed my driving test I have dreamed about owning a Triumph TR7 sports car.

YouTube, will you help me buy that ?

I asked Josh what his dream car is. He was a bit

evasive but I have found out !  The only thing is it has to be black.  You got that YouTube. Do me a Favour YouTube, sort my Triumph TR7 before you get Josh his Bentley !

What is your dream car ?  We will be asking you, our listeners, in a future show to tell us all about your dream cars.

We'll play you a request on the show. Tomorrow we will be playing that for listener David Martin. And Josh will be playing this for him Mum.

Josh and I have had fun with music for coming up to two years. I am busy sorting a couple of thousand pictures to add to the gallery in our website. I am known as THE GERIATRIC DJ - you can find our website at www.geriatricdj.com Josh is known as THE ETERNAL TEEANGER - you can also find the website at www.eternalteenager.online

Don't you think that Josh looks a bit like Marty Wilde ?

At twenty-eight years of age Josh jokes he gets age checked if he goes to buy a packet of flumps.

My hair is growing back after my second annual sponsored haircut in May. I will soon be a hippie again !  The 2020 sponsored haircut will happen on Tuesday 19th May 2020 in support of Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter.

So coming to a loudspeaker near you......

TOMORROW.....

www.crmk.co.uk.....

5am to 10am......

Dave and Josh are The DJ bringing you START THE WEEK.

Get ready to roll out the barrel because we are bringing you a BARREL OF FUN....

An Afternoon with Elton

Elton John is not my sort of person. Yeh, I like his music but don't often play it. That's probably a bit unfair and it is not a conscious move on my part, I simply don't play it much.

Elton John is a good bit older than I am. I remember his early hits as I moved through the 1970's from being a teenager into adult life. Songs like Crockodile Rock and Don't Go Breaking My Heart which he sang as a duo with Kiki Dee.

If I am honest he looks a bit of a prat in that video. The audio is good but the video is NAF ! Actually Elton John is a bit of a prat.

Yesterday afternoon I went to watch the film ROCKET MAN. I was expecting to watch a musical biography of Elton John in the same style where Bohemian Rhapsody was a music biography of Queen.

NO - that was not what the film was all about.

I thought the boy who played the young Elton John was great. I was a bit confused when the older Elton started to

appear in a rehab group and flashback to his childhood and early days as a rock star.

The sex scenes I found tacky and unnecessary. The producers of Bohemian Rhapsody had not needed to exploit the sexuality of Freddy Mercury in order to tell the musical story of Queen.

I went to watch the film so I could review it on Monday's radio

programme. The original plan was to take Josh and Jelena with me but yesterday was Lena's birthday, they had other plans for the day so I went alone. As the film started I was glad they were not with me, I did not think they would have liked the film. Josh called me yesterday evening to ask what I thought of the film, it was a long conversation as he was fascinated by my report.

I still think that Elton John is a bit of a prat but the film was not primarily about his music.

You have got to stop being the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be.................

Listening to Elton John's music as I did decades ago I did not realise I was listening to music from an alcoholic drug addict living a dysfunctional life surrounded in wealth and fame he could not handle.

Watching Rocket Man and the recollections of an alcoholic drug addict in rehab it was clear why he was where he was.    The sex scenes which I initially did not see why the writers and producers had included in the film were central to the story.

Elton John was unloved, unloved during his childhood and as he grew into manhood his sexuality confused him. He felt unloved and could not love himself. Alcohol and drugs are a brilliant way to shut out the sadness of life. As Reginald Kenneth Dwight turned into Elton Hercules John I wonder if he could have become the record selling musician we know today without the alcohol and drugs.

No, Elton John is not my kind of person. What a prat to have added Hercules into his adopted stage name. Playing his music on this blog page I find I really like it, perhaps I should

play it more.

Josh, when the DVD of Rocket Man is released I will buy you a copy.

This evening Josh, Mrs Josh - Jelena, and I will be going to watch YESTERDAY.

Together we will review that film in our radio show on Monday 15th July.

To conclude.....

My afternoon with Elton John yesterday was well spent. My problem is, how am I going to be able to review the complexities of Rocket Man in the short space of time Josh and I have written into this coming Monday's show ?

ZOOM

I need to apologise, I guess, for going a bit over the top with Facebook posting yesterday evening but I just could not - I still can not - get over what my two friends Josh and Jelena did yesterday.

What an adventure !  What a challenge !

I am going on an adventure this afternoon. I am going to watch the Elton John film ROCKET MAN.

Elton John isn't quite my sort of person and although

I do like his music I don't play it all that much on the radio. There are a couple of Elton tracks in the playlist for Monday. Rocketman, of course and Daniel.

I remember Elton singing Rocketman on Top Of The Pops and wearing a pair of ZOOM glasses. I have trawled both Amazon and e-bay but can not find a pair to by.

As a part of Monday's show Josh will talk about his climbing adventure and I will chat about Rocketman.

I  began writing this blog page on 15th December 2016, today this is the 826th edition. There have been 93,019 readers over the years. I have been wondering about giving up but for now I'll keep things going.

However, I want to move things forward with a

regular video blog.

Google Blogger, the format used for this page is not particularly user friendly - to geeky and limited.

I understand that people make money from video blogs.

It would be nice to make money from a video blog, sure it would, but not a fortune. Enough to cover the costs of ADVENTURES for our radio show - that would be nice.

The way it works is YouTube put an advert on the blog and the writer receives a cut of the money.

That first video blog edition was published at 6am - 9am now and it has had 9 views.  Don't think we will make a load of cash from that !  So help us and share it, get YouTube to stand up and take notice.

I have for a long time wanted to dance The Lambeth Walk on The Lambeth Walk.

The Lambeth Walk features in my book The Bridge House.

I suggested to Lena that we could give it a go for a video blog. She liked the idea.  Berkeley Square.

The video could continue there. Of course The Ritz Hotel is just round the corner.

Tea At The Ritz costs £58 per person. 3 x £58 = £174. That's not bad. Now that would be something to report on as an adventure on the radio. I think I will cost a visit to London with The Lambeth Walk, Berkeley Square and Tea At The Ritz included, see how many views we need on You Tube to cover it all.

I wonder if The Ritz has a dress code. Will they let me in wearing a pair of ZOOM glasses ?

SOD IT ! Please rain.

Sod it ! I have just checked the weather forecast for today and it's sunshine and more sunshine.     SOD IT !  Why can't it rain when you need it to ?

A message to the bosses at Radio CRMK you may need to remove the intended new Monday show from the schedule. Chances are I am likely to be in intensive care, either that or I will be a long-term resident of the funny farm.

I spent yesterday at the home of the show's co-presenter. I thought we were going to tweak the playlist for the show. Josh ripped it up and changed everything !

Within each show we are going to have an ADVENTURE. In the week running up to the show we will do something then report on it.

The plan was - WAS - to go to the cinema and watch ROCKET MAN..... WAS....

Was....................

This is what we are going to do instated !

Listener Ian Billington asks if I have a head for heights.

I do not. I never have.

To promote our show Josh and I are planning to start a video blog. I think this could be a case of VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR !

My friend, and I use the word quite loosely, wants us to wear the San Francisco shirts we wore at Sunshine Smile Day 2018.

Mate, I would rather skydive from the Golden Gate Bridge than do what you are planning for this afternoon !

I MEAN THAT !  I do !

I have been to San Francisco nine times. Will I survive to go for a tenth time ?

Josh is bringing his wife, Mrs Josh, with

him for film the video blog.  My wife is stopping at home checking the in insurance policy !

If I survive today - IF - Monday's show will be my

155th broadcast on Radio CRMK. Have no fear, when it comes to Monday 15th July and the 156th show I will come up with something to get revenge on my co-presenter !

Josh, yesterday when we were working on the playlist I introduced you to something by Mr Richard Head. Can't play it here, Google will not allow it, but as I play this bit of silliness let those words run through your head !  I can assure you I will be doing the actions to this later today.

Rocking With My Granddad !

There was a time when I was always known as DAVE, nobody ever called me David.

DAVE was a happy-go-lucky person, forever smiling, joking and having fun but I felt people did not always take me seriously so I made a conscious effort to stop people referring to me as Dave but instead call me DAVID. Over the years the change happened and DAVE vanished into history.

Maureen tends to call me  DAVE.  I remember Josh asking me, that would be about a year ago, if I minded him calling me DAVE. He thought the name better suited me but he did not want to offend me by using the shortened version of my name.

From this time on DAVID dead. LONG LIVE DAVE !

I'll come to the rocking with my granddad bit in a moment but first here's something my Granddad used to play when I was a kid.

When I was DAVE - not David.

Five days to go until the launch of the new show on Radio CRMK.  I am so much looking forward to getting behind the microphone again.

Watch out world DAVE is coming. But he aint coming alone. Start The Week is being co-presented by Dave and Josh.

Dave and Josh - D & J - DJ

My full name is David John Bekah Ashford, I usually sign my name D J Ashford - DJ

Josh is Joshua Denis Lawance Morgan - JD - that does not work BUT revers the first two initials and you have DJ

So START THE WEEK is brought to you by DJ.

Here's something my Granddad used to knock out on the piano.

My Granddad was Frederick Robinson but was always known as FRED.

He never stopped fooling around, playing jokes and smiling. On the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation he dressed up as a clown and fooled around at a street party. I WAS THERE !

Going back a few months I was playing this on the CD in the car.

I really like that, Josh said.

I explained to him that it came from my Granddad's era, Granddad was born in January 1900 !

That cockney classic music reflects the fun THE DJ will be playing in START THE WEEK.

Josh m8 you'd have been MINUS 91 years of age when FRED was born !

Within Start The Week there is a feature ROCKING WITH MY GRANDDAD. Josh will play some music from his childhood in the 1990's and ask me to rock and comment about it.

Josh, you little git will you tell me what to include in the playlist. I think you are secretly holding back so I do not get to listen to anything before we go live at 5am on Monday.

Josh, this was number one in the charts on the day you were born.

I think my Granddad would like that.

This is a song and a recording from 1900.

I Want To Be A Military Man by Louis Bradfield.

Granddad Fred never was a military man. When World War One broke out he was too young to join the army. 

In 1939 Granddad was working on the railway which was a reserved occupation meaning he was not allowed to leave and join the army. Instead Fred worked on the railway by day and was in the Home Guard at night as a fire watcher.

Granddad was based at Nine Elms Railway Depot. YES, he was always putting out fires from German bombing. THREE times his home was bombed in the blitz, three times the family had to move house.

So Fred, Granddad will you come and rock with Dave and Josh - THE DJ - on Monday ?  5am to 10am www.crmk.co.uk

Fred - Fred Robinson - My Granddad, this is in the playlist. I never knew your mother, my great-grandmother, but here's something for your own mother Mrs Robinson: