Gillian

THURSDAY 27 MARCH

See? I told you it was good, didn’t I? And I wholeheartedly agree with all the comments that have been made about Gillian, whose picture proudly tops off this posting.

As for the future.....

Several of my colleagues at BBC Radio Newcastle have expressed well-meant misgivings about ‘guest blogposting’. They’ve pointed out that not everyone will feel confident enough to draft a posting for the blog - indeed, they’re pretty amazed that anyone would ever agree to do so! I certainly don’t want anyone to feel self-conscious about being cajoled or emotionally ‘blackmailed’ into writing a posting for the blog. So, although any guest postings will always be seriously welcomed, I won’t be putting any blogsters ‘on the spot’ by actually inviting them. And I don't want any of us to put any kind of pressure on each other to draft blogpostings, either.

Instead, it’s a kind of ‘standing invitation’ to anyone who wants to send me a draft - as often or as rarely as they like!

Subject closed.

THE TRUCKSHUNTER QUESTIONNAIRE
You’ll be aware that several papers and magazines have what they often call a ‘questionnaire’. Some Z-list celeb of no interest to anyone except themselves is invited to answer a set list of questions of the ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ type and we all doze off quietly reading their answers. Well, all that changes as of NOW.

It seems to me that, over the last few weeks, truckshunters have been getting to know each other more and more. Snippets of personal history and individual opinions and tastes have leaked out in your blog comments for quite some time now but the revelations have been ‘unequal’ - different levels of revelation on widely differing subjects. I think it would be interesting to ‘regularise’ what we say about ourselves by homing in on specific questions.

Anyway, we can only see how it goes!

To start the ball rolling, how about an innocent question like....

WHO SHOULD PLAY YOU IN A FILM OF YOUR LIFE STORY?
Given complete freedom of fantasy, I would have liked W C Fields to play me. I would also like to have seen what a combination of Montgomery Clift and Paul Scofield would have made of my humdrum existence. (I make no apology for admitting, on air, that I’ve had a crush on Paul Scofield for most of my adult life. His stage and screen impact, his handsome, craggy face and sad eyes, his looming, mesmerising voice - what a sexy combination! If Sir Ian McKellen can admit to having had a crush on Derek Jacobi, then yours truly is proud to be the founder member of the Paul Scofield Appreciation Society. I was devastated to my core when he died last week.)

As everyone I’ve mentioned so far is, catastrophically, dead then I think Dame Judi Dench should be given the opportunity to portray me. She’d probably make a good job of it, too.

There could, of course, be a supplementary question here. Who should play the other people we all know? Who do YOU think should play me? Who should play Mike Parr? Or Sue Sweeney? Or Loz? Or Hildie? Or.......?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.