Years back, last century, we worked with two oddbods on Going Live! I don’t mean Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene; they were, and are, lovely. I’m talking about a right couple of characters called Don Singing and Bob Corner, otherwise known as The Singing Corner.
What happened to them after their brief TV life on the Saturday morning show is unknown. They just vanished. And yet me and Trev always found them good, if slightly eccentric, company. And so we decided to track them down.
That was no easy task, but more on that some other time. We did find them, eventually, and they granted us a rare interview.
We hope to have that up and running by the end of the week. Maybe a two-parter (they don’t half go on). In the meantime, why not enjoy their hit single (reaching no.61 in the charts), Jennifer Juniper with Donovan, accompanied by some exclusive footage.
So, me and Trev were kindly invited to take part in Twit Relief as part of Comic Relief. Twit Relief, where folk could bid for us (and proper bigwigs like Richard Curtis or Lily Allen or, perhaps, Ghandi) to follow them on Twitter. Lots of the famous people also offered extra prizes, like tickets to their shows, or gold discs, or their shoes. We barely have any shoes and we haven’t done a show since 1964. But we wanted to make the effort and so we offered a chance to play pool with us at Spots and Stripes, underneath the arches, next to a boxing club in Waterloo.
Someone bid £371 for us. The fool! But well done, David. And thanks for helping Comic Relief. David brought along his friend Karen, who didn’t know she was going to meet us, and is (pity her please) a fan of us from yonks ago. It was meant to be a dream come true. It should have been like Jim’ll Fix It.
We did our best. Here’s what happened.
And big thanks to Nigel at Spots and Stripes for his marvellous hospitality.
Wooooooooh! Podcast No.13. And, spookily, only 26 days after Hallowe’en. Dare you listen to it?
If you do listen, you’ll see that we end on a highlight. Only an interview with Norwegish Pop legends a-ha. Enjoy it, and remember, as the weather turns cold, stay on those roads.
Just click on the link above to listen to it. Or to download the podcast: On a PC, right-click on the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download it to the selected location on your computer. On a Mac, hold down Ctrl and click the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download it to the selectedlocation
And Andrea has made a big and thorough list. Here’s what you’ll find:
Oh, and click on the highlighted ones for bonus fun. Sorry if some are a bit rude. Whenever I am searching for images I can’t help but type in “sexy” first. Like “sexy hat”. Try it. Unless you don’t want to, or don’t approve.
Here’s Pocast No.10, or, if you prefer, Podcast No.9 part two. We recorded Podcast No.9 a few weeks back sitting on a balcony at the Royal Festival Hall. When we’d done, we moved inside, had a sandwich, and then did another. We don’t get to meet up too much so’s we thought it a good idea (that’s one of the best sentences I’ve ever written).
Just click on the link above to listen to it. Or to download the podcast: On a PC, right-click on the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download it to the selected location on your computer. On a Mac, hold down Ctrl and click the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download it to the selectedlocation
We hope you enjoy it. And we hope to do another next Wednesday, most likely our last before Christmas. If you need any festive questions answering, you know you can rely on us.
Two of our lesser known characters from the days of Going Live! would most likely be The Rogers Brothers. Randolf and Rudy Rogers, an old musical hall act, sons of the popular seaside variety act, Bucket and Spade. Bucket and Spade, both dead, survived only as a framed photograph on top of Randolf’s piano. Rudy, played by me, was prone to awful bouts of depression over the death of his parents. It would descend upon him as a black cloud and the boys would declare “Mr Gloom is in the room”, or “Mr Glum has come” or “Mr Misery is in the vicinity”. Trev, as Randolf, would attempt to cheer his brother up with a jaunty “Hey ho! Pop pop!” As in sketches so in life.
Quite why this was allowed to be on a Saturday morning childrens show is bewildering to me. Obviously we must have sat around and thought, what are the kids into these days? And the answers that came back were hippies, barbers and old-time music hall acts singing vaguely rude songs and weeping openly over the death of their parents. Hey ho! Pop pop!
One of our songs was an old music hall ditty called Carry Your Little Belisha Beacon Everywhere You Go. We’ve sung ths song throughout our career in a variety of guises; the Eggrobats- bald men in nappies, The Rogers Brothers, and a scout leader and his boyscout friend.
The Eggrobats- Simon Hickson, Phil Dennison and Trev Neal. Accompanied by Sophie Aldred, Kath Jones and Doon Mackichan.
Here we are accompanied by The Doves from Dan and the Doves. The Doves being Sophie (later to be Ace in Dr. Who), kath, and Doon, (later to be big comedy cheese in The Day Today, Smack the Pony and the recent Taking the Flak). Poor Doon is obscured by the big glowing end of Trev’s beacon.
If you’d like to know the lyrics to this rude song you can find them here. I’ve tried to find out who it’s by but everytime I do a search I come back to me. I promise you, we did pinch it.
Nothing’s new and nothing’s original. We based the Rogers Brothers on The Cox Twins. However weird our creations were, the real deal were even weirder.
The Cox Twins
You can find out more about Frank and Fred here. But sadly not much. They married twins, Estelle and Pauline Miles, and then they all lived together in one house. The first time I saw them I was astonished. I can’t remember what they did, I just remember thinking they were nuts. In the nicest possible sense. They were funny and weird, but what did they do? They appear briefly in Funny Bones, Peter Chelsom’s film starring Lee Evans and Jerry Lewis and set in Blackpool. Truly, what more could you want from a film. The only clip I could find isn’t a performance, but you might like it anyway. Here they are being interviewed on TVam. With their twin wives.
Even less survives of the Rogers Brothers. They’re on our live video, the Blimey That’s Good Tour, but who has videos? Even I don’t have it. I used to hate watching it. The day before the show was recorded I had some jabs for a forthcoming holiday in The Gambia. I was given the wrong dose for, I think, Typhoid. Five times too much! Throughout the show I look like I am about to die. Hey ho! Pop pop!
But I did find something. One of the most bizarre clips I’ve seen. It’s us as the Rogers Brothers taking part in a Comic Relief special; singing along with a host of celebrities to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Everything’s here. It ranges from the apalling, Nicholas Witchell miming keyboards; to the moving, Caron Keating gooning around with her mum. You’ll see other faces that might lead to Mr Gloom coming into the room. And I don’t mean Noel Edmonds. And there’s a few degenerates in there too. I’ll let you figure out who they are.
And remember, nothing really matters. Hey ho! Pop pop!
Here’s Podcast No. 7. Andrea, our producer, says it’s “very funny and has a lovely vibe”. And she knows. And sorry once more but there has to be a warning! This Podcast contains bad language. Actually really quite bad bad language! Sorry. You have been warned. I blame David Cameron.
Just click on the link above to listen to it. Or to download the podcast: On a PC, right-click on the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download it to the selected location on your computer. On a Mac, hold down Ctrl and click the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download it to the selectedlocation.
Hello folks. We haven’t forgotten you and we hope you haven’t forgotten us. Yes, it’s been just over a month since our last podcast and we’re well aware we are due another one. We’re getting podcast withdrawal symptoms. I was found wandering the streets the other day, muttering to myself about monkey coconut abuse. Trev’s suffering from tweed withdrawal so badly he’s taken to wearing tweed pyjamas.
We will do another. Honest. Promise. It’s just that Andrea, our lovely producer and instigator and mentor blah blah blah has only gone and got herself a proper job, and launched an album called Photograph, and just in general got on with her life rather than wasting it with a couple of daft-talking chancers.
We plan to kidnap her. We will kidnap her, keep her locked up for months on end until she develops Stockholm Syndrome. The we will all move to Stockholm and do a podcast from there. At least that’s the plan (that I’ve just made up in the last few seconds of typing).
Failing that we’ll wait until we’ve all got a free evening.
Download notes: For PC users, right-click the link above, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download to the selected location on your computer. For Mac users, hold down Ctrl and click the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download to the selectedlocation on your computer.
That’s the serious stuff out of the way. So, yes, here’s No.3, recorded (for all you time fans) between approximately 2.30pm and 3.30pm on the 19th March 2009. In Andrea’s flat. Which is in Peckham or Dulwich, depending on whether you want to be poncey or not. Peckwich.
Andrea sent it to me to post up here, but without her usual list. She did one but it got lost in cyberspace. And so she asked me to do it because… well, I guess she just can’t even begin to bear to listen to the whole thing again. Podcasts should be like Mission:Impossible missives. They should detonate five seconds after being heard. And that should be that. Until the next one. So, I’m in charge of the list, and it turns out to be a long one. Here’s what you can listen to in Podcast No.3:
Here’s Trev’s artwork for Muck Off, a Blimey that’s Good! product designed to keep pests out of your garden. I guess this was made for our tour. I can’t begin to believe we were allowed to get away with it on Saturday morning TV.
We did our second podcast on Thursday, officially called Trev and Simon Podcast No.2. Why’s it taken so long to arrive here I hear you ask (except I don’t)? Well, I forgot what I was doing and had to have a conference call with Andrea our producer, and then we started talking about capybaru’s. You see! It’s not just Trev I can talk rubbish with. So, yes, another hour (actually just under) of two men talking nonsense… last time I compared it to a trip to the pub to listen to two old drunkards. This is more like a stop off on the way to listen to two cider swigging hobos on a park bench… friendly ones though, the type who feed the birds tuppence a bag.
Download notes: For PC users, right-click the link above, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download to the selected location on your computer. For Mac users, hold down Ctrl and click the link, then select ‘Save Link As’ and download to the selectedlocation on your computer.
That was a serious bit wasn’t it? We pinched that from some people who do a proper podcast.
Here’s what some of our listeners thought of Podcast No.1:
I am very happy that you are doing a podcast… Siobhan
I want cake… Elaine
I make good cakes… Hannah
Great podcast guys… Tom
Great podcast… Maisie
I loved the podcast!!!!… Zoe
I loved it most… Mr Kipling
VERY VERY funny… James
Enjoyed it very much… rambling… epic… nondescript… butts… shirts… much better… BingoTom
Better than mine… Ricky Gervais
Ok, I made that last one up and BingoTom’s I edited a bit, but you get the drift. Oh, and I made the Mr Kipling one up.
Here’s another list, lovingly prepared by producer Andrea, who, in an official capacity, has no choice but to listen to the podcast more than once. This time round we talk about…
Podcast number two
Growing old disgracefully
Andrea looking like Nana Mouskouri
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
Trevor wearing tweed now, Simon wearing tweed at university
Underpants
Mistresses (the TV show)
The Chap and Vic Reeves
Simon’s leather Nazi coat and other fascist fashion trends
Simon’s visit to Woodlands, incl. peak flow and a touchy-feely nurse
Renaming strokes
Trev brings coconut cake which looks like a polar bear, Simon refuses to eat it
Pig-tailed macaques (and their role in the coconut trade)
Trevor’s family bike ride
The Brits
Old people wearing young people’s fashion
Andrea’s new band The Hummingbirds
Questions and comments from our listeners
Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins
Glutinous rice
What are the origins of Trev and Simon’s nicknames, ‘Minty’ and ‘Sticky’?
Celebrity ham
Tampons
An update on the Trev And Simon website, blog and Facebook page
That’s 24 things!
As usual (usual? It’s only the second one) it’s all there in its unedited glory. We don’t plan much and we don’t know what we’re going to say but we enjoy ourselves and we hope you enjoy listening to it. Oh, and as usual, this podcast is unsuitable for children… and adults.
Oh, and big apologies to that most excellent Chap, Michael “Atters” Attree for calling him Michael “Atters” Atterby! What was I thinking?
Oh, and for those of you keen to find it on iTunes, it should hopefully find its way there within a couple of days. We’ll keep you posted with a post when they post it.
Posted by Simon Hickson 
Here’s Trev’s artwork for Muck Off, a Blimey that’s Good! product designed to keep pests out of your garden. I guess this was made for our tour. I can’t begin to believe we were allowed to get away with it on Saturday morning TV.
Trev and Simon 