Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Television presenter who co-hosted the daytime show 'This Morning' with his wife Judy Finnigan.
On the island
Eight records
SummertimeFavourite
I'd heard of Ella Fitzgerald as I sort of grew up, and my parents are very keen on her, but I didn't really sort of discover just how gifted she was, and what an amazing voice she had, until I met Judy. And one day we were quite early on in our relationship, we were sort of swapping records like you do, and it was vinyl then, and she had a collection of Ella Fitzgerald songs, and we put it on, and I realised then just how what a gift she had. And Summertime, to me, just is the best template of her voice. It's just beautiful.
Well, it's appropriate, isn't it? Um the Dance of Death, yes. Dance Macabre, uh Saint-Solmes, wonderful piece. This was one of my father's favourites. My father had a had an incredible collection of classical music. And uh this was one of his favourites and he played it a lot and it was and it became mine too. It's just a wonderful, wonderful piece of storytelling and music.
This is inspired by m my son Jack actually. It's uh it's an American singer, uh John Mayer, singer songwriter. About three years ago uh Jack and I were sort of having a father-son Sunday morning washing our cars.
Well, this is actually this dates back to my school days. Simon and Garfunkel were a huge inspiration musically to myself and a friend Paul. We formed a little group, a little folk pop group, called Alchemy. It was the 1970s. Yes, that's European. Exactly. And we covered a lot of Paul Simon. I think it's his loveliest song, Hearts and Bones.
I love the Eagles. And I have to say, and I'm not the only person to have said this, don't take this the wrong way, but they sound very sexy. Mm-hmm. But have you ever seen them? They're like sacks of potatoes, and they were back then. But I think this is one of their sweetest compositions and melodies. It's New Kidd in Town.
Back to school days really, um I loved the Who when I was at school and I can still remember the day when my mate Chris who lived around the corner banged on my door and said, Come around to my place, come round to my place, I've got to hear this who track, you've got to hear this who track and it was I think the best track they ever laid down. Won't get fooled again.
Um I was it's really hard compiling this list, as I'm sure everybody says to you, and I I really, really wanted to take uh a Police track uh with me, because I think Police were one of the best bands uh of the eighties. But in the end I decided that the reason I love them so much is because of Sting, his voice. Um Sting's voice is just extraordinary, he's sort of the Rod Stewart of his age I suppose, only only better, sorry Rod. Um and I think it's h his his lovely poetic singing is never better heard than in in Fields of Gold.
Libby Crabtree, BBC Philharmonic and Yan Pascal Tortelier
It's actually something that that Judy and I sort of in advance of our ultimate demises have fought over. We both want this played at our funerals, but we couldn't really both have it played at our funerals. I guess the first one to die will get it played. It's just just stratospherically beautiful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:45Do you derive a degree of comfort from knowing that [your personal life] is all out there, that nobody can ever get one over on you?
I wonder if that is the reason that I in particular am so sort of remorselessly, embarrassingly sometimes frank. I don't know. I think it might be actually more a reaction to the men in my past. My grandfather, for example, very typically of his generation, spoke very little about his emotions and his feelings and the bad things that had happened to him. And similarly, I didn't really understand until after my father had died … that there were a great many things about him, psychologically, emotionally, that he kept buttoned up. I came to realize that keeping as quiet as both he and his father had done hadn't been particularly good for either man. And as I moved through my twenties, I sort of unconsciously, I think, resolved to be the opposite, to say what I thought, to wear my heart on both sleeves, as it were, and communicate with my family, and then as my career developed, I guess, with the wider public.
Presenter asks
9:37Can you explain the story of your grandfather [and his family's emigration]?
Well, yeah, it starts in 1907 with my grandfather, who was ten years old. And he was in a big family, had six siblings, and his father, who ran a very small business in Worcester, went bust. My great-grandfather, Henry, couldn't really think what to do, and so he went up to Shropshire, where he had two brothers and a sister, a spinster sister, who tenanted a farm there. And his older brother, William, offered him not a loan, but a gift of money so that the whole family could emigrate to Canada and make a new start there. And the only collateral he asked for was one of the children. And that child was my grandad, because at ten he was just the right age to start working on the farm. So they set off shortly afterwards, got all their stuff on a wagon, went up to Liverpool, and halfway there they stopped in Shropshire and overnighted on the farm. And my grandfather, who was ten years old, woke up the next morning and they'd all gone.
The keepsakes
The book
Susanna Clarke
It's about the return of magic to England at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and the descriptive force of the writing and of the magic that is done is utterly believable, and you can reread it a million times and see fresh.
The luxury
I'd probably sing my own songs, remind myself because you know, when you know when you sing a song that you familiar with.
Presenter asks
14:20When you yourself became a dad, did you ever worry that there was something lurking in there [from your father's violent rages]?
Everybody asks that question, um and the answer is quite simply no. I think by twenty six I was reasonably clear about who I was, you know. I'd left it completely behind, so no, I I never reflected and and worried that maybe I'd, you know, visit the sins of the Father on my son.
Presenter asks
15:16What was it you were hurrying towards [as a young man]?
I was herring away from failure because the plan was to do my A-levels, go to university, read English, and then get some kind of graduate placement on the newspaper. I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. And when I was 16, I applied to the local paper in Brentwood in Essex, the Brentwood Argus, now defunct, just for what we would now call work experience. And the editor wrote back very bluntly and said, no way, they hadn't got the time to put up with a 16-year-old making tea. But I could come in and just have an interview one afternoon about the job. That sort of come and learn about the paper turned into an offer of a job on the spot. I was a news editor when I was 19, which was painfully young. I was a political editor when I was 17, which is absurd. But I used to reach out and grasp the challenge and yank myself up the ladder to make sure that when my friends came out of university at 21, and some of them wanted to be a reporter too, I was miles ahead, otherwise what was the point?
Presenter asks
22:39At the time [of the Tesco shoplifting incident], did you not feel that the world was falling in on your head?
Absol absolutely. It was unbelievably humiliating. But going back to your your question, Dad would have found that very hard. He would have been wonderfully supportive, but I think he would have been mortified that that his son had got himself into that kind of a of a mess.
Presenter asks
29:57Is it difficult for you to cope with [the minuscule viewing figures on the digital station Watch]?
Not at all, because we knew before we went that however it panned out to begin with, the viewing figures were going to be minuscule. I mean, you know, we haven't jumped into this, you know, not knowing that, and we don't mind. The only disappointment so far, and we launched in October, and it's you know, we're now coming into the spring, the channel as a whole, which is called Watch, hasn't really got traction. Overall, across the channel, people aren't watching in any significant numbers, and that obviously includes us. If I thought that the show that we're making was part of old rubbish, then I would feel embarrassed, and I would feel and so would Judy. But it's a good show, we're getting really good guests. We just have to cross our fingers and hope that the the audience will build.
“I came to realize that keeping as quiet as both he and his father had done hadn't been particularly good for either man. And as I moved through my twenties, I sort of unconsciously, I think, resolved to be the opposite, to say what I thought, to wear my heart on both sleeves, as it were, and communicate with my family, and then as my career developed, I guess, with the wider public.”
“If you take yourself seriously, then you're going to ride for a fall. Because it's the invisible clause in the contract that you sign when you become a a broadcaster. They will rip it out of you. And you have to be prepared for that.”
“When I asked her to marry me, I can still remember th this kind of gimlet look that I got back very calculated look really and she said, Look, I come in a three pack. I knew exactly what she meant. And I but I took that very very seriously and you know, yeah, twenty six is very young, isn't it? And Judy was right, not to be suspicious, but to be cautious. And in the end I figured it would be okay, and and and it was.”