I suppose that's what I aspire to in these diaries. Bobby Dean and Roz Savage did not enjoy recording careers before they were elected to parliament last year, but their names make them sound as though they should have done.
Some parts are true though. Roz really has rowed those three oceans and, of course, there is a Rutland Water Monster.
Friday
This office over a tobacconist’s in Wardour Street may not look much, but it was from here that I controlled my music interests in the heyday of Rutbeat. I still manage the odd artist: my first visitor is Bobby Dean who, before taking Carshalton and Wallington, enjoyed some success in the American charts.
Like several dozen other young singers called Bobby, he was swept aside by the Beatles and the other groups of the British invasion. Last time we met, I was frank with him about the need to modernise his image, and he’s certainly doing his best to sound ‘with it’ this morning: “Hang out your hearing flaps, Daddy-o. My old platters came from lamesville, I dig, but this baby will make me a big barracuda again.”
He passes me a tape. The song is pleasant enough, but will the young people buy it? When I ask him, he is dismissive: “Don’t hand me that apple sauce, Pops.” This makes me wonder how much he took in when I played the Dutch uncle last time. (Incidentally Nick Clegg had a Dutch uncle – a charming fellow.)
Then Roz Savage calls by. I first met her when she and her all-female punk band stopped at Miss Flowerdew’s drapery in the village to buy safety pins. She is full of her plans to row across Rutland Water, having already bagged the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, but until the Monster is in less playful mood, I shall not encourage her. The chief whip will give me beans if I cause an unnecessary by-election in a seat we hold.
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