claytoncast

One of the illicit guilty pleasures of early winter night television is the glut of reality shows that seem to fill our screens. I know it is not everybody's cup of tea but I'm afraid that Rich and I do set the recorder for“Strictly come dancing" and “ X factor". There is a real pleasure when one of the contestants and their celebrity dancing partner, or budding recording artist, actually does well. What does annoy me greatly is that when they don't do so well, and people refuse to tell them. There were quite a few performances on last night's edition of the X factor that needed firm criticism. Quite simply the singers failed to deliver, and they needed to be told so. So they can start to deal with what will be a recurring feeling in their career, no matter how successful they become. Failure is one of the most important and yet difficult things to deal with as a performer.Believe me it never gets any easier. No matter what you've done before, you...

I think I have mentioned before in these pages how I love autumn as a season. As the air gets colder the days get shorter and the leaves turn to gold I start to feel cosy and warm. I think it might be part of the process of getting older, but as one does so I feel that one wants what is familiar around one. I spent Monday of this week up at my Mother’s. She is much better now and has regained much of her bloom and wit. Her house is now virtually a nest. Chairs filled with familiar objects, old pieces of paper that “she might need’ and a resistance to change that is almost palpable. It would be so much easier for her to have a microwave for her meal preparation, but this is something she has stoutly resisted for over twenty years, and now at the ripe old age of nearly 89 I stand very little chance of persuading her to have one. Anything new has to be introduced with the greatest of care. I managed to get her to use a new and more secure walking stick while she was ill, but I t...

There are some place names that when you hear them don't come up a vision of quiet idyllic hideaways. Marbella has always been one of these for me. For the last four years I've had the pleasure of directing the McDonald's UK AGM each October. It's taken me to Warsaw, Prague, and last year to Malta–a delightful burst of late autumn sunshine. Even though the work is hard and the crew and I spent long hours locked up in dark conference halls, it's always nice to come outside into a beautiful environment under a sunny sky. It started raining in Marbella within 10 min of me leaving the airport. Driving out of Malaga along the motorway that connects that part of coastal Spain, the rain lashed down. Through the running streams of water on the window screen, or was it the tears in my eyes, I saw a road lined with supermarkets, hypermarkets, all types of bloody markets. I started to know then what I know now–Marbella is not for me. The conference was being held in a large l...

For those of you who also follow Richards blog (www.richardhowle.co.uk) you'll know from his last blog as to why we like to get away on frequent holidays. this week saw our autumn break. Both of us worked on Monday morning, but were scheduled to met back at home ready to head for the airport and an early evening flight to Valencia in South Eastern Spain. The trouble began as I stepped out of my training session at McDonald's in East Finchley to head home for our rendezvous. I rang my Mum. Recently Mum as you probably know has suffered bouts of sciatica and she had now it seemed succumbed to the illness she had nearly three years ago, namely and overwhelming feeling of tiredness and fatigue. She is 89 in a months time and this might be understandable,but not if you've met my Mum. A little dynamo limited only by arthritis and a stick, she finds these attacks of tiredness very depressing. She sounded awful . I rang her again when I got home. She was no better. I be...