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On-street parking outside our studio is by permit only.

This fact is not very well sign-posted, so do please be careful not to fall into the local council’s money trap!

There are two car parks very close to the studio.  A small, long-stay car park at the bottom of Market Street, and the short-stay Shoppers Car Park halfway up the street on the right.  This is larger and of course, more expensive.

But let’s put this into perspective.  We’re not talking the value of a small bungalow for each hour charged by city centre car parks.  We’re talking three-pound-fifty for parking all day! (This goes up to £7 in the short-stay car parks).  One hour is just 50p and £1 for three hours.

Customers park for free

Nevertheless, since the introduction of car park charges in our otherwise idyllic market town, we have offered to pay our customer’s parking fees.  Not their fines, you understand, just the fees.  So if you haven’t got the correct loose change in your pocket, pull up outside the studio and we will issue you with the requisite parking machine fodder.

In fact we will pay your parking charges for the time you are at our studio – up to the maximum all-day charge in the town’s long-stay car parks.

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Preliminary Announcement:

Jayne and Chris Birchall are looking for the Face of 2009 – and it could be YOU!

Full details of this competition, which will carry a first prize worth £1000,  will be announced soon, so keep checking back here for news.

Or if you want to amongst the first to know, go to our Contacts Page now and simply put “Face of 2009″ in the message box.

We’ve had many a bum deal at Bum Bargains (you know where I’m talking about). We’ve had “Puracell” batteries that leaked acid under the Christmas tree, a festive hat that said “MERRY CHISTMAS” (Rs are in short supply when there’s an R in the month) and a friend of ours even had a fish die after being fed on (supposedly) brand named fish food.

Having vowed never to darken their door again, Jayne sheepishly admitted she had already become the proud owner of a box of classy looking black and white, velvet finish Christmas Crackers from that very store!!

We nervously ate our Christmas dinner, knowing that the inevitable was about to happen. Yes – before the Chirstmas pud could be served we would have to go through the annual ritual of pulling the Christmas Cracker. Only this year there was the added anticipation of wondering if we would manage to live though the ordeal!

The crackers certainly looked good for £3.99. But that didn’t stop Jayne and I testing the first one wearing an oven glove each and face masks before risking them on the rest of the family.

As pulls go it was fairly uneventful. There was the obligatory “crack” – and of course Jayne won (Jayne always wins )

Out popped at ball point pen! The remaining five crackers were (somewhat reluctantly) pulled and Jayne’s booty mounted: Headphones, a torch (that worked!), a set of make-up brushes and a corkscrew.

Not a flimsy plastic car/whistle/spinning top in sight! There were paper hats, of course, and the usual silly joke. But even these were not as bad as usual. In fact – amongst them was one of the best I’ve ever seen in a cracker (maybe the Shiraz helped).

It went:
“What do you call a chicken in a shell suit?”
Answer: “An egg”

Mwwwwwaaaaahahahah!

Chris Birket and all the other starts of the 2008 Cheeky Chappies Charity Calendar would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas!

I wonder if Chris realises he’s got a bear behind?!!.

Eifion Edwards spends his time keeping other peoples body work in good shape – well their cars, at least!.  It was Eifion who first decided to raise money for the North Wales Cancer Charities – a following discussions with some of the other Cheeky Chappies, the 2008 Calendar was born.

Fitness consultant Dave Evans has no fewer then eighteen black belts under his… erm.. well, Belt, I suppose!  these have been achieved in four different Marshal Arts disciplines, making him one of the most highly qualified in the country.

As one of Ruthin Rugby Club’s star players, Grant Mann is never one to keep a good tackle under wraps.

Fujifilm has just announced the winner of their 2008 Student Awards.

We heartily congratulate mature student David Wala, from Newcastle College, on his win and certainly wish him well with his future career.

Let’s hope he makes the most of the publicity surrounding this competition, because his prize was quite frankly, crap.

The organizers seemed to think that the honour of winning was prize enough. The following is a quote from Fujifilm’s press release:

“This year’s Awards were run in conjunction with Penguin Books and the brief was to provide a cover for the re-issued version of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 masterpiece, Invisible Man. David’s winning image will now grace the cover when the book is released as part of Penguin’s Modern Classics series. In addition to this amazing prize, David has been named as Fujifilm Student Photographer of the Year 2008. He also collects £200 of Fujifilm Professional film, a library of 100 Penguin Classics titles and a copy of the book, ‘Seven Hundred Penguins’.”

Now, let’s put this into perspective. A professional photographer would expect to receive up to £ 1410 in Royalties for having a photograph featured on the cover of a book such as this. This is the figure generated by picture agency Alamy’s cost calculator for 10 year world wide rights on hardback and paperback sales of up to 500,000 copies. The amount would potentially be more if the image was commissioned and shot to a brief, as is effectively the case here.

What did David receive? £200 worth of film. That’s retail value. The ex factory cost to Fujifilm would be less than half that amount. Plus 101 books he may or may not have the inclination to read!

Not a bad deal for Penguin who would also have had to pay thousands in advertising costs for the same amount of publicity.

Not a bad deal for Fujifilm either. Nearly 1,000 entries were submitted to the competition each taken on Fujifilm Professional film. So that’s at least a thousand rolls of film sold to the students compared to the 300 they gave away to the runners-up.

But it gets worse…

And this is were the exploitation of student’s creativity is really going on. Part of the competition’s terms and conditions state:

“Copyright remains the property of the photographer at all times but each entrant grants Fujifilm UK Ltd a non-exclusive, sub-licensable perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, publish, distribute and display any entry submitted as part of this competition in any format now known or later developed. Each entrant acknowledges that the Promoter may sub-license the rights in an entry to Penguin Books Ltd for use as part of a book cover and in any related advertising or publicity materials. If you do not want to grant these rights, please do not enter this competition.“

The sections in red, by the way, were marked by me to highlight the implications of accepting these terms. I’ll bet the majority of these students entered this competition without even reading the fine print.

What this means in real terms is that Penguin now have a library of 1,000 original creative images that they can plunder free of charge for the covers of any future titles they might publish. And believe me, there is some good work in there, as can be seen from the very small selection below:

Fujifilm have announced the continuation of their tie-in with Penguin Books, who have selected ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson for next year’s competition and will invite students to provide them with yet another royalty-free pot of golden images.

The 2009 Fujifilm Student Awards is due to be launched in September. I would strongly urge students not to take part unless this clause is dropped from the rules.

If you feel strongly enough about this blatant exploitation of our young talent, let the promoters know via their website.

…and Strawberry Fields Forever

Yes, my lovely wife sure knows how to make an aging would-be (some would say “has-been”) rock star happy.

Seriously. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday treat (at least not one I could write about here ).

My lady and I drove to the city that I’ve fallen in love with all over again, through Hunt’s Cross, which held so many fond childhood memories, past the John Lennon Airport with it’s huge sign aptly subtitled “above us only sky” and on to Speak. To be specific – Speak Hall – set in its beautifully manicured gardens on the banks of the Mersey.

But today we hadn’t come to partake of this magnificent Tudor mansion’s historical charms. We were a mere stone’s throw from the place that was the birth of the Mersey Sound and we were here to take a magical mystery tour to Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields and to the childhood homes of two of the twentieth century’s most prolific songwriters, name of John and Paul.

We needn’t have arrived early – but I’m glad we did. The tours were running late due to technical problems, so we had time for a nosh in Speak Hall’s restaurant. Nothing posh, but bloody good – and precisely what you’d have been eating in Liverpool during olden times.

The main course choices were Scouse Pie and Pan Haggerty. Being veggies we chose the latter and it was the nicest cheese, onion and potato pie I’ve tasted. The Wet Nelly was a new one to me, a citrus sweet northern version of one of the traditional English bread-based puddings. Hmm delicious. And all washed down with a bottle of Curiosity Cola. Give the National Trust their due… when they take you back in time, they do it in style.

Fully sated we boarded the mini bus to John Lennon’s former home, Mendips, on Menlove Avenue, where an extremely knowledgeable custodian gave us a full and frank potted history of when John met Paul, and how they used to practise their faltering early compositions in the tiny front room. The house had been restored to its former glory after being donated to the trust by Yoko Ono in 2003. When it first opened to the public, Paul McCartney had apparently told the custodian they used to practice singing in the front inner porch because of the fantastic acoustics. We each of us today took the opportunity to follow suit.

Did I mention Sir Paul? Next stop was the McCartney’s childhood home, 20 Forthlin Road, a couple of miles away in a less salubrious area of Allerton. And having joked en-route about expecting Sir Paul to have a nice cup of tea ready for us, I alighted from the mini bus to be greeted by… Paul McCartney!

Okay, after rubbing my eyes and taking a long hard look, I realised it wasn’t actually Sir Paul himself – but I tell you, had John Halliday not been gainfully employed as custodian of 20 Forthlin Road, he could make a very good living as a Beatle look-alike. No only that, he had the same mannerisms and even sounded like his multi-millionaire alter ego.

The former factory worker informed me he still couldn’t believe his luck being paid to live the house of his childhood hero and spend his days talking Beatle talk.

The framed photographs taken by Paul’s younger brother Mike McCartney, vouched for the authenticity of the trust’s restoration program.

Jayne even got to sit upon the former Beatle’s throne, having missed the sign for the new visitor’s toilet on the next outhouse along. When she emerged, to the surprise of one elderly lady queueing for the real toilet, Jayne told her she hoped she hadn’t flushed away any historical …erm …deposits, the poor lady couldn’t stop laughing at the thought and almost wet herself on the spot! She was still giggling as we all got back on the mini bus for the return trip.

It was a lovely day. It brought back fond memories of the time I was an Executioner, tinged with a little regret that I never actually met the Beatles when I played the Cavern, the Iron Door and other landmark venues back in the sixties. Although I didn’t appreciate the significance at the time, I am so glad I lived through that area. Jayne, bless her, missed it of course. She was knocking out a beat with a rattle on the side of her pram in Hyton whilst I was a mile or two down the road rattling the Cavern’s foundations with my bass guitar.

Happy days!

The Beatles tours are run from Speak Hall Wednesday to Sunday and Bank Holidays from April to October,
at 10.00, 10.50, 14.30 and 15.20. Please note there is no direct access to these properties by car or foot. You can book tickets via www.nationaltrust.org.uk/beatles or telephone 0151 427 7231.
Prices (2008): Adult £15.00, Child £3.00, NT Member Adult £7.00

It really is a great day out!

When Rob Wilding isn’t renovating Valkswagen campers vans, he’s wearing them! Of all the guys in the 2008 Cheeky Chappies Calendar, everyone reckons Rob’s smile is the cheekiest of them all!

After all that rain yesterday, you’d have expected the rock festival to have been a complete washout.

However, there was no chance of last night’s event ever degenerating into a communal mud bath, because this was the first outdoor festival to be held indoors!

The summer of love has come to Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre in the form of Jim Cartwright’s play Eight Miles High. The whole theatre was transformed into a farmer’s field. All of the theatre staff – and many of the audience too – were dressed in Caftans and had flowers in their hair. The set was magnificent, with the grassy stage extending right into the auditorium so that those occupying the front rows were actually sitting on the grass, picnic style, as the whole audience effectively became part of the show as festival-goers.

This is a play about the music, the hippies, the free love and flower power of the sixties.

My favourite of the whole evening was the Beatles number “A Day in the Life”. I never did get to know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall – but at least now I know how many actors it takes to fill the Royal Court.

This extremely talented cast performed a whole raft of iconic numbers from the days of Sargent Pepper, with a good sprinkling of Hendrix, Dylan and the like, thrown in for good measure!

They gelled like a rock band who had been performing together forever. They produced a sound every bit as good as any band I have seen playing live – in fact better than many! Remarkable when you consider they are a bunch of actors brought together a few short weeks ago to rehearse for this play.

They were all great. Paul Broughton (remember Eddie Banks in Brookside) portrayed a very convincing Hell’s Angel. For me though, the star of the show was Royal Court regular Andrew Schofield (pictured) who played the archetype hippy. Yeh! Far-out maaan!

Last night was the first performance of the play’s month-long run. It is a unique experience not to be missed. Do make sure you get to see this show before it ends on August 16th. It is fan-bloody-tastic!

Update: See the last night review in “comments” (below)

I’m not too sure that my lovely wife Jayne would approve but I must admit that under normal circumstances I would quite happily fantasise over the prospect of sharing a sauna with her and Kylie.

Last night was no kinky threesome however. There were at least 18,998 other people crammed in there with us and the “sauna” in question was the much overrated Manchester Evening News Arena.

Sadly, the Kylie X 2008 concert was completely ruined by the venue’s oppressive heat and diabolical sound quality.

Don’t get me wrong, what her lungs produced was pure Kylie – and what they were wrapped in was, of course, as delightful as ever. But oh dear… her much heralded new band sounded like a recently-formed group of teenage wannabes bent on blowing out the windows at their local village hall!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not averse to loud music per se, but what they delivered last night was a distorted mess that completely drowned out the voice of our diminutive, delectable iconic Aussie heartthrob.

Kylie darling: please sack your sound engineer. We really had no way of telling how good your band was through all the distortion

And my message to the MEN Arena: (definitely NO darling of mine): Sort out your acoustics …and your air-conditioning …and your seating …and your car parking and…

Better still, knock the whole place down and build a proper arena geared more to customer experience than money-grabbing sardine-packing.  And as far as the over-steep upper tiers are concerned, the only customers who might actually enjoy the experience of scaling these would be seasoned rock climbers!

The MEN should take a lead from Liverpool’s excellent new Echo Arena and Glasgow’s equally brilliant SECC.

Biggest doesn’t necessarily mean Best!

EDIT: check out the comments…

Everybody seems to be sixty these days!

Hah! ten years ago, I recall saying the same thing about people being fifty. That’s the way it goes, I suppose. You buy a Volkswagen and everybody seems to be driving one!

Anyway, my mate Patrick earned his bus pass and B&Q discount card this weekend. He’d had fifty guests at his fiftieth and was going to attempt to gather sixty for this do, then seventy in ten years time, and so on. Until, that is, I reminded him of the principles of the inverse square law!

All in all, we had a great day at the Faleur’s. Great company. Lovely food. and the weather even gave us a break just long enough to enjoy the magnificent buffet lunch in the garden.

Photoshop came to the rescue as far as his birthday card was concerned (out with last week’s sexagenarian and in with this week’s) and for his birthday present we went to Zimmers R Us. No-one, but no-one should ever expect a “normal” birthday present from the Birchalls!

Thanks for a great day Patrick & Liz. We’re off now to spend the evening with a forty year old who’s very close to my heart – name of Kylie

PS: Did I mention that Patrick is a pretty mean photographer? Check out his website

Oooooh! Spooooky!!

Bringing up the LL15 1BE location on Multi Map reveals that we are being watched!

The aerial image (courtesy of Microsoft Earth) shows the car park and roundabout top right, with Market Street running down to centre bottom.

Our studio is marked with the red arrow – and there, centre left, just next door to the Ambulance Station in School Lane, is a chisel-featured bloke keeping a beady eye on us!

Total raised to date is fast approaching £3,000

Cheeky Chappie Roger Everett was the “brains” behind the 2008 charity calendar, and we now have conclusive proof of where those “Brains” are kept: He’s sitting on them!