Up close and personal

GLEN Campbell, who has died at the age of 81, could be an interesting interviewee. Barry Didcock, a senior arts writer here, recalls going to meet him at his motel room - a motel in, of all places, Brentwood, in Essex.

Campbell had been relaxing prior to his concert at a local venue by watching the golf on his TV set (he was a keen golfer), but it had entirely slipped his mind that a Glasgow journalist was coming to see him. Thus was our man confronted with the startling sight of the country music legend opening the door, clad only in his underpants.

Didcock recovered his composure, however, and the interview went to plan. Campbell muted the sound of the TV - which was just as well, because at one point he leaned over and crooned the opening lines of Galveston into Didcock’s tape recorder.

Out of time

GALVESTON, Wichita Lineman and By the Time I Get to Phoenix, all of which were written by Jimmy Webb, were three of Campbell’s best-known songs and were the personal favourites of countless fans. There was one Herald critic who was particularly fond of them, and who, turning up late at a Campbell gig at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, was crushed to learn that all three had already been performed. It was “beyond careless”, our colleague wrote with sadness, “and the temptation to leave immediately was great”. Spoken like a true professional.

Generalisation

A COUPLE of fitting names in a passage in Martin Bell’s latest book, The End of Empire, spotted by David Miller: “The cuts to the Regular Army were followed by cuts to the Territorials, overseen by two generals whose names were Hackett and Carver”.

Funny you should ask

BRUCE Skivington says that a while ago he received a call from a firm who claimed to stop nuisance calls.

“How many nuisance calls have you had today?” the caller asked.

“Just one”, said Bruce.

“Who from?”

“You”, said Bruce, at which point the line went dead.

Bad Korea move

SO, if we understand this not-in-the-least inflammatory situation correctly, North Korea reportedly has a nuclear weapon that can fit on the tip of a ballistic missile; Trump has threatened to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea, which responds by saying that, if attacked, it will strike US military forces on Guam; and Rex Tillerson has played down any threat from Kim Jong-un. Reassuring, then, to read this astute observation on Twitter, from one Ken Tremendous: “This North Korea thing is really scary, but don’t worry -- we have our worst people on it”.

Knock on wood

TODAY’s Cambridge Street story comes from Gilbert MacKay. In 1961, his teacher, one Jack B., took Gilbert and two other pupils from his Higher Music Class to a piano shop in the street. “He wanted us to understand what went on under the bonnet of a concert grand”, Gilbert writes. “A flamboyant performer, Jack flipped open the lid of one piano and brought down a crashing two-handed chord.

“Unfortunately, no one had yet fitted a keyboard to the piano, and so all he hit was bare wood. To this day, I’m not sure if he knew the score all along, and was doing it for a laugh, which would have been in character”.