Barry Manilow ‘surprisingly assertive’: You don’t get out of Brooklyn by being a pushover

Last updated at 2:28 AM on 27th March 2011

I was extremely fortunate to be given a test drive in the new McLaren
MP4-12C sports car this week.

I suspected Ron Dennis’s company had
targeted me as I’m known to be a vocal devotee of their primary
competitor, the giant that is Ferrari. I knew their plan. Surely if
they could lure me away from my chosen carbon-fibre idol of many years,
they could seduce anyone  –  and thus ensure the future success of
their first mass-production luxury sports model… 

Want to own the the new McLaren MP4-12C sports car? You’ll have to wait a while…

After a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, including a tour of
the space-age McLaren HQ and a one-on-one with Chris, one of the chaps
who’s been developing the car for the past five years, it came to the
crunch. Given the hospitality, it would have been rude of me not to
have raised some hope among my hosts.

‘So,’ I enquired, naughtily
teasing the sales executive with an air of vague interest, ‘what if I
DID want to purchase a vehicle?’

He replied in a flash. ‘Oh no, there’s no chance of that, sir. Not for at least a year. We’ve completely sold out.’ 

Taxi for Evans!

****************************

‘So tell us, Chris,’ I’m asked on an almost daily basis, ‘what
do you actually do when you’re between radio and TV studios and Ferrari
showrooms and the McLaren HQ?’

The answer is, enough to make my head
spin, and make the promise of my Friday-night ritual escape to the New
Forest with wife and small son all the more critical  –  although even
that isn’t guaranteed to make me unwind as much as required. Take a
recent Friday.

It began with breakfast with Barry Manilow. My first
impression was how surprisingly assertive he is in real life. 

On Barry Manilow: You don’t bat your way out of Brooklyn as a poor skinny Jewish kid and end up owning a palace in Palm Springs by being a pushover

Thinking
about it, I don’t actually know why I was surprised. You don’t bat your
way out of Brooklyn as a poor skinny Jewish kid and end up owning a
palace in Palm Springs by being a pushover.

What a schmuck I can be
sometimes. At the end we hugged  –  or rather, I was hugged by Bazza.
(I’m never sure about this with people I don’t know, especially when
they’re famous and they go in first. I always start too weakly and then
overcompensate by going too tight and holding on for too long.)

When I at last managed to disengage, I skipped down to the
third floor of BBC HQ to have a meeting with my agent of the past 20
years, Michael.

A TV show was being offered. There often is. They are
usually terrible. This most recent proposition did not disappoint in
its disappointment. It was a revamp (beware).

‘Bring back WHAT?’ I
screeched, like John Galliano on his 14th absinthe and Slimline.

To put
it politely, it was a no from both of us, which left Michael with
another ten per cent of nothing and, more importantly, me with half an
hour to spare before I had to be at The One Show. Thus I trotted off to Mario, my magician with the
scissors.

Mario looks Scandinavian, but is in fact Belgian  –  and very Belgian when you get to know him, in that he is utterly pragmatic and so honest sometimes
it hurts.

I refer to him as a magician, because that’s what he has to
be where I’m concerned. There are so few strands to currently work with
(my little blue hair pills have still to kick in properly) that he
actually has to flesh out my visits with other things to fill the time.
There are at least two frothy coffees, a scalp rub, a shoulder massage
and what has become a shared reading-and-movie list for us to discuss.
Most of the films Mario nominates star beautiful young men.

I don’t
believe there will ever be a Mrs Mario. The brief for the hair? It’s a
quick wash and trim plus a peppering of colour. But shhh! Mario said if
we applied this gradually no one would notice  –  unless I told them.

After the hugely enjoyable but gruelling experience that is The One Show, it was on at last to one of
those country house hotels that are so gratifyingly posh that there’s
someone waiting on the gravel drive to greet you personally and park
the motor. We go there to do as little as possible and have been
getting pretty good at it. Venturing out of our regular lodging is an
almost unheard-of occurrence.

Yet by the following lunchtime, the sniff
of spring in the air and the golden glow of low, warm sun lured us out
of the big iron gates back into the real world. Big mistake.

We went for a steak at a nearby pub. I was starving by the
time the meal arrived  –  we had bravely decided to earn our pub grub
via a hearty walk on the beach beforehand. When whatever it was that
was sitting on my plate next to some worryingly over-bright yellow
chips finally arrived, I had to admonish the young lad who delivered
it.

‘Excuse me,’ I said firmly, but fairly. ‘I ordered steak and chips, not teak and chips.’

The kid of course looked lost and forlorn, while the steak
just looked lost and like it had never been part of anything that was
actually alive.

I own a pub. In fact, I own two. I used to own three. If you
have one, never, ever do this to your steaks. Otherwise you too will
have to put up with blokes like me, entering their early grumpies,
complaining to kids about red meat they shouldn’t be eating anyway. And
whose wind-down ritual clearly needs winding up.

****************************

Three jollier horsemen of spring: daffodils, on their latest
stoic tour of duty. Lambs, blissfully unaware that this is it for them 
–  enjoy 2011 while you can, my little ones; no London 2012 for you.

And with an often brilliant sun at both ends of the day, the first
excuse to dust down last year’s shades and pop them on your head in
readiness for the glare. Which is all fair and good  –  as long as
their mobilisation is not then abused.

Whether your aegis is the breastplate of experience or the
scabbard of steely determination, each of us must have something with
which to protect ourselves. Such weapons of self-defence cannot be
bought; they go by the names of truth, passion and sincerity, and the mark of their presence is the look in the eye of the holder.

What am I on about? Beware anyone who wears sunglasses when
it’s not actually sunny. And even when it is, hold on to a healthy dose
of suspicion.

I drove some injured soldiers around a private track in one of my stupidly quick cars the other day while trying to remember not to be stupid.

I went as fast as I could, but have to confess I was, at all times, far more nervous than any of my passengers.

Hardly surprising really, when you consider what the guys sitting in the passenger seat next to me must have been through. I thank them sincerely for at least attempting to appear a little unruffled by my efforts. And I am happy to turn up every week until I die, if any of their other deserving pals want to be equally unimpressed.

To gift Help for Heroes a day out  –  of any sort  –  email [email protected].

It’s a win-win situation. They escape for a few hours. You are reminded how bloody lucky you are for a few hours.

It’s the last episode of Wonders Of The Universe tonight. I do hope it comes back soon. By which I mean our ‘soon’, not Professor Brian’s ‘soon’, as in ‘Betelgeuse could go supernova at any moment soon  –  that is, any time in the next million years’.