Don't stop me now Chris Evans, says Beacon blogger

Beacon's James Carpenter's weekly blog covers ex-teachers, personal organisation tips, soul legend Beverley Knight and an offer from Chris Evans which could not be refused.

Just got in from watching the brilliant Greg Davies at the Wulfrun Hall, you know, Mr Gilbert from The Inbetweeners. I had no idea he's from Wem! What a funny guy.

And I was pleased to see it was a sell out. He really did used to be a teacher and quite a bit of his material came from the oddness of his parents.

How are you with the organisation of your inbox? I'm terrible! I have always tried to be like my dad, who is so meticulous with organising, right down to the fact that he would always make sure the tins in our cupboard were facing the right way!

Some things you just have to accept and tidiness is not always my best trait. I therefore sifted through 500 emails last night culling them down to about 100.

Within this cleansing I saw quite a few musical gems of upcoming gigs that I think you'd be interested in, and hopefully they're going to join me on the show, at least I've emailed my interest to their management: Gary Numan, Lou Reed, Roger Daltrey and Wolverhampton's very own, Beverley Knight (all at the Civic Hall).

Beverley Knight has a new album coming out in July; you may have seen her recently singing on 'Later…With Jools'? And if you're doing Beacon's 'Walk of the Black Country' on Sunday 19th June, you'll get to see her there.

I follow Beverley on Twitter and there seems to be no kinder human being. She gets involved in lots of charity events, always keen to message her fans and that's on top of an extensive tour.

Whilst on the subject of 'The Walk', I can now officially tell you that 3,500 people have signed up! Pre-show on Thursday night, the boss whispered in my ear that we were a few off that target and knowing that I liked a challenge, come 4pm I was keen to gee people up to hit the figure – so massive, huge thank you if you've signed up! Seriously, you are doing a wonderful thing for charity!

To give you a brief background to the next thing I'm about to tell you, which not a lot of people know (thanks Michael Caine for the line), there are two people who made me want to get into radio.

I was 11 years old. Steve Wright and Chris Evans, both of whom I've had the privilege of working for. So, you can imagine the excitement when I received a call from the Mr Evans camp the other day inviting me to DJ with him at Goodwood Racecourse.

When I asked what it was all about, the answer came "Well, it's only for 8,000 people and Boy George did last week and Mark Ronson's doing the week after, so it's you guys in between, what do you say?", there could only be one answer.

Let me put the question that's been discussed – you're at a party, what's the one big song that's guaranteed to get you on the dancefloor? I've written 'Queen – Don't Stop Me Now'….

Thanks for reading,

James x

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