Radio presenter, northerner and all round nice guy, Darryl Morris is here in his brand new monthly column, ready to give us all the gossip from the likes of Zayn, Keith Lemon and John Newman. Viva la Yorkshire!
The USA. The land of the free, home of the brave. The country that invented the burger for wrapping fat around our arteries and the defibrillator, for when the inevitable happens. The country that brought us the cookie, the zip, modern flossing and some questionable politics. History, and indeed the future, point to the need for some stability. A bit of sensible thinking. A good cup of tea and a quaint game of cricket. Thankfully, there seems to be another UK takeover on the cards. A Yorkshire one, to be precise.
Up front and leading the pack is our favourite Yorkshire megastar, Zayn. With his time in One Direction (RIP) well behind him, the Bradford born popstar is finally finding his feet as a solo artist and his new song, ‘Let Me’, is his best yet. I called Zayn at his LA pad recently and was reminded that the Yorkshire takeover is still in its early stages.
“It’s so nice to hear a northern accent. Nobody over here knows that I’m saying half the time! I miss fish and chips more than anything. You just can’t find them out here. They look at you funny when you suggested it. And a cup of tea!”
If we’re going to crack this, we really need to work on the accent thing. Another of our finest exports, Keith Lemon, made his move on the USA recently. He came by my radio show with pal Paddy McGuiness to tell us about their new TV series and it turns out he was struggling to be understood too.
“I just don’t talk. I just write things down on paper and shove it in front of their face. Toilet? Café? Taxi? They don’t have a clue what I’m saying. Water and Coke they don’t understand in particular. They kept talking to me about a ‘cooler’ and I had no idea what was going on; apparently, they meant fridge!”
John Newman is another troop in the Yorkshire assault on the states. He came by the show to talk about his new single, ‘Fire in Me’, and told me about taunting Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
“I once got a bit carried away and threw cans of beer over at Leonardo DiCaprio’s table during a dinner. I was out with Calvin (Harris) and Leo kept sending beer over to Calvin because he knew he’d stopped drinking and thought it would be funny. I got a bit lost in the moment and decided to join in on the banter and threw an empty beer can. I didn’t really mean for it to fly over to him but it did… and it looked really, really bad. It looked like we’d retaliated. And this is a guy that’s just done the Revenant, he was pumped and ready to go!”
So diplomatic relations between Yorkshire and the USA still leave a lot to be desired. Still, at least it’s not my native Bolton leading the charge. We’re still grappling with food, as my fellow Boltonian Paddy McGuiness demonstrated.
“I had pigs in horsebacks the other day. It’s like pigs in blankets but instead of sausage wrapped in bacon, it’s a prune. I was tricked because I thought it was a sausage – but it was actually quite nice”
Absolute sacrilege. Yorkshire, this one is very much on you.
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