Ol' Blue Eyes

After this short piece there are brief details of how to enter an art competition - which is to provide an illustration to accompany the story. There are no prizes - it's just for fun.

Well, back in around May this year, I came to listen to a few minutes of the early morning Sarah Kennedy radio show on Radio 2. If memory serves me well, somebody had made a request for a song by 'Ol' Blue Eyes' (Frank Sinatra) and Sarah said they didn't have any Sinatra, but 'here's Louis' (Louis Armstrong). That struck me as quite funny - here was the mighty BBC, with huge resources and vaults bulging with recordings, but not a Sinatra to be spared. On mentioning this to my mother's friend, Marylyn, she said that Michael Parkinson often played Sinatra on his show on Radio 2 on a Sunday - and from the bits that I've heard myself on his show, I could well imagine he would. So, couldn't the BBC share their recordings around in the spirit of togetherness - have a Corporation inter-departmental loaning service? Those recordings are probably mainly on Mp3 files, so they wouldn't need to be shifted physically from floor to floor? Wasn't it rather rude for a listener to have eventually got their request in, for them only to be palmed off with something else, and surely Sinatra made 100's of recordings, so the BBC is spoilt for choice.

That was it. Maybe not much to go on? - but have a go at the competition. All entries must be original material, and come together with full credit/copyright lines so that these can be reproduced. With your entry include contact details. All entries must be made by email, to: staringout@gmail.com The competition runs till the end of 31st January 2008. Plan at the moment is to post the winning entry alongside the story, but I might post more than one entry if that seems appropriate. If you want to say what medium the work is in, that's fine, or a bit about the creating - please let me know, and I may include that with the posted work. There are absolutely no prizes in this competition, and all decisions relating to the competition rest with me.