A few days back, accompanied by the soundscape of a talkSport interview with excitable veteran football commentator John Motson, I couldn’t help but notice Motty’s dentures didn’t appear as secure as usual. This conclusion reached from the former auntie Beeb stalwart whistling kettle-like upon utilising words containing the letter ‘s’.
Intrigued by this tooting, I tweeted the account of the show’s presenters Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs (H&J), requesting that during this live piece they try coax Motson into alliterating the sentence “Sausages on sale in Sainsbury’s, Stoke.”
I’ve absolutely no idea if the presenters, or indeed any member of their production team, caught sight of this idiosyncratic request. No response was forthcoming and, although realising it was unlikely to come to pass, no mention of this tweet was heard on the whimsical afternoon show.
If truth be told, yours truly was a tad disappointed this silliness didn’t get aired. Deeming, it would’ve been entertainment of the highest order had H&J veered from questioning Motty about observations on upcoming FA Cup semi-finals to randomly inquire “John, is there any chance you can say ‘Sausages on sale in Sainsbury’s, Stoke’.”
Despite being utterly baffled at the catalyst for the request, being an accommodating fellow, I’m pretty sure the Salford-born commentator would’ve obliged. Before going on to relay a wealth of stats about pork product sales in Stoke’s Sainsburys stores.
I’m uncertain if Motty would’ve breached any of the radio stations product placement protocols with his piece to mic, however, I reckon Sainsburys wouldn’t have balked at this free publicity.
Or at least would have done until their Pottery town retail stores were inundated with irate customers. Patrons angrily questioning why the company were employing John Motson to inform talkSport listeners that bangers were on offer, when in fact they were priced as normal.
Of course, my idiotic cajoling of John Motson to whistle kettle-like on national radio, could actually have coincidentally been factual. Punters, from as far afield as Crewe, venturing to procure Sainsburys own brand ‘Butchers Choice’ pork sausages at half price.
Creating scenes of an open-mouthed Etruria Road outlet manager surveying massed ranks of customers, prior to proffering at his assistant, “Blimey, those ‘Butchers Choice’ pork sausages are flying off the shelf this afternoon!…… It’s as though John Motson had mentioned the offer on the Hawksbee & Jacob show on talkSport!”
It’d been an evening of Shropshire hordes feasting from a smorgasbord of bangers and mash, toad in the hole, or good old sausage, beans and chips. Kitchen tables laden with comfort food thanks to John Motson’s ill fitted falsies and a mischievous random tweet manifesting from deep within yours truly’s capricious mind.
This unlikely aligning of the planets also gaining the Etruria Road Sainsburys its best pork product sales figures since last June’s bacon sales bonanza. An episode fuelled by Motson’s former BBC colleague Barry Davies inadvertently advertising the offer on Adrian Durham and Darren Gough’s drive show.
Anyhow, enough of this nonsense. Time to conclude this piece and prepare lunch…… Penning this has made me flaming starving!
