Lauren Laverne
Good morning everyone and welcome to Radio 4. This week we have got Fuel Distributor Gary (Gaz) Oil with us and he will be choosing his favourite Christmas Songs for this festive edition of Dessert Ireland Disks. Good morning Gaz!
Gaz Oil
Morning Laura – just hold on there, while I deal with this customer…(speaks down the phone);
“That’s just how much HVO costs sunshine. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. You were the one that said you wanted to go green, not me”
Sorry Loz, bloody customers eh?! Watermelons the lot of them…green on the outside, but red on the inside – particularly when they hear the price!
Lauren Laverne
No problem Gaz. It’s Lauren by the way, but not to worry. Let’s have your first record.
Gaz Oil
First record has to be “Wonderfuel Christmas Time” by Paul McCartney. Not many people know this, but pre-Beatles, Macca used to sell kerosene from a fuel cart down at the docks. That was the inspiration for this song and in fact, he used to sing it when collecting customer payments. Macca was a crazy guy in his youth, believe me!
Lauren Laverne
Wow, so you knew Paul McCartney?!
Gaz Oil
No, never met him Lara. But a good friend of mine used to go to school with his cousin’s coal merchant, which is how I know.
Talking of coal, my next festive record choice is “In Diesel Jubilo” by Mike Coalfield.
It’s bonkers isn’t it that despite Mike’s surname, he decided to write a song about a different fossil fuel. You can’t legislate for that kind of genius…
Lauren Laverne
I guess not. What about your next record and why is it important to you?
Gaz Oil
The next song reminds me of the time I was having major problems with what was then DECC (Dept. of Eating Christmas Cake), but has now been reinvented (yawn) as DESNZ (Drinking & Eating Sherry with NutZ). Anyhow, they were all over me because I had put an application in for a fracking well at the bottom of my garden. It was a stressful time, because DESNZ wanted to see an environmental plan, a community evaluation model and the mechanism for drilling royalties. So you can imagine the scene, I’m up to my Christmas nuts in paperwork and then this song comes over the radio and it kind of calmed me down and I just took a spade and started digging for black gold there and then.
Lauren Laverne
Really. Did you find oil in the garden?
Gaz Oil
No. Course not.
Lauren Laverne
Oh. What was the song then?
Gaz Oil
“A Winter’s Shale” by David Essex
Lauren Laverne
Weird story, but a beautiful song Gaz. What’s next up?
Gaz Oil
Well Lauretta, my next song is Blue Christmas by Elvis, a song he wrote as a tribute to the process of making hydrogen from natural gas via the process of steam methane reforming and where the CO2 produced is captured and stored, thus making it a form of low-carbon energy.
The King of Rock and Roll was a massive chemistry buff and contrary to popular opinion, he spent more time in his lab than he did in the music studio or chasing girls and taking drugs. This song was to be the first ballad of his Hydrogen Yuletide Trilogy (Grey Christmas and Green Christmas were to be released in subsequent years), but Elvis had a massive falling out with his record company over whether Hydrogen was an energy carrier or an energy vector, so RCA pulled the plug. Massively poor show from the record execs there, depriving the world of what would have been 2 absolutely iconic festive tracks.
Lauren Laverne
Elvis a chemistry boffin – I had no idea. Although it does go some way in explaining the lyrics behind his classic “A Little less Concentration”. It was clearly a solvent joke.
Gaz Oil
I don’t get it…
Lauren Laverne
No, you wouldn’t. Don’t worry, what’s your next choice Gaz?
Gaz Oil
The next one is actually more of a dedication than a personal favourite, but “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea is for all my tanker drivers out there at the moment making those last-minute deliveries before Christmas. Keep safe everyone and can one of you drop off 5,000 litres at Ken Groanin’s Winter Wonderland theme park. He’s run-out again.
Lauren Laverne
Happens every year Gaz, despite the warnings from UKIFDA (United Kingdom and Ireland Festive Decoration Association) – an organisation that Groanin knows all too well…
2 more songs to go Gaz – what’s up next?
Gaz Oil
I’m not gonna lie Lana, I’ve never liked HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue for Christmas) and their busy-body RDCO team (Registered Dealers in Christmas Oils), but their cover of the New York rap classic “Christmas in Hollis”, released as R-D.M.C.O was an absolute banger. Listening to it is like being beaten to death by a marshmallow…
Lauren Laverne
That’s an image Gary for sure! Now before we go to your final record choice, you can take a book and a luxury item to the desert island. What are you going to go for?
Gaz Oil
I’ve never read a book in my life Linda, so how about a road atlas? Just because I’m marooned on an island ain’t gonna stop me doing the routing! I also absolutely love going through Fuel Oil News from cover-to-cover every month, so a subscription to that red-hot publication can be my luxury.
Lauren Laverne
Well Mr Gary Oil, we’ve come to the end of the programme and you haven’t disappointed the listeners so far (mainly because they can’t see you) and you’ve only got my name wrong 6 times. Over to you – let’s make your last festive record choice a good one…
Gaz Oil
Well, initially I thought I’d go for that heartwarming petrochemical masterpiece “Feliz Naphthidad”, but in the end there can only be one song to finish off with and that is…
…“Merry Christmas Everybody”!
Image from stock
