Eddy Says

Eddy Says: Ten things you (probably) never knew about me

By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Wednesday 22 September 2010

I had an idea that because The Remix celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, I’d do a load of these as Top Tens… it didn’t really pan out but you did have an update to the Top Ten Things I Hate recently, and I thought I’d balance that out with Top Ten Things I Love very soon.

Meanwhile, here’s one I’ve been saving for a rainy day, or, rather, a day when I couldn’t think of anything to write about. So, my friends, a few of whom will know some of these, but none of whom will know all of these, did you know that…

1. I’m from the oldest family in Iran
A boffin from London University researched this and discovered that (at the time, 1992) the oldest traceable family line in Iran was ours, directly traceable back to 680AD. It can’t go back any further that that because in 660AD the so called ‘Arab hordes’ came up from the south and kicked the vastly superior Iranian army’s arses – thanks to a sandstorm which blew in the faces of the well organised veterans (the Arabs say it was Allah, but of course they would say that) – then promptly burned EVERYTHING they came across. All libraries, all records, much of civilization up to that point, torched. This is why we are classically educated, because they never reached Greece, so those libraries survived.

2. I shouldn’t really be here
When my mum was pregnant with me, they discovered a huge ovarian cyst. Her doctor said she’d have to lose the baby. So, she got a second opinion, from the Queen’s surgeon, who said exactly the same thing. Everybody she talked to repeated this first prognosis, and insisted it would be impossible to remove the cyst and keep her baby. It was her first pregnancy.

Luckily, a brave young surgeon and friend of my father’s family, from Cardiff, said ‘fuck em, I’ll have a crack at this’. Thanks to his steady hand and strong nerve, the cyst was removed and I was born a healthy 7lb in Cardiff Royal Infirmary some time later, something of a medical miracle.

3. I used to make the jingles on Radio 1
In the mid-nineties, when Radio 1 was in deep crisis, with old men presenting most of their daytime shows, I was hired to help shake things up on air. The brilliant and inspirational Matthew Bannister fired and hired, and I helped create a new identity for the station on air. It was a remarkable time, and I got to work with everyone from Chris Evans to Tim Westwood, Nicky Campbell to Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq, Pete Tong, Mary Anne Hobbs, Goldie, Danny Rampling, et al. I was the one who banned ‘sung jingles’ and ended up as their station voice for two years.

4. I ‘discovered’ Zane Lowe
In 1997, I was head hunted by MTV while at Radio 1, and given a show called ‘Up For It’. A year later and I hadn’t taken a holiday, they wouldn’t let me because there was nobody there who could do my show while I was away. Donna Air couldn’t string a sentence together at that point and Edith was doing news. All the Sara Coxes, Richard Blackwoods, Armstrong & Millers were freelancers they couldn’t afford, as I was being paid less than the lovely girl who did my make up every day.

My boss, Christine Boare, was trawling through VHS demos and found a few she liked. Zane’s blew us both away. I knew I’d found my sidekick/stand-in/replacement in Zane. They refused to hire him at first, because of his Kiwi accent, but I pleaded, literally on my knees in the automaton head of MTV Europe’s office, until he capitulated. The rest is, as they say, history.

5. I’m allergic to coffee
Maybe ‘allergic’ is the wrong word but the last proper coffee I drank made my heart rate increase to 200bpm and I passed out and ended up in an ambulance. But I’m saving the full story for a rainy day…

6. I almost died on holiday
Years ago, on holiday in Thailand, I was bitten by an Aedis Egyptae mosquito, those little fuckers carry Dengue Haemmorhagic Fever, which I duly got. There’s no vaccination and sadly no cure, you just have to sweat it out and hope you’re one of the 80% of people who survive, while you become a temporary haemophiliac. At the lowest point a doctor said to me ‘your platelet cell count is so low that any of your internal organs could start bleeding spontaneously and there’ll be no way of stopping it…’ I’d been in hospital, on a drip for a week at this point. That night, I bottomed out and the next day I felt like eating for the first time. I asked for mashed potatoes and gravy from KFC. It was the nearest I could get to a hug from my mum.

7. I was the worst and the best at school
I was the only person to ever score zero in an exam at school, it was for maths, which I just could not grasp until years later, when I was sixteen and about to fail my O-Level, it just weirdly clicked and I realised it was so easy, that I hadn’t seen what was in front of my nose.

Conversely, I ended up being the only person to score 100% in an experimental music-appreciation exam, I beat all the music scholars, and at the time, didn’t play an instrument. All the teachers took the test too and I’d beaten all of them. The school found it so embarrassing they refused to publish the results, my nice English teacher told me what happened and I was so chuffed I was walking on air for weeks.

8. I used to be a motorcycle dispatch rider
I tried business once. It worked. Then it didn’t, and I lost everything and ended up ten grand in debt. I became a despatch rider for a year to pay it all back and had enormous fun throbbing around London on lots of different bikes and signing funny names in company reception logs. I wonder if they keep them? They’d see A Hitler, BA Barracas, A. Schwarzenegger etc.

I loved it when big steroidal security guards would bark at me: “Take orf that farkin elmet you slaag!” Then I’d take it off and reply (in my poshest lilt): “Thanks awfully old chap it was getting hot in there, I say, would you be a darling and point me in the rough direction of your post room? I have an urgent despatch for your Managing Director”. The posh charm offensive always flummoxed them beautifully.

9. I have three nipples
There. I said it. The third one is no more than a spot, really. I thought it was a kind of mole or something, then a doctor told me it was a ‘scaramanga’ and that having them, in some circles, is considered a sign of royalty. Though I think he may have said that to stop me from suddenly feeling like a circus freak.

10. I’m half Welsh
I was born in the same hospital as Cerys Matthews of Catatonia. I do feel a pull from my fatherland, a deep sense of pride when I hear the Welsh rugby crowd sing ‘Land Of Our Fathers’, when I watch ‘Zulu’, or hear an amazing song like ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ by The Manic Street Preachers. It’s half the reason why Losers’ debut album starts off with the crowd from Cardiff Arms Park singing at the beginning of a game. My grandparents, one of whom was the MP for Cardiff, lived, literally, right behind the goalposts.

So now you know!
Eddy x

Click here to see this edition of the Eddy Says e-bulletin in full