Hugh Garry

Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty: Leftfield 'Cut For Life'

This was such a big tune for us at Garlands in our first year. Listen to it... It's stunning. Everything about it nears perfection. Apart from guilty pleasures it's hard to think of a track that makes me feel guilty so this one has been a real struggle.

I've chosen this simply because if this had been released in my last year at the club it would never have got played. The crowd just wouldn't have taken to it the way they did in the early years and for that sin I can only plead guilty.

100 Hours Project

You may recall me prattling on about becoming an expert recently. Inspired by Gladwell's theory that it takes 10,000 hours to reach the top of your game and Tim Ferriss' life hacking antics I'm about to embark on a series of projects based around 100 hours of learning. I say a series, that's 'optimistic me' speaking. It could easily become a series of '1' if the first project goes horribly wrong. The idea is to choose a project, set a target, deconstruct the learning process around the subject then reassemble it to work around my personal learning needs. By doing so I hope to achieve a reasonable level of 'expertise' in the subject in just 100 hours.

The Project: Learn Spanish in 100 Hours

I was shocking at languages in school. Completely hopeless. Partly down to apathy and partly down to bad teaching, the desire just never took hold. Since failing miserably at French I've ran a mile from the idea of learning a new language. So now, starting from scratch, I'm going to try and learn Spanish. The target is to be conversational with 100 hours of learning. If I can master enough of the language to be able to hold my own in a conversation then the project will be a success. 

Based on 3 hours study a day, 5 days a week, I hope to finish mid-July. Having said all that my 30 Days of Music project is heading into it's 3rd month.

From tomorrow I'll document my learning techniques and share my progress. If you have any tips please share them in the comments.

Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play: The Darkness 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love'

Apart from the cowbell I can't play any instruments. But if I was granted just one wish from the tune fairy I'd want to play lead guitar on this. I'd wear spandex as part of the deal and play it to Rikki every Tuesday morning. I know she fell in love me because I used to drop it during my sets. Together we'd air guitar so much that I'd forget to cue up my next tune.

When we started going out I'd sing her a silly song every Tuesday morning to put her in the mood for what would be a 24 hour work day in Ibiza. It continued when we returned to Blighty and lasted a good six months before I ran out of enthusiasm and she stopped seeing the funny side of being woken by the sound of me singing 'Living On A Prayer'. Looking back I'm amazed she put up with me for 6 years after what must have been a torturous first 6 months. All down to my air guitar skills I think.

TEDx, Me and Mobile Phones

Here's my TEDx North talk from last year. I'm rattling on about why old media should look at how young people are using mobile devices to capture their lives and learn a thing or two. My colleagues are bored of me going on about it, but I thought you my find it interesting.

It became obvious whilst making Shoot The Summer that certain old assumptions about 'perceived' quality no longer hold and that there was lots to learn from the new masses of mobile film makers. I used the example of how the arrival of the Box Brownie at the start of the last century made us a republic of photographers giving insights to the fine art photographers of the day.

As one of the BBC's core values is 'Audiences are at the heart of everything we do' I strongly believe we should continue to encourage and learn from our audience. More importantly, as a public funded media organisation, we should play a bigger role as an enabler. My former boss Dan Heaf has been delivering amazing public service over at 4iP enabling unpolished digital ideas from it's audience to become real, profitable businesses.

Charles Leadbeater described the current media landscape as being like a group of pebbles on a beach at the Picnic conference in 2008. He said the beach is made up of big boulders and tiny pebbles. His point being that the big boulders are established media organisations (BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4) and the pebbles are the millions of user generated clips on Youtube, and soon the pebbles would rise and eventually cover the big boulders.

Somewhere in my idealistic mind I like to tell myself that the BBC would not let that happen because we would enable those pebbles to become medium sized stones by encouraging and enabling. We would turn the kid making films with his mobile into a small media company through a combination of projects like Shoot the Summer and 4iP, leaving the landscape a perfect balance of every shape and size of pebble. I made that argument in October 2008, but sadly, as we all know, the BBC is rapidly becoming a different place than it was then and the likelyhood of my vision becoming a reality sinking quicker than a badly skimmed fat stone.

Become and expert in less than 10,000 hours

I love Malcom Gladwell. He's a brilliant thinker and even better talker than writer, which is some praise given the quality of his written work. He has brilliant hair too. He is guilty of over elaborating the point quite often but his talent as a storyteller makes him easy to forgive. 'Outliers' is superb and if you are interested in success and the theories behind it then it is a must read.

Gladwell claims that to reach the top of your game you need to put in 10,000 hours of effort before hitting the heights. Broken down that's about 3 hours practice a day for 10 years. He cites Tiger Woods, Boris Becker the Williams sisters as great examples of this, starting young and reaping the rewards in their late teens. Interestingly when The Beatles went to Hamburg in the early years they were playing 8 hour sets 5 days a week in strip joins. This meant that by the time success came knocking they'd already played together for longer on stage more than most bands do in a lifetime.

I have a theory that there is a big difference between becoming an expert and being at the top of your field. There's an even bigger gap in the amount of hours one would have to spend achieving both outcomes. To become a world beater then 10,000 hours sounds right, but to become an expert you don't need to be a world beater, you just need to be better than those around you in your place of work. You don't have to outrun the lion, you just need to be faster than the 2 other guys the lion is chasing. It really isn't that difficult to become 'the go to guy' in your office. It just takes a little more effort than everyone else and careful planning around your learning. I know because I have become an expert many times.

Think about it. Take yourself back to your childhood when you had show and tell days at school. Everyone would have to stand up and talk for 5 minutes about their hobby. Essentially they were all experts. In my class Johnny Bowers was an expert in 'Keeping Hamsters', Karen Burywood and expert in 'Irish Dancing', Brian Crowther an expert in 'Stamp Collecting' and Hugh Garry and expert in weird bands. These kids didn't have 10,000 hours to put into their hobby, just a few hours more than everyone else. It was a lot easier to know more about a subject you study away from school, something that wasn't on the curriculum. If you want to become an expert in your office then glance away from the curriculum for a moment.

Having just read the brilliant '4 Hour Work Week' by Timothy Ferriss I'm really inspired to rise to the challenge of defragging the learning process and adding a few new skills. I'm thinking of starting a '100 Hour Project' whereby I devote 100 hours of learning to a given subject to see how much I can actually achieve in that time. I'll break down my learning process and blog about it here. I'll also set targets, chart my progress, methods, tips etc. I may start with a foreign language, but I'm not sure because I was so poor at them in school. All suggestions welcome.

Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument: Bowie 'Diamond Dogs'

I can play the cowbell part of Diamond Dogs better the Will Ferrell can play 'Don't Fear The Reaper'

Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh: The Smiths 'The Queen Is Dead'

'Charles don't you ever crave, to appear on the front of the Daily Mail dressed in your mother's bridal veil?'

Day 24 - A song to be played at your funeral: The Smiths 'Vicar In A Tutu'

'I was minding my business, lifting some lead off the roof of the Holy Name church'

Wow - Can't believe I got to Day 24 without a Smiths track.

The Holy Name Church name checked in the song was where I was christened so I imagine it will be the place of my departure too. Hope so, it's a lovely gaff.

It's just a brilliant song, one that springs to mind every time someone paints The Smiths as doom merchants. I love it. It sums up a lot of what was so good about Moz as a song writer, filled with humour and a brilliant rallying cry for anyone who sees themselves as being a little bit different. He encouraged people to celebrate their differences, whether it was wearing your NHS glasses with pride or swinging your hearing aid as you danced. It was an ethos that I took into clubland when I stared running my own club night because 'outsiders' and 'underdogs' and 'the different' were always more interesting 'the beautiful' and 'the glamorous'.

'A vicar in a tutu. He's not strange. He just wants to live his life this way''

Clubland was a pretty shallow place to work. There is no getting away from that. Always looking to do something different running my own club allowed me to create a safe place for people to celebrate their differences and express themselves however they wished. It wasn't a gay club and it wasn't a straight club. It was a club for the miss-shapes of the world - a safe haven for the kind of people the rest of clubland would rather stayed at home. We went out of our way to make 'the different' feel special. It was a club where you could wear a dress if you fancied it because no one would bat an eyelid. It was the kind of place where pensioners would star in our fashion shows, where shy people could come out of their shell and the confused could experiment with their sexuality without fear.

I remember doing a pirate themed party and used Adam Ant on the poster with the strap line 'Ridicule is nothing to be scared of'. Typical daftness but an amazing party. The following week a regular who suffered from Vitiligo (a condition that causes white patches on the skin and in the hair) turned up proudly showing off his new tattoo. It read 'Ridicule is nothing to be scared of'. I'd empowered him to feel confident about himself, to celebrate his differences via the power of an Adam Ant lyric. Who'd have thought it? It was then that I realised the power of my position and how even the most petty things can speak volumes to those looking for something to believe in. 

Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding - 'Una Poloma Blanca'

I make no apologies for posting this. Despite the obvious flaw it's truly wonderful. Really beautiful.

I don't listen to it when I'm sad, but I did. Our Shay had a brilliant Laurel and Hardy album when I was tiny. I remember listening when I was feeling particulartly sad (probably when Dad was ill). It made me warm and fuzzy inside. Still does. I love them.

Day 22 - A song you listen to when you're sad: Laurel and Hardy 'Lazy Moon'

I make no apologies for posting this. Despite the obvious flaw it's truly wonderful. Really beautiful.

I don't listen to it when I'm sad, but I did. Our Shay had a brilliant Laurel and Hardy album when I was tiny. I remember listening when I was feeling particulartly sad (probably when Dad was ill). It made me warm and fuzzy inside. Still does. I love them.