David Parkin on being a Love Island virgin, Peter Stringfellow and a testing time at the cricket

UP to now ITV2 show Love Island has passed me by but I did notice the interest it has generated among viewers and the media.

It seemed to attract an audience that wasn’t just the crowd who watch other reality TV shows such as Geordie Shore, The Real Housewives of Cheshire and The Only Way Is Essex.

So when the latest series started on Monday I decided to see what I had been missing.

Insightful, inspiring, intelligent conversation and sharp wit.

Everything it didn’t have.

It makes Big Brother look like Question Time.

A bunch of narcissistic, surgically enhanced boneheads all vying to ditch their dead end careers for TV stardom.

I thought the most popular word uttered by the contestants would be “me” but it turns out it is “like”

I, like, counted eight likes in a, like, two sentence, like conversation.

The producers have devised a format that keeps the audience entranced night after night.

All the contestants are paired up to start with and then new ones are thrown into the mix at the Spanish villa with the opportunity to choose a partner to share a bed with.

So one girl who had made a “connection” with one of the white-toothed, glossy-haired guys then has to leave him for the new arrival who has selected her.

She appeared devastated and heart broken but after a cuddle between the sheets with her new partner – bigger with whiter teeth and glossier hair than her previous 24-hour beau – everything was fine.

Among the motley crew who include a model, a West End performer, a student, an air stewardess, a personal trainer and a bar maid who happens to be Eastenders actor Danny Dyer’s daughter (helpfully also called Dani) there is an A&E doctor called Alex who stands out a mile because he speaks well and can string a sentence together.

That has led to him being snubbed by the other contestants.

If they performed the same experiments with mice they would be done for animal cruelty.

Because mice have brains and feelings and I’m not sure the preening shower on Love Island do.

Sadly these are heroes and heroines for the selfie generation.

Why forge a career when you can earn good money for how you look?

I managed about 15 minutes of the second episode before falling asleep on the sofa.

I awoke just as the credits were rolling and my girlfriend (how long do you have to be courting before you can call them ‘partner’?) was transfixed.

“Wasn’t it awful the way Alex has been treated? I hope he can find love,” she said.

“He deserves all he gets for being involved in that turgid tripe. And the NHS can ill afford to lose one of its A&E medics to a reality TV show.”

Is what I would have said if I had any moral courage.

Instead I agreed with her and then had to sit through the spin-off show called Love Island: Aftersun.

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FAREWELL then Peter Stringfellow, the King of Clubs.

The South Yorkshire-born impresario cut short a career at sea to promote bands in a hall in his native Sheffield before opening discos, nightclubs and eventually lap dancing clubs around the world.

A flamboyant showman, Stringfellow was no empty-headed celeb, very much a shrewd businessman who knew where he was going but never forgot where he came from.

He died yesterday aged 77 leaving a wife more than 40 years his junior and a young family. He had been suffering from cancer but never made that public.

When I met him last year in Langan’s Brasserie in Mayfair I expected a caricature with a monstrous ego.I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was charming, polite and down-to-earth.

I even presented him with my Welcome to Yorkshire yellow Y ambassador badge which he proudly pinned to the lapel of his gleaming white jacket.

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IF you ask people what terrifies them most then many will tell you that it is public speaking.

Whether that is a presentation at the office or a speech at a wedding or family party, the prospect can reduce some people to jelly.

So imagine having to not just get to your feet and address a large audience, but also to make them laugh too.

That was what my friend Nick Ahad faced last Sunday when he took part in a stand up comedy gig at the Wardrobe in Leeds in aid of Cancer Research UK.

Nathan Lane of Campfire PR is a longtime listener to Nick’s BBC Radio Leeds show and bought a couple of tickets and invited me along.

The event was sold out and an enthusiastic audience of 300 greeted the 20-odd would-be comedians who were taking part.

Nick’s performance was very impressive and, importantly, very funny.

I saw Nick afterwards and he admitted he was genuinely terrified, but his delivery, material and the way the audience responded was top drawer.

He’s been a newspaper reporter, features writer, script writer for Emmerdale, has written and appeared in plays and hosts a radio show, comedy is another string to his bow.

I just wish I had written down some of his gags…

:::

THE sun shone and England played well – what more could you ask of a trip to a Test Match at Headingley?

Last Friday’s first day of England’s match against Pakistan was a nice day out with Progeny Corporate Law.

Not as lively this year as we weren’t joined by Yorkshire’s only breakdancing accountant.

One of the guests was David Aspland, former partner with property firms Savills and Carter Jonas and now involved in Illuminating Investments, the property business started by John and Michael McDonnell after they sold their wireless lighting control business Harvard Engineering.

I told David that I was recently going to a meeting at recruitment business Woodrow Mercer Finance in Leeds.

The Woodrow Mercer offices are in the same building as property consultants WSB and as I walked up to the front door two men were also approaching it.

One of them asked me: “Are you David?”

I told him I was and he replied: “I thought it would be you. We’ve got a meeting with you.”

I asked if they were also meeting Woodrow Mercer.

“No we are going to WSB, aren’t you David Aspland?”

I told them unfortunately I was just David Parkin, we laughed and went our separate ways.

After recounting the story to David Aspland he said: “They told me they had spoken to a smartly dressed bloke called David and despite wracking my brains I couldn’t think of a smartly dressed David that I know.”

I adopted a fixed stare over mid-wicket and adjusted my cravat.

Have a great weekend.

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