I’m currently making ends meet by working a job sitting at a computer in a room where the radio is on all day. Having sat through a whole month of Radio 1, Kiss and Heart’s combined output, I now feel qualified to list the distilled ingredients that make up a hit record in the current radio airplay climate. So here they are, in no particular order:

1. 808 drums

No current chart hit seems to need a proper drum track. Just let your child loose on a software sampler full of Roland TR808 samples and repeat the simplest pattern they come up with.

2. Bad autotune

Just strap it on, set Retune Speed to zero and leave it. Don’t worry about setting a key or anything. Easy.

3. Major chords

Three of these should be all you need, the more hackneyed and generic the progression the better. Ideally, get the same child who programmed the beat to play these too.

4. Split vocal

Get a rapper to do the verse parts, so the kids can relate. It’s essential to turn the backing track off in his cans while recording his takes. If you do not do this, the rap may end up being in time with the beat, which is the last thing you want. Then let someone who can sing do the chorus bit, so regular folk have something nice to listen to too.

5. Vocal slowdown

The technology behind this effect has been with us for approximately 15 years. Will-I-Am discovered it last year though, so you’ll need to add one of these for your track to make it onto radio.

6. Really bright synths

Turn up the resonance and frequency knobs until your eyes water. Then turn them up a bit more.

7. ID yourself

Record yourself saying your own name during the intro of your song, then detune it with a computer. This is essential, or no-one will be able to tell your record from any of the others played in the last two hours.

Congratulations! You are the new Jason Derulo! Or maybe the actual Jason Derulo!

Sometimes when a new product idea emerges, you get the feeling that something has just been reinvented for the sheer hell of it. That the perfectly workable solution to a common everyday problem that we’ve lived with happily for countless years has suddenly been re-engineered for completely pointless reasons into something half as good. The latest blameless victim of this trend seems to be the clear plastic set of rings that keep a pack of four beer cans together. Someone somewhere has decreed that, instead of grasping the cans around the rim where they can be easily twisted out with a minimum of effort, the plastic now has to be extruded around the cans about two-thirds of the way up. This means that you now have to pull a can so hard to get it out that the beer receives a thorough shaking up, making it ten times more likely to explode on opening. Oh, and they’ve made a little handle too, for those who hadn’t managed to figure out that you could put your fingers through the holes in the old design in order to lift the pack.

In celebration of the day after Halloween when all the demons and ghouls have buggered off back to the underworld for another year, I have been listening to all the All Saints classics like Under the Bridge, Lady Marmalade, Beg and Never Ever. I’ve even listened to some I didn’t work on!

Well, as you’d expect at this time of year, it’s all about Halloween. Not only have I watched both Halloween episodes of Imagination Movers on the Disney channel four times over each, but a tub of 50 fun-size chocolate bars has been evenly distributed amongst the youth of Orton Malborne (with a couple of miniature Curly-Wurlies left over for me – call it curly commission). Emma handed out the chocolate bars with aplomb, dressed in a purple, black and green witch’s outfit, cheerfully announcing “I’m a fairy witch” to the rubber-faced ghouls and werewolves who dared to cross our threshold on this scariest of nights. Just try looking after a three-year old on trick-or-treat night and getting any work done. Not an easy task I tell ya.