Hello? Listen, I've had this great idea ... Hawkes (left) and Hawks (right) join forces. Photograph: Jo Hale/Getty
This had better not be a joke. Tony Hawks - comedian and author of Round Ireland with a Fridge (which chronicles his travels in Ireland with said item as his plus-one) - announced at Hay that he's going to make a record with Chesney Hawkes.
He said: "I got a call after I did my last single. Chesney said, We've both got the same surname, let's write a song together. So he's coming to stay with me in the Pyrenees and we're putting an album together. He's a lovely bloke, although he looks about 12."
Assuming that this isn't a cruel spoof (some sad people see sport in winding up Chesney's long-suffering fanbase, the Cheslettes), it will mark the return of a popster whose reign at the top was criminally brief. As has often been noted, the title of his 1991 debut, The One and Only, proved prophetic - not only was it his only No 1 single, it was the only one that went anywhere near the Top 20. His five subsequent releases charted at 27, 57, 63, 74 and 48.
However, the Top 50 placing of that last - a tune called Another Fine Mess, released only last year - suggests that he may be coming back into favour. And should he really be collaborating with Tony Hawks, his Amarillo moment could be nigh - the return to the big time that can come about when a former pop idol hooks up with a trendy comedian (see Tony Christie/Peter Kay).
While we await confirmation of the Pyrenean sessions, it's worth recapping the Hawkes career. Helped along by his innocuous blondness and lent character by a much-remarked-on facial mole, the Ches (whose dad was Chip Hawkes of the Tremolos) vaulted to No 1 with the incongruously rocky The One and Only.
Kids loved him; grown-ups didn't. That's to say they seriously didn't - for reasons never entirely clear, Hawkes brought out the bully in everyone who wasn't a teenage girl. Even Smash Hits - then at its peak of influence - decided he was a twit, relentlessly mocking him even as it repeatedly put him on the cover. Was it his puppyish eagerness? The song's earnestness? The mole? Hard to say. It quickly did for his career, though, and he's now remembered as the quintessential one-twit wonder.
Meanwhile, the concept of two artists dueting simply because of a shared surname is an excellent one. Think of the potential. Hawks & Hawkes could be followed by Turner & Turner (Tina and Arctic Monkey Alex), Harvey and Harvey (PJ & Brian), and Thom & Thom (Sandi and Yorke) ... The possibilities are endless.
