Focus. Remember to breathe.<\/h2>\n
Get to Snape Maltings and get a text from the person I’m interviewing in the Britten Rooms. I’m in the Britten Rooms, she’s still ten minutes away in her car. Time, time, time. It’s ok. We get a quiet room, which would have been quieter if someone wasn’t knocking a wall down next door, by the sound of it. Do the interview unscripted and absolutely no time to edit, recording this on my iPhone. Yes, I’ve got a proper digital audio recorder. The iPhone gives a lot better sound quality. And it’s armoured, in case I drop it. Blitz through, thank my guest, mwah mwah and get in the car. I parked round the back because my car’s so old. Mildly amused to see her car’s even older.<\/p>\n
Get to the station and Ray the station manager tells me I have a listener in China, so obviously Bowie\u2019s Little China Girl has to be the first track on the playlist. He tells me I have a new Spanish listener too, but Spanish Eyes just doesn\u2019t do it for me. I remember this from a time ten years ago when I was holed up in a hotel bedroom in Hong Kong, marvelling at the Merchant Ivory ferries on the water over to Kowloon, wondering if I\u2019d ever see someone again. (Answer. Yes. And no. Can\u2019t win them all. Husband issues. You know how it goes).<\/p>\n
First guest, well ok, only guest on this week\u2019s show was Naomi Jaffa who runs the Poetry Trust in Halesworth. She was fun. Poetry as a living art form. \u201cI have no street credibility at all.\u201d\u00a0 Well, she sounded fine to me. I got her to read \u201cBike With No Hands.\u201d Interviews are something I\u2019ve done for the past fifteen years and that one was done half an hour before the show, no script, no editing, just straightforward old-fashioned getting people to talk about what they love. And it felt good. I didn\u2019t know Snape was hosting Europe\u2019s largest contemporary poetry festival. Such a small place for such a big event, powered by dedication. You really can move mountains if you try. As Kate Bush said, just saying it can even make it happen. Well, most of the time, anyway. The Kate Bush thing hasn\u2019t quite happened outside my closed eyelids, but there\u2019s still time.<\/p>\n
A couple of songs then the Suffolk Metrosexuals story. Apparently more and more Suffolk men are slapping on the fake tan and getting their eye-brows done. Maybe it\u2019s me but I think it takes a little more than that to qualify as a metrosexual. Like living in a metropolitan area, for a start. I couldn\u2019t keep a straight face to even read it. Who makes this stuff up?<\/p>\n
The song remains the same<\/h3>\n
A bit of Buzzcocks playing Ever Fallen In Love With Someone (You Shouldn\u2019t Have Fallen In Love With)? Of course. Who hasn\u2019t? I think the Fine Young Cannibals version just edges past this earlier version, but that could just be me. I\u2019m old enough to remember them both. I certainly remember the energy of the Buzzcocks\u2019 first version, and the oddness of the way the FYC version always sounded in 1989 as if the original was done in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Suffolk radio broadband was a good local news story and I think we covered it without it getting too technical. The idea is that it works via satellite, but I\u2019m not sure where the signal comes from to begin with. It has to come from somewhere, surely. It can\u2019t just be internet-ness. If that\u2019s even a thing.\u00a0A quick bit of Johnny Cougar, as he used to be called before he stuck the extra bit on his name (for tax reasons?), then into the serious story. I know one person switched off at that point. But it needs airing. Domestic abuse happens and if Radio Castle is going to be a proper community radio station with an OFCOM VHF broadcast licence then it needs to serve the community. I wish everything was like Garrison Keillor\u2019s Prairie Home Companion <\/a>(I wish I was more like Garrison Keillor, come to that), but I think I handled the theme passably. I didn\u2019t sensationalise and above all, I got the contact numbers out where people can find them. I think I\u2019m going to do that in every show in future. Domestic abuse happens. The victims often end up thinking it only happens to them. But it doesn\u2019t. It was an upsetting story. I thought my voice was going to go at the end of it. Maybe John Lee Hooker\u2019s I Want To Hug You wasn\u2019t the best choice to close the story with, but better than Eye Of The Tiger or something.<\/p>\n Had to calm it down with a bit of John Martyn and somehow the hour\u2019s gone and we\u2019re into the closing blah. At the start of every show I don\u2019t really know how I\u2019m going to fill the time. At the end I can\u2019t see how sixty minutes have gone. I hope it\u2019s the same for the listeners.<\/p>\n
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