My favourite news story this weekend.. Those automatic 'out of office' replies aren't worth the effort!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Mind your language
My favourite news story this weekend.. Those automatic 'out of office' replies aren't worth the effort!
Broadcast News
Back on the radio yesterday after a 2 week break. We've had a pretty good run of shows since I came on-board permanently in June but I've been away for the last 2 weeks and Alf's been 'driving the desk' (if you'll excuse a bit of radio-speak!) on her own. I missed it. I made a comment yesterday about how I had been experiencing the same withdrawl symptoms that rocks stars do when they're not on tour and have nowhere to go at 9pm every night. I suppose I was joking but there was a little bit of truth in it. At noon for the last two weeks I've found myself driving down country roads wondering how Alf was getting on and hoping there was plenty of news in the paper for her to talk about..
Yesterday there was tonnes of news to pour over. In fact we only had one guest to talk to and still we only played 3 songs in the whole show.. That's a good sign. The shows when we play 5 or 6 songs are the ones where you know we've struggled. Between the news in the papers and the news during the week we got a good 30 minutes out of it all. Of course the big story up for discussion was the Brand/Ross fiasco which conveniently Alf and I had differing opinions on. My view is that if Russell Brand and the head of Radio 2 Lesley Douglas resigned then there was only one course of action that Jonathan Ross could have taken. Alf disagreed so we had a little bit of a ding-dong. All very light-hearted of course but it got us over the half hour mark..
The rest of the show was an interview with Damian Smith who's co-written a book about the Beatles' Irish connections. It makes such a difference when you've got a guest on the show who is: a) actually in the studio and not on the phone; and b) able to string a few sentences together. This chap met all our criteria and it meant we were able to have a pretty good chat that zipped along pleasantly. And play some Beatles music along the way.
It's always surprising when we come out of the studio having done a pretty good show. It's like we're afraid to congratulate each other for fear of jinxing ourselves. Next week will probably be a dog but for now, I think we're getting better..
Now if I could just get David who's on air before us to stop telling listeners that 'the girls' are on after him . He's a lovely chap but I've been doing the show for almost 5 months and I wish he'd stop it! Still - we wouldn't mind his listeners. Actually we wouldn't mind some listeners. God knows where they go but i don't think they're listening to us. Maybe we should start playing more Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney.
You'll find us at 103.2 FM every Saturday at noon.
Yesterday there was tonnes of news to pour over. In fact we only had one guest to talk to and still we only played 3 songs in the whole show.. That's a good sign. The shows when we play 5 or 6 songs are the ones where you know we've struggled. Between the news in the papers and the news during the week we got a good 30 minutes out of it all. Of course the big story up for discussion was the Brand/Ross fiasco which conveniently Alf and I had differing opinions on. My view is that if Russell Brand and the head of Radio 2 Lesley Douglas resigned then there was only one course of action that Jonathan Ross could have taken. Alf disagreed so we had a little bit of a ding-dong. All very light-hearted of course but it got us over the half hour mark..
The rest of the show was an interview with Damian Smith who's co-written a book about the Beatles' Irish connections. It makes such a difference when you've got a guest on the show who is: a) actually in the studio and not on the phone; and b) able to string a few sentences together. This chap met all our criteria and it meant we were able to have a pretty good chat that zipped along pleasantly. And play some Beatles music along the way.
It's always surprising when we come out of the studio having done a pretty good show. It's like we're afraid to congratulate each other for fear of jinxing ourselves. Next week will probably be a dog but for now, I think we're getting better..
Now if I could just get David who's on air before us to stop telling listeners that 'the girls' are on after him . He's a lovely chap but I've been doing the show for almost 5 months and I wish he'd stop it! Still - we wouldn't mind his listeners. Actually we wouldn't mind some listeners. God knows where they go but i don't think they're listening to us. Maybe we should start playing more Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney.
You'll find us at 103.2 FM every Saturday at noon.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Word of the day.
I was talking to my mother earlier. She went to the horse races at Leopardstown yesterday and was telling me about her day. At one point she was talking about the cold weather and, having attemptd to describe the wind, she corrected herself by saying: 'if that's not a moxy-oron'.
I think moxy-oron is my new favourite word.
Perhaps when I call her again next month she'll have another new word for me!
I think moxy-oron is my new favourite word.
Perhaps when I call her again next month she'll have another new word for me!
I had no idea
All this technology and information is all well and good but how come I can't remember my phone number or the PIN code for my Laser card? Will all of this make us any smarter? I'm saying probably not.
What's in Al Green's bag?
I went to see Al Green in Vicar Street on Sunday night. I'd never seen him before and I've got to say that it was a very surreal experience. He's great, of course, but there's so much showbiz onstage that sometimes you just wish he'd just sing the damn songs.. And he has a really strange habit of smiling and waving during the songs. So he's singing something heartbreaking like 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' and stopping mid verse to wave and flash his pearly-white gnashers. Bizarre. Although in fairness everyone was lapping it up so Al clearly knows what he's doing. Wish he'd done more from his new album though. I'm thinking it's one of the year's best records.
Anyway at the end of the gig (no encore from Al, by the way, and no Take Me to the River either) Al threw out the last of his roses to the ladies in the audience, smiled his dazzling smile one more time and picked up a black shoulder bag and left the stage. My question: what's in Al green's shoulder bag? Is he one of those old guys who insists on being paid for cash before going on stage or was he going straight to the gym afterwards? Maybe he'd come to the venue straight from the airport and hadn't been to the hotel.. I'd love to know..
Anyway at the end of the gig (no encore from Al, by the way, and no Take Me to the River either) Al threw out the last of his roses to the ladies in the audience, smiled his dazzling smile one more time and picked up a black shoulder bag and left the stage. My question: what's in Al green's shoulder bag? Is he one of those old guys who insists on being paid for cash before going on stage or was he going straight to the gym afterwards? Maybe he'd come to the venue straight from the airport and hadn't been to the hotel.. I'd love to know..
I hate old people
Went down to the Science Gallery in Trinity College on Friday night to take part in their 'PAY ATTENTION' event. The Gallery is one of my favourite new places to go at the moment. They had a brilliant Robots exhibition a few weeks ago and now they're running a series of events where members of the public call in and take part in Brain research.. There's a series of tests to determine why we think the way we do, why we forget things as soon as we've been told them, whether we're morning or evening people and lots of other stuff..
Anyway, I took a test to determine my attitudes towards old people and it turns out that I have a strong bias against them! The tests involved placing words into various categories. So I started out with words like mature & teen and categories like 'old' & 'young'. Easy enough, right? Then it got a bit more complicated as words like ugly, peace, love and anger were introduced and needed to be categorised as well. It's all fairly rapid so you don't really have time to think about what you're doing. I guess that's how they tap into our subconscious. I'm not sure it wasn't entrapment!
At the end they added up my results and told me that I have a strong bias towards old people. The chap doing the tests reminded me that I'm not a bad person (thanks!) but I've been conditioned to think that old is worse than young. He said that it's not necessarily my fault (tv, advertisers etc etc) and there's nothing I could do about it. But then he told me that in future I should bear it in mind. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that.. Saying that, given that I recently moved into the 35-54 category whenever I'm ticking my age in application forms, it's probably likely that my bias against old people will correct itself naturally!
Anyway, I took a test to determine my attitudes towards old people and it turns out that I have a strong bias against them! The tests involved placing words into various categories. So I started out with words like mature & teen and categories like 'old' & 'young'. Easy enough, right? Then it got a bit more complicated as words like ugly, peace, love and anger were introduced and needed to be categorised as well. It's all fairly rapid so you don't really have time to think about what you're doing. I guess that's how they tap into our subconscious. I'm not sure it wasn't entrapment!
At the end they added up my results and told me that I have a strong bias towards old people. The chap doing the tests reminded me that I'm not a bad person (thanks!) but I've been conditioned to think that old is worse than young. He said that it's not necessarily my fault (tv, advertisers etc etc) and there's nothing I could do about it. But then he told me that in future I should bear it in mind. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that.. Saying that, given that I recently moved into the 35-54 category whenever I'm ticking my age in application forms, it's probably likely that my bias against old people will correct itself naturally!
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