tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68512283765040928042024-03-16T01:09:45.476+00:00Does that make sense?Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-81369511339799404922012-04-11T08:52:00.006+01:002012-04-11T09:39:38.213+01:00"30 seconds on this, then we need a minute into the ads..."<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQVI5_MwPmqczmVDeY53MJJwNW8Q6mTvOBAWpjmFk69eS3D4BRC8OLkEqjPN0zFRp5MGli0cP2yeTO8pTE0D0wk5qu9zd43ZMhsx63K1rdi8pgungwi8E8dLlEzuCVUGnPqBdidALtFf-P/s1600/TECHOP.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQVI5_MwPmqczmVDeY53MJJwNW8Q6mTvOBAWpjmFk69eS3D4BRC8OLkEqjPN0zFRp5MGli0cP2yeTO8pTE0D0wk5qu9zd43ZMhsx63K1rdi8pgungwi8E8dLlEzuCVUGnPqBdidALtFf-P/s400/TECHOP.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730057632374706866" /></a><br />Double shifts this week - mid-mornings in Bradford, drivetime in Wigan. Nine hours of radio a day, including a tiny chunk of pre-record while I dash from one studio to the other.<br /><br />Today is even more extreme however; after the drive show finishes at 7, I'll remain in the studio until 10, pressing the buttons and ordering takeaway pizza while football commentary comes down the line.<br /><br />The technical operator - the T/O, as they're known, and it's always a slash rather than a full stop separating the initials, for some reason - is the faceless hero of every radio station. They are required less than they used to be thanks to networking of stations and updated technology, but nonetheless they are vital and stations can't often run properly without them.<br /><br />When I started out, computer playout systems only contained the jingles and adverts. The music was still on CD, encased in a protective plastic box and shoved into a Denon player, therefore if you ever needed to pre-record a programme (in my case, once a year - when the group of stations was hosting its annual awards) you needed to make sure a T/O was willing and available.<br /><br />As I was on the nightshift back then, this wasn't easy. T/Os were casual, paid a small fee shift by shift, and had full-time jobs to hold down elsewhere. Engineers, bank clerks and driving instructors had little sidelines as button-pressers at their local station and luckily for me, the driving instructor had a quiet day of bookings ahead so agreed to come in to "play out" my nightshift while I attended the awards.<br /><br />The process was laborious. Once permission had been granted and the T/O booked, you then decamped to a studio with a copy of your music log for the given date, put together and printed off with a hurumph of reluctance by your head of music. It was then a case of recording dry links into the computer, trying to make them sound as 'live' as you could. Timechecks were impossible to get accurate, but if you felt confident you could do the odd 'nearly 20 past three' routine, giving you a good three-minute leeway. Nobody on the nightshift was especially arsed about what time it was anyway.<br /><br />Once each link was done, they had to be clearly labelled ("!!!2AM HOUR LINK 01" - the exclamation marks crucial as they would put the links automatically at the top of the file) and saved into the system. Then you had to write the same file name on the music log, indicating to the T/O which link to play and where. It was then up to the T/O to find the links and play them out over the records. One error meant I would be gleefully nattering about the great new single from the Manic Street Preachers while some dirge from Alice Deejay was actually playing out; hence why you didn't piss off a T/O, as he had the tools to make you look a prize berk. If they were responsible professionals they didn't do that, of course, but I expect radio people have at least one story of a scorned T/O exacting some kind of revenge.<br /><br />Later, as the technology developed, the need for a T/O to play out a self-contained music show was reduced as the music was now on the system, which meant you could load the whole show yourself and press a button that guaranteed everything would play out in sequence. The only thing that you needed to keep an eye on was timings, especially as off-peak hours meant IRN bulletins and therefore you had to be on the nose. This is how a lot of shows work to this day.<br /><br />Nowadays, the T/O is needed only for outside broadcasts. Every weekend when you hear a football commentator in a gantry banging on about a striker's eight-game goal drought, there is someone in the studio making sure he sounds good and waiting for the cue to play the adverts and then chat to him off-air, ready for the next swathe of instructions. These guys are also recording the commentary as it goes out and quickly cutting and pasting goals and incidents into new files, ready to be replayed in the post-game hour. It's a tough job. It's a skilled job.<br /><br />The relationship between a presenter out in the field and a T/O in the studio is a tentative one. The presenter is in charge in theory but the T/O is in charge in practice. I've been in studios when OBs have been going out and I've overheard presenters totally monster their T/O down the line when something has gone wrong, and I've seen T/Os walk out in disgust at such actions too. When I commentated on football, I tried to be civil and cool with T/Os - especially as they were friends as well as colleagues - but sometimes the strain of the occasion did prompt a harsh word or two. Fortunately, all soon calmed and we were still mates when the show ended. And a good T/O will make a presenter on an OB sound amazing, especially when the task of closing the show bang on time comes up - the presenter is doing his final spiel, trying to be articulate and authoritative to the last, while the T/O in his headphones is counting down from 30 seconds. From each of them, it's an art.<br /><br />T/Os are capable of making you laugh too. One non-footballist who was T/O-ing a football show I was hosting also had the job of telling us latest scorers and scores on the talkback button for us to announce on air. His stab at pronouncing the Swedish striker Fredrik Ljungberg's surname will live with me for a very, very long time. I'm not sure I ever properly stopped giggling for the whole programme.<br /><br />No T/O for my overlapped shows this week, as the bits of pre-recorded output are self-contained on the playout system. Sometimes I wish there was a T/O as, for all its sophistication, a computer can go wrong. A good T/O never does. Tonight I have to be that good T/O so the listeners only have to worry about their team's performance, not the radio programme bringing them it.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-75667054379809499502011-08-19T22:13:00.004+01:002024-01-27T20:15:15.721+00:00"It opened in November 1967, and the glass roof was added 20 years later..."<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXzrzGDRTbctX9Egrzw30BT49GeSvRYAxyAb-_gUuiz1_WPXEH-lhznuaoYzBvFr4YEcgrYLGNctpSkzE4SCTOrq85w0lEpmJpmITgx8ub0FEckCjS3UfO_YcI-UNgJIdAppN_-xExqndL/s1600/PULSE.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXzrzGDRTbctX9Egrzw30BT49GeSvRYAxyAb-_gUuiz1_WPXEH-lhznuaoYzBvFr4YEcgrYLGNctpSkzE4SCTOrq85w0lEpmJpmITgx8ub0FEckCjS3UfO_YcI-UNgJIdAppN_-xExqndL/s400/PULSE.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642680985943464498" /></a>
<br />I'm working for <a href="http://www.pulse.co.uk">the Pulse of West Yorkshire</a> for a month, doing the daytime five-hour slot. It's a station I've always wanted to work for, having lived in its target area for five years of my younger life.
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<br />Today, I was sent on an outside broadcast. I've done a fair few over the years but as a freelancer it's one of the things you miss about having a regular, nailed-down, six days a week gig. Still, off I was packed to Keighley, on the far edge of West Yorkshire, where the radio station had been doing its Proud To Be Local campaign all week.
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<br />I was in the Airedale Shopping Centre, and having been seated at a desk at the front of an empty shop with branding all around me, I looked a bit of a sitting duck. People who notice OBs react in one of a few different ways; they gawp like hell for ages and assume you haven't noticed, they come over and chat and take whatever merchandise is on offer; they ignore you entirely or, regrettably, they try to put you off when you're doing a link.
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<br />Plenty of the first three and, fortunately, only one solitary example of the latter; a teenage girl with a Croydon facelift who thought it would be kerrrrrrr-azy, and ever so cool to all her gang, to shout something obscene, followed by the name of a rival station, in my direction. The daft lass hadn't accounted for me not being on air at the time though, as a song was playing on the speakers and I was not wearing any cans and, indeed, not actually speaking into the microphone.
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<br />The official stuff consisted of brief interviews with a woman who owned one of the cafeterias in the shopping centre, plus a local councillor who used his couple of minutes to sell Keighley and sell it again. He was very impressive. Otherwise, I was required to present the show in the same way as I would have done if sitting at the controls in the Pulse's nerve centre in the centre of Bradford. I did also have my photo taken with the mascot of the Keighley Cougars rugby league club - a cougar that goes by the name of Freddie. The best mascot-related act of punnery ever. And, last but by no means least, the much-revered <a href="http://benbaker.blogspot.com/">Ben Baker</a>, resident and proud of the place, turned up to say hello - wearing an Atari T shirt.
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<br />Great fun, and over the next month I'll be doing a couple more, I think. Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-13192582608736873452011-06-29T21:34:00.008+01:002011-06-29T23:22:58.983+01:00He wakes and says hello, turns on the breakfast show<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhOMK6VGB-tLZHiIHFicUj-s5m8BJ277o30yOrPs6aRT6AvYKbRIve3ONN0GFvs13lIZ9g29H9njqurySTk_7DQ01U_xF8RytYSxpOqVuDgXAv5Z-zTq8LGxN_uKhstvm3tSZG7O7VI4q_/s1600/RADIO"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 310px; height: 340px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhOMK6VGB-tLZHiIHFicUj-s5m8BJ277o30yOrPs6aRT6AvYKbRIve3ONN0GFvs13lIZ9g29H9njqurySTk_7DQ01U_xF8RytYSxpOqVuDgXAv5Z-zTq8LGxN_uKhstvm3tSZG7O7VI4q_/s400/RADIO" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623748253133206530" /></a><br />An odd little incident occurred on Monday. <br /><br />I had a free day marked on my calendar until a 5pm call came in on the Sunday evening asking me to cover a breakfast show as the regular host had been taken ill. Dutifully, I said yes and immediately prepared for an early night which, with the busy weekend I'd already had, would be easy to have anyway.<br /><br />The show started at 6am, as ever, and it went well. One of those days where you think you've performed to a good standard, entertained and informed, without necessarily cooking on gas. It's quite hard to be at your absolute peak when you're in as a last minute stand-in but I was happy.<br /><br />Before the show started, I advertised it on Facebook, as I often do. The regular host is a friend and colleague and so I linked to him in the status update I posted. Later, I randomly clicked on his name to look at his wall, expecting to see a stack of get well messages from his public.<br /><br />I didn't get beyond the first thread, which made me smile and think at once. Someone had said good morning to him, clearly before they'd even turned on the radio. A second fan of his then said he wasn't there. Between the two of them they chatted on his wall bemoaning his absence - and then said they were going to retune.<br /><br />They weren't critical of me, I should add immediately. And I was amused. So I posted a comment saying I wasn't offended by their decision to go elsewhere, complete with ample smilies to make it clear that was the case. There then followed any number of backtracking, grovelling, embarrassed messages from these two saying they wouldn't re-tune after all and they were sorry, and do I have a spade they could borrow to dig a hole for them to crawl into, etc.<br /><br />Local radio gives you something of a profile but you are very much an anonymous minor figure, even when hosting a successful breakfast show. Trouble is, as these two proved, there is an assumption that you're not normal, not regular, not the same as them. Breakfast show hosts, or any local radio hosts for that matter, apparently don't feel knackered in the morning, have issues with family and finances and, of course, they never read Facebook. It never occurred to these two that the regular host and I would be Facebook friends, nor that I would therefore have the time or inclination to read their comments. It was as if they knew I existed, but not really. Not in their world, anyway.<br /><br />How very strange it all was. But it did make me laugh.<br /><br />Talking of local radio, that organ of esteem the <span style="font-style:italic;">Guardian</span> has been reviewing breakfast shows recently in an effort to find what they would deem the best. Naturally, they've done exactly the thing that hacks me off more than anything else about the press attitude to radio, which is just look at stations based in London and then end the series there. <br /><br />Most of the national stations, rightly, got reviewed (they didn't do the two classical stations), but then there was absolutely no justification in then reviewing (and, therefore, hugely plugging) Capital (London) and Heart (London), putting their breakfast gigs in the same category as the national shows, and then not doing likewise with the other Capital and Heart stations up and down the country, as well as the hundreds of other worthy local breakfast shows on offer. <br /><br />I suspect they sussed this at the very last minute, and quickly they threw it open to their readership to "suggest" to them "unsung heroes" (God I hate that phrase) of local radio breakfast time. By "unsung hero" they mean "person on air outside of London whom I'm never going to hear". That rankles, especially as I could name a dozen and more breakfast presenters on non-southern brands that make Vaughan and Theakston look like shoddy beginners. Some breakfast show presenters on local stations are major, major stars of their patch and would attract a bigger crowd at appearances and events than a lot of equivalents on national stations.<br /><br />Anyway, it seems that some of these great shows are going to be reviewed by the <span style="font-style:italic;">Guardian</span>, which is at least something. It's just a pity that they didn't have the intelligence or decency to discover the worthiness of these programmes themselves and had to be shamed by their public into doing so.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-63962189739481418772011-02-10T10:09:00.009+00:002011-02-10T10:43:24.942+00:00When Savage Garden brought down our emails<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNQsEeO4_kcAjBOfgtLXi7P4y0hyphenhyphendd23sUUGCodd95KWbwTROcaNe0SCDTZk6tTVH0Wlj41G05XyJaulNxPZzL-NeAW2ia4k2WDV4aD-erONa-skItVrRRGSbvPR6EbcMK6P8-8eKRmAW/s1600/SAVAGEGARDEN"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 292px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNQsEeO4_kcAjBOfgtLXi7P4y0hyphenhyphendd23sUUGCodd95KWbwTROcaNe0SCDTZk6tTVH0Wlj41G05XyJaulNxPZzL-NeAW2ia4k2WDV4aD-erONa-skItVrRRGSbvPR6EbcMK6P8-8eKRmAW/s400/SAVAGEGARDEN" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572007067354445394" /></a><br />I heard a Savage Garden song on the radio this morning. They were unusually popular in the 1990s and their new releases regularly made radio station playlists and yet not too many people - within the industry, at least - ever seemed to rate them.<br /><br />Firs time I heard their debut single, <span style="font-style:italic;">I Want You</span>, was when I played it on the weekend graveyard shift at Hallam FM in 1997 and instantly I assumed it was the bloke from Roxette with a new band. And sounding like Per Gessle shouldn't exactly be a great career breaker.<br /><br />But anyway, they succeeded and developed a fan base. I'm not sure who their target audience really was. A clean-cut Aussie duo, they weren't a teen idol band for screamers, despite youth and looks, but more of a lite-pop outfit that young mums and equivalent social demographics could warm to. Blokes didn't seem to like them very much. When <span style="font-style:italic;">Truly Madly Deeply</span>, their big ballad, was released, women went eternally gooey for it. It still gets requested now. Then there was <span style="font-style:italic;">Affirmation</span>, the philosophy of life anthem that was mercilessly parodied by breakfast show presenters but, again, was seen as some great lyrical masterpiece by the fans. And as that fanbase really grew, radio began to know about it.<br /><br />Savage Garden fans in the UK were potty - or, at least, the ringleaders around one of the first online forums about the band were so. In the late 1990s, radio wasn't playing "enough" Savage Garden for their liking. I remember at Viking FM we only had two of their songs on recurrent play (three times a day maximum - <span style="font-style:italic;">Truly Madly Deeply</span> and the Almighty remix of <span style="font-style:italic;">To The Moon And Back</span>) and the rest simply didn't "test" well, as the famed expression of the industry goes. Brand new singles would go on, but maybe not for very long. Some of the sloppier stuff - <span style="font-style:italic;">I Knew I Loved You</span>, for example - got on to the late night love shows but that was pretty much it. Generally, this was replicated by most commercial stations as ultimately you had to play the stuff your core audience seemed to like the most.<br /><br />And these fans didn't like it. So, one day, somebody on these forums spent a whole day researching the name of every radio station in the UK and then, from within, making a list of all the presenters on that site. This long list was then sent out to other fanatics, who all typed their own "Play Savage Garden!" begging letter with equally restricted levels of sophistication and literacy and, with the press of one button, sent it to every radio presenter in the country.<br /><br />They didn't try to hide the fact that it was a bulk email, which took out any personalisation and proof of actual listenership which might, if anything, have been the one thing to sway a jock into doing as they asked. DJs didn't then - and don't now - choose the records they play but always made suggestions and contributions to the programmers who did compile the playlists.<br /><br />I got my email and was staggered to see hundreds and hundreds of addresses thereon. It had gone to everyone from Chris Moyles and Ken Bruce to invisible overnight jocks like me. They had also, interestingly, sent it to presenters whose role perhaps involved playing less music, no music or just different music - presenters on Radio 4, for example. And Classic FM. This email campaign was all about awareness and obsession, and little to do with impact.<br /><br />Moyles took the piss completely on the afternoon show he was hosting at the time, reading verbatim from the forums that had instigated this campaign about how much they knew and loved and admired Darren Hayes. My abiding memory of it was getting a reply through from a presenter at a station in Leeds who, accidentally or not, had clicked Reply To All instead of just Reply, and so hundreds of radio presenters, as well as the Savage Garden crazies, got his one word response: No.<br /><br />This caused further problems, as we started to get daytime email from irate BBC local radio presenters saying that this email had bust the system and they were now unable to get online. A few internal mails were then sent out, asking us to ignore and delete any bulk correspondence from these fans as it was making trouble for other presenters elsewhere. It wasn't a rivalry thing - the email from Leeds put out a BBC intranet system in Cambridgeshire, I think it was. Pot luck. Or pot lack of luck, if you prefer.<br /><br />The campaign continued for a while longer and the effect remained entirely nil. Savage Garden performed <span style="font-style:italic;">Affirmation</span> at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics - introduced by Barry Davies, who clearly had to consult a grand-daughter or great-niece to get his stats on them - and then split up. Darren Hayes' brief solo career was essentially Savage Garden under a new name (though he had a hit with a song called <span style="font-style:italic;">Strange Relationship</span> that I really liked). <br /><br />When the September 11th attacks happened, I was at Imagine FM in Stockport, having already been on air with breakfast, and my colleague noticed just in time that his first song after the extended, mournful, serious news bulletin was a Savage Garden song called <span style="font-style:italic;">Crash And Burn</span>. His mouse-clicking fingers were quick enough to save the day.<br /><br />You've noticed I've not included an embed of any of these songs. Yes, that's deliberate. I wouldn't want the online fan club to think I'm on their side.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-27229290007119490932010-08-31T14:06:00.008+01:002010-08-31T15:45:40.744+01:00Death of a Princess<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIxVlcd0cciE4rGgvP8t4O26qW64hJEaUQIPigJxxLeY75NsJ6znfqzP_StVFYtALbSErZPkJLCYMm6QW1f_BolUd4jZFL1SoHFYAx3b5XwJ3hLlzYXDIr6TWW3BYjgUbVmDJo-kyX7a5/s1600/DI.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIxVlcd0cciE4rGgvP8t4O26qW64hJEaUQIPigJxxLeY75NsJ6znfqzP_StVFYtALbSErZPkJLCYMm6QW1f_BolUd4jZFL1SoHFYAx3b5XwJ3hLlzYXDIr6TWW3BYjgUbVmDJo-kyX7a5/s320/DI.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511581393412768722" /></a><br />When Diana, Princess of Wales died in a Parisian hospital in the early hours of this very day 13 years ago, I was on the radio.<br /><br />This meant that I, along with every other live weekend overnight presenter in the country (and there were many in 1997, as opposed to the little more than a dozen currently on commercial radio today) had to go through the obituary procedure, which had never previously been necessary in the modern broadcasting era.<br /><br />For presenters, the theory was that you read the ring binder full of instructions from IRN about what to do in case word of a Royal death started to emerge. In other words, you were expected to know it off by heart. In reality, presenters forgot all about it and got on with their own thing until or unless such a day occurred.<br /><br />We were expecting it, however. Just not with Diana. In 1997 both our monarch and her consort were in their 70s and monarch's ma was pushing the ton. All three, along with the four royal siblings and the direct heirs to the throne, were on the A-list of Royal obituaries and would receive the works in terms of respectful tribute and focussed media mourning when their day of judgement arrived. Despite being de-royalled by her divorce, Diana was also on there, still, as she had given birth to one future monarch via her nuptials to another.<br /><br />So I drove to the studios at about midnight, ready for my 2am start. As I parked up, the 1am IRN bulletin announced that Diana had been in a car accident in Paris. This was breaking news and therefore there was little indication of whether it was a minor prang or a serious crash, though the late show presenter looked very grateful to be leaving the studio and heading home when 2am came round and I stepped in.<br /><br />The 2am news again was vague, but the studio televisions began to tell us a lot more and, with a rolling news service not seen before on both the BBC and ITV (as was) we knew this could be quite a big moment. However, the rules dictated that commercial radio stations should continue broadcasting their planned, regular material until directly instructed otherwise. So, both myself and the chap on the AM sister station across the corridor continued. I was playing records by Will Smith, Michelle Gayle and Ultra Naté, talking up the breakfast show's Monday return, playing <span style="font-style:italic;">Rudders Plays Pop</span> with the audience (just don't ask) and making lame observations about stuff in the papers.<br /><br />By 3am we were convinced, without any proof at all, that she was dead because the hospital in Paris was telling the media absolutely nothing on the record. Both of us - and we were the only people in the building aside from the security chap who was too busy snoring in reception to notice - re-acquainted ourselves with the obituary procedure and located the copy of the national anthem that had been placed in each studio.<br /><br />How it works is that IRN sound the obituary alarm in every newsroom in the country once they have their confirmation of a blue-blooded demise. In the event of an empty newsroom - like they all are at 4.45am on a Sunday - the alarm also activates as a flashing light in the studio to alert the presenters without alerting the listeners (though some studio alarms do make a sound if the microphone is not live at the time). Upon the activation, presenters are required to drop all programming features, production and adverts and play back to back "appropriate" music until the next scheduled IRN bulletin.<br /><br />I mentioned 4.45am as that was when the alarm finally sounded. I can remember as clear as day that my last link had been something suitably unamusing about a cocaine-taking rock star, and the record I was playing was, erm, <span style="font-style:italic;">Every Day Is A Winding Road</span> by Sheryl Crow. Not exactly ideal but we were in "normal" mode, and presenters' fingers have been metaphorically chopped off by their bosses for daring to change the music around without good reason. I didn't regard what was still officially only a rumour about Diana's farewell as good enough reason, so I played the less than tastefully titled song as it appeared on my music log. <br /><br />IRN's leap into action meant we followed the rule book until 5am and then faded them up to begin a sombre, extended, repetitive bulletin. I can't remember how long it lasted but it was long enough for both jocks to make the required phone calls to management. One of the two Sunday breakfast presenters was just arriving at the studios when the alarm sounded and so instead of brewing up for us all and doing his prep for his show, he got on with the task of rescheduling the music for the two stations.<br /><br />IRN's initial elongated bulletin ended and it was back to individual studios to continue the process. This should have involved the playing of the National Anthem, but we could only find a copy of it on Sonifex cartridge (with the words 'NATIONAL ANTHEM' affixed to the front with red Dymotape), and the machines that played these wonderful things (I love carts to this day) had long been decommissioned and replaced with the computer playout system. After toying with the idea of playing the Queen version from <span style="font-style:italic;">A Night At The Opera</span> - it was the only recorded version of the anthem that I knew, and it was accessible on vinyl in the record library (and our turntables were still wired up to the desk, albeit rarely used) - we decided against playing it at all and just started the "serious music tape" that had sat on its shelf for months and years waiting, like a fire extinguisher, to be needed.<br /><br />There was only one such tape in the building. It was, delightfully, a Revox reel tape. This suggested its vintage (although in the late 1990s many presenters still did splice editing of their stuff; I have several boxes of reel tapes in my garage containing all sorts of crap) and after it was placed on to the spools and wound into position, a deep breath was taken and it was fired off as soon as IRN completed their final wrap. <br /><br />The tape contained suitably mournful, uninterrupted, melancholy tunes for use on air in between 15 minute IRN updates. That there was only one didn't matter on a technical basis, as it just meant that one of us could fade up the other's studio from where the tape was played. This would have been fine, except the tape in question had not been updated since one of the two stations had undergone a complete rebrand and therefore there were jingles of a radio station that no longer existed going out on two differently named stations. Confusing for the listeners and also for those of us responsible for airing it, as serious music tapes had to be brandless. Why those jingles were on it I will never know, but as soon as we heard one after the first two songs (the first song was <span style="font-style:italic;">All I Have To Do Is Dream</span>, that I do recall) we faded it out in a hurry and started handpicking slushy Whitney Houston-esque ballads from the CD racks until our shifts ended at 6am, by which time the rescheduling of the day's music had been completed and new logs printed off.<br /><br />And that was it, really. The two jocks due for breakfast shifts from 6am had to do their four-hour stints playing back to back wrist-slitters with only occasional pauses for forlorn repeat announcements from IRN. I drove home and went to bed, totally shattered. The adrenaline that hits you as you take on such a sizeable and unexpected burden is immense, making the comedown afterwards all the more jading. <br /><br />I was less than a year into my professional radio career and had just assumed responsibility for the radio station's reaction to an event unprecedented in UK commercial radio's lifetime. I think, given the problems with the anthem and the serious music tape, not to mention the most unsociable time of day for trying to rouse important people and inform them (and take advice), the two of us on air did a good job. This made the station boss's comment to the staff at a meeting a few days later that it was "unfortunate that our most inexperienced presenter was on the air at the time" seem most unfair, crass and arrogant - until August 31st 1997, no presenter of even John Peel's years of service had ever done a Royal obit! The last Royal death of equal or greater significance, assuming exiled former monarchs with Nazi sympathies didn't count, was that of King George VI in 1952.<br /><br />It took me ages to get over that comment. I wanted a "well done" and never got one. And believe me, you can rehearse it all you like (and this station evidently didn't or it would have known about the unplayable anthem and the jingle-drizzled tape) but when Royalty dies and you're the person in charge of reacting, there really is no pressure like it.<br /><br />These days, technology makes the job easier. In 1997, studio computer systems only contained the adverts and the jingles, and presenters still played their songs from CD players. Now the computers have everything, and also are sophisticated enough to be accessed and altered from the engineer or programme director's front room, meaning a couple of clicks of a button are all that's needed in the event of a Royal breathing their last to change the automated, presenterless output into one more respectful. <br /><br />In truth, that it was a) Diana, and b) an accident, made this Royal obituary even harder to react to, as a sudden death in such circumstances prompts speculation and forces the hand of those responsible for confirming the details. Buckingham Palace and the hospital in Paris had to do so before dawn broke, having had to deal with the frantic requirements of the media for four hours previously. As we discovered when the Queen Mother died four and a half years later, a much more natural, "controllable" and, let's be honest, anticipated passing could be made public at a time convenient to all. There had been rumour all of that Saturday of her death but we weren't told for definite until 5pm and were instructed to carry on with the programming until IRN at 6pm, who would make the announcement. The only thing to alter was the promotion of the post-6pm shows as clearly these were now not going to occur.<br /><br />I was on air for this too. I was at Millwall FC, presenting the coverage of Stockport County's game there and providing co-commentary. Easter Saturday of 2002, it was. The game had just ended and I was conducting the post-match phone-in when the chap pushing the buttons back at base gave me the news during a commercial break and told me that from 6pm we would go, until further notice, to IRN. <br /><br />6pm was the football show's scheduled finishing time anyway, which didn't help things for me. I don't think I have made a bigger <span style="font-style:italic;">faux pas</span> in my career than the moment leading up to 6pm when, with the producer counting the seconds down to the top of the hour into my headphones, I ended my spiel in the way I always ended it, with the words "Party Mix next". Five seconds later came the sorrowful voice of the IRN announcer informing the nation of the Queen Mother's expiry and I could have easily died with her right there.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-2855937163736419962010-06-24T12:25:00.004+01:002010-06-24T12:46:22.965+01:00Alan CooperI've just received the sad news that my first boss has passed away. Alan co-ran the news agency where I worked between 1993 and 1998 and was already beyond the usual retirement age when I hooked up. I'm guessing he was 83 when he died yesterday afternoon.<br /><br />He was a fantastic bloke, fully red-bearded which made him identical to Richard Stilgoe, except Alan was a far better wordsmith. He and his business partner Stan were old school hacks, brought up on typewriters, spikes, trench coats, copy via telephone boxes and what looked like 4,000,000 wpm in very complicated Pitman. They had run the agency together since the 1950s.<br /><br />Alan hired myself and another 20 year old trainee in order to replace a young reporter destined for bigger things (that chap is now chief football writer for the Daily Mirror) and also to allow him to take a little more time away from the office. I can only recall him dashing out on a breaking story once, which was a tragic road crash in Sowerby Bridge which involved a lorry, a BT van and two shops, and resulted in half a dozen deaths. He drove to the scene and returned with a story, loads of quotes and a clear idea of how it should be written. It was done in half an hour and over several front pages the next day.<br /><br />He wouldn't mind me saying, however, that those of us who knew him in the 1990s and onwards remember best what he was like in the pub rather than in the office. He was phenomenally generous, and always got the first round in irrespective of how many people were in it. He and Stan saw it as a gentlemanly duty to take me and the other newbie for a beer each evening after work, as well as the odd lunchtime and always in the press box bar at Huddersfield Town on a Saturday, because they were aware that our salaries weren't exactly outstanding and so a young boy's ale requirements should not be part of his weekly outgoings. Through this period, we were treated to endless tales about their finest hours and maddest moments as West Yorkshire journalists from the 1950s onwards, and as raconteurs they were hard to match. Both men were so different, as individuals and as a partnership, and yet so similar. They embodied principles and values and kindnesses that I hope rubbed off on everyone who worked with them.<br /><br />They tried their best with me, but even they couldn't turn a decent writer into someone who had decent news sense, though I still felt I learned more in a fortnight with them than I did in a year on an NCTJ training course ("<span style="font-style:italic;">What do they teach you in these bloody colleges?</span>") and so in 1998 I quit being a journalist for the alleged career I have now. By then both had retired entirely and sold the agency on. For all the enjoyment I got from working with a new boss, it wasn't quite the same as hearing Alan grumble about the accounts or tell a yarn about Frank Worthington or James Pickles while Stan argued with a copytaker or practised his singing.<br /><br />Stan informed me of this news about half an hour ago, and it's so sad. I've had my share of evil and incompetent bosses over the years, so when one of the Really Good Guys goes, it is all the more poignant. Rest in peace Alan, here's a pint and a whisky chaser. Now tell us again about Lord Kagen's downfall.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-35159174388040641742010-04-29T15:45:00.007+01:002010-04-29T16:14:40.387+01:00Turned to liquidYou may recall that at the back end of last year, <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-year-new-decade-new-beginning.html">I was elated</a> to be offered a job <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-was-what-are-you-doing-new-years-eve.html">as the breakfast presenter of Pennine FM in Huddersfield</a>.<br /><br />Today I attended a meeting at the offices of liquidators instructed by the radio station's holding company to detail the assets of the station, which closed down over the Easter weekend.<br /><br />I had lasted five weeks at the station. After just 24 shows, I was called into the finance director's office and had my contract terminated as, simply, they couldn't afford to pay me. They emailed me later the same week to confirm this. And to this day, they still haven't paid me. Under the terms of my contract, I'm owed one four-figure sum in wages and a larger four-figure sum in severance pay. Since then I have also incurred legal fees and threw in a final £30 in train fares to get to today's meeting, hoping there would be some crumbs to throw back out.<br /><br />There were none. And, bleakly, it looks like there will always be none. I've been left helpless, jobless and potless.<br /><br />They dismissed me on February 4th. <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2010/02/penny-2000-2010.html">What else happened on February 4th</a>? Suffice to say, I've enjoyed better days.<br /><br />I issued a County Court order for my wages, which was ignored. I sent in the Sheriff (different to bailiffs, as the Sheriff is private and therefore has more incentive to come away with money or goods) and that came to nothing. A week after the Sheriff went in and compiled an inventory of all the gear, the radio station closed down thanks partly to transmitter issues and partly to the owners of the property where it was based calling in months of unpaid rent. Landlords or mortgage providers get priority, under the law, when it comes to seizing goods of value to recoup their debt, leaving my little bit of legal action in tatters.<br /><br />So, once that was over, I waited for my letter from the liquidators and it duly arrived, inviting me to today's meeting. I had no idea - and dared not guess - how many other creditors there were and how much they were owed. Upon arrival at the liquidators' offices this morning, I was handed an agenda and a breakdown of the company figures, and at the back was an alphabetical list of every creditor, including me, and the amounts owed to each.<br /><br />(They had cut my debt to a tenth of its real worth, but it turns out that was a typing error).<br /><br />There were 86 creditors. That's 86 people or companies or institutions that are today still owed money by this radio station. The smallest individual sum owed was £2.16; the largest was more than £13,000. And all bar one of the debts larger than mine were to companies. Only one was, like me, owed to an individual in terms of salary for agreed services.<br /><br />Anyway, the upshot of it all was that despite the best efforts of the few creditors who felt it was a wild goose chase still worth pursuing, the cupboard was and is bare. The problem, nay scandal, is that it seemed to be bare from the beginning. It was bare when they placed the ad to which I responded, it was bare when I started work, it was bare when I was fired and it was bare when - get this - they then placed more ads seeking to hire further sales people.<br /><br />One of the other creditors who turned up, a fellow presenter who stayed the course until the station closed down, told the liquidators that he was essentially lied to, was down to his last three pounds, had no food in the house and was desperate for at least some of the substantial sum he was owed. He was sad in his demeanour; I was just livid. I felt I had a right to be scathing and vindictive and asked the liquidators to make an individual liable personally for the sums owed, which under the regulations they can do. I submitted, via my legal advice, that the trading had been wrongful and possibly fraudulent as they knew that the company was insolvent when they took over and continued to trade while their bills and debts continued to far outweigh their income and assets.<br /><br />There is no doubt that they had trouble in persuading clients to pay them due advertising and sponsorship revenue. January was tough because the snow meant the sales staff couldn't get in. But they continued to hire and solicit for staff throughout this period of zero, or negligible, turnover.<br /><br />When I was dismissed, an email was sent out to the remaining members of staff which informed them I had got a job at another radio station. This was a lie, designed to not induce panic among the remaining few members of the on-air team who, like me, had not seen a bean all year but in some cases unlike me, did not have the alleged security of a signed contract. A friend kindly forwarded me the email and I handed a copy to the liquidator, along with copies of my contract and each of my invoices that were appropriately submitted after each week of work had been completed. The contents of that email suggested cowardice and blind stupidity, as well as incompetence.<br /><br />Sadly, ethics and morals don't override the law and the bank's debenture (I had to ask what a debenture was, and didn't like the answer very much) and the landlord's priority claim meant that even if the cupboard wasn't quite bare, the chances of receiving even a small percentage of what I am owed is now almost wholly nil. As a creditor who was not on the staff payroll, I am a long way down the list. I and no other creditor can do much about it. It will take a lot for the liquidators to decide anyone is personally liable, and there is a huge burden of proof to uncover before any allegations of fraudulent trading can be levelled at any individual.<br /><br />It's a grim and frustrating business, all told. It's hard enough to find a job in radio at the moment, let alone find one that gets you all excited and then turns out to be an utter sham. I feel really let down.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-26435004160304094602010-01-06T13:30:00.009+00:002010-01-06T13:57:18.660+00:00"Fartown High School has just gone..."It's the first time I've ever liked snow.<br /><br />I'm not a child, and nor do I have any. Therefore I cannot think of a reason why a grown-up should enjoy snow. All it does is cause injury, delays, separation, isolation and hypothermia.<br /><br />However, the timing of the snow in West Yorkshire couldn't have been better in one sense.<br /><br />It got people tuning into <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-was-what-are-you-doing-new-years-eve.html">the radio station where I now work</a>.<br /><br />Local radio is never more important than when there is a crisis in the area that actively threatens to spoil or change the day that people have planned. Regional and national radio can talk about the main roads - Bobbi Prior's travel bulletins on Radio 2 yesterday were so long the music bed ran out while she spoke - but only a very local station can get specifics, take correspondence from people stuck or suffering and use it, and then change its priorities so that helping people through their day becomes the absolute.<br /><br />Especially when the schools close.<br /><br />On yesterday's breakfast show at Pennine FM, <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2010/01/snow-is-causing-chaos-in-brockholes.html">only my second</a>, we were bantering away about anything and nothing for the first hour when the snow started to fall. And the sky really was hurling this irritating white stuff down.<br /><br />Within minutes, emails were arriving about schools that were being closed for the day. The list grew gradually but steadily until we were giving mention to more than 100 schools in Kirklees (that's Huddersfield, Dewsbury and surrounding smaller towns all west of Leeds) that were staying shut for the day.<br /><br />All other features and formats went out of the window (which we obviously closed again quickly). Every link was offering an update or a recap. People are tuning in all the time, information is always being updated and the job of local radio in this situation is to serve its people as well as possible.<br /><br />We understood from colleagues who were channel-hopping in the car that our rivals, who had bigger regions to cover, were only mentioning schools every 20 minutes or so. But when a parent wakes up and sees that weather, they need to know now, now, now. They may have childcare to arrange, or a day off work to force through. They might not be able to get through to the school if they ring it. So their next port of call is the local radio station. And they simply can't wait 20 minutes because you have some daft quiz to play.<br /><br />By 9am yesterday (and today, in fact), I was drained. Not exhausted, but drained. The adrenaline and the spontaneity and the need to deliver concise and correct information constantly really wore into me. It is always live, but it really <span style="font-style:italic;">felt</span> live. And the number of calls we got to our specially set-up Schools Line, and the amount of emails we were sent, and the number of hits we got to our website, where we had published a full, alphabetical list of shut schools, suggests that we got our priorities right. When you need local information right now, the place you should turn to is your local radio station.<br /><br />And given that I'm on a breakfast show that needs to raise its profile, a potential crisis, live and happening, supplies the best possible and most urgent reason for making people come to you. I'm in no doubt that many of the listeners who tuned in to us over the last two days have not done so in weeks, or months, or possibly even ever before. They may have been Radio 1 types, happy to enjoy Chris Moyles and his articulate rambles because their journey to work and their nine year old's journey to school was not threatened. But on this occasion, they knew that Chris had to be sacrificed. <br /><br />The forecast suggests we may be talking snow and schools and roads tomorrow and Friday too. That's fine by me. One hopes that we do a good enough job to prompt them all to stick around with us long after the snow has melted and sanity has returned.<br /><br />Local radio is being much maligned right now. The group that owns all the Heart stations (many of which were rebranded as Heart when they were bought a couple of years ago, after years with a familiar local name) has talked openly of maybe being permitted one day to make its London breakfast programme the morning show on every Heart station, thereby removing the localness from everything each station does at breakfast time. How they could ever maintain their credibility on snowy days I would never know. What I do know is that whitened days like those most of us are having proves just how important, and special, and helpful, real local radio is.<br /><br />So, while offering all my sympathy if this weather has ruined your week in some way, I rather like snow this week. It won't last, promise. Especially if I'm out in it rather than seated in a warm studio, reporting on it.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-77915093974865899192010-01-05T05:50:00.006+00:002010-01-05T06:10:33.097+00:00"The snow is causing chaos in Brockholes this morning..."When a sage as distinguished as <a href="http://bar-six.blogspot.com/">Five Centres</a> makes a demand, you have to take it on board. He claims, within the responses to <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-was-what-are-you-doing-new-years-eve.html">the previous post</a>, that he wants a report on how the first show went.<br /><br />Well, it went fine. I enjoyed it. It's for others to say whether it was any good, and the odd technical mini-trauma aside it was as good as one can expect on a new show, new format and in new surroundings. Plus this was the relaunch of the whole station so there was extra need to make it reasonably listenable.<br /><br /><a href="http://charlesnove.blogspot.com/">Charles Nove</a>, frequent companion on our <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-intercourse-are-you-where.html">Nerd Nights</a> and Deputy Voice of the Balls, is the voice of my production package and the stuff he has given us is fantastic. I rather hope a smart programmer is reading this and realises that the great Lord Nove seeketh work after the <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2009/09/chris-and-tel.html">Wogan show came to its conclusion</a> last month.<br /><br />We're keeping it simple and fun, geting local schoolkids involved each day and running a twice-daily music-based competition for cash. It'll take a few months of marketing and promotion before the fruits of our labour begin to show in the ratings but, like Lennie Godber after his history exam, I will admit to feeling quietly confident. And that's an achievement, given that I don't do anything quietly.<br /><br />If you have any urges, you can quell them <a href="http://www.penninefm.net">here</a> each morning at 6am.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-45179827650574386862009-12-04T09:51:00.005+00:002009-12-04T10:24:28.722+00:00A car park space for ambulances<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8S165YUuvRh8tpYsDDHZ6id74BZ-WEqHejl1HcJWsVEx37M_RmUpDevZmXlHLYxYHaFnDtCZOhjQ9fXTuK4NkWgZTC6QuXE__MiuGHIunAp3rpgHIqAAyTJv75XafbNUZNDNOsMv-r5zZ/s1600-h/DERELICTPUB.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8S165YUuvRh8tpYsDDHZ6id74BZ-WEqHejl1HcJWsVEx37M_RmUpDevZmXlHLYxYHaFnDtCZOhjQ9fXTuK4NkWgZTC6QuXE__MiuGHIunAp3rpgHIqAAyTJv75XafbNUZNDNOsMv-r5zZ/s320/DERELICTPUB.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411324562264926434" /></a><br />I'm working for <a href="http://www.pureradio.org.uk">Pure</a> this week, which is always a joy, and at the moment there is a campaign on the station to find Stockport's Perfect Pub. Listeners are voting between two pubs a week and eventually we'll get to a final two and the accolade will be handed out.<br /><br />I remember as an FHM reader when I was a thrusting twentysomething that the mag had a feature called The Lush, in which an unspecified number of the magazine's people visited a different UK town and took in five of the local bars and hostelries. If I recall rightly, they marked on the basis of convenience, welcoming of strangers, range of "strong lagers" to mix, the chance of a decent conversation and the likelihood of a beating. I lived in Huddersfield at the time, and they went to at least two bars whose doors I'd previously vowed not to darken again - and liked them. Maybe it was just me that night, then.<br /><br />The worst pub I've ever frequented was in the Lowerhouses area of Huddersfield, one of the more dubious parts of the town. I drove through this estate every day to get to and from work, and there was one pub in the centre of the estate called the Masons Arms. I would never have visited in a thousand years but on this occasion, I had to because of work.<br /><br />A well known (to the police) extended family lived on the Lowerhouses estate and were extremely notorious in the area. They were responsible for a number of burglaries, deceptions, thefts and the like, to the extent that the Local Intelligence Office at the police station, where I as a hack had to go each day to be given the overnight crimes, had photographs of every single member of this family on its wall, almost for decoration.<br /><br />This family committed one crime on the Lowerhouses estate too many and local vigilantes decided to do something. The house the family squeezed into (we're talking a dozen adults here - a mum and dad, sons, daughters, nephews and nieces) was firebombed. The house itself didn't catch fire but those family members present were forced to flee.<br /><br />As an agency hack, this had potential to do more than just trouble the local press and so we needed to find a way of flogging it to the nationals. So, a colleague and I were assigned to go and talk to the Lowerhouses locals and, of course, the best way to do this en masse was to head for the Masons Arms. we were given a bit of company petty cash in order to get a round in for willing talkers, and off we went.<br /><br />Oh dear. This place was even more horrendous inside than even the grubby exterior could ever have made you imagine. However, it was evidently popular with the residents, and on the midweek evening we turned up, plenty were in. We got the inevitable "who the hell are you?" look when, as strangers, we walked through the door and ordered two pints of lager. But after ten minutes, we managed to get chatting.<br /><br />We figured the best way to go about it was to be honest about who we were and what we wanted from the beginning, and this seemed to work. A round of ales later and a few tongues at the bar began to loosen. We didn't ask for names and didn't make notes; our best hope was to not look like journalists at all.<br /><br />The goodwill lasted about half an hour, then gradually they began to turn on us. We quickly finished our drinks and did the classic hack's routine of making our excuses and leaving. I'm not especially brave in most situations, but I have to admit that throughout my time in that wretched tavern I was terrified. These were rough people and I doubt that they were especially law-abiding themselves, but we had gone in there to try to profit, in a way, from their desperation and anger and although for a while we got away with it, in the end they made it clear what they'd do if we didn't vacate.<br /><br />The Masons Arms was undecorated, floorless, freezing and odorous. I look back now and wonder how the hell it maintained a licence and a safety certificate. The cracks in the furniture and the splinters sticking out of the pool cues suggested frequent punch ups. As we recalled what we were told in the office the next day, we knew we'd had a lucky escape.<br /><br />We got bugger all in the papers and the Masons Arms closed down within weeks. I drove past it for two more years on my way to and from work and never saw it reopen. I wouldn't be surprised if it still stands there, crumbling and desolate, housing a thousand nasty memories for all those who unwittingly drank there.<br /><br />To my knowledge, the extended family never changed their ways. I expect their mugshots are still on the police station walls to this day.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-81565877626491688952009-10-08T16:23:00.004+01:002009-10-08T17:20:55.800+01:00Currie favour<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpYYv1qrSnC1DaRZsNG13p2YXWk6ie5Q925q4W3N-V8W7TpI6AqV3b2E5KvmXoSueVF6qIeBhtPqvMPvxuS5M4tjNI5KW1GGZTql1vkYQ5hF6PFtTts0BiTlRvpJsGjH_P9Q49K9nqOeo/s1600-h/DEBBIEDWINA.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 263px; height: 285px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpYYv1qrSnC1DaRZsNG13p2YXWk6ie5Q925q4W3N-V8W7TpI6AqV3b2E5KvmXoSueVF6qIeBhtPqvMPvxuS5M4tjNI5KW1GGZTql1vkYQ5hF6PFtTts0BiTlRvpJsGjH_P9Q49K9nqOeo/s320/DEBBIEDWINA.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390261308982988498" /></a><br /><br />On the left is Debbie Currie, daughter of vampish ex-MP Edwina, who is obviously on the right. Debbie earned some brief fame when pretending to be a wannabe pop star as part of a <span style="font-style:italic;">Cook Report</span> exposée on the music industry.<br /><br />I was reminded of her yesterday when a colleague brought up her mother's name during a conversation, the nature of which now escapes me. It was probably about eggs, or something equally as predictable. Anyway, since the fake pop princess incident, Debbie has been in the papers for the usual kiss-and-tell reasons and stuff about single motherhood, and was chased a bit when details of her mother's (still hard to believe, and gross to picture) fling with John Major was revealed via serialisation of her diaries.<br /><br />However, one of Debbie's first ever appearances in our beloved, ever-sympathetic press was down to me. At least in part it was.<br /><br />That isn't necessarily a boast, as I hated hounding or chasing folk when I was a hack in Huddersfield; indeed, it was one of the many reasons I disliked the job and knew I wasn't at all cut out for it. But I must confess it was something of a buzz when the agency for whom I worked was assigned by a well-known Sunday organ to go after this young woman, and it was made easier by the positive reasons for it.<br /><br />I can't pinpoint the exact year but I suspect it was 1996 or 1997. Debbie's mum was still a big attraction to the media and interest in her daughter had grown. She was an undergraduate at Huddersfield University, living in poky student digs near Great Northern Street, only a short distance from where Peter Sutcliffe took his one Huddersfield-based life at the end of the 1970s. It wasn't a pleasant place to live at all, and still had something of a red light reputation, but students had always occupied this short row of urban terraces.<br /><br />All we had was some rumour that she had taken a particularly appealing part-time job with the local Kirklees Council to supplement her undoubtedly meagre grant. It was the kind of vocation that would lend itself to good quality photography. Our job as hacks was to stalk her, essentially, and then report to the paper's assigned photographer exactly where she was. He then would turn up with his gear, do his stuff, and we'd submit a handful of paragraphs of copy to accompany what was just a big photo story. <br /><br />So, once we'd uncovered where she lived, we simply drove to the street and waited for her to leave the house, hopefully for her new place of work. As well as her student address, we'd established whereabouts in the borough this pleasing job of hers took place, so all we had to do was follow her and she would, hopefully, take us to it.<br /><br />I was driving a battered V-reg Fiesta at the time, the 1980s model with an unmarked gear stick and considerable lack of comfort or style. It was all I could afford. My boss joined me in the passenger seat and together we waited in this not picturesque street, keeping a watchful eye on the house while still far enough away so as to not attract suspicion.<br /><br />Eventually, Debbie left her front door and got into her car. We'd seen her before in a photo and instantly we knew it was her. The resemblance to her mother is astonishing, as you can see above. It was a similar reaction to when you saw Julian Lennon or Samantha Beckinsale for the first time. If it wasn't for Edwina's old bat status they could be mistaken for sisters, albeit sisters who were born when their mum was 16 and 39 respectively. So we had our girl. Now we just had to trail her.<br /><br />It was difficult, as my Fiesta wasn't exactly a sharp mover, whereas Debbie didn't have an especially swift car but it was newer than mine and she was a bit of girl racer to boot. I don't think she knew she was being followed, even though her place of work was a bit of a distance and she may have noticed this rusty old white heap a car or two behind her every time she checked her rear view mirror. Nonetheless, she didn't half shift once she got going.<br /><br />It was approaching rush hour in Huddersfield, and Debbie snaked through the traffic with aplomb. I was still a fairly new driver, with <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2008/03/sorry-sir-but-yours-isnt-breakdown.html">one serious rush hour accident</a> behind me, and this was quite a test for my nerve at the wheel. We joined one of the A-road exits from Huddersfield and made our way east towards Dewsbury, thereby pretty much confirming the place of work we'd been given was correct.<br /><br />Eventually we hit one of the Dewsbury suburb centres and Debbie parked in a schoolyard. We found a space on a single yellow across the road and (using a phone box; the agency couldn't afford one of those newfangled mobile things) rang the photographer, who was in the area and was just waiting for a precise location. Once he turned up, we left, our job for the day done.<br /><br />A day later, we got a call saying the task had been a great success and a picture would be going in the paper. It was, and I assume remains, common practice for tabloid newspapers to inform people in the public eye that something is going to appear in their publication about them in the near future, to give them a chance to offer a comment or, at the very least, prepare themselves and loved ones in case the tale is damaging or unflattering. And so, yes, I was sent back to Debbie's unclean street - and this time I was knocking on the door.<br /><br />Her flatmate answered and hollered up the hallway for her without asking who this scruffy bloke with a loosened tie was that wanted to talk to his chum. Debbie duly came to the door and I explained, carefully and politely, that she had been snapped doing her part-time job and would be appearing in a paper at the weekend. She wasn't remotely surprised, although she assured me she didn't know she had ever been followed on her way. I got a handshake and a smile. She was a very good sport indeed.<br /><br />The photo was superb when it appeared, with our small scrap of copy underneath. I wish it was available online, I really do. She later ruined it by posing with fried eggs (a nod to her mum's past?) on her breasts during the pop industry sting, but the photo I recall was of someone just enjoying life, not seeking attention or notoriety. <br /><br />In her white jacket and with the tool of her trade in her grip, she was the most exciting, interesting and attractive lollipop lady I had ever seen.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-89606424601668378202009-06-01T11:30:00.005+01:002009-06-01T12:02:10.508+01:00It's time to get up, and get on your way...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYP27LjQphtKGFAkL8mpKj3SmtoYqqa07W7WIP4T9S7U0pq-QD_-HuEEBxHkNDdL5J2x0KQV57rE-GoyqEJ-zfavouyhZoJcagJjnWB7jtRYf6Ar9jZ5HlrVySo9lM8IM3upIAdR28JaTk/s1600-h/ALARMCLOCK.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYP27LjQphtKGFAkL8mpKj3SmtoYqqa07W7WIP4T9S7U0pq-QD_-HuEEBxHkNDdL5J2x0KQV57rE-GoyqEJ-zfavouyhZoJcagJjnWB7jtRYf6Ar9jZ5HlrVySo9lM8IM3upIAdR28JaTk/s400/ALARMCLOCK.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342312551352361474" /></a><br />I have a week off - at least, so far I have - and the prospect of catching up on a spot of shuteye is a most attractive one. Yet when the next batch of dawn calls comes along, I'll relish it.<br /><br />For the last three weeks the latest I have dragged my sorry arse out of bed on a weekday is 4.10am. The earliest is 3am. This is because of some breakfast show cover on <a href="http://www.pureradio.org.uk/">Pure 107.8FM</a> in Stockport and then <a href="http://www.wishfm.net/">102.4 Wish FM</a> in Wigan. The latter involved the 3am starts as Wigan is a bit further away from me than Stockport and the show starts at 6am, an hour earlier.<br /><br />An alarm clock at 3am doesn't really wake you up. The six minute snooze to which I treat myself prior to the second alarm acts as the slow waking process - you are conscious but still beyond drowsy. After many years of doing inhuman shifts, my body now has an involuntary way of maintaining my consciousness levels until the second alarm sounds, and that involves a frenetic, unceasing waggle of my toes.<br /><br />Once out of bed, I'm fine. I'm not a rush job at that time, I want to allow myself time to shower, shave, make myself some breakfast and give myself time to eat it. Some people on earlier-than-thou shifts are out of the house within literally two minutes of throwing aside the quilt. I can't do that. They must stink. And they must be hungry. And they won't have even begun to wake up.<br /><br />Although it's a weekday alarm, I'm also aware that at 3am, as I'm tiptoeing round the house getting ready, that people elsewhere are still considering the prospect of going to bed. That does feel strange, especially when Saturday night comes round and I'm doing the nightclub gig, as I finish at 3am on Sunday and as I crawl, dog tired, under the sheets at the bed and breakfast ten minutes later, I'm aware that on five of the six previous days I was just getting up at precisely the same time.<br /><br />Driving on a motorway between the hours of 3.30am and 5.30am is also a strange experience. At this time of year it's practically daylight by setting off time and, having tucked myself in no later than 9pm the night before, it's daylight then too. This means that early risers in a British summer see no proper darkness at all for five days of the week.<br /><br />Being on a motorway, in daylight, when it's conspicuous by its emptiness, is good for someone in my job. As I'm freelance, I can't afford to be complacent. Long though it is, the drive is uneventful thanks to the sheer lack of traffic and it allows me to concentrate my mind, psyche up the performer within and by the time I get to the studio - no less than half an hour before I'm due on air - I'm ready. I'm wide awake, raring to go, aware that my upbeat persona, should it be such, is key to making sure that knackered people forcing themselves from their pits from 6am onwards feel cheery and happy as they begin their daily routines.<br /><br />Sometimes, usually midway through a week of these hours, you hit the wall. Driving back home after coming off air at 10am can occasionally build the wall before you but if it does turn up, it's usually in the afternoon. 3pm for me in early mode is the equivalent of 8pm for a conventional career person, and at 8pm a lot of people are snoozing in front of the telly after a hard day's graft and with a bellyful of dinner. That's 3pm to me. Sometimes the wall is unavoidable, but on most occasions to have to clamber over it, as even an hour's kip can make you feel totally wretched afterwards.<br /><br />Last week I was in bed by 9pm and up by 3.06am, each weekday. This was my routine when I worked full time on breakfasts and you do get used to it. You get used to the sound of the birds waking up and of milk floats humming along. In my case, a light would go on in the house opposite as regularly as clockwork while I was abluting as the bloke who lives there is on 24-hour medication and has to wake himself up before cockcrow to take a tablet. You notice stuff like that. You notice every over-sensitive security light down your street - the ones that ignite when a car has the temerity to drive past, or a cat starts a fight in the garden next door. As I leave my house at 3.35am, three lights down the street come on.<br /><br />I love my sleep and I'll enjoy my good lie-in this week, but there is something special, if not necessarily attractive to those not in the know, about being out and about at that hour, beginning your day when most of the nation is comatose. It's the tranquillity of it, the knowledge that you are doing your job in order to help them get in the correct frame of mind to do theirs. Being able to leave work before midday earns you jealous looks from colleagues and envious catty comments from friends. People ask me, when I do breakfast shifts, how on earth I cope with the early starts. My answer is rather straightforward and surprises them - it's the easiest thing in the world. The nature of my job, the excitement that goes with it, the glamour that it exudes to the rest of the world (not that it truly exists, but you let them believe it) makes a 3.06am final warning from my alarm clock the most bearable of things. When I think of the jobs I could be doing following such an anti-social alarm, I'm grateful...Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-88205390440178865692009-05-11T16:44:00.009+01:002009-05-11T18:18:47.752+01:00What a tangled web we weave<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipl8hzTIUNlxcR12JPXJzfqAVRKhHwOr116KMOGjtn25lv5y4CRtCTDYXtfdvUy9wV4CYkyqtwDOgWkySqw2fr8hqtSZO8aemmIA_HBf2kRLegu1SWaX2XK-wOiVNl-eH23UCRrQ2N8Ms4/s1600-h/TARANTULA.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 278px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipl8hzTIUNlxcR12JPXJzfqAVRKhHwOr116KMOGjtn25lv5y4CRtCTDYXtfdvUy9wV4CYkyqtwDOgWkySqw2fr8hqtSZO8aemmIA_HBf2kRLegu1SWaX2XK-wOiVNl-eH23UCRrQ2N8Ms4/s400/TARANTULA.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334616727827876674" /></a><br /><br />Most days we will read a court story in our morning papers. The criteria for getting a case from a mere magistrates court into the national press is three-fold, and only one needs to be applied to give it a chance of avoiding the Fleet Street spike. To wit, the story must involve a famous person; or it must be as a consequence of an infamous or wildly serious and well-publicised incident; or it must be a little quirky. <br /><br />If it has all three (which is extremely unlikely, given that serious and quirky don't really mix) then all the better.<br /><br />I spent almost five years reporting the magistrates court proceedings in Huddersfield when my career path had forced me to wear a tie and look shabby and underfed on a daily basis. And apart from the odd local sporting person getting done for shouting at a policeman or being a few microgrammes over the limit, nobody famous got done on our patch at all.<br /><br />The serious stuff was quite rare too, certainly in my time wandering up and down the concourses from courtroom to courtroom. We had one especially notorious murder case - it was very familial in terms of the victim and the perpetrators - but magistrates are merely part of the process in the most serious cases and there was next to nothing the law would allow me to report.<br /><br />The quirky stuff was the most likely to generate some lineage and a few pennies from the nationals. Way back in this blog, I talked about my favourite ever criminal court case, and it's available <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2008/08/in-deep-sh.html">here</a> for your eternal perusal, or at least until the day comes when infirmity, boredom, blindness or a call from a celebrity's lawyer forces this blog to close. Look at the last paragraph and you'll see I also mentioned, teasingly, a second great court story that was discussed on <span style="font-style:italic;">Have I Got News For You</span> and was, rarely for me as I genuinely was a poor journalist, a proper scoop as it didn't involve an actual court case.<br /><br />Let me set the scene. I'm sitting at a table on the concourse one early afternoon, waiting for a case to restart after a lunchtime recess, drinking coffee and chatting to one of Huddersfield's many solicitors, most of whom I got on very well with. As we talked, probably about football as opposed to anything deeper, someone in an official capacity (no names - even rubbish hacks such as I know about protecting sources) asked if I had a moment for a quiet chat.<br /><br />We slipped into the empty duty solicitor room and this professional court user informed me that a bit of a panic was afoot in the lower ground area of the building, where the courtrooms that usually housed family and youth proceedings were based.<br /><br />The upshot of it all was that a lad aged under 17 had arrived for a youth court appearance that morning, carrying a cardboard box. Upon his case being called, he left the box in the waiting area and trotted into court. Then, as he exited - thereby not being imprisoned for whatever his offence was - he collected his box and vacated the premises. Straightforward.<br /><br />However, a panicky telephone call was then made by his mother to the court office over the lunch hour. The contents of his cardboard box had gone missing.<br /><br />Stolen? Possibly. Let's be frank, you're more than likely to bump into an opportunistic thief in a magistrates court than you are in most places. However, it seemed unlikely as it turned out that the cargo within this box was also capable of disappearing by itself.<br /><br />It was a tarantula.<br /><br />A Persian blue-backed tarantula, to be precise.<br /><br />So there I am, in this tiny, almost soundproofed office, being informed that a large arachnid was on the loose in the very building where the laws of the land were being upheld.<br /><br />I telephoned the office and got the go-ahead from the news agency proprietor to make this story my priority. He started to research the type of tarantula in question while over the next two hours, I wandered around the building, collecting information about the defendant and quotations from the professional users of the court. Even while going from courtroom to courtroom, office to corridor, outdoor smoking area to phone booth, I couldn't help looking around for the spider myself.<br /><br />The staff thought it hilarious, with the exception of the man who ran the court at the time. He was a talkative enough chap, but he was rigidly protective of his court's reputation, known as an obstructive individual among briefs and hacks alike and lacked a sense of humour. His priority, upon hearing of the unwelcome intruder somewhere in his building's bowels, was to extinguish it. Not find it, necessarily - even though it was a youngster's pet - but to exterminate it. From his taxpayer-funded budget, he ordered industrial fumigators to come in after hours and give the court's fabrics and foundations a thorough sterilisation. Finding a spider's corpse was less of an issue. This pompous, soulless reaction just added extra meat to the tale.<br /><br />One lawyer, who was an out-of-town trial advocate and therefore didn't mind being named as he was unlikely to be back, gave me my best quote of the final piece: "We're all going to do our cases with bike clips on." Meanwhile, the ushers surreptitiously set up a crack spider-catching kit in one of the courts, where a trial was ongoing. It consisted of a box and a pasta jar, and came with swiftly-penned instructions on scrap paper, which read: 1 - FIND SPIDER. 2 - PUT SPIDER INTO JAR. 3 - PUT JAR INTO BOX. This apparatus was placed on a spare public gallery table, in full view of the courtroom, while the trial continued. Nobody said anything.<br /><br />The only thing we didn't have was an actual sighting of the spider, which was somewhat crucial when analysing the story at face value. After all, the box hadn't been opened by the youth that morning, and the only evidence that it existed was provided verbally via his mother's frantic telephone call. I casually mentioned this mild drawback to a couple of court users and staff members prior to returning to the office.<br /><br />Half an hour later, as the agency proprietor and I were sifting through the gathered information and quotes, working out what we still needed, the phone rang. It was one of the distinguished people who I saw at the court each day, claiming that one of the defendants in the trial court had seen the spider scuttle along the carpet as he gave evidence. When his case was adjourned for the day, he mentioned it to the court user who was now passing this bit of dynamite on to me.<br /><br />It still wasn't ideal, but it was enough. What really helped was that the Persian blue-backed tarantula was a genuine breed of arachnid, as my boss had discovered when he rang a zoo curator for information, and it was more than possible that such a creature would be able to survive - pre-fumigation - in the various pipes and catacombs of a large building, living on insects and water pools from the air conditioning system. It all added up to a story with legs. Eight of them, you might say.<br /><br />It was nearly teatime, so we'd done well on the timing front - I had the evening and the next morning to get it written up, ready to send for the unofficial deadline of midday for copy to be considered by the national papers.<br /><br />So, at roughly noon the next day, a dozen or so paragraphs duly went off with the press of a button down the line and into the computer systems of every news editor on Fleet Street. It also went to the local and regional papers, but we held back on sending it to the broadcasting organisations for fear that staff hacks at the printed media may hear it and do their own version, thereby rendering ours unnecessary or, worse still, there to have bits picked off for free, with us unable to prove they had directly used our information.<br /><br />We had no need to worry, as we stormed the papers the next day. Sometimes, when doing a story for the nationals, we'd write two versions - one suited to the tabloids, the other to the broadsheets. There were a good handful of page leads and every national newspaper (except the <span style="font-style:italic;">Guardian</span>, who absolutely never printed our stuff) used it in some way. Furthermore, the <span style="font-style:italic;">Yorkshire Post</span> put it on the front page as the light-hearted piece immediately above the serious main yarn of the day.<br /><br />It was this version of the story, in the <span style="font-style:italic;">Yorkshire Post</span>, which prompted the court boss to ring up our agency that afternoon and complain to me. Using lawyerly argument, he began reading the story out loud and adding the word "untrue" after each sentence, taking light-hearted stuff like "a giant spider is giving magistrates the creeps" literally, rather than in the spirit that such gentle metaphors are designed to exude. I knew I was in the right, but I didn't have the clout for such a debate, so I passed the phone to my boss who talked him down. The local broadcasting establishments picked up on the tale and I was interviewed by the great Ian Timms on BBC Radio Leeds, and even the national outlets were interested, with Radio 5 Live putting me on standby while they tried to get the court boss to talk. He did, but proceeded to talk about a lack of evidence that a spider ever existed.<br /><br />I can date this story to the early summer of 1996, as on <span style="font-style:italic;">Have I Got News For You</span> at the end of the week, the headline COURT SPIDER IS SENTENCED TO _______ was used on the Missing Words round. Ian Hislop correctly guessed 'death' and Eddie Izzard, guest captain on the other team (it was the series Paul Merton decided to sit out) "complained" that such action was illegal. That was it, as they moved on to the next headline. But it meant I'd had a story of my own discussed, albeit with considerable brevity, on a television programme I rather liked.<br /><br />The tarantula was never found, alive or dead. To this day I cannot say for certain that it ever actually existed.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-47348086476303923712009-03-21T10:56:00.007+00:002009-03-21T11:49:32.117+00:00"Humiliation, that's what you need..."<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRCk6drHJJveICHtSDRk8OITUY5ZVG8HSyIqqNoVE4KE5q0sw_ddOvFSaMBvVSK9FA8Xt-jb-QMVYigySrjznBDnP57JP3eTRVxurSXS7ikxl8JbxMB_rwdnJ8qfwPR55gZ_UrSU9vQS2/s1600-h/CASTLESIGN.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRCk6drHJJveICHtSDRk8OITUY5ZVG8HSyIqqNoVE4KE5q0sw_ddOvFSaMBvVSK9FA8Xt-jb-QMVYigySrjznBDnP57JP3eTRVxurSXS7ikxl8JbxMB_rwdnJ8qfwPR55gZ_UrSU9vQS2/s400/CASTLESIGN.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315603153401401746" /></a><br /><br />Our village hall still has one of the original Roy Castle Clean Air stickers in its window, having proudly (and pompously) banned smoking within following the ex-<span style="font-style:italic;">Record Breakers</span> host's campaign during his last months to get smoking banned in public places.<br /><br />His dying wish was, of course, granted as law a couple of years back. My personal belief is that the smoking ban has ruined pubs and clubs, but that's another issue entirely. Each time I walk <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2007/10/they-are-not-bloody-sausage-dogs.html">the dogs</a> past the village hall and see that sign, it reminds me a great story from my time as a hack.<br /><br />Castle was from Huddersfield originally, the town where I worked as a rubbish agency reporter between 1993 and 1998. Upon his diagnosis with lung cancer, he immediately began to embark upon his campaigns to research specifically into lung cancer and rid public places of the risks caused by passive smoking, as this was the proffered explanation for how he caught the disease. He had been a lifelong non-smoker but had spent many years playing the trumpet in smoky venues.<br /><br />Part of the campaign was a <span style="font-style:italic;">Tour of Hope</span>, as he called it. This was deliberately timed to coincide with his terminal decline to add extra poignancy and give him something of a positive send-off. His wife, Fiona, became a major figurehead and much praised individual as she dealt with media inquiries while having to watch her husband get closer to death in public.<br /><br />The tour involved a coach travelling the nation, handing out leaflets and giving speeches and interviews and generally spreading the word that people should be protected in public places from other people's smoke. Press campaigns got Castle to stick dogends on his chemotherapy-assisted bald pate, which were helpful but a little disconcerting, but there's no doubt that the media responded and the publicity was vast.<br /><br />The timing of the tour itself was deliberate, as was the final venue - Huddersfield. Castle was well-loved in his hometown even though he'd not lived there for years. He had been born in 1932 in Scholes, a tiny village on the edge of Holmfirth, and had done his early dancing at a tap class in the town.<br /><br />Now, by the time the coach was due in Huddersfield, Castle was very weak. His declining strength had rendered him unable to dismount the coach at previous venues to carry out interviews and press the flesh. Therefore, his people had hired Simon Bates to act as spokesperson for Castle, and his job would be to say hi to the crowds and then do the individual media interviews.<br /><br />So the coach pulls into Huddersfield railway station, one of the more beautiful stations in the country, and polite applause greeted Castle as he waved out of the window. Bates jumped off the coach, clutching the vehicle's microphone (the one that was probably used to say: "on your right, Cooper Bridge auto-spares where Peter Sutcliffe got his false number plates" as the party left the M62) and gave a brief but positive little spiel to quite a large crowd. He explained that Castle had not spoken on the last handful of stops around the country, but as this was his hometown and the last one of the tour before he went home, he would be doing so.<br /><br />This brought some nice applause. Meanwhile, me and the assembled local hacks were behind a cordon, desperate to get some audio. Sue Cain, a skilled reporter from BBC Radio Leeds, flashed a winning smile at a security man which was enough to get her under the rope and her labelled mic was soon poking round the corner of the coach as Castle began to address the crowd from his seat, with the window open.<br /><br />I can only remember his first line: "By, it's grand to be home!"<br /><br />Anyway, he gave his speech and got wildly applauded, and then it was time for Bates to do the individual interviews. As a newspaper hack, I didn't need to talk to him individually as I could just make notes from his replies to one of the radio hacks. So as Sue interviewed him, I scribbled in my best Teeline the wise, earnest words of Bates. I can't recall him saying "But what was the year?" once...<br /><br />Afterwards, a small throng of us were comparing notes when we noticed that Christa Ackroyd, famed host of Yorkshire TV's nightly <span style="font-style:italic;">Calendar</span> programme, had turned up. It was the middle of the afternoon so she wasn't doing a live broadcast but she was swanning around through the cordons in a way the other folk representing media organisations were not allowed.<br /><br />A few mumbles among the rest of us had begun when we noticed an elderly lady, in full overcoat and hat, approach her, clutching a notebook and pen. They were close enough for the conversation to be heard.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Excuse me, are you Christa Ackroyd?"</span><br /><br />She noticed the autograph book and immediately plastered on the smile she keeps for the proles.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Yes I am."</span><br /><br />The old lady nervously shuffled closer.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"You're Christa Ackroyd who's on the telly every night?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Yes I am."</span><br /><br />By now, Ackroyd was trying to coax the woman into thinking she was quite approachable, quite normal and more than happy to be asked for her autograph.<br /><br />The woman got braver.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"I wonder if you could do me a big favour?"</span><br /><br />Ackroyd now had a look on her face which seemed to just say "for God's sake YES! Just give me the book!"<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />"Of course, my love."</span><br /><br />The woman paused, shoved the book and pen at Ackroyd and asked:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Would you get me Simon Bates' autograph?"</span><br /><br />Well, I've never seen a face drop as quickly as Ackroyd's did. I can only compare it to those old films which feature the Golden Gate bridge suddenly collapsing into the strait and floating away, cars and all, to the Pacific. The gaggle of earwigging hacks of which I was part was in silent hysterics, trying to conceal our mirth by swiftly walking away to a safe distance before letting it all out. I have no idea whether Ackroyd took the book to Bates or just stormed off in a huff. I don't suppose either ending matters because the plot was just so perfect, although I'm sure she did the right thing as on the one subsequent occasion I did meet her, she was very civil and perfectly fine.<br /><br />I got a smattering of copy in a couple of broadsheets the next day and Sue Cain became a good mate until I left Huddersfield. I think she's in Scotland now. Roy Castle died just weeks after his visit.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-1852773049618857022009-02-17T16:41:00.011+00:002009-02-17T18:19:22.256+00:00Hello, hello, turn your radio on<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTEp7fmCZ0kjN-33e-HQ3CWzj3ghde71EaBu9xPr11C9CZl_pMzXT0sCHKJL-rBj5cNSjOpUNEbBMyuKCebrq8I7t_Y4w5TTUaqIo6voTKZv_Fm1vK8lhSCiwHSodyFeaD93KOe-v-NFz7/s1600-h/Image013.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTEp7fmCZ0kjN-33e-HQ3CWzj3ghde71EaBu9xPr11C9CZl_pMzXT0sCHKJL-rBj5cNSjOpUNEbBMyuKCebrq8I7t_Y4w5TTUaqIo6voTKZv_Fm1vK8lhSCiwHSodyFeaD93KOe-v-NFz7/s320/Image013.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303827977072434626" /></a><br /><br />Have a look at this T shirt. It's the oldest in my drawer and I suspect the most robust and dedicated of radio anorak types would really like to own it. This is because it is for a radio station that only ever existed in somebody's mind and therefore only a handful were ever made.<br /><br />I acquired it in the idiosyncratic surroundings of Harry Ramsden's Fish and Chip Shop in Guiseley, West Yorkshire. I know, the plot is thickening with the rapidity of Ramsden's own scintillating curry sauce. A T shirt, of a phantom radio station, handed to me at a chain chippy. Hold on, because there's more...<br /><br />Performing on a makeshift stage at said branch of eatery was Berri. That is the same Berri whom you remember doing a sizzling dance version of <span style="font-style:italic;">Sunshine After The Rain</span>.<br /><br />Following her on to the stage were Menswear. That is the same drippy, posing Britpop outfit Menswear whom you remember - albeit dimly - having a hit with <span style="font-style:italic;">Daydreamer</span> and one or two others.<br /><br />It's about time I cut to the chase. When I was a hack in Huddersfield, I was still an <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2008/02/for-halifax-and-calderdale-1062-spark.html">amateur DJ on temporary and hospital stations</a>, harbouring ambitions to make my hobby into my living. Knowing this, my boss at the press agency where I worked gave me a day off to attend the media launch of a proposed new radio station for the whole of Yorkshire, for which a licence had been advertised by the Radio Authority a year or so before. We had no professional interest in the press conference as Guiseley wasn't in our patch, so I went there purely to rubberneck.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7xfMN9VBRYIwKbyAylXCaK3plEutlklKTfryRtUkz5KyD5B3NaLifabKWWET2C0Ltcseq4YMf9vWSoO_SUVyz5up-IC539ZWWAapn_if9nx55kerlS_2KBDGovxUrDnMzAJBAbgYI4Xzf/s1600-h/Image014.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7xfMN9VBRYIwKbyAylXCaK3plEutlklKTfryRtUkz5KyD5B3NaLifabKWWET2C0Ltcseq4YMf9vWSoO_SUVyz5up-IC539ZWWAapn_if9nx55kerlS_2KBDGovxUrDnMzAJBAbgYI4Xzf/s320/Image014.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303828330826094450" /></a><br /><br />The station was called YFM - we have a lot of 'initials only' radio stations in this country - and would be positioned as a big-sounding hit music station with a mammoth breakfast show and a very driven focus on the whole of the county.<br /><br />These words were spoken by one Richard Park. Alongside him was Richard Eyre. The bid was from the Capital Radio Group and these two influential figures had their names put on to the bid to add some extra gravitas, and so each travelled up to Guiseley for the launch at Ramsden's, a venue chosen presumably because it was their notion of an epitome of Yorkshire-ness.<br /><br />So I toddled along with the media pack and took a seat among the hacks. The two suited dignitaries gave their speeches, and had brought with them Neil Fox, still very much the "Doctor" of his on-air persona whose audience across the commercial sector on the Pepsi Chart in the 1990s was colossal. Foxy himself said a few words, then introduced Berri who mimed her way effervescently through her signature hit. Coffee and fags later, a tape was played of a sample of their potential audio, complete with specially commissioned sweepers (if you think the T shirt is collectible, I know of ultra-nerdy radio people who would dunk their own mothers upside down in a commode full of David Mellor's germ-ridden urine to get their hands on this audio) plus truncated intros and links, all giving the feel of what their radio station would sound like if allocated the licence. Menswear then went on stage and mimed <span style="font-style:italic;">Daydreamer</span> and a single which would be released a few weeks later, <span style="font-style:italic;">Being Brave</span>. I recall thinking they each looked about 12.<br /><br />I managed a polite word with Richard Park and gave him a demo. I am utterly horrified at this thought now, 13 years later, but in 1996 I had no real idea who he was nor what the business was about. I thought, with naivety and yet some logic which I'll defend to this day, that he was a programmer looking to launch a new station and therefore would be needing good local presenters to work on it. He took the cassette and put it in his suit pocket. I'd like to think it wasn't placed carefully in a Ramsden's pedal bin as soon as I was out of sight.<br /><br />I didn't expect to hear from him, but I did follow up the conversation by sending another copy to the bloke who ran Capital Radio at the time. I got a polite reply and the inevitable rejection. By the end of the year, however, I was on Hallam FM in Sheffield and my career, were it worthy of such a description, has stuttered and coughed its way to where we sit right now.<br /><br />The T shirt, bearing the logo of the station which they wanted to launch, still fits me and I still wear it with (arf) some frequency. The hacks at the press conference all got one as part of the media pack, which also included background info on the licence, the bid, the personalities involved and other guff.<br /><br />The next day in the Yorkshire Evening Post there was a woefully posed picture of Berri, Foxy (with headphones on, even though he is quoted as saying that any photographer who asks a DJ to pose with his cans should be immediately replaced) and the lead singer of Menswear "eating" an enormous fried haddock with the Ramsden's logo behind them. The story had become the picture, really, and it only got a paragraph of copy. I can't remember it being in any other papers, regional or local, and for obvious reasons existing radio stations didn't touch it.<br /><br />It was all immaterial in the end as the licence was awarded to the Faze FM group, who launched a Yorkshire brand of Kiss FM on <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2008/01/valentine-suicidal.html">Valentines Day</a> 1997. This later transmogrified into Galaxy, the brand which continues to occupy the slot to this day.<br /><br />I'll let you know if I ever elect to place the T shirt on eBay. Meanwhile, I would be willing to wager that neither Richard Park, Richard Eyre nor Neil Fox have ever been to a Harry Ramsden's since, be it for promotional reasons or just a large skate and chips with scraps and lashings of vinegar. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if the odd member of Menswear was now working in one.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-43792121089587526642008-12-26T07:53:00.003+00:002008-12-26T08:08:49.172+00:00"Doorman please!"A cracking club night on Christmas Eve, with punters of all ages turning up and not too many complaints about the music as I played a bit of everything from 60s Motown to modern RnB. You can't win though sometimes - stick on a Christmas song and someone moans I'm playing too many; stick on a dance anthem or some 80s pop and someone claims I have no festive spirit.<br /><br />One of my regulars on a Saturday is a policewoman by day, but likes to revel like any member of the public who's had a hard time of it on shift during the week. Sadly, one of the punters recognised her - despite her snazzy dress and Santa hat - as the woman who'd banged him up a few weeks earlier and decided to have a pop. As an argument and threats brewed and her boyfriend tried to step in, I called for the doormen who promptly - and literally - threw the aggressor out of the building.<br /><br />The song I was playing at the time? <em>Happy Xmas (War Is Over)</em>.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-69634606471983310362008-11-10T10:56:00.006+00:002008-11-10T15:03:41.737+00:00"That was a transmission issue beyond our control..."<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/817/80013372.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 391px; height: 428px;" src="http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/817/80013372.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />I've acquired a new Sunday morning show on <a href="http://www.pureradio.org.uk/">Pure 107.8 FM</a> in Stockport. It's a laid-back 10am-1pm slot and handy for me as I'm in the town doing the club gig the night before anyway, so a quick kip in the car is all I need prior to going on air.<br /><br />I did the first one at the weekend and, of course, it was <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2007/11/respect.html">Remembrance Sunday</a>. This is always observed impeccably by the radio industry, with the general way of going about the build-up to 11am being roughly the same from station to station - tone down any wacky content from 10.30am, play slightly more chilled music up to 11am, then observe the silence and play something suitably sombre and slow afterwards.<br /><br />For our part, Pure did a grand job. Eva Cassidy's version of <span style="font-style:italic;">Fields Of Gold</span>, then one of the station's volunteers read <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/inflanders.htm">Flanders Fields</a></span> in a wonderfully poignant manner. This took us to the silence at 11am, and then John Lennon's <span style="font-style:italic;">Love</span> eased us back into regulation programming.<br /><br />There is invariably one practical problem caused by the obligation to observe the silence - the prospect of the transmitter believing you have gone off air. If you ever happen to observe the silence with a radio station on in the background, you'll notice that the sound of birdsong, and maybe the odd passing aeroplane, is remarkably loud on your speakers amidst the hissing noise which radio equipment otherwise picks up as human respect for those who sacrificed their lives fills the airwaves.<br /><br />The reason for rather loud birdsong is because the presenter has turned the levels on the satellite feed from the cenotaph up to maximum. This is so the transmitter recognises that there is output coming from your radio station, as anything beyond 30 seconds of silence prompts a back-up CD to kick in from the transmitter site.<br /><br />These back-up CDs are a lifeline for when a building needs to be evacuated or when equipment goes wrong, especially at non-peak times when automated or pre-recorded or networked programmes are going out, meaning that the building is entirely empty. Unfortunately, they do have a habit of coming on when a station is observing the silence, as the birdsong levels are often not loud enough for the transmitter to register.<br /><br />This has happened to me, a few years ago, when I was on a Sunday morning shift and was horrified to hear the back-up CD start fewer than 40 seconds into the silence. The only way to stop it is to restart something in the studio, as it then realises that output has returned and automatically resets itself, ready for the next time there's - literally - a breakdown in communications.<br /><br />The other problem with back-up CDs is that often they are hopelessly out of date. The music on them may reflect what the station was playing at the time the CD was made but once it goes on air during a technical mishap, the station's music positioning seems to have made an almighty change for no apparent reason. Years ago, workmen sliced through underground cables in Manchester which rendered numerous radio stations off the air for a whole day. Our back-up CD at Imagine FM came on, playing some music we'd ceased to play ages before. Once the repairs had been done, I received calls on the breakfast show saying how refreshing we sounded (!) - but that it got a bit boring hour after hour.<br /><br />That's another problem. An all-day cut in power or equipment can mean the same hour of music being played over and over again on the CD. I never wanted to hear <span style="font-style:italic;">When You're Gone</span> by Bryan Adams and Melanie C ever again by the time the outage had finally come to an end, and I wasn't massively keen on the song beforehand. I'm still not.<br /><br />And yet another problem is that the radio station needs to be identified during an outage, but an out-of-date back-up CD is likely to feature old jingles or sweepers, since when the positioning statement may have changed (ie, from "Today's Best Music" to "More Variety") and the package itself has been modernised or altered, often with a new v/o artist.<br /><br />Radio stations should update their back-up CDs every six months or so, and immediately whenever they get a new jingle package, but only for the times it is necessary. For what it's worth, I'd always make sure the duty transmitter engineer switched off the array of radio station CD players before him just before 11am on one Sunday of each year.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-73218048264957645382008-10-11T11:45:00.006+01:002008-10-11T12:28:34.698+01:00It's just the same old show on my radio<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC8CeGotm_OpjJhjdRSEv8QrXHdyc_oq3ZL56lrFYXB187u5ha3aA66wZhNho1ojDtK9cEacKIMV8R7n0oQbtRdSYru2wu0rR_ckitW9n3v5N7YZdVAdhe42gAJI-lwoSuP0zR1w8eS3yT/s1600-h/UKRADIOAID.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC8CeGotm_OpjJhjdRSEv8QrXHdyc_oq3ZL56lrFYXB187u5ha3aA66wZhNho1ojDtK9cEacKIMV8R7n0oQbtRdSYru2wu0rR_ckitW9n3v5N7YZdVAdhe42gAJI-lwoSuP0zR1w8eS3yT/s400/UKRADIOAID.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255855380893761138" /></a><br /><br />I'm grateful to my old acquaintance Roy Lynch for sending me this photograph. He and I are on it, along with (almost) every other presenter hosting a breakfast show on commercial radio in the north west of England at the start of 2005.<br /><br />All rivalries were put aside (not that jocks ever have them; only off-air staff are bothered with what the opposition is up to) so that we could assemble under the region's most prominent landmark, Blackpool Tower, to have our photograph taken.<br /><br />The tsunami hit on Boxing Day 2004, and early in 2005 a couple of high-flying bods in commercial radio down south decided it would be a good, worthy and fantastically complicated idea to have a day when the commercial sector came together, broadcast a networked output and put a fundraising message across.<br /><br />The programme directors of all the major corporate radio groups of the time agreed, but logistically it was going to take some doing. The set date was Monday January 17th and it would start at 6am with a day of networked shows but there would be three slots per hour where the local jock would opt in and do some stuff about events happening round their way. Like when Jonathan Ross gives way for Peter Levy or Gordon Burns on Comic Relief night.<br /><br />All adverts were dropped and news bulletins came from IRN with a one minute local opt in for, again, each individual station to do a quick update from its patch. So most of the time I and my fellow local presenters spent our show time listening to the national output, which came from Capital Radio's premises.<br /><br />It did throw up some incongruous combinations. I was working for Imagine FM, a female-friendly station which targeted listeners in their late 20s and early 30s. But at the same time those targeting much more youthful audiences, such as Kiss FM, were broadcasting the same stuff. So at one stage, Kiss FM listeners were tuning in to hear Simon Bates, Jade Goody and Tony Blackburn on their station.<br /><br />Another feature was for one locality per hour to get some national airtime, introduced by the network jock. So the whole country would suddenly hear Ben Fry of Yorkshire Coast Radio in Scarborough talking about what his patch has been doing to raise funds and awareness, then a nervous jock at Red Dragon FM in Swansea would do likewise an hour later. In the very crowded Mancunian patch I worked in, I wasn't asked and neither were any of the post-breakfast jocks on Imagine FM. Mike Toolan of Key 103 in Manchester did a bit on the nationalised output though, and despite our obvious day-to-day rivalry with this station, we held our nerve and kept him faded up.<br /><br />Such sportsmanship wasn't on show everywhere though. I can't remember the details, but the group I worked for (known as the Wireless Group, now UTV) had a Scottish station which was fortunate enough to get a national slot in one of those hours. Someone monitoring rival reaction then reported that a station up the road faded out their rival jock when he came on, and put a record on instead. Bad form.<br /><br />It was all a bit frantic and hurried, but it worked. Chris Evans effortlessly presented his first radio programme for years on the network and all agreed afterwards that his absence had been such a shame. Simon Bates teaming up with Jade Goody was an addictive bit of car crash broadcasting, especially as Jade seemed to be a poor reader and yet was given the task of telling the audience of all the various events and fundraisers going on around the country.<br /><br />TV cameras were there and a short fly-on-the-wall thing was broadcast on ITV later in the evening. As for the BBC, well as far as I know they chose not to mention it at all, certainly not on a national level. I suppose that's fair practice, given that the commercial sector largely avoids Children In Need and Comic Relief as they are BBC innovations and the local radio sector are as involved as BBC TV and national networks.<br /><br />On the photo, you might not recognise too many people as they are, clearly, famous voices rather than faces, and even then only in their working localities. Tony Wrighton is on there though, who is now on the Sky Sports News anchoring roster. He was doing drivetime on Century FM at the time, the only radio station which covers the north west in its entirety and therefore the only station with a staff member genuinely posing alongside <span style="font-style:italic;">all</span> of its rivals. I assume he was there as Darren Proctor, Century's breakfast show host of the time, was on holiday. Tony is #3. I don't know who most of them are, I must say, but there is Kev Seed (#27) of Radio City in Liverpool; Fairclough and Vix (#23 and #24) of Tower FM in Bolton; and Key 103's Rob Ellis (#1 - again sent as breakfast replacement by his station). My old mucker Ian Roberts, of Magic 1152 in Manchester, is at #20.<br /><br />My pal Roy, who sent the pic to me, is #10 and was the local jock there - he was doing breakfast on Radio Wave in Blackpool - and I'm next to him at #4, and I remember feeling particularly bleary-eyed that day. Most of us did - we'd all hot-footed it from our studios to Blackpool for a lunchtime photo session and we were knackered, reacting to the winter sunshine and the parky temperatures. I had to drive back to Hull afterwards, too. That's quite a smart jacket I've got on - I haven't worn it for ages...<br /><br />The photo appeared in (apparently) most of the local newspapers in the north west of England as part of the publicity for UK Radio Aid. The official website is still going - and <a href="http://www.ukradioaid.com/">here it is</a>.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-88495356310956055362008-09-06T14:24:00.017+01:002008-09-06T15:42:40.101+01:00"Read ... read ... READ! I meant READ!!"After people find out what I do for a living, the first question they are most likely to ask involves the worst mistake I've ever made on the radio.<br /><br />I'm truly grateful to say that I've never done anything more serious than stuff that has been greeted with mirth from listeners/bosses and embarrassment from me. I've never cocked up severely, to my knowledge.<br /><br />The incident that instantly leaps to mind took place on Viking FM's <em>Late Night Love Affair</em> back in the late 90s or early 2000s. I presented the Saturday night version of this programme, which was on seven nights a week, and it was as you no doubt assume it to be - three hours of uncontroversial ballads interspersed with listener dedications. Most commercial stations had a version of this - the <em>Chill Out Zone</em> and the <em>Slow Jam</em> being other common names for it.<br /><br />Now the majority of calls we got (no texts back then, and emails were rare) came from women, specifically women whose husbands or boyfriends were "away". They'd never say where they were and I soon learned not to ask when the type of fishwife who did ring up would get ratty if I politely enquired where the man in her life was. I was very naive, initially. Messages like "goodnight darling" and "see you in 25 days" were a bit of a giveaway, and I'd feel a little self-conscious as I read them out, trying not to sound anything other than the local empathetic DJ who was on their side.<br /><br />The letters which the programme got always had a postmark beginning with "H.M.P." which proved that the cons themselves were listening in their cells and writing messages of love (or codes for "be out the back at 0500 hours" for all I knew) for these women waiting loyally back home. I'd read these out as they were written, feeling sorry for the guys because the letters highlighted a very low standard of literacy. I don't sympathise with anyone caught committing a crime, but I do sympathise with guys for whom a bit of support and encouragement early enough in their lives might have prevented subsequent bad turns of events. Joel Ross, on the evening show at the time, was less understanding - he used to call the show <em>Convict Corner</em> ("where you can say hello to your favourite person in prison!").<br /><br />What was the most disconcerting thing was that these letters, from hardened men trying so hard to show their devotion to their loved ones back home, had bene vetted. Prison staff had read and signed off the letters before allowing them into the external postbag. An invasion of privacy or a necessary act of security?<br /><br />Anyway, one feature we introduced on a Saturday evening was the Open Letter. This was where we asked listeners to tell the whole story of their love life, or at least one major or significant aspect of it. It was akin to Our Tune but without the element of tragedy and, frankly, not as long.<br /><br />We got a few letters but often I'd embellish them to make them a little longer. We had the music which Gary Davies used to use on his <em>Sloppy Bit</em> and it needed to be done justice. It was always done on the stroke of midnight and I'd get calls from women in tears afterwards, saying how moving the story was and how they hoped the lady (almost always a lady) in question would "get through it".<br /><br />One week was slower than normal and so, in order to get an Open Letter on the air, I had to write one of my own. Quite a challenge. The names and situations were obviously fictional and I deliberately made the events within the letter semi-farcical or far-fetched to reduce as much as possible the chance of it reflecting real events somewhere. It turned into a bit of an essay and though now I can't remember what the story was, I know it was long enough to justify the backing music's duration and keep listeners hooked without boring them. The one thing I do remember was the record "requested" at the end - <em>All Woman</em> by Lisa Stansfield.<br /><br />So, midnight comes and I back-announce the song playing, and let the theme music to the Open Letter come in. One thing Simon Bates always got right on Our Tune was starting the theme music and letting it play for a good while before talking over it. This is something I replicated, letting a good 30 seconds or so set the mood for the audience before beginning the letter.<br /><br /><em>"This is a letter from</em> *insert made-up name here* <em>from</em> *some random part of the Viking coverage area - probably in north Lincolnshire, as we were targetting that patch heavily at the time* <em>and I have to say, it's one of the most emotional things I've ever written."</em><br /><br />Erk. <br /><br /><em>Written</em>? Oh you <em>utter tosser</em>.<br /><br />I meant <em>read</em>, clearly. But I said <em>written</em> on the air. I'll get slaughtered for that. I might be reprimanded. Put on weekend overnights. Sacked. Bollocks bollocks bollocks...<br /><br />All of the above went through my mind in approximately five seconds after I'd committed the faux-pas. But I was on air. I needed to get out of it. Pretend it never happened? Or use my wits? It had to be the second option. Think man, think...<br /><br /><em>"... says the lady herself."</em><br /><br />As soon as I said that, I felt the colour immediately return to my face. I'd made it sound like the "written" comment was a direct quote from the letter writer and not me. The fact that I <em>was</em> the letter writer was something the listeners didn't know and were not going to. Details, details...<br /><br />I could have sworn the noise made by my blood rapidly vacating my face a few seconds earlier went out on air, but now I'd rescued the situation. I faded out the mic, cleared my throat, took a deep breath, reopened the mic and began reading the letter. No more cock-ups, all was smooth, I got the teary phone calls while Lisa played. Result.<br /><br />I got away with it. No listener picked up on it, no member of staff mentioned anything when we all reconvened on the Monday. The remainder of the programme passed by without incident.<br /><br />I dropped the Open Letter feature the following week.<br /><br />I've done other stupid things, such as enthusiastically saying "Party Mix next!" at the end of a football show, only for the news bulletin to announce the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother five seconds later and go into full-scale obit mode. Given that I'd been made aware that we were going into obit mode and I just clean forgot, it was not the wisest moment of my career. <br /><br />I also cracked a gag about dementia after watching a soap opera storyline about it, only to be carpeted by my boss for doing so after complaints came in (from two people - meaning that many thousand others didn't complain, but anyway...) - such complainants don't seem to know the difference between laughing at dementia and laughing at an actor playing the role, but nonetheless I wish I hadn't done it.<br /><br />My favourite ever blooper involved a feature in which a radio station would give a dozen red roses to someone nominated by a listener because of their acts of love, kindness or loyalty. The DJ in question (no names or stations on this occasion, sorry) rang up a woman live on air and said her husband had written and nominated her for the roses.<br /><br />The lady was pleased and grateful but didn't go crazy on air, as most did.<br /><br />I'm paraphrasing from now on. The DJ then asked: <em>"Is</em> *husband's name* <em>in, so we can talk to him about why he nominated you?"</em><br /><br />Long pause.<br /><br /><em>"Sorry, no. Erm, I'm afraid he died yesterday morning."</em><br /><br />Now at this point, the DJ should express sympathy and end the call right there. Put on a record or advert and move on. At this stage, it's unfortunate and tragic but none of it is the radio station or presenter's fault. But instead...<br /><br /><em>"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Erm, should we send you a wreath instead?"</em><br /><br />The word is that the DJ, upon saying this, had to be carried out of the studio a gibbering wreck, on the verge of a breakdown.<br /><br />And no, it wasn't me. Stop it.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-30732533739108307262008-08-19T10:41:00.004+01:002008-08-19T11:38:14.972+01:00In deep sh ...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.internetbusinessdirectory.co.uk/nationalcoatarms.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.internetbusinessdirectory.co.uk/nationalcoatarms.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I'm reading <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Need-Talk-About-Kevin-Keegan/dp/0141037792/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219141253&sr=8-2">Giles Smith's book of collected columns</a> from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Times</span> at the moment. He's a marvellous football writer - irreverent, droll but always filling his paragraphs of biting satire with important truths. I wish I could write like him.<br /><br />He makes reference in one of his pieces to a famous court case a few years ago when <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/465718.stm">Sir Alex Ferguson was cleared of illegally using the hard shoulder of a motorway during a traffic jam on the grounds that he was desperate to use the lavatory</a>; indeed, the Manchester United manager went into rather vivid detail of the state of his insides during his evidence.<br /><br />It was too much information at the time, but it reminds me of the best story I ever picked up when I was hacking in the magistrates courts in my early career.<br /><br />A spot of background; the agency I worked for had a contract with the local paper which meant we issued at least one journalist per day to the local magistrates court to pick up tales of affrays, assaults, the odd burglary and numerous drink-drivers.<br /><br />Despite occasional pangs of conscience when people who weren't out-and-out villains were hit by the courts, I liked doing this, which probably explains why I was never cut out to be a proper journalist. I was into the routine stuff and found myself feeling distinctly safe and unambitious as a consequence. A morning in the press box at the court was an easy and yet productive one for me - I'd wander from court to court during recesses, scribble down cases and spend the rest of the time hobnobbing with the solicitors over coffee and fags, talking about football. After all this, I'd head back to the office and write up the three or four concluded cases for the paper, giving them their quota for the day.<br /><br />There were seven courtrooms in the building. Courts 1 and 2 were general criminal courts; court 3 was usually set aside for a half-day or full-day trial, court 4 was likewise though sometimes had TV licensing sessions or parking fine sessions (stayed well away from those); court 5 was sometimes not in use but was always a coroner's court on a Wednesday; court 6 was a family court (not open to journalists) and court 7 a youth court.<br /><br />Most of the time I'd be flitting between courts 1 and 2 because most of the stories came from there. You'd scan the wallbound court list looking for familiar names, or cases connected with high-profile incidents and choose your court accordingly. The best cases for reporting reasons had a 'G' next to the previous date of appearance, as that indicated a guilty plea had been entered and therefore the defendant was due to be sentenced today - allowing reporters to put all of the facts into the case for the first time.<br /><br />Anyway, back to my favourite case. It was a speeding case (or 'exceeding the speed limit' to make it more accurate) which normally you'd ignore as there's next to no newsworthiness in somebody doing 45 miles an hour in a built-up area at 2am prior to being zapped by a thoroughly bored traffic cop. When this speeding case was called, I was about to stand up and make a hasty exit to the other court when I saw the defendant enter - and immediately I sat down again.<br /><br />He was in a wheelchair. I immediately managed to make eye contact with his solicitor who, appreciating my raised brow, mouthed "this is a good one". So I got the notebook and pen out and began whirring the Teeline across the page.<br /><br />He was charged with exceeding the speed limit on the local motorway by doing 129mph.<br /><br />129mph!<br /><br />He pleaded guilty. This meant he would be dealt with here and now. I couldn't wait for this.<br /><br />The prosecutor, a willowy and auburn haired woman of serious lawyerly sexiness (I won't name her, though I'm dying to), outlined the case. Within the first ten seconds of her address, I knew this was one of those occasional stories we would not only file to the local rag as per the contract, but also to the regionals and the nationals, plus all the local radio and TV stations.<br /><br />This chap, in his mid to late 20s, was a lifelong wheelchair user and had acquired himself a nippy Vauxhall Astra. Unable to move below his waist, the traditional apparatus for the clutch, brake and accelerator had been specially adapted into hand held controls on his steering wheel. He was spotted on the motorway by the police and cautioned for doing 129mph.<br /><br />The prosecutor asked for costs and sat down.<br /><br />So far so good.<br /><br />Then his solicitor rose to offer mitigation. I was ready for a good yarn from him, and he didn't disappoint.<br /><br />On the day in question, the defendant was driving home from a wheelchair basketball game when suddenly he felt this colossal, deep pain in his abdomen. Initially he tried to pass it off as indigestion or a spot of wind, but the pain got more and more intense. Looking down, he realised immediately with horror what had happened.<br /><br />His colostomy bag, which he used as he had no muscular control of his abdominal area, had twisted and was therefore unable to be filled. This meant his own bodily waste was being forced back into his system. This, frankly, would soon poison him and his life was at risk.<br /><br />Unable to stop as he couldn't get out of the driver's side of his car on a hard shoulder, he pressed his accelerator hard down on his steering wheel (I was obviously unable to use the expression "put his foot down" in the final copy), and began heading for a hospital further up the motorway, just off a forthcoming junction. He'd reached 129mph and was in acute pain when the police stopped him.<br /><br />Because of the nature of his mitigation, the defendant himself was asked to confirm his solicitor's words on oath, which he did. The prosecutor, displaying characteristic lack of sympathy which the CPS always put into such extreme cases, asked a few questions before the magistrates retired to decide what to do.<br /><br />On a motorway, 70mph is the limit, as you know. Generally the police will stop you if you're doing 80mph or more, but when you're clocked doing 100mph or more it's an automatic ban from the court, irrespective of your licence's previous cleanliness, unless the mitigation can indicate 'special reasons' why a disqualification should not be dished out. Indeed, 129mph would in almost all cases warrant a much more serious charge of dangerous driving, rather than merely exceeding the speed limit.<br /><br />The magistrates had to decide whether this chap's predicament was serious enough to impose no disqualification - indeed, they could even go so far as to not endorse his licence at all. They also had to ponder how much, if any, financial penalty to hand out.<br /><br />For me, the story was as much in the sentence handed out as it was in the awesome circumstances of the case. What I needed, ideally, was for him to wheel away convicted but without any sort of punishment at all or, conversely, wheel away with the book thrown at him in the way any able-bodied driver doing 129mph without the hindrance of a kinked colostomy bag would have had. Any sort of half-punishment in between would have been disappointing from a newsy viewpoint.<br /><br />We got the former. This chap was not banned, not endorsed and instead of a fine, he got - wait for it - an absolute discharge. Sniggers all round, even though the magistrates didn't seem to notice the gag. He didn't even have to pay the £25 costs the willowy prosecutor had requested.<br /><br />Result! For him, and for me. I chatted to him outside the court and got his post-case reaction. The next day, it appeared in every national newspaper, including numerous inside page leads plus the front page side column of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Daily Telegraph</span>.<br /><br />There was another day when a story of mine from the courtroom which didn't involve an actual case got on to <span style="font-style: italic;">Have I Got News For You</span>, but I'll save that for another time.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-70654196324419104862008-08-06T12:14:00.002+01:002008-08-06T17:25:18.960+01:00"Today, live from the Paddock Boating Lake in Cleethorpes...!"<a href="http://channelmondo.blogspot.com/">Mondo</a>'s mention of the <a href="http://www.radiorewind.co.uk/">Radio Rewind</a> site on the thread below got me even more nostalgic. Go visit it - it's basically a potted history of Radio 1 - biographies, timelines, DJ details and some fabulous audio of jingle packages and show clips. I've been dipping in and out of it for years.<br /><br />Although my working life has been in commercial radio, I barely heard any as a young listener because I was Radio 1 daft. Once I'd decided that my own ambitions were related to radio (something which made <span style="font-style: italic;">everybody</span> laugh at school - students, teachers, even one of the dinner ladies) then I began to listen even more closely, as a connoisseur rather than just a consumer.<br /><br />This, if you want to get on the radio yourself, is actually a mistake. Nobody wants a clone of someone who already exists, they want somebody new, different and true to themselves. There was no point in me going on <a href="http://www.kingstownradio.karoo.net/">Kingstown Radio</a> and doing the gags that Gary King had done on the early show that very morning because the demo would be thrown straight in the bin by any professional station which heard it.<br /><br />For all that, I did send a demo to Radio 1 as a naive 17 year old and got a nice reply from Jerry Foulkes, who was DLT's producer at the time. He was polite, without actually commenting on the tape's contents (thank God - can't remember what was on it and I'm glad I can't) and told me to keep gaining experience in hospital radio.<br /><br />When I was 19, I left journalism college and got a week's trial at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Grimsby Evening Telegraph</span>. They put me in a tiny but smart guest house close to the newspaper offices for the week and I enjoyed my time there - predominantly because my trial coincided with the Radio 1 Roadshow's annual visit to Cleethorpes.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/169/429736106_938537d73e.jpg?v=0"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/169/429736106_938537d73e.jpg?v=0" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I'd been the year before as a punter. Three of us went - my mate Chris and a French exchange student from Douai called Damian accompanied me. Phillip Schofield was the host and it was that rather famous occasion when he was Gotcha'd by Noel Edmonds. He took part in a warm-up "saw your head off" trick but the "magician" "lost" the keys to the guillotine and so Phil, ever the pro, had to do the whole roadshow on his knees with his head stuck in a hole. Noel pitched up shortly before the end of broadcast to huge cheers.<br /><br />It was supremely entertaining from start to finish. Phil's swearing on the off-air mic was eye-opening too. The only thing that spoiled it was that everyone had seemingly brought their own Gordon the Gopher with them, thereby the whole experience was infested with grating squeaky noises all the way through.<br /><br />So this time round I was anxious, despite being the placement student, to work at the roadshow. And the news editor, bless him, gave me one of the paper's press passes. He knew that I also had radio ambitions and was seemingly impressed that I had a part-time job at the time reading out non-league football results on BBC Radio Humberside, so I got in. Me and two reporters therefore spent the roadshow behind the scenes, chatting to the competition winners, staff and, most importantly of all, the stars.<br /><br />Well, I say "stars". The two live acts onstage were the Smart E's and the Brand New Heavies. The former were clearly a novelty dance act with a name of minuscule-controversy; the latter were, erm, brand new jazz-funksters who'd later get much better and much more famous. When they were onstage, I remember watching the drummer being careful, as the performance was a mime, not to actually strike a single drum or cymbal with his sticks.<br /><br />There was also Patrick Swayze there. Well, the crowd thought so, at least. He was introduced as such and got the most ludicrous scream, epic it was, from the female contingent gathered on the paddock. Leather jacket, shades and elaborate quiff all added to the act, but it was in fact a stunningly accurate lookalike and the truth was never revealed, on air at least. I'm not even sure his fakery was ever revealed to the crowd off air, come to think of it. If you were there and I've just ruined the moment you've clung on to for the last 16 years, sorry.<br /><br />And who was hosting? Bruno Brookes. He wasn't my favourite at the time because he'd replaced Gary King, my idol, on the early show that year. But I interviewed him and then afterwards told him I was a fledgling jock who wanted to get where he was. He was extremely nice about it, really encouraging. Also there - here's a real blast from the early 90s - was Man Ezeke, who fitted the unfortunate "do we have to play this?" tokenism of 80s and early 90s Radio 1 and black music. Dixie Peach had previously done it, then the Ranking Miss P, prior to Ezeke's own one solitary hour per week on the air with his Sunshine Show. He was also encouraging, telling me - and I quote directly here - to "keep making those tapes, boy". What a nice chap.<br /><br />And so I'd worked at a Radio 1 roadshow and I've still got my 1FM press pass in my box of keepsakes. Years later, doing roadshows for Viking FM and Imagine FM were enormous fun, and if you work for a local station that happens to be blessed with great heritage and a lack of competition, as Viking was, then you can attract huge crowds. My first ever roadshow as a full-time jock was at the Princes Quay Shopping Centre in Hull (opened by Gary Davies and a Radio 1 roadshow as part of <span style="font-style: italic;">Radio Goes To Town</span> a few years earlier) in 1998, when <a href="http://ruddmakesense.blogspot.com/2008/02/yorkshire-lincolnshires-favourite-djs.html">all the presenters</a> did a stint during an all-day event. It was Valentine's Day and Joel Ross, our resident heart-throb, was trying to break the record for partaking in the most kisses in a certain period of time. Joel, bless him, stood around all day while girls (and a good smattering of sporting lads with a degree of comfort about their heterosexuality) queued up to peck him on the cheek. He loved it, though needed regular applications of lip balm. When JK did his stint with the mic, his first act, under a little playful crowd duress, was to grab Joel and do tongues. For effect, obviously. It got a big laugh.<br /><br />I did the last two hours and had great fun with it too, wandering around the balconies and concourses of this big shopping centre, persuading folk to join the queue and handing out random merchandise. It was an amazing buzz. And, as if to prove my theory that radio increases your sex appeal irrespective of what you're really like, I received a letter the following week from the student girl who'd been working that day for the event's sponsors, asking me out. Result!<br /><br />Since going freelance in 2005, I've not done any type of roadshow. Before that, at Imagine FM we did a few, but it was harder to acquire them as the Manchester area has such an amazing array of radio stations, some regional, all powerful, whose clout financially was so much bigger. However, one thing we did get for three years in a row was the switching on of Stockport's Christmas lights and I was lucky enough to be the main presenter at each.<br /><br />I committed some faux-pas during these events. I warmed the crowd up by running round the front of the cordons, asking random people what their names were and what they wanted for Christmas. One chap curtly told me "I don't celebrate Christmas, I'm a Muslim" - this is into a mic and out of large speakers, remember, so everyone hears it. I asked another lad his name and he excitedly said "Jay!" I then continued, in DJ mode, "so Jay, what do you want for Christmas?" but unfortunately this lad had an almighty stammer and was still telling me his name when I put the mic back in front of him, finally saying "Jay-Jay-Jay-Jay-Jay-Jason."<br /><br />Duh.<br /><br />One year we got the Cheeky Girls on. This was only a fortnight or so after they'd done their infamous audition in front of Pete Waterman and co on that reality show, the name of which escapes me as I didn't and don't watch any of them. I had no idea who the Cheeky Girls were but was reassured that it would be fun. Onstage they came, to enormous cheering, and myself and the three other jocks on duty had been told, in no uncertain terms, that we would be dancing with them. That record of theirs came on and there's me, a 30 year old 6ft 2 bloke, in a radio station puffa jacket doing sub-normal choreography that Black Lace would have deemed too embarrassing.<br /><br />When the "touch my bum" line came up, one of my colleagues decided he would do as he was told, quite substantially too. He claimed later he didn't realise he had touch his <span style="font-style: italic;">own</span> buttocks...<br /><br />The same year Michael Le Vell was there. We always got a <span style="font-style: italic;">Coronation Street</span> guest (Sally Lindsay had come along the year before, and was an utter delight and <span style="font-style: italic;">incredibly</span> sexy) and so getting a chap who for 20 years had been on our premier soap, which I've loved all my life, was a great coup. He knocked about jauntily on the stage with us but then, as the cheers rang out, he started to ask us, on the mic, where the lights button was, assuming he was turning them on. He wasn't. That was the job of a competition winner from a promotion we'd done with the shopping centre. He looked a little taken aback that he was the big star of the event (and he was) but wouldn't be doing the big star's task.<br /><br />And Toyah was there. I've adored Toyah all my life; she's one of those women who's got so much sexier as she's got older. She was in panto at the Plaza in Stockport and so turned up, with her Widow Twankee in tow, to do a chat with us onstage. She was fab, a great pro. I loved her even more. The only problem was that she and Twanks started to chuck sweets into the crowd, which should be fine, of course, but the jocks had been strictly warned beforehand not to do this because of, yes, Health and bleedin' Safety. Our roadshow co-ordinator gave me daggers from the side of the stage, and I gently stopped them chucking these toffees (they could have a child's eye out, y'know...) into the heaving throng of vulnerable, unprotected victims-in-waiting. Cuh.<br /><br />Also because of Health and Safety, the actual switch-on was cocked up one year. We did the countdown from ten down to one, and the button was pressed and - hey presto! - the lights came on. Hurray! But the fireworks and crackers and general loud things were not set off simultaneously, as planned, because someone was standing too close to one of them (about five yards) and so they weren't ignited. Given that explosives 20 times the size of these things go off at stadia when a trophy is presented on a pitch and there are many human beings stood next to them, I thought this a little too cautious. It ruined the moment, really.<br /><br />My favourite roadshow was in 2000, when Viking FM did its Party On The Pier at Cleethorpes (the seaside equivalent to anyone else's Party In The Park). Top of the bill were 5ive, and Billie Piper was our opening act. I did a segment on the air and stage and got the greatest crowd reaction I've ever had in my career when I said to them: "I reckon we could do this all night, what do you think?" (thieving from Brian May, that one) and the "yeeeeeeeeeeeeees!" in response from these thousands and thousands of people was just explosive. I had a lot of hair at the time, and it all stood up.<br /><br />I peaked at that stage, as I then went on to introduce Scooch, and then afterwards Sid Owen and the Bomfunk MCs. Showbiz. The other highlights included the chorus of <span style="font-style: italic;">Angels</span> which all the jocks together got everyone to sing before saying goodnight, and the member of Fierce (girlish trio who you won't remember) who responded to a request from below the pier by a group of Lincolnshire lads to, erm, reveal a dual part of her anatomy to them for their entertainment. And she did, just as I was walking past. I bet none of the Three Degrees ever did <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span>.<br /><br />So my favourite roadshow happened to be in the same town as the one which began my fascination for them, back in the days when I was a teenage wannabe, working as a hack and wearing terrible ties. They really are great fun.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-14770976303170664212008-08-05T00:45:00.003+01:002008-08-05T01:33:12.524+01:00And he's trying a segueway to heaven...Reading the blurb about the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7540370.stm">Radio Luxembourg 75th birthday reunion</a> at the weekend brought out the radio nostalgist in me. I didn't hear a great deal of Luxembourg as the medium wave reception round East Yorkshire was at the crappier end of crap, but it is a great radio story.<br /><br />Working with Tony Blackburn and Paul Burnett lately (by 'working with', I suppose I really mean 'occasionally being in the same building as') has further rekindled my interest in the medium's past. I have friends who have reels and reels of old Revox tape full of interviews, jingle packages (including never-aired underscores and pre-mix sessions) and programmes in their attics. And in their spare rooms. And in their garages. I don't have quite this admirably nerdish approach to it all, but I do love reading about how it once was.<br /><br />Here's the deal with the mechanics of radio now; a presenter on commercial radio walks into a studio (sometimes it's the only studio, so has to 'hot seat' with the preceding presenter during the news or the last song) and logs into a computer which displays all his songs, ads and required bits of production, in order. He then presses big buttons on a customised keyboard which play these things in turn. The only faders on a desk he need ever touch with regularity is the one which opens his microphone and the one which brings up the newsreader.<br /><br />When I started as an amateur in the early part of 1990, a presenter walked into a studio and began a process of cueing up, checking for levels and spinning into its correct starting place a whole host of vinyl records. CD players were only really installed at the BBC by this time. Jingles were played off the iconic Sonifex cartridges which could contain any number of production snippets but you needed to be on your toes as to which one was where on the list. Other stuff would be on reel tapes, the cueing up of which was a laborious, finger-twisting process which could not be rushed even by those actually in a rush.<br /><br />Inevitably you'd sometimes start a record at the wrong speed (<span style="font-style: italic;">Cuddly Toy</span> by Roachford regularly got me, as it was a 7" single released at 33rpm) and reels were also capable of being unwittingly speeded up or slowed down by a nonchalant, accidental flick of a switch. It was all part of the learning process; it kept you on your toes, taught you the value of absolute preparation before a programme and complete concentration during it, and gave you immense satisfaction when a segueway which involved three different faders being opened at carefully rehearsed times was executed perfectly. Presenters are notoriously self-critical and think they hear errors or bits of clumsiness that in reality didn't happen, but back when the technical side was so much more complicated it was easier to feel pleased on those occasions when you felt you'd done a good job.<br /><br />You could spend the duration of a three minute record rehearsing and double checking the process of segueing into the next one; a process which to the listener is an unremarkable few seconds - they're more interested in enjoying the next song - but to the presenter is a work of art, a sign of slickness and good production values. "Nobody remembers a good segueway", one of my ex-bosses used to insist. But the presenter doing the segueway does, and technical excellence back then would provide an adrenaline rush and galvanise the presenter into making the rest of the show just as good. Only once the segueway was absolutely memorised, ready for its on-air execution, did you consider doing stuff like answering the phone or preparing the next link or more humdrum necessities like visiting the lavatory. And sometimes you wouldn't have time. Afterwards, he'd listen to his own cassette recording of the show to see whether various segueways were as good as he thought they were.<br /><br />The first time I was introduced to a playout computer was in 1996 at Hallam FM in Sheffield. I was transfixed by it; and also terrified of it. Even at this late stage, all I'd done was use CDs, vinyl and cartridges, and the only computer I'd ever needed was the one which had the record library catalogued thereon, telling you whereabouts on the shelves you could find the circle of vinyl or the CD. Now I was being asked to learn to use a system which was wired to the faders on the desk and contained all of the station's adverts and jingles. Later, these playout systems would be upgraded by their manufacturers so that the database was substantial enough to place all the music on as well. CDs on the radio, except in specialist shows, became pretty much obsolete from 2000 onwards. Some stations donated their CD and vinyl collections to local hospital radio stations, others kept theirs for the inevitable computer crash. You may have seen how the technology has now become part of club DJ-ing too, as more and more jocks deploy laptops with sophisticated segueway tools and mixing facilities to pump out the sounds. I don't do this, yet. It does mean that in theory, a jock can prepare his whole set at home, plug the laptop in and then spend the evening doing what his punters do but be paid for it. It's clever, but it's also impersonal, especially as it seems to rule out customer requests.<br /><br />The radio playout systems also have substantial editing functions and remote facilities to play out audio which isn't even on the machine, but attributed elsewhere to the desk. Furthermore, they can keep a radio station on air without a single person being in the building for hours on end by doing its own timing, seguewaying and news introduction, providing its clock is set correctly. Numerous small stations within larger corporate groups in the UK now do this, for obvious but sad budgetary reasons.<br /><br />And so we're now in that situation where we don't need to touch the faders which actually play out the stuff you hear on air. I grew up, professionally at least, with these systems but there are older presenters out there who seem to resent the technology a little as it takes away some of the 'performance' associated with live, pacey radio - performances such as those by the jocks fortunate enough to work for Radio Luxembourg during their careers.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-13552003761257543432008-02-11T16:07:00.002+00:002008-12-09T00:19:44.551+00:00"For Halifax and Calderdale - 106.2 Spark FM!"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaF4qmYSq2wTReHdAgRmy0kKQgmKGzicDAWUDWqidtaHc3QmaXqqfLgq-fKu3zaUf4wufEXVa7mWIPd-nfNBp4wvnIDy_Bq3lUm4eoVUWE8HbkyBpadrEZNvJtKDDFtvU8ddmOHqB3hiwl/s1600-h/Picture+179.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaF4qmYSq2wTReHdAgRmy0kKQgmKGzicDAWUDWqidtaHc3QmaXqqfLgq-fKu3zaUf4wufEXVa7mWIPd-nfNBp4wvnIDy_Bq3lUm4eoVUWE8HbkyBpadrEZNvJtKDDFtvU8ddmOHqB3hiwl/s400/Picture+179.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5165768748880113938" /></a><br />Another photograph of me, in a bar, with some disc jockeys. These three lads, however, are also the closest friends I've ever had.<br /><br />It was taken in Halifax, circa 2002. I'm second from the left. The four of us knew each other from the RSL project Spark FM, a mish-mash of a temporary station based at the Dean Clough complex in Halifax. It was a mish-mash because numerous mishaps befell it, but it survived its 28 day run because of a hard-working bunch of people.<br /><br />I'll always be personally grateful to it, not just for introducing me to the chaps above, but also because the shows I did on it gave me the confidence to decide I could now really have a go at making a career from radio - and two months later, I was on Hallam FM in Sheffield and my life changed course.<br /><br />I've done loads of RSLs over the years. They are Restricted Service Licences, handed out by the (former) Radio Authority (now Ofcom) either for community or fundraising reasons, or because they are considering advertising a licence for a full-time station in the area and want to gauge local reaction and the strength and keenness of potential bidders. The station I work for, KCFM, had an RSL in 2005 (which came from the KC Stadium), as did numerous other radio groups hoping to win the permanent licence.<br /><br />Spark FM was a bit different. In the 1990s, RSLs were commonplace to emphasise that commercial radio could have a more localised and community feel to it. There are numerous community stations, which are run or regulated by councils and do not use RAJAR, around the country - examples being BCB in Bradford and Pure FM in Stockport. The Radio Authority decided, almost seemingly by random selection, that the town of Halifax could do with a temporary station and so Spark FM came along to have a go, as did others.<br /><br />The chap on the right of the photo, Tim Morsley, was one of the directors of the Spark FM company, along with his then-girlfriend and a couple of other local radio devotees. I was living in Huddersfield at the time and had just done an RSL there (called Huddersfield FM, a station which then won a permanent licence for the town a few years later and is now corporately owned, broadcasting as Home FM) and had asked the man running this RSL if he knew of any others. He gave me Tim's number, and so began a friendship which continues to this day.<br /><br />Tim is a music fanatic, and more specifically, a chart fanatic. He owns every single ever to reach the Top 40 (apart from Junior's <span style="font-style:italic;">Mama Used To Say</span> which I managed to snap accidentally while taking it from its cover on Spark FM and never got round to replacing) and continues to update his collection depending on chart positions each week, as well as sending a weekly text message to loads of people in his phone with chart news, updates and predictions. He also knows the order in which every single chart-topper went to number one - so give him a date and he'll tell you who was there, when they initially got there and how long they stuck around.<br /><br />He's also a talented radio DJ, having worked on Radio Calderdale (Halifax's hospital station) for numerous years, but for one reason or another, has never turned professional even though he has the skill to do so. He remains a decent, honest and unflappable bloke, now a proud father of two.<br /><br />On the left is Matt Wilkins, the youngest of us - he was just 18 when Spark FM went on air but was irritatingly talented even then. Like me, he used his Spark experience to get on Hallam FM and we did the swing shifts between us for a while after. He went on to a very successful career in commercial radio - he did mid-mornings for Radio Aire, then joined BRMB to do evenings and earlies, before joining Galaxy in Leeds to host mid-mornings. He's now on the late show at Radio City in Liverpool, and he's still irritatingly good.<br /><br />Next to Tim is Mike Earnshaw, of whom I have the best memories of Spark FM. Mike is a Lancashire lad, a Morrissey fanatic who aped his hero's hairstyle then (and still does) and presented radio programmes with exactly the sort of enthusiasm any heroic amateur presenter, as we all were, should. He did a couple of alternative shows a week, and would turn up at the studios, fag in mouth, with a huge pile of long players and 12" singles under his arm. He would then spread them out on the floor, occasionally stopping to pick one up and tell a story ("that's a test pressing of Spear of Destiny's <span style="font-style:italic;">Never Take Me Alive</span>, isn't it great?") before going into the studio with just one of them. He'd then introduce himself and his first song ("Hi, I'm Mike Earnshaw and this is Killing Joke") before coming back into the office to stare at the impromptu carpet of vinyl, agonising over what to play next. A whole three hour show would be done like this.<br /><br />Spark FM was a fantastic time. It was gloriously amateurish, and that's meant in a thoroughly nice way, as RSLs are meant to be like that. Even RSLs which have a long-term of goal of winning an Ofcom licence can have an amateur sound to them, due to the need to recruit volunteers and a lack of studio training time. This isn't true of all RSLs - most of the ones here in Hull all vying for the permanent prize were of a good quality - but back in the 90s when permanent licences were by no means a guarantee, they were there for the unambitious music lover or the young wannabe DJ to indulge in their passions and fantasies.<br /><br />We had three rooms at the Dean Clough complex - one was a relatively big office, then there was storage at the back and slightly cramped but well-equipped studio. There was a minicab firm next door, who doubled up as our traffic and travel correspondents on the breakfast and drive shows.<br /><br />There were some belting mishaps. The studio microphone was not wholly reliable at being switched off when the fader came down, leading to one indie presenter shouting "oh shit" after garbling his speech and fading out the mic, only for his expletive to go out on air. Another presenter was dismissed for playing a Public Enemy record with its expletives unbleeped at 7pm (and he was supposed to be doing a soul show); a third was tumbled for doing his show drunk <span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> high; a fourth couldn't do his first couple of days on the afternoon show because he was on trial at Calderdale Magistrates Court.<br /><br />Tim had used some of the budget to buy a cheap but reasonably produced package of jingles, one of which contained the name of every presenter recruited to do a programme, with the v/o just announcing the names in list form. This was made a little too far in advance to be accurate by the time the station launched, and after a fortnight you could play the jingle and after each name add a word or two of your own ("sacked"; "quit"; "never turned up"; "dead"; "who?"), while by the time the month was up, the jingle contained nobody on the weekday schedule except the breakfast show host, but people still played it - just so we could all fill the gaps.<br /><br />Although I was only recruited a week or so before launch and was only given one show a week as a result (Saturday breakfast, which I enjoyed), I fortuitously ended up being the launch presenter at midnight. This was because only four of us were in the building at the time, and Tim's plans to be the first presenter himself were scuppered by an almighty row with his girlfriend on the telephone which ate into his preparation time. We launched a little earlier than planned due to technical mishaps elsewhere, and when Matt Wilkins was making his promotional trailer in the studio before launch, his request for "one of the shittier sounding" jingles to go on the end was, sadly, broadcast.<br /><br />So, at midnight, a switch was flicked somewhere and I played a jingle. A thumbs-up from those standing next to a radio in the office confirmed we were on air. Then, as if to emphasise that cheese and predictability (of which I remain totally unashamed) were at the forefront of our minds, I began with <span style="font-style:italic;">The Final Countdown</span> by Europe. We received our first telephone complaint during this record, and the caller wasn't complaining about the record, I should add. He was in Todmorden - a bit of Calderdale which is on the border with Lancashire - and was moaning that the reception didn't get to him very clearly.<br /><br />My memories of that RSL are very fond. I was single at the time and was a little successful, though I say so myself, with one or two of the twentysomething ladies who did shows there - though when one of them punched me square in the face for no reason in front of Tim (and I mean it when I say no reason) I realised she was probably not ideal girlfriend material. We got some reasonable listener correspondence, with one bloke ringing every night without fail to ask for a dedication for the nurses and patients at Northowram Hospital. There was a jazz show one evening a week, hosted by two students who would bollock the listeners for not ringing up when they had a prize on offer. Two mad women called Audrey and Linda had a weekly programme which garnered the most callers for any one show when someone dared them to play <span style="font-style:italic;">Bang And Blame</span> by REM for the whole of their two hours. And the community element was fulfilled - the station got newspaper publicity and good local guests, and tried at least to cover local news although I stopped them from reporting court cases when it was obvious there was no legal training among any of them...<br /><br />Most of all, I have a lot to thank Spark FM for because it gave me three fantastic friends, whom I still see sporadically on nostalgic nights out in Halifax. They all attended my wedding - Tim gave the reading and Matt was one of the ushers. Mike didn't have a specific role on the day but was there nonetheless, and he did do his fine Jarvis Cocker impersonation in the evening.<br /><br />Moreover, Spark FM gave me a career. I'd done better organised and less chaotic RSLs prior to that autumn of 1996 in Halifax, but only Spark made me realise that I could actually do this radio lark as a career. I've been thanking it ever since.<br /><br />Halifax now has a community station entitled Phoenix FM which is run full-time thanks to European Grant funding.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-59595334827690675532008-02-04T13:42:00.001+00:002008-12-09T00:19:44.837+00:00"Yorkshire & Lincolnshire's Favourite DJs!"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7I5WEDQEM7Wfoay5JWhGMV5ABZJQ8mAn1rTsTtVb5bKDA5gRAena2uOYTS1SeRyQKkWbIUdU4ve5kRbAzy3S9JhXgRtZfIzPrj7zJv4FQi0B3KhnqVLLk-kea4a_j8yHQDd6eCN_6dOw5/s1600-h/Picture+029.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7I5WEDQEM7Wfoay5JWhGMV5ABZJQ8mAn1rTsTtVb5bKDA5gRAena2uOYTS1SeRyQKkWbIUdU4ve5kRbAzy3S9JhXgRtZfIzPrj7zJv4FQi0B3KhnqVLLk-kea4a_j8yHQDd6eCN_6dOw5/s400/Picture+029.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5163129567595868818" /></a><br />We didn't have a jingle which said that, sadly. It'd have been great if we had.<br /><br />The photograph is my favourite picture in my recent portfolio (ie, all the ones taken since acquiring a digital camera). It is of most of the presenters who worked for Viking FM in Hull, serving (East and bits of North and South) Yorkshire and (North and North East) Lincolnshire in a period covering, roughly, 1997 to 2001.<br /><br />It was taken at the station's 20th birthday party in 2004, where we'd all decided to join the official bash a little later and go round a few haunts of Hull's old town which were frequently visited on station nights out in our days working on Commercial Road. I'm second on the right, with my shortest ever haircut, leaning on that white shirt sleeve.<br /><br />Far more significant people than me on there include:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">JK and Joel</span> - JK is at the very front in the stripe-sleeved jacket; Joel to the left with wine glass and cigarette. For all the success they later had at Key 103, which got them their Radio 1 gig, it was at Viking where they say they had their biggest buzz. It is genuinely hard to put into words just how absolutely brilliant they were at Viking. They were treated by the listeners like pop stars - girls hanging round outside the studios, sold out club gigs and personal appearances, and shamelessly sexual graffiti famously daubed on the walls outside. I didn't see much of them at first as they were daytime jocks, long-established, and I was new and on the nightshift, but when they shifted to breakfast together (JK initially did it alone) I saw them every morning. JK was always quick to thank me when RAJAR posted a good 6am hour survey, which I was in turn very grateful for. When they left, a massive hole was made in Viking's building, even though their replacement...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Simon Hirst</span> - ... was as dynamic a presenter as Viking could have got, but he would have been even more dynamite for Viking if he'd been with us when JK and Joel were still there. Hirsty, whose head is only on show between JK and Joel, is something of an icon in Yorkshire as a whole. He's been on Galaxy's breakfast show for some years now and is a champion anorak, networker and archivist within the industry. I first heard him on the Pulse in the mid-90s when I was a hack in Huddersfield, and first worked with him at Hallam FM in Sheffield in 1996. Supremely gifted and creative, and egoless in the extreme, he took over Viking breakfast from the lads for little more than a year before the dream Galaxy move came. You may recall him hosting hit40uk after Neil Fox quit. He remains a close pal, attended my wedding and we meet with mutual friends for a night out every other month.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul Carrington</span> - an inspirational presenter of humour and humility, the Funster wasn't actually on Viking when we were (he was on the AM sister service Magic 1161) but was someone who everyone from JK and Joel downwards admired. He's standing on the far left, with the specs. Paul won Sony Awards in his time for his controversial and hilarious shows at Signal Cheshire (later Imagine FM, where I was doing breakfast at the time of this photo) in the 1990s and later became boss of Minster FM where he gave still-a-schoolboy Hirsty his first show. In recent times he was an AM stalwart, working for Great Yorkshire Gold and latterly Magic 828 in Leeds, before joining the BBC in Leeds last year.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Scott Makin</span> - holding the bottled lager on the extreme right, Scott got into radio by accident as he trained as a secretary and was working for a station in his native north east when someone noticed his deep, gravelly voice and put him on air. He joined Viking to host the mid-morning programme and posted almighty figures for numerous years thanks to his laid-back approach and killer Top 10s at 10. He left to return to the north east and is currently the co-host of Century FM's breakfast show in Gateshead, serving the whole area, and still as unaffected by it all as ever. A smashing bloke.<br /><br />And the others...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">David Johnson</span>, at the extreme front (it was he who set up the camera, see), a softly-spoken and charismatic Northern Irish presenter who came to Hull for university reasons and ended up on the late show and then drivetime. A nice, quietly ambitious fellow, he went on to present for Century FM and then Key 103 in Manchester, and also is in demand as a voiceover artist; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Steve Jordan</span>, pointing at the front and re-creating the traditional DJ shot of the 80s, is a highly successful breakfast show host who presented shows at Century FM (now Heart) in Nottingham and Leicester Sound before returning to Hull with Magic 1161 to take over from Paul Carrington. He is now my colleague again, on <a href="http://www.kcfm.co.uk">KCFM</a>; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lee Thompson</span>, bespectacled and holding Guinness in the centre, a Geordie music scheduler and occasional (and brilliant) presenter who left Viking to return to Newcastle and Metro Radio, later freelancing as a researcher and producer for music channels and documentaries; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Phil Mackenzie</span>, to Lee's right in the white shirt, probably the most versatile person I've ever worked with in that he was a presenter (did the overnights before me), the station sound producer (made the sweepers, jingles and promos), an engineer (unofficially, but he was there in emergencies) and producer (JK and Joel and the numerous club nights). Phil went into management after leaving Viking, then returned to presenting with Minster FM in York before taking on programme manager roles at Tower FM in Bolton and, lately, the Revolution in Oldham; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Mark Somers</span>, the current co-host of Viking breakfast who has been at the station for nearly a decade now, having started on weekends when he was still (in law, at least) a boy, albeit a boy with a man's talent and nerve; and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Simon Scholes</span>, at the very top of the pic, who was a technical operator and programming assistant at the station, and was also a talented decathlete until injury got him.<br /><br />Mentions also for <span style="font-weight:bold;">Simon Logan</span>, a fantastic breakfast show host who is now completing a decade at Radio Aire in Leeds; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Cameron</span>, also at Radio Aire in presenting and production roles, and who at Viking hosted the most ludicrously brilliant, rule-bending evening show I've ever heard; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Sam Heywood</span>, who co-hosts breakfast now with Mark and has been in situ for ten years; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ben Weston</span>, who has worked for a clutch of big stations since quitting the late show in 1997 to work in Dubai; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Sara Fellows</span>, a gorgeous girl who did the late show for a bit before going to other stations in Yorkshire; <span style="font-weight:bold;">James Roberts</span>, another late show host with big management ambitions, and now a decision-maker at Radio City in Liverpool; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ian Roberts</span>, a mad Manc who did evenings under the name of Big E before returning to the north west; <span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul Griffiths</span>, one of the most natural presenters with the "patter" of the job, now on Radio Aire; and <strong>Jon Fox</strong>, who rose quickly from student part-timer to lates and then breakfast with his mate <strong>Tom Rhys</strong>, and now does breakfast at 210FM in Reading. They were all on the team during this period but for one reason or another, aren't on the photo. I hope I've not forgotten anyone...<br /><br />It's one hell of a radio team which you are looking at. I feel privileged to have been a small part of it.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851228376504092804.post-51374086175288085462008-01-24T00:53:00.000+00:002008-12-09T00:19:45.367+00:00Come on down, Natalie<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWh1n-e3RdLeh0GVWBj7k3kASeeRljDhQUqQI3g8oA8oUpEGXT4LKIpcQ1GFo5E-XWZE9TT2J3EY_mJ_ySfsZA8FGKXS6edvvcQ17LZfis3Rgdofy3dhth3fKMnpqcGLS_190bGTM4eC-/s1600-h/Picture+172.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWh1n-e3RdLeh0GVWBj7k3kASeeRljDhQUqQI3g8oA8oUpEGXT4LKIpcQ1GFo5E-XWZE9TT2J3EY_mJ_ySfsZA8FGKXS6edvvcQ17LZfis3Rgdofy3dhth3fKMnpqcGLS_190bGTM4eC-/s400/Picture+172.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158848206756262466" /></a><br /><br />This is me with Natalie Pike, taken in the studios at Imagine FM in Stockport, where I hosted the breakfast show. It dates back to 2004.<br /><br />Natalie was from Wythenshawe and was at university locally when I received a letter from her, asking for assistance in her quest to become <em>FHM</em>'s High Street Honey, having been nominated by her boyfriend and made it through to the latter stages.<br /><br />I hadn't read <em>FHM</em> for years; I was 31 by this time and had grown out of it. But I did know about the <span style="font-style:italic;">High Street Honey</span> competition from my time with the radio wing of <em>FHM</em>'s parent company, Emap. The radio stations were constantly encouraged to cross-promote through their DJs and so many a jock would start personality links with "just been reading in the new <span style="font-style:italic;">Q</span> magazine..." and the like. <span style="font-style:italic;">Heat</span>, an abomination of a publication, got a lot of this cross-promotion. They repaid the compliment by making an ad for broadcast on our stations which promoted an interview with Zoe Ball - at the time she was hosting Radio 1's breakfast show; the ads even referred to this. Programme Directors within Emap were hopping mad and the ad was pulled quickly.<br /><br />Anyway, despite my lack of knowledge of <em>FHM</em>'s current campaigns, I invited Natalie and her fella (I feel awful, but his name entirely escapes me; he looked like an unbearded Badly Drawn Boy and was a dead nice chap) on to the programme and began our own mini-campaign to get the listenership to vote online for her in the final. She impressed me a lot - not just physically, but she was engaging and droll and articulate and seemed to be having real fun in her campaign to win the contest.<br /><br />During the weeks of voting that followed, she had acquired enough local kudos to secure an invitation to the Manchester City players' Christmas party. As she was a City season ticket holder (this is allowed when you live in Wythenshawe) she accepted the invitation. It was the occasion when Joey Barton had that mis-coordination involving a cigar, a team-mate's eye and a spot of red mist. Natalie duly came into Imagine the next morning to explain what she'd seen, giving us an exclusive for our news team which nobody else could get. She also told us she had been pursued by Shaun Wright Phillips all night - whom she politely told to go away. Good lass. All this was good radio for us, and good preparation for her as the final approached...<br /><br />She won by a mile. An absolute mile. I can't say how effective our campaign was, but I'm damned sure it helped. And, reverting to red-blooded male type for a moment, I scanned the physical wares of the other candidates and saw nothing which should faze her.<br /><br />I didn't live locally and occasionally stayed on a contra deal at a hotel up the road from the studios when a long day's work had made the trip back to Hull counter-productive. On the night of the final, I was dead to the world in my room when my text alert beeped and roused me. It was Natalie. All she said on her text was "I won! I won! I won! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!". As soon as the result was announced, a camera crew started following her for a week, and two days later it was in my studio, filming the two of us, plus proud boyfriend, as she kept a promise to give me the first full interview (after that of <em>FHM</em> themselves) if she proved victorious.<br /><br />My abiding memory after that was our attempts to organise an <em>FHM</em> signing session at the local WH Smith store with Natalie, which she was up for, but the alpha female in our sales department who was incapable of liking anyone who challenged her self-appointed position as Most Beautiful Woman Alive was so snooty and horrid about the idea that Natalie decided to pull out altogether. She kept us informed of her activities for a while, and the product of the camera crew's efforts was shown on Bravo a few weeks later. The bloke who fired me from Emap - see one of the quotes on the left - emailed me after the programme was aired to say he'd seen it; it was the first time I'd had any communication with him since the day I'd left his employ four years earlier.<br /><br />I left Imagine FM within another six months or so. The last time I saw Natalie, she was a hostess on the revived <span style="font-style:italic;">The Price Is Right</span>. When I knew her, she was bright and resourceful, as well as easy on the eye, and I genuinely hope she's doing really well today. Her bloke was dead proud of her ("it's all his fault") and the thing that struck me most was how she was so disdainful of lazy hacks who assumed that now she had a soupcon of semi-fame, she would dump him and go for some tossy footballer or F-list pop pleb. I don't know what either of them are doing today, a little more than three years on, but I hope they're doing it together.Matthew Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05842392964784000029noreply@blogger.com0