Nineteen Ninety Sixual Pleasure!

Here we go then, almost nearing the start of my final full day here in London for this academic year.
The plan for tonight was to reminisce in the musical video highlights of 1993 but I realised that the CD-R I had it on was one of the many things packed up to go to Canterbury and Youtube was being very slow. So I decided to Fast Forward (see what I did) four years to the Chart Show 1996 Xmas Special.

Quite a different structure from the other ones that I've seen with a countdown of the Top Ten Best Videos of the year. These included "Something For The Weekend" by The Divine Comedy shot in lovely Venice and ever reminding me of my many visits there during college. Also featured in the rundown were Ocean Colour Scene's "The Day We Caught The Train" and an interesting choice in the form of Galliano with "Ease Your Mind". It was another acid jazz stalwart however that went in at Number 1; Jamiroquai and the visually impressive "Virtual Insanity".

With 1996 being the year that interviews were introduced to the Chart Show there were many Star Choices with a selection of performers choosing their own video highlights. These included Ronan and Stephen from Boyzone opting for "Stranger In Moscow" by Michael Jackson, The Spice Girls choosing "Ironic" by Alanis Morrissette, Paul and Jaqui from the Beautiful South nominating "A Design For Life" by the Manics and Matthew Priest from Dodgy (minus the porkpie hat) rather cheekily nominating their own hit "Good Enough".
There was also an appearance from the two Geordies who would later take over the coveted timeslot from the Chart Show; Ant & Dec opting for the ever catchy "Peaches" by the Presidents of The USA.

The Spice Girls were also the recipients of the Best New Act of 1996 with the lovely Louise Nurding as she was then, getting the Solo Artist title. The Worst Video of that year was snooker player Peter Ebdon's attempt at a singing career with "I Am A Clown" which despite it's novelty value is a rather sweet sounding tune!

Instead of a Top Ten there was a countdown of the Top 20 singles of 1996 including a few tracks that I haven't heard in quite a while; "Nobody Knows" by the Tony Rich Project and "Anything" by Michael Jackson's nephews 3T. This was alongside the more obvious hits from the year including "3 Lions", "The Macarena" and "Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees.
Number 1 was community service dodger Mark Morrison and "Return Of The Mack" which along with most of the other tracks in the rundown has aged pretty well.

So how do I plan to spend my last day here? I may actually head over to the furthest North of Harrow and towards Weald. Not that exciting but it certainly kills time and gets me out a bit more.

The Canterbury Despatchment

The last few days have seen rather dreadful weather conditions but by the evening, everything starts to pick up and brighten up a bit. It would be brilliant if the whole day tomorrow was in the way of the latter especially as I plan to have a stroll in the morning to escape the testing of the fire alarm at 11am. Why they should go ahead with that procedure I have no idea, they've been going off every other night in the last week.

Dad arrived at around 5pm to give me a hand with packing with Mum arriving shortly after and we managed to get everything packed in rather good time, with just my lamp, radio alarm clock and the crockery and cutlery I still want to use before leaving on Saturday. And my laptop of course but I would find it difficult to manage without that anyhow.

There's still quite a lot in my cupboard including a whole packet of penne pasta so I may use that up along with what I reckon will be a very meaty lamb stew. This is partly because I've used up all the mushrooms and only have a few rashers of bacon so I'll probably cut that up and mix it in along with some tomato puree to make a very delicious concoption.

An ideal way to pass the time whilst recording tonight's offerings on BBC Four.

"Acceptable In The 80s"

The last few moments of this Disney cartoon being a prime example where Donald Duck and Chip and Dale are seen in the sort of disguises that would not go down to well if it was shown 20 years later. I seem to remember a few years ago when one of the cable channels in the US banned Speedy Gonzales cartoons as they were over sensitive about offending Mexicans. It's just tricky not to laugh at their rather funny accents and even the people themselves see the funny side at times.

Anyway back to the clip above taken from Xmas 1987 and Children's ITV where I'm guessing that each individual ITV company had to fade up their own presentation caption live whenever an overseas programme was shown. Hence the Thames endcap in that clip not sure whether it's coming or going. This practise died down throughout the 90s although I'm sure Yorkshire and Tyne Tees were still doing it until 2000 at least. Also featured are the then presenters Gary Terrza who's now one of the main voices at Channel 4, and Debbie Shore the one time love interest of Zippy from Rainbow.

On that same subject here's the end credits from the 1987 Rainbow Xmas Special leading to more of the same. It amused me to extent when the name of the vision mixer came up who happens to share it with a certain photography student on campus.
I'm sure Martin himself would be rather flattered, as I know he's quite a buff on old television of that sort.

The Academic Year In Aural Form

Whilst the majority of my blog posts this year have been endless tangents about music from many moons ago, I thought that with the end of the year approaching it would be a good time to list the many tunes that have helped define 2006-2007. Most of them were released within the two years although I have included a few classic tracks that have been given a new lease of life for many bizarre reasons. No soul records are included either as I'm saving them for another post!

Here goes...

Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancin'

Lily Allen - LDN

Killers - When You Were Young

Beyonce - Irreplacable

Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back/My Love

David Guetta Vs The Egg - Love Don't Let Me Go

Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous

Kasabian - Empire/Shoot The Runner

Bob Sinclar - Rock This Party

David Hasslehoff - Jump In My Car

Razorlight - America

Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger

Muse - Starlight/Knights Of Cydonia (The latter being one of the finest intros to a record this year!)

Bedouin Soundclash - When The Night Feels My Song

All Saints - Rocksteady

The View - Superstar Tradesman/Same Jeans

Amy Winehouse - Rehab/You Know I'm No Good/Back To Black (and a very flamboyant performance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks!)

Peter, Bjorn And John - Young Folks/Let's Call It Off

Fedde Le Grande - Hands Up For Detroit/Creeps

Jamiroquai - Runaway

Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly - War Of The Worlds

Akon - Smack That

Take That - Patience/Shine

Booty Luv - Boogie 2Nite

Bodyrox - Yeah Yeah

Mika - Grace Kelly (and the majority of the album)

Just Jack - Starz In Their Eyes

Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead

Klaxons - Golden Skans/Gravity's Rainbow (and loving their cover of Grace's "Not Over Yet")

Eric Prydz Vs Floyd - Proper Education

Mason - (Perfect) Exceeder

Jojo - Too Little Too Late

Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby/Everything Is Average Nowadays

The Fray - How To Save A Life

Kelis Feat. Cee-Lo - Lil' Star

Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control (and I'll try and avoid making comments about the lead singer)

Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape

Faithless - Insomnia (an Undercroft/Area anthem!)

Alex Gaudino - Destination Calibria

Maximo Park - Our Velocity

Calvin Harris - Acceptable In The 80s/Girls

Christina Aguilera - Candyman

Fergie - Glamourous

The Proclaimers featuring Brian Potter & Andy Pipkin - (I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles

Lion - Transformers Theme

Mark Ronson - Version (Best Album Of The Year?)

Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (that will always remind me of Ali dancing around RP-1 from now on!)

Gym Class Heroes - Cupid's Chokehold

Akon - Don't Matter

Marroon 5 - Make's Me Wonder

Ne-Yo - Because Of You

Manics/Nina Persson - You're Love Alone Is Not Enough (their catchiest one so far?)

Amerie - Take Control

Mims - This Is Why I'm Hot (a record that represents everything bad about urban music)

Groove Armada - Get Down

Booty Luv - Shine (Moto Blanco Edit)

Sophie Ellis Bextor - Me And My Imagination

Beyonce And Shakira - Beautiful Lie

Love them or hate them, these and many others that I've forgotten to list will be an essential reminder of the last 9 months in lovely Harrow.

Nineteen Ninety Two Good!

Tonight's recordings went a bit more sucesfully having been in attendance on and off whilst watching the launch of this year's Big Brother and an all female house. Well until Friday at least but I doubt I'll become that attached.

As planned I had a gander at the musical video highlights of 1992 and in post viewing mode I feel the need to write my own take on the offerings.
The Best New Act of the year was the superb Tasmin Archer with "Sleeping Satellite" who after the success of her debut album ended up with writer's block. I'm glad I watched this episode sober as the video for that song had a lot of turning around for some odd reason.
Curtis Stigers was the Best Solo artist of that year although a more deserving winner for me would have been Dina Carroll who launched a succesfull solo career with "Ain't No Man" and the very sweet and sassy "Special Kind Of Love".

Moving onto the three specialist charts and Indie featured a few early performances by The Verve and P.J. Harvey and the Rock Chart included some crackers by Def Leppard, and Mr Big with "To Be With You". The Dance Chart was just as good with Janet And Luther's "The Best Things In Life..", SL2 "On A Ragga Tip" and Shanice with "I Love Your Smile" which will be forever associated with a girl who I had quite a crush on during my AVCE media course.

1993's Sneak Previews were pretty moderate in terms of success with Michael Jackson and "Give Into Me", the seventh release from his "Dangerous" album featuring a guest performance by Slash on guitar. Also on offer were Annie Lennox and "Little Bird" as performed at Live 8 two years ago, and Peter Gabriel's "Steam" which could have been a contender for the best video of 1993 although the ex lead singer of Genesis beat himself at his own game with "Kiss That Frog".

The Worst Video of 1992 was nowhere near as bad as Barry Manilow; ageing rockers The Troggs and an updated version of "Wild Thing". It was revealed during the video that the band had recently worked with R.E.M. who ironically won the Best Video of the year with "Man On The Moon". There's also another bizarre link between the two songs and that happens to be Jim Carrey; R.E.M. being the most obvious as Jim went onto portray Andy Kaufman in the film of the same name. And on a lower note Carrey ended up giving his own rendition of "Wild Thing" on Jonathan Ross's chat show alongside Johnny Vegas banging one of the Four Poof's heads on their piano.

The Top Ten for that year was a bit of a mixed bag, I felt the need to sing to "Deeply Dippy" by Right Said Fred and "End Of The Road" by Boyz II Men as they both contain bass vocals. However there were a few shockers in there such as Undercover's SAW produced take on "Baker Street" and the incredibly bland "Hazard" by Richard Marx. Number 1 in both the Top Ten and the Dance Chart was Snap! with "Rhythm Is A Dancer" and yes, they did show the rather tastless line as delivered by rapper Turbo.

As I've said before I'm living the perfect lifestyle, the popular culture of yesteryear in living condtions I'm happy with now. It's going to be hard parting with a few things albeit temporarily when Mum comes over to take my belongings back to Canters.

"Come And Get Your Black Bin Bags!"

Whilst the laptop has been in the kitchen recording a documentary about Jackanory, I've been sorting everything that needs to be packed for tomorrow into the large plastic bags I brought earlier. Oddly enough I've only used up two so far and I doubt I'll use much more of them as I don't really want to end up putting my television into one.

I plan to finish off last nights spag bol when I take the laptop back in a few minutes to record the 1980s episode of TV on Trial and that may be followed by a visit to the Undercroft provided they have any drinks that are to my liking. Friday looks set to be a very big night with quite a lot of people attending although as is often the case, not many second year radio students will be showing up according to the Facebook invites.
What's gotten into you this year?! Has it been that demanding?
Then again I don't have as far to walk as most of them, and come to think of it neither do most of the other regulars who turn up to events.

I guess this will be my last night with a duvet cover for this year in halls so I'll try and make the most of it and pray to god that there are no unwelcome intrusions.

Never Trust Technology

Especially timers on video recorders including the one on my USB reciever. As a result of this I failed in getting part three of BBC Four's Children's TV On Trial series meaning that I'll miss out on the reminiscing of the 1970s and Rentaghost. Not to worry though, I'll make sure that I'm physically there to ensure that tonight goes without fail, even if it does mean setting the alarm for 2am.

For now though I'm up in radio just grabbing what I can off the network drives and later on I may head into Harrow and buy some more delicious treats from Wenzels. I also need to buy some black bin bags so I can make a start on packing ready for mum to pick up tomorrow evening.

Nineteen Ninety One-Derful!

One down, 5 to go out of all the end of year specials I have from the Chart Show starting with 1991. I didn't see this first time round as on the Saturday it was transmitted we were making our way back on a long car journey back to Canterbury from our holiday house in Devon.
It doesn't feel as exciting watching it without any intoxication yet I still felt the need to sing to the many tracks that were featured, especially in the Top Ten.

The Best Solo Artist of that year was Seal with his first solo hit "Crazy". This was covered by Alanis Morrisette a couple of years ago and whilst the original is superb, her version really made me think more about the lyrics.
Kenny Thomas managed to win the Best New Act of that year who's still performing today and I had the pleasure of seeing him at the Royal Albert Hall as the support act for Level 42 last year.

All three specialist charts were featured as it was the Xmas Special, not a very good year for Indie in my opinion with Curve getting both the Number 1 and Number 2 slots.
The best one that year had to be the Rock Chart with two cracking tracks by Extreme including the blissfull "More Than Words" and the more raging "Get The Funk Out".

It's worth mentioning that all the musical stings in this episode from the 1991 relaunch are musically linked together based around the elements of the show's signature tune, except for the Rock Chart which sounds more like the Top Ten intro from the fairground era although not as good!

There were also sneak previews for what were actually rather big hits in 1992 including the brilliant Curtis Stigers with "I Wonder Why", Des'ree with "Feel So High" and Shakespeare's Sister and "Stay". The band were also the recipients of the Best Video of 1991 with "Goodbye Cruel World" which returned to the chart in the following year.
But for every best, there's always a worst and the video that fell into that category this year really was that bad; Barry Manilow's version of Jingle Bells.

As mentioned earlier the Top Ten had some very catchy numbers including Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Song" and "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred which we had performed to us earlier in the year by none other than Dave Benson Phillips!
And as expected the Number 1 not just in the Top Ten but also in the Rock Chart of 1991 was Bryan Adams who stayed for 13 weeks at the top spot on the Chart Show's rundown. It probably went to show that Saturday really was the most popular day for buying records back then.

1992 will be on the cards for tomorrow which I actually can remember watching first time round on our only Christmas in Canterbury. I seem to remember going for a walk in Tankerton on that Boxing Day morning and on the way back we went past the newly built Invicta Radio studios in nearby Whitstable. One day I'll get there, you wait!

Fony Sony

I've now realised not to trust any DVD-Rs specifically Sony Brand ones that come in flat jewel cases or none at all after having a few problems getting my computer to recognise them. Hopefully the external DVD drive back in Canterbury should solve these problems but luckily most of the stuff I recorded onto them is still on the network folders on campus so I'll make an early visit there tomorrow morning to put the stuff onto my hard drive.
On moving some of the stuff there I was rather stunned to see the amount of audio I have including various radio and television material I haven't even viewed despite downloading it as far back as 2004!

There's not a lot on offer tonight on BBC Four's Children's TV On Trial season which is good in a way as the same two programmes are repeated throughout the night and I can leave my laptop to record the latest showing at around 2:20am meaning I will be occupied for tonight.
And what better time to start my night by night viewing of the end of year specials from The Chart Show for the end of semester starting off tonight with 1991.
Expect a review in the next post although I'm sure we all know who was Number 1 in the Top Ten of that year!

The Search For Storage Completed! Almost

I returned to Brent Cross this afternoon after quite a long while, first of all stopping off at PC World to buy my new hard drive. I ended up buying a 160GB drive which didn't need a plug for a reasonable price, although I had to reformat it after getting it home because it wouldn't behave itself and let me put anything on there.
I was also nearly tempted to buy a USB FM radio which allows you to listen to and record FM and online radio to your PC. However I gave that a miss this time round although it's not completely off my wants list!

On another note the submitions for the 2007 Student Radio Awards have now opened and as far as categories go not a lot has changed from last year. Which is good in some ways but bad for others as rather annoyingly there's still no seperate Sports category as opposed to it being part of the News category. I'm definitely going to enter for Marketing and Branding this year after getting the bronze prize last year so myself and Ross G will need to start discussing that in detail pretty soon. I'll also have a go at submitting Soul Expression in the Specialist Music category which involves me trying to find twenty minutes of as-live audio from the show to send as part of the submition as opposed to a compilation of audio which I would have preferred.
It's going to be a tough job but I'm up for the challenge.

I'm really hoping that the weather picks up before I leave as I don't want this to be a repeat of last year. Then again there won't be too many of the obnoxious types about on Friday drinking the bar dry as Chris Jones is celebrating his 21st with a few mates from the Drama Society and Uni overall.
There couldn't be a nicer guy celebrating to be honest.

In The Key Of C Please Bob!

I love my fair share of unusual arrangements of well known tunes and this has to be one of the finest I've manged to uncover. Classical pianist Iain Masson giving his take on a very well known gameshow theme tune in what is in some places rather witty but from my point of view musically is just brilliant!
OK so it's not as easy being able to hand jive to it like the original but I'm sure
Bob Holness himself would be flattered if he heard this take on what was
essentially his show.
That's one of my aims for next year, if I'm ever down in Pinner I hope I'm lucky enough to spot the man himself although he's an Ashford born man and often makes visits to his hometown on occasions during the warmer months.

As for today I'll be heading to nearby Brent Cross to find the cheapest and most convinient hard drive to store all my videos on and I may treat myself later tonight to a delcious spag bol, once again with chicken chasseur powder as it worked pretty successfully last time round.
I'll also make a start on packing everything I want to be returned to Canterbury when Mum comes over later this week. I'll try and be more helpful and willing as well unlike last time when I barely had anything sorted for the long summer months.

Taxi For Stoobie!

The final Monday night at the Undercroft was pretty sparse on arrival but Decio and Deepa were there with the male half ready to spin a good wide selection of tunes. It was really good when before the crowds got moving he decided to spin the extended original of "Space Cowboy" by Jamiroquai which despite the bad weather really felt good. With "Drink The Bar Dry" happpening on Friday I reckon I already have as I managed to grab hold of the last VK they had which happened to be the only drink I had that night.

Chris, Phil, Pete and Stoobie shortly arrived as did a few other familiar faces, mainly first years including Sam, Kyri, Kelly and Sean. I ended up heading back to sort out my Freeview USB which took longer than I thought because before leaving I forgot to plug my laptop in meaning that the battery ran out when I got back! This meant having to retune the channels thinking for a few minutes that I'd have to buy a replacement reciever. With everything sorted in the end I went back where the dancefloor was pretty packed. If there's one thing that irritates me however, it's blokes who I barely know going up to me and start dancing a bit too close in a camp manner. I got a few of them last night and politely told them to take a hint.

By the end of the night it was pretty rammed finishing off with "Sweet Child O' Mine" my Guns 'N' Roses and everyone getting a bit too emotional for the final Monday down the Underpants until Freshers.
Some on the other hand, had a few too much to drink and this resulted in Chris, Pete, and Stewart wrestling each other on the wet grass outside and Stewart getting completely lathered and taking things a bit too seriously. The fisticuffs took us all the way to outside premium towers and I decided to head back to my flat for what I hoped would be some shut eye.

As is normally the case I was woken first by Chris ringing me up saying that
Stoobie was OK, and an hour later by the bastard fire alarm. No fucker turned up to switch it off for twenty minutes which just goes to point out the ridiculous reason why they don't have a porter in the reception to look after things over night. What would happen if there was a real fire?
We're paying more money for acommodation than last year so I wish they would make some use of it, especially when deducting money from us as a result of the lazy occupants refusing to tidy up the kitchen. You can tell who's responsible because of the large woks left rotting about.
Anyway not to worry, only four more days left.

The Search For Storage (Continued)

I really am going to have to buy another external hard drive if I am to carry on recording onto my laptop. Then again a few of them are going cheap as Currys Digital were selling a 320GB one for just over £60 so it may be a temporary solution to my short dilemma. Apologies Mum and Dad if you're reading this but I just want to make sure I'm occupied in my spare time this holiday as I won't be having as much fun as I am right now with tonight hopefully being no exception.
You don't want me to turn into a moody obnoxious sort do you?!

Yes it's the final Monday night at the Undercroft tonight where hopefully all the usual lot will be down there. I know the girls from the Northwick Mansion will be present as it's the last time I'll be seeing Ashlea because she's going to Maz's hen night on Friday. Hopefully they'll have someone decent spinning the discs and the place won't get too rammed but things tend to die down anyway this side of semester and with the year not being a great one for events at Uni it won't be anything spectacular. Well until the drinks start flowing!

The Endless iPod

Another miserable morning but I'm still in a pretty good mood. I'm spending the majority of the day putting stuff onto CD/DVD-R to give me more room for my videos that I'm going to be recording for most of this week off BBC Four whilst listening to the 10 Hour Takeover.
Dick and Dom kicked it off in their usual style with tracks such as "No Limits" by 2 Unlimited, "Killing In The Name" by Rage Against The Machine (the radio edit obviously) and PJ And Duncan AKA's "Let's Get Ready To Rhumble". However on a low note the pretenders to the throne for the first hour revealed that this week they would be recording their own pilot for a Saturday night series on BBC1 which could be worrying. Hopefully they'll keep the creamy muck muck to a minimum.

They've just finished playing Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" which thankfully included the intro that's normally edited out but for me it's the only decent bit of the song.
Whilst you get a few novelty choices it gets annoying when people request records that are currently in the chart such as "Umbrella" by Rhianna. Then again I've normally been tounge tied when in the position of making a song request so I can't complain.

The Search For Storage

Bit of a miserable day to be honest. Not completely putting me on a downer but it's not the sort of weather I'd like to see when leaving here. I even went for a walk on the hill whilst it was raining and ended up in nearby Sudbury before going all the way back on almost the same path apart from the short footpath towards the end leading from the hill to Watford Road.

On returning I moved my laptop into the kitchen to record tonight's Krypton Factor off Ftn where last night they had the 1992 Grand Final which included the contestants having to land a real plane in the Response round. However tonight rather than continue with the 1993 series they went straight back to 1987 where they began in January. Probably just as well that I'm returning to Canterbury next week.
However BBC Four have started their Children's TV On Trial series for this week and there are stacks of programmes which I'm going to have to clear a bit of space for on my various drives on my laptop. Especially as tomorrow they'll be repeating the Swap Shop documentary from last Xmas which I'd love to have in digital form.

Whilst that was taping, I watched last night's episode of 7 Ages Of Rock, this week looking at art rock from the likes of Bowie, the Velvet Underground and what had to be the most flamboyant of acts featured in the programme; Genesis. I never realised that Peter Gabriel had been involved in colourful outfits before the Sledgehammer video including one with a red dress and a stuffed fox's head.
And you can't forget Pink Floyd who had quite a prominence in various parts of the programme including the story of how the memorable Wall gig came about, making the gig more of a spectacle than just a performance.

I'd imagine tomorrow will see similar outside conditions so I'll probably be relaxing whilst listening to Radio 1's 10 Hour Takeover and spending my last Monday night at the Undercroft for this academic year. It will be sad saying goodbye to a few faces but I'm certain it won't get that teary.

Load Of Bow Locks

This brought back a few memories "One Lump Or Two" on Channel 4's Big Breakfast in 1993 which has to have one of the most catchiest tunes ever written! This was one of the memorable highlights of the programme during it's early years with Chris and Gaby at the helm and really set the standard for television overall during it's time on air.
A giant teacup wouldn't have gone amiss with the rather wet antics that took place at the Northwick Mansion yesterday.

From the same user, I also managed to find this, what was probably a very low point of the show when in order to save falling ratings someone came up with the idea of giving the house a revamp along with a new presenting team. I can remember watching this back in September 1996 and immediately thought "what the hell?". The addition of showing a photo of what the house used to look like clearly defines the term "rubbing salt into the wound".
For me this has to be one of the worst relaunches of a television programme I have ever seen and you can tell by the empty atmosphere and lack of enthusiasm when presenter Sharon Davies gives a grand tour of the house.

Thankfully this didn't last long as Sharon left the show around Spring 1997 and things started to change back to how they were albeit with another re-arrangement of the theme tune to give it more of a fresh britpop sounding feel. With the arrival of Johnny Vaughan later on in the year mornings once again became worth getting up for, without being too wacky like it was with Evans etc. Rick Adams on the other hand went back to radio including a six month stint on the Sunday evening slot at Invicta FM which was clearly a breath of fresh air for the music heavy station at the time.

It's shocking to realise that two million pounds was wasted on this and they had to spend more money within the next two years changing it back. Also note the pointless additions such as the swimming pool and the bandstand at the back of the garden. They did find a use for it eventually when Johnny Vaughan christened it as the "Steps Of Woe" where various crew members would be sent to, accompanied by that infamous chant to the tune of "Rock And Roll Part 2".
A tune that George W Bush once used for his presedential campaign oddly enough.

"And Finally..."

Regular readers of the blog will know how I share the same belief as Bill Bailey that the old closing theme to News At Ten is one of the scariest themes ever composed, or edited in this case. I've managed to find this interesting mock up featuring Julia Somerville where instead of the rather vicious string stabs, we get the closing theme from the BBC's Six O'Clock News from the 1980s! Matches the video perfectly.
This was one of the many themes for BBC News as composed by George Fenton who had the monopoly before David Lowe's pips theme came in 1999 putting an end to the pomposity. However one of Fenton's themes is still being used today for BBC 2's Newsnight.

I'd probably have enjoyed the News module in radio more if we had used an orchestral theme as the signature to our bulletins! Then again if we'd gone in that direction then my travel bulletins may have sounded like the opening to Dallas!

Saturday Night's Alright For Downing

Oh my, yesterday was rather eventful in more ways than one. With lectures now finished it appears that a few people want to make the best usage of the radio rooms as possible and yesterday it happened to be Lizzie who was up with fellow third year Tom trying to make a demo. I got called up to give them a hand with the tricky technical stuff and it was nice to see how they were getting on.
Lizzie in particular is still working in the offices of Planet Rock at GCap but still keen to get in front of the mic. Whilst she's very outgoing she felt rather bad that she didn't get much of a chance to work on her presenting skills last year partly because she was in Oz for the first semester and that Joey was too tied up with other things to help her progress with her own show on Smoke with the infamous title "The Clucking Hour".
I also found out how her mate Hetal is getting on in the US on her exchange where she's now moved on to Los Angeles. I'd really love to see her again and hear how she's getting on but at least she's on Facebook so I can find out there.

On arriving back at the flat I decided to give a listen to Sam doing her show on South Buck's Mix 107 and even gave her a ring in the studio! Whilst I wanted to speak to her as a listener she was more open and sounded rather heartbroken partly because it was her last show before going travelling in the States herself next week. Aahh!
At least I got a mention on air and following this I went to Sainsbury's to buy the booze for Jess's birthday party.

In spite of the wet weather it was a pretty good turn out with Penny, Pippa ST, Chris Jones, and fellow drama society member and coincidental namesake Priscilla White!
And it got even more wet when everyone started mucking about with water pistols enforcing a strict rule on water fights to be held outside with third year film student Rob being the worst offender. Luckily Neal and Michael from the first year were fully armed with jugs and water bombs to get him back!

The Red Russians were certainly flowing although Pippa C who arrived later was very kind enough to let me have a few of her peach flavoured Archers that she'd brought with her. I also kept on popping back to the flat and back to try and tune my USB TV aerial to see if I could get any channels that started up after 7pm such as BBC Four and Ftn. It was succesfull but the application crashed whilst I was recording last nights editon of the Krypton Factor! It recorded OK however but I know that I'm definitely going to need a new job when returning to Canterbury so I can buy another laptop solely for recording off the television regardless of how cheap it is. As long as it's got the memory I'm happy as I reckon I've excelled quite a lot of it on what I'm using now.

Anyway, I stuck around at the Northwick Mansion until just before 11pm as I'd drunken all the Red Russians and was terribly wasted thinking I was going to die. I decided to head back home and crash out although I still felt really dizzy and feeling the need to belt out random Killers lyrics.
Being woken at around 2am by the fire alarm made me realise that I wasn't in that much agony and despite being woken at this ungodly hour I decided to have a bit of wireless, and Pete Mitchell on BBC Radio 2. You wouldn't want to be working as a newsreader at the station as reading the news at 3am was none other than Deadly, hours after announcing the balls on the lottery draw. I didn't have it switched on for too long as my mobile being next to the radio resulted in unexpected but very loud put putting noises.

So what does today have planned? I may make one final visit up the hill in Harrow if it doesn't rain too heavily although you can never be too careful.

Now Playing: Starpoint Radio

Tangent Alert!

This is it, my final week in Harrow Halls for this academic year and despite the rather overcast weather I'd say it's got off to a good start.
I headed into Harrow town this morning and went to Wenzel's the bakers just outside the town itself where I brought a wholemeal loaf and some delicious Chelsea buns which I'm enjoying as I type. No rotten yellow bits, just sugar and sultanas.

On returning I decided to revisit more musical highlights from 1997, September the 22nd to be more precise. As it was a Grand Prix weekend, it was a shorter show that week meaning there was no specialist chart but tons of exclusives. But what crackers they were, including Green Day with "Hitchin A Ride" the first track released off their "Nimrod" album, 911's "Party People" which I reckon owes a great big debt to the Spice Girls "Say You'll Be There" and Peter Andre with "Lonely".
As much as I can't stand the man, this was actually a very sweet ballad with a 42 piece orchestra from his second album where he collabrated with top producers such as Warren G, R Kelly, and Montel Jordan. This resulted in a rather derogatory phone call on CBBC's L&K Friday in January 1998 where a caller rang him up saying that despite working with these producers he was "still a commercial bore" to which Andre responded "Hey, I didn't make music for you, I made it for these lovely people here" resulting in a cheer from the audience and presenter Zoe Ball relieved that he didn't lose his rag.

In the Video Vault this week were early 90s indie band Jesus Jones with "International Bright Young Thing". This was requested via e-mail by one of the viewers which became a very popular feature of The Chart Show in it's later years.
I even sent a request myself once for 808 State's "Pacific" and was it almost fulfilled, even getting a mention in that weeks Radio Times. Unfortunately it was the same week Linda McCartney died so instead they showed a remake of her song "Seaside Woman" in tribute to her, which happened to be directed by Chart Show founders Keith MacMillan and Phil Davey.
It wasn't too bad though as they did feature the 1998 remix of Pacific in the Chart News that week and I've now got the DVD with all their videos!

Back to September 97 and the Top Ten which featured "Samba De Janeiro" by Bellini which is one of Decio's favourites regularly spun at the Undercroft, and Louise with "Arms Around The World" which resulted in me being in tears. Such a sweet tune from a very sweet woman.

On a lower note was Oasis at number 2 with "Stand By Me" the second track off the "Be Here Now" album. Whilst the song itself isn't brilliant it was rather unpleasant for the video to include a shot of a man spitting. The band had originally approached top US director Spike Jonze to do the video for the song and on one of his DVDs it contains a short film containing vox pops of people he interviewed around London who listened to the song and gave him ideas for what the video should involve. The Burnage boys wouldn't have any of it though so they ended up with the rather earthy result as shown.

Number 1 was still Elton John with his Diana double A-Side although thankfully they showed the video for "Something About The Way You Look Tonight" as around that time Elton had refused to perform "Candle In The Wind" in public again.
I still need to get round to checking some of Elton's earlier stuff after seeing the performance on Dad's Old Grey Whistle Test DVD as it's in the same sort of league as Billy Joel and Steely Dan in their prime.

As I write this I've just been to and back from the kitchen where some idiot has once again stolen my bottle of fizzy orange and mango juice. Some post it notes or maybe a minature mouse trap will be on my list the next time I go into town. Then again I've still got to buy the booze for Jess's birthday do this afternoon which I reckon will be a large crate of Red Russians at just £4.99!

The Flat Of Hilarity

An evening in front of the television provided plenty of laughs tonight starting off with Have I Got News For You, with the welcome return of Alexander Armstrong in the chair.
Topics that were discussed and ridiculed this week included the Cutty Sark fire
with Paul Merton's amusing suspiscions behind it, and the story of a school report found in a street giving rather derogatory comments on the students.
The Missing Words round featured a barbed wire magazine as the guest publication leading to many witty responses from the panellists proving that almost anything and everything has it's own set of devoted fans.

This was followed by the first of three sketch shows from Ronnie Ancona where as she explained at the start didn't just contain impressions but specially written characters. These included an airport security guard dealing with someone trying to smuggle weed through but refused because he said he was going to give the herbs to his wife and wouldn't believe him!
There was also a woman teaching in a class full of aroused boys who lost her temper and gave her honest opinions without realising. This sketch reminded me of a very similar one with teachers as featured in Lee and Herring's "Fist Of Fun" in the mid 90s, which both Ronnie and her partner Alistair McGowan appeared in. This was around the time when Ronnie also dabbled in children's television with Mark Speight on the ITV Saturday morning show "Scratchy And Co"; a blatent steal of Max Headroom.

Not being a huge fan of impression based comedy, there was a very good sketch featuring Phil Cornwell as Pete Doherty and Ronnie as both Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse who had completely different personalities inside their house away from the paparazzi outside.
Overall after seeing this I'd say that Ronnie is now the same league as Catherine Tate and doesn't need to rely on impressions just to get laughs. With this series only having three episodes it will also have more of a chance of staying funny without becoming stale.

Sunshine Songs

I'm in one of those moods I feel the need to listen to as many positive sounding tracks as possible and show the enthusiasm in a blog post! Here's a selection of what I've been spinning:

Santana Featuring Michelle Branch - The Game Of Love
Released in late 2002 this is one of many records that should have been released in the summer of that year but wasn't as a result of petty record companies. I'd dare say that it's even better than "Smooth" with Rob Thomas from two and a half years earlier.
Even though it wasn't written by him, it's got that Greg Alexander sound to it, who was the man that wrote Ronan Keating's "Life Is A Rollecoaster" and "You Get What You Give" for his own band The New Radicals. Worth listening to if you're into that stuff.

Senor Coconut - Beat It
With Mark Ronson's album of quirky covers currently doing the rounds it brought to mind the band who around 2003-2004 were reknowed for their mambo takes on popular songs including this Michael Jackson classic. Even Chris Moyles was a fan and gave it a spin every morning just before the half-time section of the show. The band were also performing at WOMAD in 2004 which I went to and am rather gutted on not going to their set in favour of the Soul II Soul sound system. To be fair however they were equally as good.

Blue Pearl - Naked In The Rain
You can't beat a bit of early 90s dance. This was from the summer of 1990 when my younger brother was born, and brings back memories of Simon Parkin and Phillipa Forrester on B.F.T, my discovering of Steve Wright on Radio 1 when everyone else was getting sick of him, and MC Hammer's trousers being a popular subject in the BBC's Fast Forward magazine.

Yes, music is an essential part of remaining positive in these warm months.

The Inspiring Outdoors

With the wrong sort of aerial connection for my Digital TV USB, I went into Curry's Digital to buy an adapter. However on returning I found out that it only had one pin inside it so I'll need to go there again tomorrow to buy another. They're not too expensive though.

I spent most of the afternoon on the grass outside Harrow Halls in the warm but slightly overcast weather with Phil H, Stoobie and their flatmate Dani whilst having Edith Bowman play out of Phil's mobile phone. The current state of radio sounds a lot better outside in the sunshine especially on a Friday when the music is more livelier, although Phil didn't really agree with me on that idea which was interesting.
The Scotswoman was certainly playing a fair share of music from 2004 including "These Words" by Natasha Bedingfield, Usher's "Yeah" and "The Weekend" by Michael Gray.

Monday looks set to be a similar story with the long awaited return of The Ten Hour Takeover which I'm really looking forward to hearing. I've still got a few previous ones on MD which I've never listened back to but with the lack of equipment I have at the moment, I doubt I'll be recording Monday's one. One moment that sticks in mind was when Comedy Dave begged people to request the theme to Z-Cars for all the Everton supporters! Or when JK and Joel bombarded listeners to go for Cliff Richard's SAW produced "I Just Don't Have The Heart" from 1989.
This time it's being kicked off by Nihal, who Phil was lucky enough to meet whilst taking part in a programme for the BBC Asian Network earlier in the week. I can still remember when Nihal used to co-present The Saturday Show on CBBC 5 years ago!

I got rather sleepy around mid afternoon and went back to the flat for two hours sleep before waking up and deciding to give Evans a listen on Radio 2 where they were doing requests as normal on a Friday. And some really good choices including "Holiday" by Madonna and "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who. Chris Evans is definitely someone who has re-defined himself on radio in the last few years and with Moyles reigning supreme, the word ego does not come to mind with the red haired one at all.
As long as he doesn't make another TV series I've got no problems.

S.T.F.U.!

Last night was quite a hectic one, I popped over to Ross T's to collect the DVD-Rs with the Smoke output from last year. I then noticed on returning that I had a few discs already myself consisting of material from January although to be honest it wasn't really our strongst month this year. However I appear to be missing the disc with the Red Nose Day shows so if Tilley's reading this, I hope you'll be kind enough to return it to me! I understand that he plans to turn up at a few dos himself next week in what will be our last of this academic year. Let the cider flow!

Anyway, straight after that it was down to the Jazz Cafe and Jocelyn Brown performing live. I'd say that this is my least favourite gig of the year but this was nothing to do with Jocelyn at all or her superb support act Jay-Lal who came on stage just as I had arrived.
The venue was heavilly rammed and some of those who turned up were very antisocial. One in particular who I really wanted to but avoided slapping was a girl who had obviously had a lot to drink who in between every performance kept on screaming the opening lines from "Somebody Else's Guy" which I thought was just plain rude.

The Jazz Cafe is not the sort of venue for such ecstatic behaviour. I even felt the nerve to ssh a few of the people standing next to me who felt the need to talk during the performance at high volume. There was one point when Jocelyn was doing a personal anecdote in between one of the songs when she said "can any of you guys at the back here me 'cause there are people talking" which resulted in a very loud cheer agreeing with her. The S.T.F.U. sign on the main stage is there for a good reason standing for "Shut The Fuck Up During Performances Thanx" Why would these people pay a lot of money to go to such a gig in a small intimate venue just to be very selfish during the performance itself?!

The performance from the lady herself, however was superb giving renditions of all the hits that have made her the star she is in the last 30 years . It all kicked off with "Keep On Jumpin'" followed by a stunning cover of "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" as well as some of her new tracks including the Jon Cutler collaboration "One" from last year. We were also treated to her version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" as performed with Inner Life which really lifted things up and strained my throat to an extent and we even got two of the tracks she performed with Incognito; "Night's Over Egypt" and the legendary "Always There" which was so good to hear live in it's original key of F Major for the first time.
Unsurprisingly "Don't Talk Just Kiss" wasn't included in her set!

After finally performing her belter "Somebody Else's Guy" she decided to finish off with a Gospel song mentioning that the reason we were here was because of gospel music and I think you know how it goes from there. I thought it would be the best time to head back over to Harrow and luckily the tubes were still running.

From there it was straight to the Lapstone Gardens and another end of term party where the place was packed. A few people from the previous night were there including Penny, Alejandra and Lewis, as well as Seb, Jon and Matt, Martin P, Pippa ST, and even three members of Team Buff! I was a bit weak on the alcoholic side of things as I'd only brought the cherryade from my fridge along with me but I think I managed to survive sober for the amount of time I was there.
Then again it's probably the last time this year I'll be seeing most of these people so it's another reason for me to gloat at those who have got exams.

The Not So Far East

After last night, the majority of today's been pretty much laid back. In continuing with catching up with old friends I had a chat to Julia via Windows Live who I haven't seen since the drunken antics at the SRA Awards last November. It appears she's going on some sort of expedition this summer which is something I can only dream of.

I also spoke to Chris from first year radio who's taking it easy back in Kings Lynn. He'll be returning tomorrow and I hope he'll be in a happy mood for the end of the semester. Apparently he's going to be helping one of his mates out who does a breakfast show in the Fens who may progress to Kiss 105-108 the regional dance station for East Anglia.

This prompted me into remembering the station it took over from, Vibe FM which I loved listening to whenever I visited my relatives in East Anglia from the late 90s-early 00s. However after they re-branded to "Non Stop Vibe" and dropped the weekend disco shows in mid 2001, my visits East became less regular.
I wouldn't mind taking a visit back sometime this summer, especially as I haven't been to see my Granny in Woodbridge for 3 years after we celebrated her 70th birthday.

Whilst it's nice to get away from the radio rooms, the last week can't really escape the mind so below are a few photos of the stuff I and a few others got up to. Thanks to Ina for taking the photos!







Myself and Chris starting our big Art Attack!

What would eventually become the teeth!













The finished result!









And from the awards:






You can tell that I was enjoying the company on that table.
















Recieving my award















Celebrating with Ina and Seb











Hopefully this year's SRA's will have similar results!

Always At >PLAY>

The first of what I reckon will be two rowdy nights took place in very far Kenton which took me further beyond Sainsbury's than I've ever been before. As I arrived I went into the front room and sipped (a loose variation of what really happened) on a few Raspberry Breezers and had a few puffs on the lovely Shisha that was on offer.

As expected a few guests who I hadn't seen for a while were there including two ex station members Lewis and Vicki. There was also a rather tall fella who's name escapes me but it he was completely wasted looking as if he was going to collapse after the amount he'd been drinking.
As the night went on more people arrived including Ben and not Jason but Gemma, and Penny who will also be at quite a few of these do's later on within the week.

As the party went on I ended up ranting about the media's over-zealous attitude to heath and safety issues with Ben and attempted to emulate Bill Wither's record breaking vocal hold over a rap version of "Lovely Day". However with one of my Breezer's gone on walkabout and the rest of the booze disapearing fast, about half an hour after midnight I decided it would be best if I headed back before sobering up and getting back was a lot quicker than getting there.

As is normally the case in these circumstances I did what I do best which was endure the videos broadcast to a nation of youths after Ghost Train on the 1st of June 1991.
Quite an interesting edition as that week's Chart News was rather ironic featuring a few re-released oldies starting off with "Holiday" by Madonna and "Light My Fire" by The Doors. The latter song would have been nothing if it didn't have Ray Manzarek's superb peformance on keyboards. They weren't the only re-hashed hits as later on in the Top Ten we got a brief snatch of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love"

A cracking Dance Chart was featured as well including videos by Nikke Nicole, Kenny Thomas and at number 1 Crystal Waters with the dance anthem "Gypsy Woman" (La Da Di La Da Da). It was revealed later in the episode that the record was a wrongly predicted singles chart number 1 as it had fallen to number 2.
The Vintage Video was John Cougar Mellencamp's "Jack And Diane" and there was a sneak preview of Jason Donovan's video "Any Dream Will Do" complete with the burnt in timecode!

The Top Ten was superb, preceeded in the best tradition by the bursting balloons leading into such belters as R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People" which I never knew had strings on it, and "Shocked" by Kylie Minogue donning a school uniform 8 years before Britney Spears.
At Number 1 was Color Me Badd and "I Wanna Sex You Up" and they're one of those bands whose other material I really need to lend an ear to.

I'm a bit worried about tomorrow as despite the warm temperatures it looks quite overcast. Then again I'm as I write this I'm in a perfect crashing out mood so I hope I end up in a lie in.

"Why, Oh Why Would I Wanna Be Anywhere Else..."

As planned I headed over to Mile End originally to drop by at the nearest PC World but with my usual tendency not to take a map with me I kind of deviated in a sense. After going round random paths and nearby play areas the signs were pointing towards Central London so I thought why not follow them! There were quite a lot of women about who looked rather similar to Lily Allen but it was rather fitting in a way as her song represents everything positive about today and London in these sort of settings.

I managed to visit a few places that I've not visited before whilst at Uni including Tower Bridge. This was followed by a really delightful stroll on the South Bank where there were some superb musicians busking, one being a jazz trio really summing up the mood with a rendition of "Paper Moon", and another were a banjo and guitar player giving bluegrass takes on tunes such as "The Good The Bad And The Ugly" blended with "I Shot The Sherrif".

As I normally do when on the South Bank I went for a short nip into the Tate Modern where it was rather empty to be honest. A new exhibition is currently being built in place of the slides which I never got to have a go on. Two other radio students in my year did however, in what has to be one of the best radio items; Nina And Ina on a Shoestring done as part of the magazine module last December.
And judging by what's heard at the end, Commuter Jazz sounds really stunning.

I stopped off for a hand paddle at the fountains in Trafalgar Square and got a much needed and very nice shower as well, not at all drenching but very refreshing. Then I headed into Regent's Street and into Hamley's where I saw none other than the lovely Eleri who's now working there demonstrating the products they sell. In this case it was a fancy looking boomerang.

I then popped into Curry's digital and brought a USB Digital TV reciever which only cost £30. I haven't had much luck with it so far with the aerial provided but it does come with a socket to plug a normal aerial lead so I may try it in the kitchen later on. At the moment I'm only able to recieve E4+1, Sky News and several internet stations including one called "The Classic Soul Network". It was on there I heard an ad about internet radio in the US threatened to be outlawed by increased rates from the Copyright Royalty board, but I'll save my thoughts on that for another post.

I've found my visit into the big city very motivating, relaxing and inspiring at the same time and has given me plenty of ideas for various things. Not least some more songs to mash up with Incognito with the latest being "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira. I'll see if there are any more interesting places to visit before I leave London for the Summer.

As for tonight I'll be heading into Kenton with my amunition of Rasperry Breezers for Teresa's birthday party. Then tomorrow evening I'll pop over to Tilley's to collect the DVDs before heading to the Jazz Cafe and Jocelyn Brown! And after that if I'm still up for it I may head over to another do on the same night hosted by Kit and Lawrens.
It's so good to catch up with old faces at this time of year with assignments all kaput.

Further Upgrades

Another rather busy day awaits as today I plan to go to East London to try and find a new external hard drive that doesn't need plugging into the mains. I may also see if I can get hold of a Freeview tuner for my laptop in order to enjoy all of my televisual delights in stereo!

It's been rather quiet in the last day, so expect the blog posts to become slightly shorter than normal over the coming months, with the exception of my many music tangents. They'll probably be another one after tonight as I'll be going to the first of two parties in Kenton this week where it's Teresa's 20th birthday. I don't know Teresa that well but she gave me the invite on Monday at the Undercroft and I know her housemate Alejandra who is a second year CMP student.

Another thing I need to do is get my DVDs back of all the Smoke output from this year. Because I've been all over the place in the last few days it's been difficult to arrange a firm date to collect them but I'd really love to get them back to basically reminisce on the last year or so.

I'm also considering submitting Soul Expression in the specialist category of this year's Student Radio Awards as I feel the show has improved an awful lot since last year, and I want to have a listen to see if there are any stand out parts that should be included in the audio submission.
Hopefully the SRA will give us the full submition details before too long.

Endless Sunshine

A pretty busy morning dubbing pre-recs from last week onto the network folders ready to be burnt. I've only got a couple more to do and from then onwards they'll be no more visits to M-Block until September.
It takes a bit of time to get hold of a computer with a DVD burner as the Post-Grads are still about with a deadline this week for their 25 minute radio documentaries. I've never seen the radio rooms this full with that many well spoken people.

Anyway, I headed over to the barber's in Kenton to get my haircut where I was involved in a chat to the man cutting my hair about all sorts of things from the idiots who jump off the Watford bridge in difficult times to Liverpool facing AC Milan in Athens tomorrow night. Although I rarely have any nice words to say about Liverpool it would be great if they were to repeat the success of 2005 and what was a very emotional night.

As for now I'll head outside into the bright sunshine whilst enjoying a delicious strawberry flavoured cake of cheese!

Booze Induced Passion

I'm in one of those happy moods where nothing at all can be going wrong. My sleep pattern may be a bit dodgy at the moment but I'm just up for anything and everything at this time and feel the need to revisit all the things I'm passionate about.

With the the weather looking gorgeous outside I managed to dig out a track from the bowels of my hard drive that just sets the mood perfectly; saxophonist Gato Barbieri and "Fiesta".
This is one of the many records that I should have played on my summer soul special last week and didn't, but it's one of the finest things to wake up to on a day like this where nothing's gonna get in the way.
Well, there's still a few things to burn back in M-Block and I may get my hair cut sometime today as it's getting very long and greasy.

Right now I'm playing a gorgeous Roy Ayers sounding track called "We Did It Baby" by General Lee. Not to be confused with a US Civil war general, this rareity was released on a compilation called "Jazz Bizniz Volume 3" and plugged by Peter Young when he was at BBC London 94.9 in January 2003. I'd only just discovered his show at the time on Listen Again and was in awe although that same week he moved back to Jazz FM to do the same thing on Sunday afternoons much to my disapointment. I even worked hard to change my shifts at ASDA from Sunday to Saturday and I eventually succeeded, upon starting my HND Media course in September and have never worked on that day since. Then again judging by what I've had to put up from them in Easter I may never work for them again.

But hey, for now I'll just continue to listen to the sweet melodies.

Party Harrow!

I arrived at the Undercroft just before 11pm where Chris, Phil H and Stoobie were sipping their own respective pints after returning from the 1 Big Weekend in Preston. Later we saw Aoife, Sam and Phil Landers arrive along with various members of Team Buff.

Dan P and Fish were on the decks again spinning a great selection of dance as always including some stunning mash ups of Faithless' "Insomnia" blended in with "Funky Shit" by the Prodigy, and Technotronic's "Pump Up The Jam" with the vocals of Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You". I may attempt to make a few of my own mash ups over the summer especially as I have the instrumental version of the MAW remix of Incognito's "Everyday". Early ideas that have come to my head so far include said Trousersnake track and "Good Times" by Chic. Any other ideas would be most welcome.

By the end of the night they even had the dry ice machine running accompanying some dance classics such as "U Sure Do" from Strike, Berri's "Sunshine After The Rain" and bizarrely enough "Up And Down" by the Vengaboys which is difficult not to associate with Frank Skinner dancing in his underpants. As the lights came on Dan decided to wind things down with "Don't Let Go" by En Vogue although we only got about 20 seconds of it before the bouncers began throwing everyone out.
However this prompted me to go up to Dan in my ecstatic state and said something to him along the lines of "Never mind Dan P, from now on you're Dance P!" and an even more embarrassing comment about his refusal to play "chip shop hip hop". That's what VK can do to me and Dan as always saw the funny side.

Once again it took about half an hour to get back to my flat as I got caught up with two of the Buffers; Emma and Bracey who were congratulating Phil L on his new position as joint head of programming and they were very keen to get a show started next year but nervous about the technical side. Both Phil and myself told them they had nothing to worry about and gave them rather drunken enthusiastic encouragement to join. At this point there was the arrival of a very tipsy Danielle who had just got back from a date and felt the need to have a go at me for wearing my Chelsea strip, her being a Spurs supporter along with fellow radio student Sam.

I did eventually get back into the flat and sobered up in the only way possible, in front of The Chart Show from the 6th of June 1992, only this time in glorious stereo!
And how about this for eclectic? Take That, Annie Lennox, Ugly Kid Joe, The Beautiful South, Prefab Sprout, U2 in the Video Vault, Al Jarreau, and one of the finest duos in music: Dolly Parton.
Number 1 was Erasure and the highlight of their Abba-Esque EP "Take a Chance On Me".

Both this and the current state of popular music on television have given me a few ideas as to what could become my dissertation next year.
With T4's Popworld being the latest show to be axed I may ask the question if programmes devoted entirely to popular music have a place on terrestrial television in the present day. This idea could certainly be developed and I'll definitely be thinking about it over the summer.

With more drunken nights up ahead including one in Kenton this coming Wednesday I can guarantee that the next episode of the cult video show will be one from the fairground era.
I get a huge buzz whenever I see the Top Ten intro at the beginning of part 3 and to see it in full screen will definitely be something.
I'll still be sticking with the late 90s episodes on Saturday mornings though before leaving Harrow.
What I like to call my own low rent equivalent of Sky+.

Giving Moylesy A Run For His Money

My laptop's starting to behave itself now although I'm very weary of switching it off, especially as the Hibernation mode has disapeared from whichever version of Windows XP has been installed. Although it's not the safest option I'll put it onto standby mode tonight after I get back from the Undercroft later tonight.

I've spent the last hour listening to the selection of podcasts from last week at Smoke Radio and they really capture the team spirit and the hilarity of last week.
Personal highlights for me include the cruel but fast paced quiz "Challenge Nan", Stoobie responding to the phrase "face for radio", Phil and Ali's acting of famous film quotes and Maria Way dealing with a love letter from someone with a very unlucky name!
Not being the person behind the production of the podcasts this time round means that I get a bit of extra hilarity listening to them and this is all due to the teamwork and consistency making sure that the best moments have been put in.

Three of the podcasts are already on the website but there was indeed a fourth one which didn't get uploaded due to the hectic activities that went on that day. However it's here now and I'm sure Stoobie will add it to the main website pretty soon if I ask him nicely.

A Successful Mend?

I managed to get my laptop back early this morning and they've sorted out the problems I was having with it before it was repaired. However I'm starting to have a few different problems and I reckon it could be to do with the hardware getting tired as after I've used Windows for over 10 minutes it doesn't want to load up any applications or shut down properly.

As I type I've got all the applications I tend to use the most often, up on my start menu including my Goldwave editing software, Windows Media Player, Windows Live Messenger and the DVD player. That seems to be the only temporary solution although I may give Microlink a ring later this week if things get any worse.

On the plus side I've managed to get my accomodation for next year sorted out although this time round I've asked to stay here in 14B. This is mainly because the fire alarm in the room makes a different noise to the inafamous one in the other rooms in halls although overall I'd rather it didn't go off at all.
Whatever happens I'll still need to pack all my stuff to take back during the Summer as I imagine a few new people may be using the halls during the summer months. I'll try and get as much as I can once I've got the other chores done including backing up my audio in the radio rooms.

"That's Baftawang!"

Mum and Kate arrived back this evening after their weekend walking in the Cotswolds. This was done as an attempt to replicate a similar feat done by Jo and a few of her school friends over twenty years ago! Kate's workplace has also been featured on Radio 4's The Food Programme looking at Brogdale in Faversham home to one of the largest collections of fruit in the UK. Their offices are now currently based at the Abbey School interestingly enough.

We shortly went through into the front room to watch the BAFTA Television awards which goes to show that there will always be creative television celebrated towards a large audience. I was particuarly suprised to see Mitchell and Webb win the comedy series award which was very much deserved and I plan to go and see their film "Magicians" within the next week or so.
Richard Curtis managed to win the fellowship award for his wide collection of work in the last quarter of a century. And that episode of Blackadder with Dr Johnson's dictionary has to be one of my favourite pieces of television comedy.

Well tomorrow's the big day, my laptop will be returned to me upgraded sometime that morning although I'll need to be up early to say goodbye to Kate as I won't be seeing her for three months as she'll be in America when I get back.

Crashed Out

On returning to Canterbury I've done what is probably what I do best on returning home; crashing out in bed in the middle of the day. Only Dad and Olly are at home currently as Mum's taking part in a walk through the Cotswolds and Kate's away preparing for her three month visit to the US which starts on Wednesday.
Olly's already had a gander at "Someone Like's Yoghurt" before I've got a look in but according to him it's got all the funny bits I can remember from the original act so it sounds like a treat.

The birthdays have been non-stop this week and today happens to be Joey's 22nd. Still rather odd to think he's actually 5 days younger than I am.
I recieved a nice e-mail from him thanking me for supplying the sound effects for his Radio Battleships feature last week and it was nice that he came to me rather than searching the very large library at his workplace. On that same subject I may ask him to try and find a noise I've been looking for in the clear for a very long time, accompanying many a gunging on Noel's House Party!
To find that would be the ideal reason for me to try and get a foot in the door at the BBC although I do have the noise of the hooter on it's own which if you've never heard before, you haven't lived.
Live and Kicking, Run The Risk, Pets Win Prizes and many other shows from the corporation in the last 15 or so years have made use of that sound adding to the entertainment and I'm sure I'll find a use for it in my final year at Smoke.

Overall I'm glad all those hours listening to library and sound FX CDs paid off at the awards on Friday but to be honest it's one of those things I really enjoy doing and if it makes other presenters happy by using them in their own shows then I must be doing something right.
But there have been some programmes on the station such as Shuffle that don't tend to use jingles or imaging within their shows and that helps to make them sound distinctive and very down to earth in their own way.

However for the next two weeks I want to get away from all this radio lark once I've cleared up all my stuff off the Network folders in M-Block and visit parts of London that I've either never visited before or haven't returned to for donkey's years. Forest Gate may be on the list!

Canterbury Calls

My 800th post and I'm surprised that I've ended up this far. To be honest with things starting to die down in the next few weeks it may be a while before I reach 1000.

I left for Canterbury early this morning and got the train to Gillingham where as a result of engineering works I went on the rail replacement bus up to Faversham. Whilst going through Sittingbourne there were a few interesting sights including a restuarant with the name "The Tudor Rose". It was difficult keeping a straight face for that journey.

I arrived back here about an hour ago where as expected I've recieved my DVD of "Someone Like's Yoghurt" which I will be saving for one of those nights this Summer where I really need to escape into hilarity. I've also brought quite a lot back with me to lighten the load for Mum in a couple of weeks including my award from Friday, my portable voice recorder which I got sent to me earlier this week from the lovely people at BMG Zomba who supply me and many other media buffs with their wide range of production music. I wonder if fellow member Ross Tilley has recieved one?
I've also brought back the large amount of MDs that I have although in the unlikely situation of getting any spare time next year I really need to transfer them all onto DVD-R. A tough job but it kills time.

I've left a few things back at the flat however including my television, my Freeview box, my Bug and of course the DVDs of The Chart Show to round off those drunken nights. However I've not been hearing positive things about the Vault repeats on the Digital Spy forums as they haven't performed as well as hoped and may be dropped.
A bit of a downer for me but good news for readers of this blog!

To make things worse they've started repeating editions that have already been shown on the channel for two weeks in a row although to be fair I'd really love to see the one from the 11th of May 1991 as shown yesterday, because the Top Ten apparently featured Beverley Craven and her lovely ballad "Promise Me".
Now there's a singer songwriter who disapeared without trace and I'm certainly more appreciative of her now than I was at the time.

On a completely different note I found an obituary in one of this weeks editions of the Guardian to the Reverend Jerry Falwell who died on my birthday oddly enough.
Why I should be interested in this is because the very conservative evangelist played a big part in a court case between Larry Flynt of Hustler Magazine over a spoof licouer advert which suggested that he commited incest with his mother in an outhouse.
The case was later taken to the supreme court where the justices voted in favour of Flynt, which was a major victory for freedom of speech in the USA. This resulted in the film "The People Vs Larry Flynt" which we happened to watch one afternoon at college during the first term of my AVCE course when all the staff had to attend an special meeting. This ended up being one of my favourite films mainly due to Woody Harrelson's anarchic portrayal of Larry Flynt and Courtney Love proving the critics wrong, acting as his bisexaul wife.
I reckon I annoyed quite a few people in that room laughing very loudly at Larry's antics in the courtroom scenes.

I was also interested to find out that the writers of the film had previously worked on the Problem Child movies and I reckon the character of Larry Flynt could be an adult equivalent of the main character Junior, especially after his shooting.

It's a bit overcast at the moment but if things pick up, I may go and have a lie down in the Dane John gardens as I'll doubt I'll have a chance when returning and trying to find a way to earn bob.

"Is That Your Final Answer?"

Last week I commented on how I thought Have I Got News For You was losing it's way this series with very weak gags and ideas running out of steam. After watching Friday's episode however I can honestly say it was the best edition of the programme I've seen in the last two years and it wasn't just Chris Tarrant who helped to make the show side splitting.

The two panellists this week were both returning contestants with comedian and fellow Chelsea supporter Andy Hamilton and Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik who unlike Tarrant wasn't very good at coping with the jibes about his extracurricular activities.

The Wheel of News made a welcome return which resulted in Paul Merton making a brief dig about quiz show cheating when Tarrant moved the wheel to a panel that it hadn't landed on after spinning it first time round. As always when a guest host of a game show calibre takes control the Odd One Out Round was adapted to the style of Millionaire much to Ian's embarrasment and he really had it in for this weeks guest host constantly mocking him for his recent exploits. However it was also in this round that featured the overall show highlight, John Sweeney losing his rag during an interview with a scientologist on Panorama.

This was such a hilarious episode that just before the WAGS party I set the video to recorded the extended version on BBC 2 which I'll probably get round to seeing on returning from Canterbury tomorrow.
Before heading down the Underpants I had a gander at the first episode of the new BBC 2 series "7 Ages Of Rock" which took an in depth look at the career of Jimi Hendrix. Amongst the areas covered was his controversial live cover of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" performed just two days after the Beatles had released the album, and his totally justified performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock in 1969. Unfortunately that performance now will remind me of a similar sounding rendition of "Happy Birthday" performed at Monday night's Band-E-Oke accompanied by Steve and Ina on mic. It's the thought that counts however.

Quite a few people were present at the Undercroft for Ashlea's birthday party including her flatmates Hannah, Jess and Linzi, Martin pulling the pints and the soon to be wed Maz and Gab. As always a lot of drink was involved and when these things happen I end up going on about either my passions such as Going Live! being the best entertainment television show ever, or my personal gripes such as the idiots on buses who play hip-hop music at full blast from their mobiles. Penny was one of the attendees who endured my tangents although she ended up in a few of her own in between the dancing.

Later arrivals include Elsa and Natasha and I was really pleased to see Natasha as she looked rather down and left out at last night's awards which I felt really bad about.
I seem to remember her feeling really disapointed when she found out that her mate Lizzie from the third year wouldn't be going but she managed to shrug it off last night.

In fact there are a few more things that happened at the awards that didn't get mentioned in the previous blog post:

• Myself enthusiasticly chatting to ex coms officer Rob Watson about Shane Meadows after he plugged "This Is England" on Goodlass and Marshall's show earlier in the week
• Seb and Jon winning the funniest on-air moment award for when Ross Tilley accidentally shut the station down with his backside during their show on the 24 hour Broadcast. As funny as it was I was really pissed off for that part of the night as I had to spend half an hour trying to get Selector back up on the computer. But as I've said before at least the incident happened whilst a Razorlight track was playing.
• Mark Jackson congratulating Stewart Paske on being able to use Scoopy without any problems!

Anyway back to the Undercroft and I also got roped into a photograph with all the men who were wearing football shirts. Most of them were wearing England strips but thankfully none of them were wearing United shirts.If the photo's Facebooked I'll upload it onto the blog.

There were also a few DJs present including Dan P who's been very busy in the last few days. They were spinning a mix of current and classic dance and garage tracks including a few what can now be called nostalgic tracks from 2000-2001. These included York's "OTB" featuring Chris Rea and the delightful "Flowers" by Sweet Female Attitude. It was while dancing to that track that a few people got carried away and started dancing on a wooden table which collapsed to much applause.

I'll be seeing most of last night's attendees again next Saturday on what will be my final visit to the Northwick Mansion for Jess's birthday beach party. And if I'm feeling nice enough I may bring along a few drinks that other people will want to drink as well, rather than just for my own pleasure.

Radio In It's True Visual Form

The video presentations from last night's awards have now been uploaded by Ross T which deserve to be seen by all. I said to co-director Alex at the awards that they had to go up because it's one of the many souvenirs of a great week of broadcasting.

The montage of the weeks highlights can be viewed here. It's definitely a must watch until the sight of me trying to dance which got a very loud unnerving reaction at last night's awards.

And this very emotional and very funny leaving short with the outgoing editors can be seen here and I'm certain it was written from Ricky and Ross G's point of view!
Overall these three people have done a top job looking after the station throughout the year and it certainly showed during this week.

A Near Wembley Washout

OK, so the Blues managed to lift the trophy on their triumphant return to Wembley. But overall this year's FA Cup Final was very disapointing for the majority of the game. When getting back to the flat just before kick off I ended up falling asleep for the first three quarters of the match after Russell Watson sang the National Anthem. Even Motty and Mark Lawrenson barely sounded enthusiastic.

Whilst I'm not a devoted fan I've never hated football, and I really feel hurt when someone says they do with a passion. Some part of my inside however is trying to make me do the same by falling asleep unintentionally just before the kick off of an important match.
I woke at around 75 minutes into the game and was pretty much hooked throughout towards Didier Drogba's superb goal in extra time. When the game reached it's end I immediately texted one of the many United supporters on campus, Chris from the first year not just about the result but to get him back for waking me up earlier last night and for joking me about on my table at the awards last night. At the same time it felt brilliant to see the winning team celebrating on the pitch with "Blue Day" playing in the background.

Tomorrow morning I'll be heading back to Canterbury to stay for the night as my laptop will be arriving back the next day. As for tonight I wil be wearing my Chelsea away shirt with pride at Ashlea's footballers and WAGS birthday party!

Music Heaven In '97

A rotten journey on the N18 and being woken in bed last night by Chris, Phil and Pete ringing me on their way to Preston has not put me on a downer since the events of last night. And unless Chelsea lose the cup final this afternoon I can't see anything changing.

On that same subject I headed into town where in JD Sports I bought a Chelsea away strip not just for the cup final but also for the Footballers and WAGS do at the Undercroft tonight for Ashlea's 21st birthday. Interestingly enough there were no Man United strips in the store which the woman at the till was very adamant about!

On returning home I continued the revival of the traditional Summer Saturday morning with another helping of the Chart Show from almost 10 years to the day, 17th of May 1997.
And what a great period for music this was, the Chart News featured interviews with Maxwell enlighting us about what inspired him to write Ascension, and Paul Young who had let himself go a bit on the hair side of things. Also featured were the Super Furry Animals, one of many bands introduced to me via The Chart Show with "Hermann Loves Pauline". Lead singer Gruff (pronounced Griff) said that he thought at the time it was their best video to date although later in the year they released "Play It Cool" where the band members ended up playing inside the Actua Soccer console game they were playing on. It was certainly good enough to end up as the number 1 Indie video in the 1997 end of year special.

My favourite specialist Chart was featured this week, The Dance Chart featuring videos from Jamiroquai with "Alright" and Mary J Blige with "Love Is All We Need".
And to coincide with the FA Cup Final that day there was a Battle of The Bands between Suggs and Chelsea's "Blue Day" and Middlesborough with Chris Rea and Knob Mortimer covering "Let's Dance". The best team won of course.

And once again there were some great exclusives including Monaco with "Sweet Lips" which I haven't heard for god knows how long. Monaco were an off-shoot from New Order with Peter Hook on lead vocals who around the time had split from his marriage to Caroline Aherne. And also from the North was Lisa Stansfield covering her hero Barry White's "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" in a video which she walked down a London street naked in a very similar scenario to Richard Ashcroft.

The Number 1 in both the Top Ten and the Dance Chart was Olive and "You're Not Alone" which was one of the benchmarks in records that could be produced within a day.

This particular era reminds me of a time where I felt like the odd one out (nothing's changed then) where I was a heavy listener to Radio 1 and everyone else around my age listened to commercial radio. Little did I know that 18 months later things would be vice versa and I reckon the axing of the Chart Show may have been partly responsible. Then again if that hadn't had happened I doubt I'd be here doing the radio degree. It's too much of a long story to explain unsurprisingly.

"Don't Fuck It Up!"

Those were the final words from the outgoing station editors to the team who will be running Smoke Radio from September this year at the end of last nights awards ceremony.

The awards themselves took place at Brown's restaurant in Covent Garden which was nicely laid out with tables for eight people each.
If I'm being honest I wasn't really impressed with the meal we had apart from the main course and I wasn't too happy with the table I was put on. This was mainly because the people on there who I wanted to speak to were too far away from me, the sort of people I'd want to have an actual conversation with rather than being in the middle of a banter session. Luckily in between courses most of us got the chance to pop over to the other tables for a bit where guests included Paul from the second year who has to be the most enthusiastic person about music I've met on the course.

Also there were Adam and Zo from Shuffle and even Maria Way who Tudor was lucky enough to sit next to on his table! As far as turn outs go, this was very successful.

The awards presentation this year involved a series of microphone trophy's for the main prizes which went to a very deserving Dan P for Best Male and Sam Impey for best female who did a fantastic job helping me out on the soul show on Wednesday. Also winning gongs were Steve for the Sports Show, Lamby for helping to come up with the R&B Lounge and Shuffle finally getting the award for best specialist show.

Last and certainly least was the most dedicated member and so many people cheered really loud that I couldn't even hear my name being announced! Then again that was mainly because I was mucking about pointing to Stoobie sat next to me who I thought had got it. It was nice to recieve the award as presented to me by "Auntie" Maria Way but the problem was that I didn't bring a bag with me meaning I had to carry it with me throughout the rest of the night including on the dreaded N18.

The less serious awards included Stoobie winning the best hair style, Steve and Ali getting the Sweetest Couple and former station managers Joey and Jacko getting the worst marketing idea for the infamous calendar!

There were also two superb video packages put together by Alex and Tudor which have to be uploaded onto Youtube sooner or later. The first one was a fast paced montage of the week which included me in there quite a lot trying to make Chris Jones a hat out of his arts and crafts box. Also featured was Tudor in ranting mode and Kelly inside a cardboard box on the courtyard next to M Block.
The second package at the end was a more downbeat but amusing video where the three station editors shut down the studios but as they were walking down the corridor Ricky and Ross G pushed Ross T out of the way and walked off themselves!

Matthew as always had a witty speech planned looking at the highlights of the year including our success at the SRAs which will hopefully continue into 2007. However he also made a few jokey references to some of the exploits made by the editors such as the station strapline "One Station, One Sound, One Westminster" and how it sounded very similar to a Nazi German slogan!
I'll be perfectly honest as I wasn't a fan of the strapline either as in terms of listener reaction, it didn't really get a positive response. But then again it was better than anything David Hamilton could come up with if you saw the Harvey Goldsmith Big L documentary last month.

At the end they announced who would be looking after things at the station in 2007-2008 and it's quite a big team. Stevie McIntosh who couldn't actually be there last night won the role of Head of News, Phil Harris and Pete Cooper will be taking care of Marketing, Chris Chilvers keeps his role looking after the music that's played on the station, with Stoobie taking full time responsiblity of the website.
The people in charge of programming will be Sam Impey and Phil Landers who I'm sure will do a good job and are they seem positive enough to keep my soul show on the station and don't look as if they'll make any drastic changes.
After quitting the role of production yesterday I had a chat with several people who weren't sure about the decision as there's no clear person to take on the role. However I'm certainly going to keep things going during Fresher's Week before leaving the role completely.

After the awards themselves a few of us headed to the nearby Verve club just down the road. That being after several people were arguing for half an hour about whether they'd head back to Harrow or stay in Central. Those who did go included Joey and Jo, Lamby, Ross G, Alex and even Nina, where we went into an underground club which had a mix of disco and R&B although whoever was spinning the discs was very bad at beatmatching.

Today looks set to be a rather relaxed affair with the FA Cup final this afternoon where hopefully Chelsea will beat the red bastards. Quite a few people from this campus will actually be working at Wembley Stadium for this event making a long overdue return after 7 years.
I also need to sort out what to take back home tomorrow morning which will certainly include my suit although having said that, I understand that the end of term event on campus may involve a similar dress code to last night's awards.

"Try It Yourself!"

Once again today's been super busy. With Ricky having to deal with more important issues it was left up to me to desk drive Smoke Signal where just an hour before air I came up with the idea of putting a little montage together for presenter Ali O'Boyle as this particular edition was her last programme for Smoke Radio. I managed to get it done just before air and it can be found here.

I also got sent out with Chris Jones onto the courtyard during his show to use his box of crafts to produce our equivalent of a big Art Attack which I will upload as a photo on the blog ASAP.
A really good show to round things off this year too, with radio battleships putting Dan P and Jacko against each other in a very amusing contest.

In between all this lark I managed to get hold of a few more birthday cards from halls reception as well as some very welcome presents! These included Richard Herring's DVD of "Hercules Terrace" stand-up and the most welcome present of all, two DVDs from James2001 containing the first two episodes of The Chart Show broadcast on ITV in January 1989 and the first edition with the new graphics from December 1991.

I've also made an order for the DVD of "Someone Like's Yoghurt" which came out this week and hopefully if it's arrived it will be kept at home in time for my brief return on Sunday.
Right now though it's straight back to the flat to get showered, shaved and dressed smartly for tonight's awards. I'm really nervous now.