As planned I went to see Matthew to discuss my feature ideas and it turned out that he was more interested in the idea about solitary activities. After putting it into perspective it came about that an ideal plan would be to interview as many people as I could about what they enjoyed doing and then editing them together and adding additional content afterwards.
I managed to send out a message via Facebook which so far has had a pretty good response and I may write down a list of activities which for some reason Matthew wants me to send to him.
I may also see if there's anyone back in Canterbury who enjoys doing similar activities on their own and ideally I'd like to get people from different age ranges as I know that even those of an older range enjoy activities on their own.
In terms of music used in the feature, it's going to be rather tough finding anything appropriate as I really don't want to go for the obvious. Examples being "On My Own" by Michael McDonald and that song by Akon.
Then again there's five weeks to sort it all out although I'd like to have some interviews recorded by this time in two weeks.
At around 5pm I headed into Central and met up with a few people in the Yorkshire Grey who were going to see Ivan Brackenbury, quite a lot of them had jobs within the media.
As soon as we arrived at Broadcasting House I managed to spot a few familar faces who I'd met before at Jinglemad meet ups, them being Stacey, Graham and David and as soon as I got into the bar I managed to say hello to them.
David in particular works as an engineer on BBC South East Today although oddly enough I never saw him when I went to visit the studios just over a year ago.
The actual recording itself was very entertaining although it appears that Tom/Ivan has put on a bit of weight. However it was good to see Ivan being involved in a story which involved him recording his first pilot show for hospital radio whilst having to deal with the manager of the hospital who wanted to shut the station down.
The supporting cast were brilliant too, especially Justin Moorhouse who played one of the co-ordinators of the station who was infamous for his "wacky wind ups" and making rather lewd and non PC phone calls to Ivan's phone in section of the show.
The programme itself is set to go out on the first Saturday of 2009 and I'm hoping it will lead to a series which considering Ivan's success in Edinburgh shouldn't be impossible.
As we were coming out I was chatting to one of the other attendees about how it's easier to get away with hospital based jokes unlike in the late 70s on programmes like YTV's sitcom "Only When I Laugh" which starred James Bolam before he appeared in The Beiderbecke Trilogy and New Tricks.
We then went onto a pub in Great Portland Street called "The Cock" where as in the previous two bars I went to they didn't have anything to drink that I liked that contained alcohol.
That didn't stop me from meeting a few more people who went to see the recording including Matt Deegan who I met at the Student Radio Awards Nominations and who helps to run the website for Jazz FM.
I also had a chat with Stacy and Graham about jingles as you would with certain topics such as how difficult it is to get hold of the Capital Radio 1978 jingles in decent quality as the above audio isn't perfect.
I can't listen to that package without thinking of the Bastard Brothers version of the cut played 30 seconds in which they changed to
"Bruce Springsteen Radiooo, Used To Be Capital, What A Bore" as a response to the station playing a lot of songs by "The Boss" especially on the late Roger Scott's show.
We also spoke about how difficult it is to get hold of the jock cuts that were done to accompany Invicta FM's 1990 package that were resings of Cut 17 from Steamroller.
Basically imagine the words "Caesar The Boogie Man, Invicta EEHHFF-EHHHM!" sung to the above cut which Stacy actually has an off-air copy off that I'm hoping he'll e-mail me.
I only remember the versions done for Tim Stewart and Geoff Fitch which in the case of the latter must have been the shortest version of that cut used on air.
I'd love to get that cut done for myself although I've actually ordered another "seasonal" cut from iJingles as my new credit card arrived this morning. Hopefully it will arrive before my last show prior to Christmas.
I also used the discussion to have another moan about Len Groat's postings on Jinglemad and why I believe that he was just an jingle anorak running a set of radio stations as with regards to the JAM jingles for Trent FM/GEM AM there was no consistensy with the melody logo as a result of "cherry picking" his favourite jingles for the station despite some of them being superb.
Johnny Beerling at Radio 1, and Derek Mills and latterly Ian Purdon at Radio 2 had the better idea as they chose cuts from many different demos but kept the same melody logo within each cut in the package even though the tunes changed over the years.
I'm sorry if that comes across as unfair but I'm pretty certain he has upset a few people on the site by being extremley negative about the current state of the radio industry and what really annoys me is that he's living in Portugal where he doesn't even have to listen for Christ's sake.
We did speak positively about Mike Powell who was the PD for the County Sound network in Surrey for many years who produced some superb JAM packages such as this one back in 1989.
I'm hoping I get to see Stacey, Graham, David and many more like minded jingle fans for a few drinks pretty soon and hopefully in London as well as that's where all the best jingle gatherings have taken place.
At around 9:30 I headed back over to Northwick Park and headed down to the Undercroft where I spent most of the night with Rob and Jade from the first year. Also present were Oli P, Alex Bedford and Jake, who really got into the tunes that Mattie was playing including "Welcome To Paradise" from Green Day's album "Dookie".
That immediately brought to mind an album called "The Moog Cookbook" released in the mid 90s containing synth/muzak covers of rock/metal tunes including "Basket Case" which sounds rather like "What A Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers and Michael McDonald (you can probably tell that I'm a fan of his).
There's also a version of "Buddy Holly" by Weezer which Mark and Lard used to use as a bed on their Radio 1 show in the late 90s as well as a loop of Cornershop's "Sleep On The Left Side" which did get rather annoying after a while.
As for tomorrow I'll probably be up in the radio rooms despite not actually having anything to do although I'm certain I'll come across people who enjoy doing bizarre things by their own in there spare time. I'm just rather nervous about ringing people but I'm sure I'll find the confidence and lead to good results.
It's easy for me to forget that the mark I got for the features module in my second year was the highest out of all the practical modules I did even though it wasn't my favourite.
I've definitely got my work cut out here.
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