Knot Tieing Up North

Well, despite my initial worries, the weekend just passed didn't go too badly.

It actually went rather quickly to be honest.

The wedding itself went really well and it was good to meet
new additions to the extended family including my cousin Angela's
children Kyle and Jamie, and Ian and his partner Ali's young daughter
Mae who will soon be joined be another younger brother or sister.

We were all gathered for the wedding of my cousin Andrew and
Rachel who's family had travelled all the way from Bath.

The venue of choice was The Devonshire Fell in North Yorkshire
where the ceremony, reception and wedding party all took place,
the latter being based around the theme of a casino, though with
imaginary money.

I didn't have a great deal to drink which may have explained why
I wasn't as active at the party disco as I thought I would, though
it may have also been because the floor was full of children
doing exactly what Peter Kay jokes about in his all-too-familiar
routine about DJs at weddings.

It was rather odd when the couple had the first dance to
Duffie's "Warwick Avenue" although a more appropriate
song by Take That accompanied them as they walked down
the aisle after signing the certificate earlier on.

I did get a few photos, albeit on my mobile so the picture quality
may not be 100 percent.

Andrew and Rachel making the cut.

Young Luke taking disc-spinning duties.

The day after, or today to be more specific we went to a pub
just outside Bradford where Grandma had been invited to,
making up for her absence at the wedding itself.

It was really lovely to see her again, and knowing she's
now a great grandmother is quite special.

So overall it wasn't too bad an outing, though I hope it's
a lot less than five years before I next see my Dad's half
of the family.

A Forced Happier Perspective

I'm not going to lie, I have been dreading this coming weekend
for months.

Understandably it's not the nicest thing to write ahead of
a relatives wedding, but home life is rather rotten with the
potential to get worse, I'm not in a good mood and can't
bear to spend 12 hours traveling to and from Yorkshire
with the rest of my family.

Having the occasion take place on the same weekend
as the Caister Soul event adds to the torture but the one
thing I need to keep in mind is to know when to keep it shut.

Family gatherings of this sort don't happen often and
two days won't be that bad.
 
The way to deal with it is to stop moping about anything
in the last couple of months that has fallen through,
worrying about things I want to happen but inevitably won't
and start thinking about the good things that definitely are
going to happen.

And there's quite a lot of them in October, especially
next week as on Thursday I'm attending the much awaited
John Cooper-Clarke performance in London, and the day
after I'll be in Folkestone to see old favourites the Half Wits
and Ted Dibiase disturb the peace at The Bar Below.

Best of all however is that on the 20th of said month
"Tuppence And The Gang" will be making a much
anticipated return to Canterbury at The Three Tuns with
Ted once again appering as the support act.

So the best thing to do is to just let the rot flow this weekend
and swim through.

Though this being the first wedding I have attended that I'm 
old enough to drink, it may go better than expected.

Mingling At The Magic Circle

An amazing day took place yesterday at London's Magic Circle, as
the second Nextradio event brought a great range of speakers
sharing ideas from many different areas of radio.

Highlights included an interview with Scott Mills at the
beginning where you could tell he felt a bit gutted about
not getting the top job at BBC Radio 1, though he had
sensible visions about his future at the station.

Other impressive talks came from Lenja Papp on creative
radio advertising, Chris Stevens from Real Radio/Smooth Radio
on station branding, Helen and Olly from Answer Me This on podcasting,
and Fi Glover on the BBC's Listening Project.

The talk that stood out the most came from Chris Burns
from BBC Audio and Music as she adapted a "fireside chat"
to give her thoughts on what made really good radio,
putting a powerpoint presentation aside, and giving
more of an intimate lecture.

It was good to see familiar faces including Rowan Collinson
from Somethin' Else who introduced me to Dave O'Donnell
who produces Gilles Peterson's show on BBC 6Music,
and Kellie Redmond who produces Trevor Nelson's
Radio 2 Soul Show.

What excited me the most however was being
stood in the presence of consultants Francis Currie
and Paul Chantler as they were the programme controllers
at Invicta FM and Essex FM respectively when the stations
were at their height and stood out amongst the crowd.

Bizarrely I didn't actually get any photos of the event itself
although I did take a few pictures in the Magic Circle's
museum.

The first one resembling what looks like severed Dalek heads.

































After the talks had gone out we went for a drink at
a nearby pub where I bumped into Alice and Jade
from university.

Alice is working full time at event organiser Matt Deegan's
station FunKids whilst Jade is interning at Create working
on many audio and visual projects.

The night finished with an outing to a Pizza Express
on Euston Road where I went along with Emma Corsham,
Helen from Answer Me This, and event organisers James and Matt
where I proved myself to be the worst anorak present,
and revealed some unpleasant stories involving Smurfs.

A lot of wine had been consumed it must be said.

Overall it was an amazing an inspiring day and I'm hoping
it can progress even further should a third event go ahead.

Rogues On The Radio, And Awaiting Nextrad.io

The special guest appearance by The Loveable Rogues
last night on CSR turned out to be fantastic and they
were on amazing form.

Hosted by Dan Gibson the trio attracted a massive number
of e-mails and tweets to the studio and had me laughing
throughout.

Especially with this slip of the tongue just five minutes into the 
show itself;



Further proof that unlike the others, we don't take
the safe radio route, although Dan did apologize later on.

I was impressed to find out that singer Te was a fan
of Jill Scott who I'd played on my own show before them
with "He Loves Me" as part of the Double Jam where I suggested
it sounded similar to Joss Stone's "You Had Me".

I'll let you be the judge.

Also present in the studio were the KTV camera crew from the
University of Kent's television station and a few other punters
from Christ Church who enjoyed the overall chaos.

Definitely the most fun I have had at CSR so far and the
boys gave me so much stick as well.

Which was probably deserved.

No time like the present, and the crap weather outside
and the shambles of "Team Grimshaw" haven't got me
on a downer ahead of a visit to London tonight ahead
of an early start for the 2012 nextrad.io conference.

With speakers to include Scott Mills, Helen and Olly,
and Fi Glover, it looks set to be an amazing day
and hopefully a chance to catch up with a few other
familiar faces from the box of noise.

Whatever happens I'm sure I'll be acknowledged, unlike
at a birthday do last weekend for a fellow Uni graduate.

Radio Rogues

Looking set to be a pretty chaotic night at CSR later on, as immediately
after my show, Studio Blue at Christ Church will be in the control
of Britain's Got Talent finalists "The Lovable Rogues" who are
making their way over to host a special show for the station.

For those who don't remember, they're the talented three-piece
who caught the attention of the judges with this amusing offering
"Love Sick".

Despite their website saying that the Christ Church Uni is in Essex,
they seem like nice lads and it will be good fun seeing them
take to the air.

My show preceding them beforehand is my last one for a couple
of weeks as next week I'm at my cousin's wedding in West Yorkshire
and have agreed to a meal at a nearby pub the following day
with the rest of my dad's half of the family.

I'm not looking forward to it to be honest, not the visit itself
but the long car journey from Canterbury to Steeton, which
if anything is more than a hint that I need to learn to drive.

But what's worse, two visits to and from West Yorkshire, or 
blowing a lot of money on petrol and tax discs?

Tomorrow will also be an early start as Nick Grimshaw takes
to the air on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, with a promise of
"added music".

Whilst the show itself been getting a lot of promotion,
what's been frustrating is that there's very little talk
of actual show content and what will be involved.

Although if the TV trails are anything to go by, I may
be mistaking show content for heavy reliance on "celeb culture"
and endless appearances from Harry Styles, Rita Ora and so on.

It's all seems a bit rushed, although to be fair it will need
time to grow, but the one thing we shouldn't expect it to
do is to reach the heights of it's predecessor.

This will be a completely different sort of show,
and it needs to be if Radio 1 want to please the BBC Trust
who themselves are quite frankly no where near
BBC Radio 1's demographic.
I'm quite happy listening to Shaun Keaveney on 6 Music anyway.

"Nights I Will Always Regret"

As I type I'm in a dreadfully knackered state where I come to the conclusion
that I won't drink again.

Or at least for a few weeks.

Anyway, I was up early yesterday morning for what was
the final Chris Moyles Show streamed on video at the Radio 1
website, and it's safe to say that without the visual addition
the departure wouldn't have been emotional.

There's been the usual response from those who dislike the
broadcaster in celebration, and yes there have been low points
where I've felt the same, but yesterday and the last three weeks
have gone to show that radio won't have a broadcaster with
both a genuine love of radio and an penchant to tell it straight
for a long time.

Later on I made my way down to Gillingham for another
night of raucous live performances where after a rather
dull opening set from a more "serious" metal band,
the Half Wits took to the stage and gave a crazy live set.

It was made even more hilarious when Jake the guitar player
broke his A-string and the rest of the band had to adlib
with an impromptu rendition of the "Peter Gunn" theme.

Well, just the famous bassline anyway.

I didn't get many photos as the venue was rather dark,
but we ventured back to Canterbury on the train with
plenty of booze.

In my case a bottle of VS with a rather dodgy "purple" flavour.

With the time after midnight we trod through Canters
searching for boozers that were still open including
one near the Marlowe Theatre, and the Lady Luck
near the Westgate Towers.

It was by then I felt really knackered, and despite
my boozed up state I barely got any sleep.

However, now that I've got my reflection of it all written
down and blogged, I may feel more physically able to collapse,
and hopefully get over it all and stop feeling sorry
for myself.

I'm getting dreadfully old.

Almost Time For Moyles To Go

This week sees the departure of what may be the last great
daytime presenter at Radio 1, well from my age at least.

Even though the final show isn't until Friday, certain moments
have almost brought me to tears, including the many highlights
packages one of which this morning based around the mammoth
52 hour marathon for Comic Relief last year.

However it's also been pretty amusing too with the many guests
who have paid a visit to the basement of Yalding House to wish
Chris and the team well and one of them today was Alan Carr
who took part in what was the final game of Carpark Catchphrase
an item they've had since the first ever breakfast show.

Despite all of this, the host of Chatty Man admitted to have
never heard the game at all, so it was no surprise that he lost
to returning champion and friend of the show Andi Peters.

As for Roy Walker, it's doubtful they'll get him to release
a compilation CD of his many covers, but what with many
of them on Youtube, it's doubtful listeners will be suffering
from any related withdrawal symptons.

One thing worth mentioning is that the theme to Carpark Catchphrase
on the radio show bares a striking melodic resemblance to a Finnish
rap song from the early 90s by Raptori called "Oi Beibi" and
on first hearing it, I was in fits of laughter.

That said, the tune itself is superb, orchestra hits a-plenty.

With only two more shows to go, one in front of an audience
and the final one in the studio, I doubt I'll be able to control myself
by Friday morning.

Not because I'm upset about Moyles' departure but because
it will be something special altogether.

"Hop On Baby!"

A Wider Outlook

After four long years, I finally said goodbye to this tired looking
contraption;


















 
and in its place, a machine that appears to be too big for
the table I've place it on.


















The new model fits in well with my recently purchased smartphone
as it's a Samsung with an Intel Core 17 processor and a damn
sight more storage space than the old model.

As shown in the above image, I also bought a new mouse as
and a wireless one at that as my old one despite being USB 
powered could get very fiddly and problematic at the worst of times.

I'm still installing some applications onto the laptop, some
of which have taken a really long time to install due to their
complicated registration regimes but I'm sure I will settle into
it before too long and get used to the new keyboard.

Overall I'm happy with what I've acquired.
The model itself is very similar to the one I had in my later years
of college and first two years of University, and I hope I'll put
it to the best creative use that I'm capable of.

That is if I can find a way to become creative again. 

From Breweries To Bullseyes

With Mum and Dad still in Newcastle dropping Olly off,
I made a last minute decision to venture over to Faversham
as Josh and Victoria were attending the town's annual hop festival
paying host to a lot of drinks and enjoyable music acts.

One that grabbed my attention on arrival was a band who
did an impressive rendition of the early Chicago track
"25 Or 6 To 4" which was just a taster of what was to be
expected.

I didn't get the names of many of the bands playing there
but those who stood out included this raucous set from
a French act with a Celtic tinge, as pictured below;

We were soon joined by Jon and Claire at the Railway Hotel where they had
an act called Follia blending folk with fusion which started
off superb, but then evolved into utter nonsense with the lead
vocalist giving a rather unnecessary falsetto rendition of "Over The Rainbow".



It was at this point that we opted to get some grub and
the choice destination was The Wine Vaults.

We ended up regretting doing so as the food they had there
wasn't up to standards with Claire having to endure what looked
like a burnt hot dog, and Jon struggling to savour a steak sandwich.

Luckily I steered clear from such concoctions and downed a WKD Blue.

From there we ended up at the Swan and Harlequin near the 
Shepherd Neame Brewery where they had a lively rock covers
band who were on good form.

Well, until their set devolved into covers by Snow Patrol
and The Script.

I left just before 5pm as I needed to get back to Canterbury
in time for my radio show at CSR and after a two week break
it felt really refreshing and back to it's usual self with all
the regular features back in place.

The highlight was right at the end where I played a jaunty
offering from Skeewiff who has made a compilation of
remixes from vintage library LPs including this offering,
"The Tap Tastic Toe Twizzler" which bears a striking resemblance
to the theme to Bullseye.

Then again I'm certain that the original was composed years
before Jim Bowen became a Sunday night stalwart.

Overall today was good fun and worth making the visit
up even if the train journey wasn't that long.

Plastered At The Parrot

Yesterday saw the welcome return of Josh to Canterbury,

who this time brought along his lovely wife Victoria.
Both of them are attending the wedding of Josh's sister

Xanthe taking place today, and arranged for a fair few of
us to meet up in the ever popular watering hole The Parrot.

Sadly, the parrot itself wasn't frequenting it's noisy
presence this time round, although I wasn't complaining.

Amongst those who turned up were Ally who I saw performing
with The Fruit Group at Lounge two months ago, and
Jon another mate from college who was rather stunned when
I mentioned that Hans Zimmer composed the theme tune to
the Henry Kelly fronted gameshow Going For Gold.

Both Josh and Jon can be seen below trying to invent
a hand gesture for "Blammy's Blog" and inevitably failing.

 

Jon's wife Claire made an appearance later on, alongside a few
of her work colleagues, one of which will be moving to New Zealand
within a week, and had rather too much to drink.



It was at this point of the night I was regretting not bringing my jacket
with me, but luckily we went back inside the warm interior
before the end of the night.

Hopefully the next time we'll see each other again will be around
Christmas, depending on whether I'm away in Norfolk or otherwise
but all the same, it was good to catch up once again.