"# Hey Baby Won't You Take A Chance"

It was all pretty busy on the second floor of M-Block tonight as we were filming a perfomance by Uni band in the Live Room which I've never actually been in before.

I didn't stay for the whole performance as I had my show to do but they were pretty good and stood out as the lead singer had a habit of ending his lines slightly higher than the rest of the song.

A bit like Leona Lewis but in his case it was intentional.

I didn't actually get any photos of the band but I did take a few pictures of the live room as I rarely get a chance to go in there.



Dan and Alice decide to take center stage.



One of our new flat screen TVs.



The main control room.



And for all the technical obsessives, the mixing desk monitor.

Tonight's show went OK where the first record was the James Taylor Quartet's cover of
"Blow Up" by Herbie Hancock which I played for the Shuffle Boys as I was missing them.

That's not to say that Max's show was inferior as he's got great enthusiasm and sounds really slick.
Definitely one who will make quite an impact now that he's live, all that's needed is a title as "Selective Saturdays" doesn't really work on a Wednesday.

However, the original version of "Blow Up" was the first ever record played by on Shuffle back in November 2005 where the theme was quite naturally "Smoke" and Blow Up was a film that really gave a true perspective of London in the 1960s.

When Alice got the role of head of specialist last May, Matthew at the awards came up to her and said something along the lines of "when you take on the role, don't touch the Shuffle show. You can do whatever you like elsewhere but Shuffle stays".

He said those exact words to Sam and Phil the year before but it's quite a shame that I won't see Adam and Zo again for the rest of my time at Uni.

Like I said last week, maybe a few drinks with them will be in store pretty soon.

On a slightly different note I've found a thread posted on Digital Spy containing Gordon Burn's newsletter from North West Tonight with his thoughts on the new Krypton Factor.

He's pretty much supportive of it and pleased they've turned it back into it's more traditional form although he agrees with most people that the current assualt course is rubbish and that the one during his era was specially constructed with a path for the camera crew to follow the contestants.

They describe it on the show as "tougher than ever" although for me it's a case of being tougher than ever to follow.

His comments on Ben Shepard being wasted in the Mental Agility round are worth pointing out as well and it's good that he reveals that his final series in 1995 wasn't as good as the rest.

But it's good that his overall views on his show are positive.

Also I've found out about the BBC's new series for Comic Relief "Let's Dance" which involves famous people doing classic dance routines such as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Saturday Night Fever.

Those taking part are comedians Jo Brand, Robert Webb and Paddy McGuinness.
As well as Keith Lemon AKA Leigh Francis but I wouldn't exactly call him a comedian
as opposed to an annoying prick.

In addition to them are Dragons Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne and Deborah Meaden which should also be pretty interesting.

Also taking part are Dick & Dom, and quite a lot of former Blue Peter presenters including Peter Purves, Peter Duncan, Janet Ellis and Mark Curry. Also included are Diane-Louise Jordan, Anthea Turner and Tim Vincent who were the exact team of presenters when I visited the show back in 1994.
And bringing things right up to date is current presenter Helen Skelton who's only been on the show for about 6 months.

Amongst those on the judging panel will be Anton Du Beke and the presenters are Claudia Winkelman and much to my disapproval Steve Jones from T4.

It's quite likely I'll become attached like most shows tied in with Red Nose Day where there's also a special edition of The Apprentice featuring noneother than Jonathan Ross.

It looks as if television will start getting pretty good in the run up to Red Nose Day.

"Wellll!, Well It's The Big Shoow!"

One of the things I didn't mention in the post yesterday about Ant & Dec's first ever SNT was the rather amusing pre-titles sketch with Gareth Gates.

Basically it involved Ant moaning about having him on the show because he got more attention than them, but Dec was more relaxed about it until Gareth came in
with two bouncers and wouldn't speak to them directly.

The boys then lead him to his dressing room which lead to him falling out of the LWT building although it was actually a dummy with a white duvet covering it which made it funnier.
Dec then uttered "Ohh, anyone got the number for Rik Waller?" before the titles rolled.

One thing I picked up from the sketch were Gareth's demands for people not to look him in the eye and for a personal astrologer in his dressing room.

To me that sounds more like the sort of things Steve Wright would demand as from what I've heard, he can be very picky whilst he's live on air.
Which brings to mind this photo taken by The Mirror proving that it's not called
"The Big Show" for nothing.

And I know I'm not the first to make that comment.

We all know that the Radio 2 host hasn't been in the best of shape for quite a while but this is probably the first photo of him in at least 5 years.
It's definitely a big difference compared to how he looked 20 years ago although I really don't understand why he hasn't bothered to update his photo on the Radio 2 website.

It's not like anyone can actually see him whilst he's on air which may also be why he doesn't have the Radio 2 webcam on during his show.

I always thought our own Matty ID was radio's answer to Jabba the Hut
but now it appears that the man stuck in 1985 has taken that crown.

Then again if I had the choice of listening to either Edith Boreman or Steve, I would opt for Steve any time as you do get quite a lot of good guests on there quite often.

As I type Lottie and Eric are on the air with their sleazy gossip as always but this week it's rather downbeat as it concerns Jade Goody.
It's a good thing I'm not in the studio with them as the sort of things that would come out of my mouth could result in a lifetime ban in broadcasting.

That's another thing, as whenever I'm listening to any show at home or watching a discussion on television I don't agree with, I will normally end up shouting at the television screen, but in a radio studio I'm more nervous.

Then again if I was with more people and actually in on a discussion of that sort I'd probably be more natural and come into my own.

Rather like the opposite of Steve Wright.

A few days ago I was chatting to Chilvers about when Stone Cold Steve Austin had the catchphrase "What?" which people shouted at him after every sentence in support, but also shouted it to anyone they hated such as Vince McMahon and Kurt Angle.

I wish that I could have encouraged people to have done the same in one of Winston Mano's lectures in my first year and it could have resulted in this'

Winston: "Toodaeee we are goeeing to loook at the meeja and Mo-dernity"

"WHAT?"

And so on.

A few of the first years doing the Understanding News Media module suggested playing Dick and Dom's "Bogies" during the lecture with Charles Brown, a man who was also responsible for many hours I won't get back when I did the Media Technology module.

I didn't actually do the News Media module in the first year which was probably the right thing to do considering that I'd have to analyse a journalist of my choice which would have been quite a bugger.

Instead I did the PR module which wasn't too bad and only involved a presentation and an essay, which for the record I wrote in my own words.

I still get rather weary with regards to if I've got any outstanding modules and end up checking on SRS web to find I'm stable.

There's just something rather unnerving about being here but not having any lectures.

Then again nerves probaly make things more exciting here, especially from a radio perspective.

Inane Twittering

Well the good news is that Carol Thatcher has been sacked from the One Show for her "Golly" comment about a tennis player.
I know it wasn't actually on television but why you would even have that word in your mind set in that context is nonsense and unacceptable.

Personally I find nothing offensive about the dolls themselves but would never put them in that sort of context.

There's also the news about Jade Goody, but I won't gloss over that too much.

It now appears that Moyles is now on Twitter and so is regular show contributor and all round TV legend Andi Peters.
Although Twitter's been around for just under two years, it's really taken off in the last couple of weeks and it's not at all difficult to use.

My plan for tonight is to finally watch Gordon Ramsay's Great British Nightmare from last Friday on Channel 4 catch up.

No offence intended but I'd probably preferred to have watched it on actual transmission as opposed to where I was on the night.

I'd say that interactive players have been one of the finest arrivals to modern life whilst I've been at University.

"Fab-u-lous!"

Tonight's live Strictly Come Dancing at the Wembley Arena was definitely enjoyable and probably the closest I'll get to seeing the real show.

The set was more or less the same as the one on TV although the judges were sat in front of the house band as opposed to on the side.

I was sat right at the back on the top left corner but I wasn't as high up as I was when I saw EWF three years ago. There were also two large video screens as well although when the dances themselves took place it was good to see them from just the one angle.

Before each act began, the warm up man encouraged the audience to start moving themselves in order to win a signed programme by all those taking part One of the tunes they got us to dance to was "Boogie Wonderland" and whilst it was all happening, I just thought "I've actually seen them in this very place!".

The dancers taking part tonight were current champion Tom Chambers,
runner up Rachel Stevens, Jodie Kidd, and Cherie Lunghi,
whilst from Series 5 we had Kenny Logan (although I would have preferred to have seen his wife), Blue Peter heartthrob Gethin Jones, and there was also Series 2 champion
Jill Halfpenny and one of the finalists from the same series, Julian Clary
adding the overall fun to proceedings.

A few changes were made in terms of partners as Gethin was paired with Flavia Cacace as his partner from Series 5 Camilla was with Tom Chambers. Flavia of course made it to the final of the 2007 series with Eastender Matt Di Angelo but was less succesfull in the last series with his on-screen dad Phil Daniels who was voted off first.

Julian Clary also had a new partner, as in place of Erin Boag was the delightful Russian,
Lillia Koppilova whose teeth would be a perfect substitute for a light bulb.

Each couple did a ballroom dance in the first half and a latin dance in the second half and whilst the judges were there to give their opinions, their overall scores didn't count towards the final vote, which was decided by text messages from the audience.

I tried to vote but I didn't actually have any credit on my phone.

Len Goodman's analogies were slightly more risque than they are on television with my favourite being Tom's entrance being "faster than wind escaping from a duck's arse".
There were quite a lot more as the night went on that I can't remember.

Len also gave out two sevens which was what I'd come for overall, but Julian Clary was the definitive highlight with his scathing comments towards the judges, especially Craig Revel Horwood.

In the VT before his first peformance, they even showed that great line from when he appeared in Series 2 where he told Craig that he "wouldn't know a Pasa Doble if he sat on one".

Some of tonight's comments included him saying that Craig's comments were all he needed from a former Australian drag queen, and purposely mistook him for Ann Widdecombe.

The second half went quicker than the first one, partly because there were no VTs played before each performance which worked out well.

Also, in between the latin performances and the final result, there was a special performance by professional dancers Matthew Cutler and Kristina Rihanoff.
Matthew of course won Series 5 alongside Alesha Dixon, whilst Kristina is probably recognised for being dragged across the floor by John Seargant.

The final results saw a surprise elimination for Jill Halfpenny who was in the last three whilst the final two were Julian Clary and Rachel Stevens. Unexpectedly Rachel got to lift the glitterball trophy but it didn't really matter who won as opposed to it being a brilliant show overall.

Some of the other differences included the house band and singers being different to those on television but they didn't sound too different despite the absence of Tommy Blaize's vocals.

Host Kate Thornton on the other hand was pretty unmemorable with rather forced adlibs and on some occasions stumbling over her sentences. Still easy on the eye however.

I can remember her being interviewed on the Paul O'Grady show just over a year ago and she nearly broke down when asked what it was like to be sacked from The X Factor.

To be fair she wasn't as bad tonight as she was when presenting the popular if overly dramatic singing contest.

As for the X Factor tour which will be taking place later this month, the compere they've got is a lot to be answered for, noneother than Jeff Brazier who must have reached double figures by now.

That would probably be a reason not to go as well as breaking the bank even further, but the only performers I'd really want to see would possibly be JLS, Austin and Rachel. And maybe Eggnog as he did do a good job of Busted's "Year 3000".

Then again if I ever want to see Eggnog I can just head over to Becmead Avenue in Kenton or possibly give him a ring in the middle of the night to get him back for the prank calls made to me earlier today.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the X Factor tour this year is a special apperance by Signature, the dance duo who reached the finals of Britain's Got Talent last year which involved what appeared to be a cleaner stripping off his apparel and showing his moves.

As for George Sampson, he's certainly got too big for his boots since winning last year if you look at his comments made recently about how he should be a judge on the next series.

Not to mention that flop of a record he released near the end of last year.

Tomorrow will probably involve a rather laid back day apart from the show of course although whether anyone else turns up I'm not so sure.

One of the shows "The Rundown" brought to the UK from an American exchange student went on for slightly longer today as Maz and Oli were unable to do their show this afternoon.

I'll need to give that American show a listen at some point as it's caused quite a stir in it's hometown of Boston where it goes on on the college radio station WMFO 95.1 FM.

College Radio as they call it on the other side of the Atlantic really is a big deal and probably more prolific than Student Radio is in the UK.

Which more or less brings me into ranting mode as why at any of the Student Radio Awards do we not actually get to hear any actual fucking audio of those recieving the awards?

I've come very close to shouting "Who are ya?!" at any of those walking on stage to collect their awards but in all honesty I've never really enjoyed any awards night due to the amount of backside licking and the long journey home.

By the time this year's awards take place in November I'll probably be dead anyway.

On a lighter note I'm enjoying some of the Facebook posts tonight including comments on Stoobie's encounter with Stephen Fry earlier tonight.
I suggested that he finally got to meet his elder brother which is more or less in the vein of any comments I make about fantasy families.

Pat Sharp being Tony Blackburn's son for example.

I also saw a rather nice comment form third year TV student and halls residential assistant Lucy about finally getting the chance to enjoy fish and chips after 2 weeks.

Which in all fairness is quite a long time.

Personally I find it comforting fitting in well with my obsession with cosiness and cutesy poo stuff and the overall odour is comforting.

This resulted in a reply from one of her Southampton friends as "the best food ever!" although in my case it doesn't quite beat a spag bol.

In all honesty however I can enjoy a pasta meal when I'm sober as well where as I can only really enjoy oily spuds when I've had a bit to drink.

Let's face it, we don't even have a decent one in nearby Harrow and no, Kenton Kebabs doesn't count.
I don't understand how so many people at Uni can enjoy the crap that comes from there, whereas whenever I need anything last minute and can't be arsed to do any cooking, Dominos is normally first on my list.

I never realised I had such an obsession with food but compared to last year I hardly get any cravings at the wrong times.

To be honest the only meal I had today was last nights mince with rigatoni pasta so I may head over to Wenzel's tomorrow to buy some bread and in addition make something more experimental tomorrow night with a stir in powder I've never used before.

I imagine a slightly creamy chicken dish may be a possiblity.

An ideal time for a lie down now, only this time without the early start. Not until Saturday at least where it will be another morning in the library.

Good night.

Was It Really Better Back Then?

Continuing my search through the VHS most of the stuff on towards the end dates back to early Spring 1999 with a few bits from an edition of series 2 of Robot Wars called
"The Grudge Matches".

This was the final show in the series after the grand final where various metal boxes from throughout the series fought it out in various bouts including one featuring "Nemesis" a robot made out of a cake tin and covered in red fur with black polka dots.

Nemesis made an appearance in series 1 & 2 and got synged on both occasions thanks to house robot Seargant Bash and his flamethrower.
None of the competing robots were allowed to include flamethrowers although that didn't really ruin the fun of the show.

There was also a bout with the title "Internet Insurrection" where 4 teams who's robots had their own websites fought it out against each other. As this was 1999 most of the sites looked pretty basic and if I can say it, very geeky.

Although they weren't in that actual show, one of the robots I can remember was Plunderbird 1, and Plunderbird 2 in the second series.
However their team spent more time producing rather embarrassing songs
for the robots rather than competing which meant that they weren't so succesfull.

The series was one of my favourite shows on television when it started in 1998 and improved further in series 2 when Craig Charles took over from Jeremy Clarkson as the main host.

However when series 3 arrived it changed direction completely by abandoning the Gauntlet obstacle course in favour of just plain fighting in a knockout contest
which lost me as a viewer for good.

By 2002 the programme was losing more viewers resulting in it being axed by the BBC only for it to return a year later on Five although it didn't last that long on there.

The programme got quite a lot of stick from comedians, most notably Peter Kay in Phoenix Nights but also on Lee and Herring's show around the same time as the series started when they took the mickey of how the presenters talked;
"Give Him A Round Of Applause!"

I can also remember getting told off at school for doing my own version of the announcer's catchphrase "3, 2, 1, Activitate!" by replacing the final word with one that sounded similar.

It still makes me laugh to this day.

Moving onwards and the tape also contains quite a bit of presentation from the early days of T4 including the link before the opening episode of Series 2 of Dawson's Creek, where Ben Shepard, Margharita Taylor and Dermot O'Leary are in a special cinema gathered with guests Kele Le Roc, and Marc Crumpton from Planet Pop, who at the time made the late Mark Speight look sane.

There's also a legendary moment from late March of that year when the New Radicals were meant to be performing their single "You Get What They Give" but because the band's work permits had run out, they had hot footed it back to America just half an hour before they were due on.

So to compensate they got the T4 crew to mime to what has to be the best pop record released in the last decade.

The reason they resorted to that method was because in rehearsals for most live shows on television they get crew members to stand in for musicians so the camera crew can practise the various shots for the actual show.

The lead singer Gregg Alexander was played by one of the floor managers complete with the hat to match, whilst on drums was Jamie Stocks, a runner who ended up becoming one of the presenters.

Definitely a reminder of when T4 was at it's best as opposed to the pre-recorded and contrived nonsense that comes from the likes of Steve Jones who in my opinion is one of the most gormless people on television.

Even our alumni Steve Jones, also from Wales would be better than him.

Also included are a few bits of Anglia presentation from when the flag was on it's last few months of flight. They were probably the only ITV region to still use an on-screen clock before the news which was still a nice touch, despite it being in use for 11 years at the time.

Sharon Grey could be seen reading the news although it wasn't too long before she was promoted to ITV to read their overnight bulletins.

As well as that, there's various bits and pieces from when Channel 4's new square logo was introduced on Good Friday 1999 which I thought was a big improvement from the circles logo that had been used before.

Not least because the music accompanying the idents was a rather nice tune from D*Note although that was replaced at the very end of the year.

One of the programmes included from that day was an Easter compilation of the current series of TFI Friday.

The show was getting rather tired at this stage but the funniest parts were provided by Cedric, a black fella who was one of the many characters on the show.

In this case he appeared in a sketch with Kathy Burke and Ray Winstone for Comic Relief which was a send up of the Nescafe advert where Ray wanted to get back with Kathy but was reluctantly in a relationship with Cedric.

Overall it once again proves that the last 10 years have shot by.

More Trawling

It appears Smoke is now back on air with Manish and Matty ID taking care of requests and talking about the transfer deadlines that took place yesterday which I was watching on Sky Sports News yesterday with Chilvers.

Robbie Keane moving back to Spurs was the big story but in terms of the Blues, Jimmy Smith is switching to my almost home team Leyton Orient, and we've gained Ricardo Quaresma from Inter Milan.

All the transfer talk out of the way, Manish will also be making another return appearance on Matty's own show on Monday whilst regular co-host Dani is still absent. Although to be honest I think Manish is better than Dani on that show as nice as she is but it gets that bit edgier when the Manchester United supporter makes an appearance.

Yesterday's show however had a guest appearance from Jade, normally presenter of "Friends Of Tomorrow" but this was her first date on daytime and not a very good one at that after a four letter word came out of her mouth and onto the mic.

Another one for the Christmas tape, although it will actually be compiled in May when I'm all done with Uni.

Apart from that I've been trawling through another old VHS, this time dating back to late October 2000 where things for me were rather awkward in terms of radio listening and near depression.

Amongst the things on their are the last few moments of that week's Sunday Night Heat the week after No Mercy 2000 where Stone Cold was fighting against Rikishi who ran him over at Survivor Series in November the previous year.

After the fight was finished the aggro continued outside the ring resulting in one wrestler being taken to hospital and the other making a visit to the police station.

Stone Cold made an appearance on that week's Smack Down after the police let him go and told him exactly what happened when he allegedly tried to run down Rikishi. It then turned out that Rikishi's accomplice was Triple H who had planned the whole thing unsurprisingly although he later allied with Austin after the title match between him and the Rock at Wrestlemania in 2001.

After that was a few bits from an episode of The Big Breakfast from the following day where Johnny and Denise were both on holiday with Richard Bacon and Tania Strekker standing in.

The show nearly didn't go out at all due to the torrential flooding that took place that weekend but it wasn't the bad weather, but the rather poor presentation that saw the programme being rather awkward.

Possibly a taster of what was to come on the show from January 2001 onwards.

Tania wasn't really that known unless you watched Channel 4 overnight where she presented a rather bad gameshow called "Naked Elvis" whilst Richard continued to live up to his image of getting annoyed whenever someone else upstaged, heckled or tried to take over from him.

More or less in the same way as Cat Deeley on SMTV after Ant & Dec had left.

The items themselves were rather unimaginative, the worst of which being the competition "Who Stares Wins" which was a tedious observation game and dreadful in comparison to the ones that Johnny and Denise were doing such as "Yanks For The Memory" ("We were too busy thinking of food!")and of course "More Tea Vicar"; ("SAYYYLENCE! Sister Philemina!").

One team member who got a lot of stick that morning was weatherman Simon Fielder who failed to predict the torrential rain that happened over the weekend.

Simon was actually the winner of the Big Breakfast's "Find Me A Weather Presenter" competition that they did in July of 2000 instead of their usual "Find Me A Model" contest although he did get quite a bit of ribbing during his time on the show.

The constant taunts lead him to eventaully being sent to the Steps Of Woe and as far as I can remember was the last person I've seen being sent there, although it wasn't actually by Johnny himself.

I can remember being rather down that morning as it was the first day back after half term and I couldn't face waking up to this dirge all week.

Luckily the following Monday Johnny and Denise were back with one of the shows being a Christmas special as they had to pre-rec all the shows for that week in late November and they did a live one earlier in the month to get them in the mood.

It really was that sort of show which broke all the rules of television which no one else has pulled off succesfully ever since.

I can remember one year when Liza Tarbuck hosted the show where she had just had a hair cut in early December and when the Christmas pre-records were shown it went longer again.

Then again none of the viewers seemed to let little things like that get in the way of the overall entertainment although there was a bit of fuss when Denise Van Outen's first departure in 1999 was actually pre-recorded.

I may as well continue trawling and from what I've seen, we may be going back slightly further.

"Don't Just Watch The Adverts!"

Whilst the University building may be open again, it appears that the Smoke server is buggered.
I'm not sure how that's the case as all the computers in RP1 were working, but I couldn't access the student drive which made things inconvinient.

I really hope this is sorted out by tomorrow as it will be difficult to go through a week this semester without going on air as normal.

The snow is starting to clear however, and the staff can't stay away from campus forever as it's not like anyone's going to get ill or anything.

As planned, I had a gander at the first ever Saturday Night Takeway as broadcast on the 8th of June 2002. This happened to be my Dad's birthday but he wasn't actually with us that weekend as he was at the Fleadh in London where they have a lot of Irish rock bands performing.

The series was transmitted almost a year after their first attempt "Slap Bang" had bombed, but it seemed like an awful long time since that happened as from a personal viewpoint a lot had changed including moving from secondary school to college and the way things tended to flow overall.

The first show saw a few elements that have stayed with the show since the beginning, such as the audience cheering the more rubbish prizes that can be won such as toilet roll, toothpaste and so on.

However the boys had placed the concept of winning the adverts as the main selling point and emphasis of the show as at the time it was "a world first" for television and in addition to the main "Win The Ads" game there was also a qualfier involving 3 randomly picked members of the audience that got dropped after the first series.

Other items included "Jim Didn't Fix It For Me" where people who had written to Jimmy Savile but didn't have their letters read finally had their dreams come true although as you'd expect they weren't as willing to participate as opposed to being embarassed.

One of them included a girl getting the opportunity to dance with Wayne Sleep who the Geordie duo would meet the following year as one of the contestants in the jungle.

There was also "Make Ant Laugh" which involved really rubbish comedy acts attempting to make the miserable half of the duo laugh in under a minute which the first act succeeded in because "he was so rubbish, he was funny".

Another key part of the show was "Banged Up With Beadle" in which every week, a member of the public would spend 7 days locked in a fort near Portsmouth with the late star of Beadle's About and they would be set a challenge to perform on the show in a similar vein to Cilla Black's "Moment Of Truth" but without the disapointed children.

The way the section was introduced was through a spoof newsflash which looked rather serious to start off with judging by how Ant & Dec linked to it, which was read by another departed broadcaster Carol Barnes.

The final where the winning contestant could Win The Ads was slightly different to how it is now as they had 90 seconds rather than a minute to answer the questions, giving them more time to choose random prizes.

The first contestant in the series decided to take what he had already won which included a car and £1000, although nowadays just about everyone on the show gambles what they've already won.

My first impressions when seeing the programme back in 2002 was that it was a lot better than Slap Bang even if some of the features weren't great. However I wanted to see it doing well and when it got promoted to the winter schedules for series 2 in 2003
it became even more succesfull.

Definitely needed in response to the rubbish that ITV were coming out with at the time such as the dreadful revamp of Blind Date and "Popstars: THE RIVALS!"
as hosted by Davina McCall.

On that note the VHS also contained the opening and closing titles to a few of the other shows wrapped around the first Takeaway including a repeat of You've Been Framed from 2000 with Lisa Riley and a short appearance by Paul McCartney's cousin Ted Robbins in the audience.

Whether he was the warm up man for the show I'm not sure, but it could be seen as a bit of a comedown after hosting a prime time show with his sister Kate for Granada Television in the late 80s.

Although as mentioned before I think he's pretty good as "The Guv'nor" in CBBC's 'The Slammer'.

In addition to that was "The Vault", one of the most complicated gameshows on television hosted by Davina McCall where the randomly chosen viewer at home won the jackpot that wasn't won in the studio.

Oddly enough and this is really scraping it a bit, the winner was a woman called
Ann Parkinson from Liverpool who in the year before was one of the finalists in the
This Morning house competition where a lucky viewer could win
a brand new detached house.

This resulted in Richard and Judy's final ever show being shunted to Thursday as the competition was already mooted as the series finale leaving John Leslie and Kay Adams to present the winner with the keys.

Ann didn't win but she took the loss well unlike another contestant on the previous day who really went to pieces and broke down, during the qualifying stages on Richard and Judy's last show.

I may still have that on VHS in Canterbury unsurprisingly.

I can remember the fateful day in early September 2001 when the new series started and the presenters were Twiggy and Coleen Nolan. Both of them were apalling with Twiggy being sacked after a couple of months and Coleen making her departure about halfway through the series.

Fern was having a baby at the time but John Leslie stepped in occasionally before getting the permanent male postion which should have happened at the beginning.

Although this was before Phillip Schofield arrived who really put the fun into daytime.

I didn't like what they had done to the Midday Money competition which was where Richard and Judy took it in turns to ask a lucky viewer general knowledge questions in a minute.
As was often the case they would often ask one or two more after the time had run out which they joked about with quite a lot.

However with Twiggy and Colleen they made it more like "Millionaire" with dodgy tension music and it became pretty much a joke, but it returned to it's normal form with a different name after John and Fern got back.

I can remember Adam & Joe doing a joke in their send up of 'Guy Richtoy' where "Cousin Lavvy" wanted to appear with Richard and Judy but demanded
"But not the fucking Friday stand-ins!
If I see that Wheel Of Fortune fuck, you're dead!"

I always thought John got quite a bit of stick as a presenter before all the fuss with Ulrika happened, and I thought he was one of the best male presenters of Blue Peter and slightly less smug than Richard Madeley on This Morning.

Nowadays the mention of him in a joke has me in stiches,

The "Moron Attack"

Former editor of the Mirror and complete knob Piers Morgan has been blasting various chat show hosts for having "no journalistic qualities" as seen in this article from Media Guardian.

The Britain's Got Talent judge is set to host his own chat show on ITV this year and I think his targets are unfair partly because Alan Carr, despite not being one of my favourite comedians, hasn't even started his own chat show on Channel 4, and Jonathan Ross had a film review column for one of the tabloid newspapers.

All this coming from a man who was sacked as the editor of the Mirror for faking photos of hostages.

My overall dislike for the man goes back to an editon of HIGNFY in 1996 where he was just acting really petty and childlike with retorts such as "What do you know about editing newspapers?" to guest captain Clive Anderson resulting in him replying "about as much as you do!"

The funniest part however came in the Odd One Out round when Piers responded "Is the answer 'jam'?" to a rather stunned silence. He then mentioned that on the previous show the audience laughed when Eddie Izzard said it, with Ian Hislop mentioning that "People like him".

An irate Piers then asked the audience if they like Ian and they started cheering at the Private Eye editor.

Unsurprisingly Piers has never appeared as a guest on the show again.

The good news is that I've made a start on my lit review and am one sixth of the way there by writing about Karen Lury's analysis about Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.
It looked at the idea of the audience being involved in a "utopia" where everything is consistently positive and I attempted to question whether that involved the audience watching at home.

Thankfully there's a new series starting pretty soon so I may see if anyone back in Canterbury would be happy to give their thoughts for my primary research as we did watch the show quite a lot whilst I was recovering from my illness.

It didn't exactly help me recover but it's one of the better shows on Saturday night that just gets on with it without any singing or skating and so on.

I may have a gander at the first ever episode later today as I bought back the VHS with me and it may come in handy towards my look into audience participation.
If I remember correctly, one of the items involved going to places such as cinemas, bingo halls, and even wedding receptions urging people to rush home to see if they had won 10 grand.

One particular incident took place at a dog track in East London and not one of them left the ground which was rather amusing.

And also on the positive side is that tonight's live Strictly Come Dancing is going ahead as planned although I'm not sure if I'll be smartly dressed for it.

There definitely won't be any photos from tonight, not least because they might get iffy about me having a camera with me, but also because I may be sat right back from the performance area like I was at the EWF gig a few years ago.

It should be good fun though and I may be able to judge if Rachel Stevens really is as attractive as they say.

Video Post - Snow Shenanigans

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3PGT2Qeo5Kk

Incorrect Innuendos

The University buildng's open again but that doesn't mean the equipment there has improved.

In an attempt to print out my tickets for tonight at the Arena,
the printer in RP1 is being fucking shite.

I don't even understand why we had to enable it to the University network rather
than have our own one for that room which worked out no problem at all.

They always have to make changes for changes sake don't they?

On a lighter note it appears that former queen of the jungle and possibly the worst ever guest on Have I Got News For You, Carol Thatcher may no longer be welcome on our screens according to The Times.

In an item on the One Show recently she used a rather degogatory term involving the little characters that used to appear on marmalade jars to describe a tennis player.

It didn't go down to well with show host Adrian Chiles and a few others on the programme who weren't sure about Carol's diction being behind the times.

Normally I would say that it's political correctness gone mad, but in this case we're talking about Carol Thatcher.
I never understand why she won series 5 of "Celebrity" in the first place and it was partly because of her and the rather dull contestants that I went off the series for a few years until last year when Joe Swash etc provided the entertainment.

On the subject of HIGNFY, the whole thing reminds me of a joke made when Omid Djalili hosted the show just over a year ago, when he made a point about WAG being an acronym for
Wives And Girlfriends and wondered why they weren't called "Wives Or Girlfriends".

That was OK however as it was an innuendo based joke without any sexual references, for want of a better description, and the sort of jokes I tend to like where they stop before the actual word is said.

With the exception of this incident involving Mel B on Live & Kicking in 2001 by finishing off presenter Trey Farley's gag about DJ Pied Piper, with the "mother figure" coming out of a shocked Sara Cawood.

I also find it irritating where radio presenters, especially those on Radio 1 utter the term "Good Mornin!" after an innuendo in the very likely case that the listeners are too thick to notice when they've just said an innuendo.

Something that has crossed over to Smoke and quite possibly every other student radio station in the UK.
I may be tempted to put together a montage of everyone who's said it over the last four years and even I've said it at least once.


That's once by the way, not in every single link.


Although someone could give me my own medicine and put together a compilation of the many times I've said "stunning".

Actually that's almost an innuendo itself.

The Harrow Halls Snow Rave

All the goings on this Monday night took place near Flats 50-66 (or around that area) where quite a few people showed up.

These included Oli P, JC, Matt from Leeds, Jade, and Matty ID.

As you'd expect a rather rough battle started taking place involving snowballs although most of the first year radio lot decided to take refuge in a corner. That didn't mean we escaped that easily as shown in the photos below.

The worst offender in the snowball raccas had to be first year TV student Michael Bland who really did get into all the excitement.

We also had music playing from one of the halls bedrooms and it was quite a good selection consisting of student anthems such as Reef, and a few rarer reggae and dub tracks thrown in. There was even a tune by the Quantic Soul Orchestra, the title track of the album "Pushin' On" which I was impressed with.

Towards the end of the night we made our way to near the hills on the Harrow Halls courtyard where a earlier on, some people built a "snowfa" which has to be the best use of todays rather chaotic weather.

As is quite possibly a permanent requirement of the blog currently, illustrations help to add better light;



A rare sight of me in this photo, alongside JC and Oli.



Jade and Matt drink up (although I'm sure she brought
a mug with her earlier)



Bland, ever ready for action.



Matty gets a deserved balling. (In both senses)



Matt from Leeds gets locked in (although it took him a minute
to work out you could get out from the inside)



The rather lovely ice branches.



And the superb looking "Snowfa".

I headed back at around 10:30pm but as I type the chaos is still continuing outside judging by the load screaming and cursing.

Here's hoping the warmer months will see similar scenarios, especially on the last day which last year was a disapointment as everyone had buggered off home early.

However tomorrow should be more constructive and I hope to finally get this lit review started, even if it's just 300 words.

For now though, time waits for no man, or should that be snow man?

More Than Snowed Under

For most of today I've felt as if I'm in the same position as Bart Simpson in the episode where he prays for it to snow in order to get an extra day to revise for an exam.

Only in my case I put all my writing on hold in order to mess about outside or so to say.

I made my may to Kenton this afternoon where it was pretty empty on arrival with just Barry inside.

I thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of their living room and the rather untidy condition it's normally in, complete with Tudor's Rock Band drum kit which we had a go on later.



As I had brought my laptop with me, it was the first time I had used Twitter outside my flat

When Chris, Phil and Tudor arrived we made a start on attempting to build a snowman with Danielle helping out in places.

We decided not to go for the rude angle and make ours look rather sinister through the use of a few clothes pegs and being the typically un-PC people we are decided to call it "Dev Patel, The Albino Asian Snowman".

The overall building and mucking about can be seen in the photos below;











Stewart wasn't with us as he decided to spend the day playing Risk with some of the second years but we stopped off at Potty's and got him to come to the door and threw snowballs at him just as he was closing it.

We then went to Harrow Halls where Annabel and all her friends were making their own snowman and this resulted in further bouts where I got the worst of it, with snow even going down my back at times.

We were also joined by the other Irish lads Colin and Jay who also got quite involved in it all.

Below are some more photos of our antics and some of the other snowmen on Harrow Halls.



Annabel and her friends trying to get enough snow to throw at the boys.



Barry with a rather neat looking snow person.



Colin stood next to a more inspired snow rabbit.



And possibly the tallest one on Harrow Halls near the gym.

As my laptop was still at their house we went back to pick it up but not before having a few games on Rock Band where each of us had a turn on each instrument.

If my camera hadn't run out of battery space then I would have posted a video of my slaughtering of "The Ace Of Spades". I also had a go at the vocals to Steely Dan's "Bodhisattva" which was also covered by Toto and I'd say their version's even better.

The plan for tonight is to enjoy my mince and bows as planned and see what all the fuss is about with regards to a "Snow Rave" taking place outside Harrow Halls later tonight.

The Uni building looks set to reopen tomorrow so I'll try and get in the library first thing and print out my tickets for Strictly Come Dancing at Wembley Arena.

Despite there being no lectures, there's rarely been a day that hasn't involved me getting up at stupid o'clock each morning.

Harrow's Winter Wonderland

Well it's official, we have been shut down.
Yes, all the campuses have shut down their buildings including Harrow including all the libraries.

It also means that the Smoke Radio schedule has been suspended meaning that no live shows will be going out until at least tomorrow.

I decided to go out and see what was going on and managed to see quite a few people enjoying the rare wintery conditions.

There weren't any of the first year radio lot out there but I did see flatmate John and a few others from 22 next to us, and JC and his mates in a snowball battle of some sort.

Here's a few more photos of what took place.



Dan and Sophie make their exit from the station with Dan being on the reciveing end.
(Only this time not for an award.)



The radio building in wintery settings.



JC and one of his mates in action.

The chaos has been spreading all over the country, especially in Central London where Chris's significant other Aoife was meant to be starting work experience at the BBC's film unit so she's still in Harrow.

Also, Soulful Scotsman Stephen is stuck in London and will have to stay in a hotel tonight after his shift at CNN whilst on an even greater scale, Phillip Schofield hasn't made it into the This Morning studio leaving Fern on her own and has spent the time up to stuff like this.

The broadcasting legend was voted as London's No.5 Twitter although I think he should be right up there at number 1 judging by his regular updates even whilst on This Morning and DOI.

As for the rest of the day I may head over to Chris, Stoobie's etc where I plan to show them the Harvey Goldsmith Big L documentary which I think should be compulsory for every Smoke Radio comittee to watch each year before they begin their roles, as it gives the perfect example of the wrong way to run a radio station.

As mentioned before I've seen several scenarios in that documentary take place within our station including bollocking a presenter whilst on air. Although in our case it was not one but two and such behaviour in radio is unacceptable even if you are one of the managers.

It should be a good laugh though.

A Slightly Delayed Winter (And Disruptions)

Everything is literally in chaos around here, lectures are off, deadlines on the Harrow campus have been extended and on a slightly lower note the Undercroft do tonight has been postponed.

This is due to the booze delivery and because the snow has put a halt to the running of transport.

It may be an ideal excuse to have the perfect staying in sesh after writing about an eighth of my lit review with a few DVDs as such as I'm almost done with the tidying and tagging.

It may also be the ideal excuse to enjoy an extremly warm mince and bows meal tonight which will be ideal in these conditions.

The station's still going with Smoke in full flow but I'd prefer to occupy myself with the above forms of entertainment, and barely any of the people on air today listen to me when I'm on air so it's putting the boot on the other foot in some ways.

To finish with, another photo, this time of a lot of halls occupants in the white stuff.

Winter Distractions

The snow has more or less been pouring whilst I've been in bed resulting in what may be the final time I see this sight whilst I'm at Uni.



I'm hoping this doesn't have an effect on tonight in terms of it buggering any equpiment up at the Undercroft but in terms of anyone not bothering to turn up because of the white stuff, there's no excuse.

From what I've heard, according to Stewart's blog all lectures have been cancelled today so it may mean that in terms of access to places we may be screwed to an extent.

This is making me feel reluctant to start writing my lit review but I'll probably make a start a couple of hours before Countdown as there's barely anything happening then.

To be honest though I've only really got one academic book worth including as opposed to all the television and radio based books on my shelf, because I have barely any idea on how to write a literature review I may have to review to the powerpoint presentation from the lecture last semester.

Here's hoping I get at least 300 words by today.

Video Post - Snowed Out

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTtf2TNiv4
(Contains a few naughty words)

"# I Really Can't Stay, But Baby It's Cold Outside"

I arrived at the house in Kenton in rather wintery conditions although they were only a hint as to what was to come later.

We were watching the pre-match analysis of the Superbowl on Sky Sports 1 to start with which included a special live performance by Journey and the superb tune "Don't Stop Believing".
I reckon that song should be the last one played at our Undercroft do tomorrow and the reaction will go down a storm.

I did however find out the Chelsea V Liverpool result, not too good with the red bastards winning 2-0.

At around 11pm we switched to BBC 1's coverage as hosted by Jake Humphrey and relayed the commentary from NBC.

As I've never seen a live American Football game before I can't say that I was fully converted but in the company of Chris, Denis, Barry, and Tudor it meant that the night was overall entertaining.

For those not familiar with the game, it's played in four quarters of 15 minutes each but that doesn't necessarily mean it runs 15 minutes flat. Oh no.

Every time a touchdown or a time out took place NBC's coverage would normally go to a break and it handed back to Jake and the two analysists for a couple of minutes before play resumed.

The halftime show was good however, consisting of a top performance from the Boss with tunes including "Glory Days" and "Born To Run".

We also had a bit of a laugh mainly at various Twitter messages including one from Greg James mentioning that he'd left Radio 1 which had me laughing.

Of course he actually meant he had left Yalding House as he was covering for Kelly Osbourne on the Surgery.

Why the got her to present the show I've no fucking clue, and the fact that she's been absent for months should be the perfect excuse to get rid of her permanatley.

As mentioned a few posts ago, in "The Story Of Radio 1" broadcast in 1997 former presenters Peter Powell and Adrian Juste mentioned that they never took holidays during their time at the station in fear that their jobs would be taken.

Back to tonight and during the final quarter, Phil H arrived back from work at Moons with Potty and Alice and around this time things got chaotic in the form of a snowball fight as it had really got deeper since I arrived.

And on that note here's a few photos of what took place tonight.



Tudor and Denis in a pre-match drinking round.



Chilvers getting laid back.



Tudor in celbratory mode.



The Moons lot arrive.



Alice clambers over Potts.



Anticipation in the last few minutes.

Things got even more chaotic after the game had finished as the snowballing ended up in the garden but Lottie and Alice decided to bottle it.

Shortly after I decided to head off as well but not before getting a phone call from Potty as she wanted all of us to meet her and Alice near the Chinese place in Kenton.

We knew that they were up to something and it ended up in a snowballing bout with not just them but Spikey G as well.

Below are some more photos of the snowballing.



Lottie bottles it.



The snowballing spreads to Kenton.

I decided to head back pretty soon after as I couldn't really have an all-nighter with tonight's Undercroft excitement taking place later.

As for now though I'll get some shut eye along with a bit of wireless, but despite it approaching 4am there won't be any Flash Flash-ing where I'm heading for.

"The Next Couple, Safe And Skating Next Week Is....... (Cut To Phillip) ....To Be Revealed After The Break!"

Tonight's goings on on the ice were pretty entertaining, nothing too spectcular but a Sunday night well spent.

Phillip was wearing a rather shiny jacket this week which according to his Twitter status made him look like Martin Fry from ABC, although the shirt and tie combination was still the same as ever.

This week's required element was the paired spiral a rather dangerous move that's already been done once or twice this series including by Todd if I remember correctly.

The programmes this week included Melinda Messenger and her partner Fred doing the Macarena on ice, Coleen Nolan been given the surprise choice of her own song to skate to, "I'm In The Mood For Dancing" which believe it or not is 30 years old this year released when Coleen was only 14 years old.

Anyway, Donal McIntyre and his partener were dressed as the Blues Brothers with all of Donal's supporters in similar attire, and Michael Underwood's routine almost didn't happen as during rehearsals this afternoon he accidentally dropped his partner.

As you'd expect the footage of the incident in the VT prior to the performance had me swearing at the TV screen.

Todd's programme this week wasn't as funny as last week's although it was entertaining as towards the end he started doing synchronised swimming moves on the ice along to the Police's "Every Breath You Take".

My favourite this week however was Jessica Taylor who was skating to Dee Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart" and the Liberty X performer didn't look that disimilar from the woman in the video in terms of her costume and make up.

In the audience this week were former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq supporting Zoe Salmon of course, Michael's girfriend Angellica Bell and Todd's children with their trademark "Flipping 'Eck Tucker!" t-shirts.

Judge Jason Gardner got drowned out by the audience booing during an overdose on negative comments toward's Donal's programme. If I was in his position I'd ask him to have a go on the ice himself.

Also, throughout the series whenever Holly addresses ice judge Robin Cousins, I always think she's speaking directly to me.
Probably a case of me going bonkers again but I'd imagine that's her saving grace on what's essentially Phillip's show as a presenter.

And in what will now probably become a regular feature of my DOI analyses,
my favourite voting analogies from Phillip this week:

"If Ray's performance of 'Smooth Criminal' stole your heart...."

"If Zoe's routine left you feeling 'Hot and Cold'...."

"If you're 'in the mood' to see more of Coleen and Stuart..."

"If you thought the ex copper in The Bill skating to the Police was entertaining..."

Tonight's skate off saw Melinda Messenger and Michael Underwood skating for survival,
and despite the fact that Coleen survived in the final 3,
at least it meant we got to see Melinda do her Macarena routine again.

Quite an interesting skate off as the professional skaters competing were married to each other.

And an even more interesting skate off as it was a tight vote off between the judges with Robin giving the deciding vote to Melinda and Fred.

Whilst it was good to see Michael being given a second chance in the series, I never really saw him as an overall winner.

Right now I'm about to head off to Kenton to Chris, Denis's etc for the Super Bowl, and if I arrive there quick enough I'll be able to see tonight's Match Of The Day 2 which features Chelsea's away game against Liverpool.

If you don't want to know the score, hot foot it now.

Half Asleep For The Second Time

My afternoon was ruined slightly when Keysurf decided to lock me out of my internet halfway through the afternoon.

I did what I normally do best and decided to go to sleep for two hours in hope that it would be sorted by then.

Surely enough it was and although it may not be good for by body clock, tonight I'll be spending the early hours at the "Big Gay House" where we'll be watching what will probably be my first ever live Super Bowl between The Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I'll probably bring some drink with me although I'll try and be careful what I buy.

I reckon I'll be off immediately after tonight's edition of Dancing On Ice and judging by what Phillip has been saying on Twitter it looks set to be good fun.

On the subject of Twitter I noticed that fellow radio student Eric (who barely has anything positive to say anyway) was moaning about those who make constant status updates whether they're just making a cup of tea or whatehaveyou.

Surely that's the whole idea of Twitter, and it fits in perfectly into my life (and many others) because of my interest of just writing down anything easy that I enjoy doing.

However last night I decided to blatantly have a light dig by Tweeting as I was putting my shoes on, having a shave and then heading for the door to go to the Undercroft.

Stoobie also has a few things to say on the issue at his own blog which has just launched.
It appears everyone's at it nowadays which is brilliant although Stewart's had a brief lapse into this in the past.

Let's hope this one becomes a regular thing especially with the semester being rather empty this year.

There's also an interesting post below about the University Rock Music society who invade the Undercroft once a month starting last Thursday.
I agree with Stewart's comments about their choice of music turning the regular punters off with regards to it being accessible as I really enjoy the genre but they need to make themselves more welcoming rather than act too niche for potential newcomers.

Then again is I tried to start a soul jazz society it would be on it's arse from the word go.

On a similar note the replacement for the Shuffle Boys before my show on Wednesday's will be first year radio student Max DMC who normally pre-recs a show that goes out on Saturdays.

The reason he's called "Max DMC" is because his preferred choice of song on Singstar is one by rappers Run DMC so I guess that's more or less stuck.

The show itself is rather dancey containing tracks by artists such as The Chemical Brothers and DJ Shadow so it will be good to see how it does in a live timeslot which is probably deserved.

I hope he'll be happy to compromise by the time I reach my final show in May but in all fairness he's got another two years on the radio station whereas I probably won't last another two minutes.

Also there were a few things last night that got quite a few laughs one of them was when I suggested that the nicest fella out of the first year radio lot Rob was the Jimmy Savile of the radio course. Yes he is from Leeds and has tiny hints of the man's voice but it resulted in everyone else being in stitches which I didn't think would happen.

I do think that he does look rather like Jason King, one half of radio duo JK and Joel who also hail from Yorkshire.

You can judge for yourself through this photo from last night where he can be seen on the right alongside radio partner Matt and Jadey Babes who as I've said before looks rather like Piella Bakewell from the latest Wallace and Gromit movie.



Chris Moyles used to refer to JK & Joel as "The Chuckle Brothers" when they
first joined Radio 1 but I reckon Matt & Rob fit into that title a lot better than they did.

Although if I had to be stuck in a lift with either JK & Joel or Greg James,
I'd be stuffed either way.

Sundays Define Soul

Another Sunday morning and plenty more musical delights courtesy of Robbie Vincent as always.

Highlights this week included a rare jazzy number by Seawind from the early 80s and a cover of Earth Wind And Fire's "That's The Way Of The World" by jazz guitarist Jeff Golub.

Not too bad a cover really, not as good as the stunning Incognito version but a lot better than the version by Dwele as featured on the 2007 release "Interpretations" containing quite a lot of inferior EWF covers in my opinion.

The overall highlight as usual was in the Sunday Long One which included a tune by Natural High which I don't know too much about, which was called "Dream Sequence" from their 2001 release "Pacific".

That's an album added to my Amazon wishlist for when I'm a bit better off in terms of bob although there are quite a few other items on the list which I added around two years ago.

One of them is "Creating Powerful Radio" by top US radio consultant Valerie Geller, another is "Media Law For Producers" which covers the grey areas (in my opinion) of using various material in productions, and "Cocktail 2000", an album containing loungey covers of songs such as "Parklife" by Blur, "Children" by Robert Miles and even "Encore Une Fois" by Sash.

Definitely one to get hold of in terms of amusement although some of the tracks may actually be really good.

The rest of today will consist of more tidying and tagging before tonight's edition of
"Dancing On Ice".
Who knows what the ex-Eastender will have in store for us this week?

A Scottish Institution

I've managed to discover the answer to a question that's been puzzling me
in the last week, that being the name of the theme tune to Glen Michael's
"Cartoon Cavalcade" on Scottish Television throughout the 70s and 80s.

The tune itself is called "Day Out" which was released on the Chappell Music Library
and was composed by noneother than Johnny Hawksworth.
The same man who did the theme to "Roobarb" and also the Thames Television theme
from the 70s and 80s.

It turns out that I already have a copy of Glen's theme on a compilation CD on my hard drive called "Natural Born Fillers" which contains music from other composers such as Roger Roger and James Clarke who's music was used on television quite a lot during the more nostalgic times.

It also turns out that the clip I posted of the remixed theme tune comes from nearer the late 80s/1990 when the show disapeared from Scotland's screens although Glen made
a resurgance on Saga Radio in Glasgow for a few years until they changed
to Smooth Radio two years ago.

When speaking to Stephen Howie on MSN earlier this week I mentioned "wknd@STV"
and just the mention of the title was enough to meet his disaproval.

In all fairness it's good that Scottish have put together their own strand for children but they could have found a lot better presenters.

It may be because all the good ones have gone to London as I've found out whilst I've been here.

More Than Just A "Big Phat Warm Up"

Last night at the Undercroft was a lot more upbeat than Friday, but these were completely different events.

I arrived at around 8pm and spent quite a while spinning the discs mainly consisting of EWF, an old brit funker by Level 42, a bit of Brazil from Marcos Valle and two tunes from Patrice Rushen which went down pretty well.

We also had a band performing in the bar who went down well, including an adlibbed rap about the game "Pro Evolution Soccer" which I believe Chilvers is a fan of.

The final record I played before handing it over to Chris and Phil was "Rock & Roll Part 2" which luckily, not many people knew who it was by. It's still a great tune however, regardless of what's happpened more recently.

Those in attendance included first year's Matt, Rob and Jade all but one from Leeds, Jake, Dean and Troy were also about, as was Oli P, as well as a few old bar staff including Craig who used to do CMP and Fish although surprisingly he wasn't spinning any records despite leaving his bloody great big CD wallet with him.

I found out that there have been quite a few more changes behind the scenes at Smoke as Troy is now only doing the one show, that being the Smoke Review with Dean and Rich which has now been reduced to an hour and goes out on Monday mornings.

Although the studio time's beyond our control I preferred it when it was on in a Friday afternoon slot and was a good warm up to the antics of "The Apple Bites Back".

Troy's other show "Open Mouth Insert Foot" with Will has been put on hold due to increasing pressures with coursework and two shows a week would be a bit much to handle.

Jade also appears to be going solo on her own show as co-host Ana has more work to be doing this semester.

She's rather nervous about meeting the challenge of 13 new tracks a week although I reckon the SU gets sent several CDs of new bands every week from record companies.

I'd reccomend speaking to Chilvers as well as I bet he knows a few pluggers from last year.

Anyway, A few photos of the goings on;



The birthday girl herself.



The infamous trio, Matt, Jade and Rob.



The two Robs (and this was my exact sight for part of the night)



Troy and Jake getting down to Seasick Steve.



DJ's Chris and Phil with Jake and Denis stood near the left.

As things really got going, most of us had a bit of a boogie including Sarah herself when they started playing records such as "Ooh La La" by the Faces which surprisingly I got rather into, and a bit of Seasick Steve which was superb.

Most of the music was prety much rock based with all the usual anthems such as Nirvana, Rage, The Foo Fighters etc.

There were also a few mash-ups including the pretty good one with Jay-Z and the acapella of Oasis "Wonderwall" but a few not so great ones such as Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" with the backing track of Fatboy Slim's "Praise You", The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" with Ini Kamoze's "Here Comes The Hotstepper" and a dubstep version of Cliff Richard's "Summer Holiday.

Quite a lot of them made my Incognito mash-up from two years ago sound like musical bliss.

Actually that's because it was musical bliss.

Ooh stop it!

Later arrivals included Mattie Bennett and housemate Mike who had been to see Seasick Steve perform live as well as Jim Chapman who's pretty confident about Monday and knows about getting the right people in when it comes to sorting a do out.

It's a bloody big line up as well but that's good as it means just about everything will be covered. We've got Mattie playing his indie/electro beats, Fiz with the grimey garage, Stevie McIntosh with the R&B anthems and Chris and Phil rounding it all off.

It all finished around 1am although we waited quite a while for Matt to come out.
Sorry, I shouldn't really have put it like that.

The plan was to head to a party at Flat 55 but I was rather knackered, it was absolutely freezing and headed off to bed.

I happened to have Tony Myatt's jazz show on Smooth Radio playing whilst in bed and woke up at around just before 7am half asleep. The duvets weren't in a heap surprisingly.

Whilst it's ideal listening overnight (even if owners GMG disagree) I don't like the fact that they don't have an ad-break before the top of the hour meaning that halfway through "On & On" by Erykah Badu the Smooth Radio TOH news jingle crashed over which caught me off guard.

I still think the best news jingle on commercial radio has to be Jazz FM's, as it starts off rather quiet and builds up to the main melody logo before fading into a bed.

Nothing heavy handed at all and doesn't catch you out when you least expect it.

And it's actually got a tune to it rather than a drone with a poncey V/O which goes "with the latest news and infomation!".

As I type I've got Tony Blackburn on until 10am when Robbie comes on doing what he does best.

I think his catchphrase has to be the link into the break which normally ends with
"You are gonna love it!" when talking about the next track without mentioning the name.