No April Fools

What a day it has been news wise. Firstly, during the day I was glued to the rolling news channels as they brought coverage of the G20 protests in London. Two thoughts ran through my head while I watched.

It must have been great being a burglar in London today. All the police seemed to be in the city centre.  And why were they targeting the RBS?  As a tax payer they own that building. Saying that, they probably don’t pay tax as they clearly didn’t have jobs to go to.

Watching the #G20 hashtag on Twitter provided excellent commentary while I watched the TV.

And then on my walk to work at around 2 o’clock, Twitter once again proved to be an invaluable tool for news coverage, breaking the story of a helicopter crashing in the North Sea a while before anyone else had it.

It didn’t take long for this story to over shadow my G20 watching.

It took a few hours for it to be confirmed that there had been at least 8 casualties (still the confirmed number at the time of writing) but by the time 7 o’clock came I was handling on air a massive tragedy to hit the North East.

Fingers crossed tomorrow is a little more peaceful.

The Original 106 Fugitive

The Original 106 Fugitive was let lose on the North East of Scotland yesterday, and after only 2 days, the hunt to find him is taking the area by storm.

Each day there will be differnet bounty periods where the Fugitive will be in different locations. Each bounty period has a clue with it. Find him within the right time and ask the question “Are you the Original 106 Fugitive?” and you could walk away with a wod of cash.  Today each bounty was sitting at £1500.

My involvement with all this?  Well, as well as the Fugitive featuring on my radio shows, I was also given the task of creating the Original 106 Fugitive “minisite”.

One of my proudest pieces of web work to date, certainly considering I was a bit rusty when it came to designing websites.  Also my first attempt at a Web 2.0 esque site.  After we got radio web wizzard Matt Degan involved,  the site was integrated into WordPress to allow the Fugitive himself to update the site, post photos and comments from wherever he may be hiding in the North East.

What’s also fascinating is watching Twitter to see what people are saying about the Original 106 Fugitive, and watching as they desperately try to locate him and win some money.  The Fugitive himself is posting after hacking the Original 106 Twitter page @originalfm

Will be interesting to see how the site pans out over the next few weeks.

Interview with Twitchhiker

Paul Smith (aka Twitch Hiker)

It has taken me a week to get this online, so I apologise, but it is my telephone interview I did with a man called Paul Smith.  He is better known as the Twitchhiker. It was broadcast on my Sunday breakfast show on Original 106 last week.

He is using the ‘micro blogging’ site Twitter to attempt to travel as far away from his home as possible during March.  He can only accept donations of accommodation and travel through people on Twitter, and he’s doing it all for charity.

For more information, you can visit http://www.twitchhiker.com

Snow in Aberdeen

Snow in Aberdeen

A bit more snow in Aberdeen again this morning.

The second night in a row on my radio show I have said “there won’t be a drop of snow in Aberdeen tomorrow morning”.  I think I will continue with ‘playing the hits’ and stop trying to ‘predict the weather’.

Eight Days A Week

Sunday morning in Stonehaven

Sundays are an odd day. Since being given the Sunday Breakfast show over a month ago now, my weekends have completely changed.

I’m rubbish with early mornings, which isn’t the best of starts when you are being asked to host a breakfast show.  No matter how tired I am, trying to get to sleep before mid night isn’t an option for me.  In fact trying to get to sleep full stop when I know my alarm is going off at stupid o’clock isn’t an option for me. I have this fear I will sleep through it, or my phone (which I use as an alarm) will magically stop working in the middle of the night (given the state of my phone that is highly likely).

Because of this I end up going to work on a Sunday morning having had about 1 hour of really light sleep.

So once I’m off air at 10am, I tend to head home and have my full 6 hours sleep and wake up at about 5pm in a complete daze, and my breakfast show feeling like it took place the day before. As a result, my sleeping patterns are completely messed up for the rest of the week. It’s a vicious circle and before you know it, it’s Sunday again and I’m once again getting up when the rest of the world is asleep (or at least that’s what it feels like).

I am enjoying the Sunday breakfast show though.  It is a hard show to do. I like to put 110% in to all my shows, but Sunday breakfast is just that little bit more demanding than the Monday to Friday evening show (which seems to role along for 3 hours a day quite happily).

On this mornings show I was quoting Bushisims. One of the worlds favourite comedians, George Bush, stands down this week to be replaced by a new president. While I don’t doubt Barack Obama’s ability to run America, I do feel American politics won’t be as funny as it once was (and I can’t help but feel sorry for the writers on Have I Got News For You).

Some of my favourite:

“For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It’s just unacceptable. And we’re going to do something about it.” –Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 2001

“They misunderestimated me.” –Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” –Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

Good luck Obama, you’re going to have a hard act to follow!

David

Christmas, Man Flu, the Internet and Marriage in an ice hotel.

And there Christmas goes for another year.  I’m back from Shetland after my few days break.  Shetland is really nice, but there is very little to do, especially at Christmas time.

Christmas was good, although quiet. I caught a cold man flu while I was there and are now suffering a little. Emma has no sympathy for me (she’s still not impressed that I left her for a few days).

It dawned on me while I was home that on Christmas day it would have been 10 years since I got the internet.  How times have changed. In 1998 we connected via a 19k modem to a local rate Shetland number to connect to the internet.  I was limited by my dad to 2 hours a week, although on Christmas day 1998 BT ran a special offer where all local calls were free after an hour connected. I remember spending the whole day on the computer (it did take a whole day to anything on the internet in those days).

Now a days I have super fast always connected broadband. Although I did get the impression that Shetland’s broadband network is slowly crumbling with the number of users (and BT are not planning on upgrading it any time soon).

In other news, Emma is already talking about marriage. We were watching a programme on BBC 2 where Joanna Lumley went in search of the Northern Lights in Norway and stayed in an ice igloo hotel. They have a marriage chapel. Emma has decided we’re getting married there. Better get saving…

Radio wise, filling in on Drivetime Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Give us a listen if you have nothing else to do, www.originalfm.com. Also on 6am New Years Day morning, I don’t expect you to be awake.

David

Flying home for Christmas

Off home to Shetland for a few days tomorrow.  Took the unusual step this year of booking the plane instead of the boat. I’m quite glad I have, the boat has had its fair share of cancellations in the last couple of weeks. The plane also has the added benefit of only taking an hour, versus 12 on the boat. I don’t mind the length of boat trip, I quite enjoy it at times, but when you are only home for 4 days it seems a waste of time.

I’m not sure Emma is too impressed that I’m disappearing for a few days, especially over Christmas.  We had our Christmas at the end of last week, spending a couple of days in Glenshee which is where the above photo was taken.  It snowed which was nice (but apparently it always snows in Glenshee at this time of year – it is a ski resort after all!)

Radio wise, Christmas is/was always my favorite time of year.  You get to hear your favorite presenters doing different shows at different times. With that in mind, here’s what I’m doing over the next couple of weeks.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of this week I’m on air my normal shifts 7-10pm.  (Despite being off to Shetland tomorrow, try and work that one out if you want).

Christmas Day/Boxing Day off.

Saturday December 27th normal shift of 2-6pm (including Aberdeen v Hearts live football).

Sunday December 28th, normal shift of Sunday Breakfast, 6-10am.

Monday 29th, Tuesday 30th, Wednesday 31st, Drivetime 2-7pm (looking forward to this one)

Thursday 1st January Breakfast, 6-10am. Working that early on New Years Day should be interesting.  Will sleep from 10am onwards!

Friday 2nd January, back to normal, on air 7-10pm.

106.3/106.8FM in the North East of Scotland and online at www.originalfm.com

David

Christmas Toy Appeal

If I were wanting to hold a meeting at work over the next couple of days I couldn’t, or at least I couldn’t hold it in the board room.  It has been taken over by toys. And that’s just a small selection of the presents that have been donated to our Christmas toy appeal.

We’ve been running this for the last couple of weeks on air. When you were out and about doing your Christmas shopping, all we asked is that you buy an extra gift to donate. Then thanks to the Salvation Army, Bernardo’s and Befriend a Child, all the presents will be distributed to under privileged kids of the North East of Scotland in time for Christmas.

If you donated, thank you, it was much appreciated.

A bit of Where’s Wally-esque fun now, can you spot my donation, Henry the bear?

David