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

Starting Afresh

I’ve decided to start afresh with this blog.  For various reasons.

Mainly, the last blog was 2 and a half years old (which in the world of David Lewis is quite a long time).  Things have changed quite a bit in the last 2 and a half years and quite frankly some of those really old posts make me cringe.  I have kept those old posts just in case I ever decide to write memoirs in years to come.  I’ll maybe go through them one day and decide which ones the world can see again, but for now they are hidden.

I’ve also moved the blog over to wordpress.com, it’s a bit like Flickr, but for blogs instead of photos. Why?  Well like Flickr, I could have put all my photos on my own website, but then no one would ever have found them.  Stick them on Flickr and suddenly people find them.  It’s the same with blog postings, I hope.

I’m going to try and do something useful with davidrlewis.com. Possibly a website which promotes me as a radio presenter, TV production graduate and freelance grass cutting. That is work in progress.

And maybe I’ll blog a little more than I used to. I’ve promised that before, and it is yet to happen.

David

Dr Karl

Everytime I meet a “celebrity” I end up having a little bit of a smile on my face for the rest of the day. I’m sure it is something that will soon wear off after a few years in the radio industry.

Today was the the turn of Dr Karl Kenney from Neighbours (his real name is Alan Fletcher, but he answers to Karl).  What a nice and friendly man.  More than happy to take part in anything you asked him, and more than happy to get your photo taken with him (take note Noel). I suppose he thrives on this sort of thing.

The work load has been increased recently. I’ve gone from 14 hours on air a week to 23 hours (if only it was in one go, I could host nearly a whole day of Original 106).

You can now hear me,

Monday – Friday, 7 till 10pm.
Saturday, 2-6pm, the Saturday afternoon sports show (hosting a sports show still amuses me slightly).
Sunday, 6 till 10am, Sunday Breakfast (strangely was a really good experience despite being up at ridiculous o’clock on a Sunday morning).

106.3/106.8FM in the North East of Scotland, or www.originalfm.com if you want to listen online.

David