Tag: people watching

Being A Radio Star

ADVANCE NOTICE (if I were a taxi driver or someone who wrote roadworks signs, that would say ADVANCED NOTICE, but I wish to give you prior notice of something, not notice of something at a higher level).

Advice From The LSG

Studio Set Up

The Lifestyle Support Guru will be offering advice during DODO’s radio programme on Tuesday, October 24th. This advice is in response to a listener’s query, advice which I hope she will find useful when she hears it. Her anonymity is guaranteed (I am the soul of discretion, Debbie of Willington).

However, I am not writing about the query, because that would spoil your enjoyment, dear listeners; no, I wish to let you know about the trials and tribulations I had to undergo in order to record the said advice. It is not just a case of sitting in front of a microphone and speaking – oh no, nothing so simple, beloved believers!

Recording In The Home Studio

Let me set the scene:
DODO has his room set up as a mini recording studio and tells me he will do the same to mine so that we can speak to each other while recording. This involves:
i) Running wires for the microphone and headset from his room to mine via the hallway and over my door (he LOVES wires!)
ii) Almost yanking my head off my shoulders as the headset wire catches on his sleeve as he leaves my room
iii) Telling me he can hear the traffic outside over his headphones – I close my window
iv) Telling me he can hear a clock ticking in my room – I hide the clock under the duvet
v) Telling me he can hear Molly purring (she’s sitting on my keyboard) – I hide Molly under the duvet

Once we have finished the recording, I ask if the wires can be removed because Molly (who has found her way out from under the duvet) is now looking up at them in a very interested way and I can see her calculating the shortest distance between the wires and the bookcase (which I now wish I’d fixed securely to the wall). Luckily, her attention is caught by her tail (which she’s had all her life, but which still seems to take her by surprise every couple of days) and we are able to remove the wires without any problems.

As I write this, and while enjoying a cool glass of wine in the pub (well, it IS Saturday night after all), DODO and I have been having a little discussion about the other customers in the bar. Far be it from us to be judgemental, but our original opinion that they were ‘very special needs’ has been revised downwards to ‘excluded as soon as they started in Year 7’.

Now, back to my original topic – ADVANCE NOTICE: every Tuesday, 7-9 pm (UK time), David on  http://in2derby.co.uk/ playing some wonderful music and featuring the LSG!! (Only available on t’internet at present.)
Turn on and tune in!
PS The Excludeds have gone out for a ciggie – I feel like I’ve gone deaf!

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged…

It is difficult to concentrate on reading one’s book about unicorns, ogres, wizards and the like when the conversation next to you in the pub is so fascinating.
Picture a group of about ten people – ranging in age from early twenties to mid-fifties – arriving and settling down close by, resembling rejects from EastEnders with Derbyshire accents. The younger ones (all male) are already arguing, which doesn’t bode well, and one of them is clearly VERY annoyed and, in a whiny voice, keeps telling another in the group to stop being so selfish and to leave him alone. His cause is not helped by his having a squint, so you can’t tell who is the recipient of his remarks. It becomes perfectly clear, however, that none of them paid much attention during Literacy Hour because they only seem to know one adjective (it begins with ‘f’), which they share liberally around them. Or maybe their Literacy Hour teacher also had a limited vocabulary?
At first there is only one woman in the group, but another soon comes along and greets one of the younger males with great delight, saying that she hasn’t seen him for ages before asking him how he had got on in prison (which may explain why she hadn’t seen him for ages). He replies that it was OK, but that he got bullied a couple of times. (He also mentioned something else beginning with ‘b’ that happened to him a couple of times, but I don’t think that’s a topic for polite company.) Now, I don’t consider that I was a ‘weak’ teacher in my former life before I took on the mantle of Lifestyle Support Guru, but believe me when I say that even I would have thought long and hard before contemplating taking on this fine young specimen of manhood – at least two upper teeth missing, a tattoo or three, and a vocabulary where the only word of more than one syllable begins with ‘f’ (see above).
A problem for the LSG then arises upon realising that a visit to the Ladies is needed – but what should be done about the mobile devices – tablet, phone, mobile Wi-Fi device and mobile phone charger (I like to cover all eventualities) that are lying on the table? Rather than packing them all away and taking them to the toilets, thus signalling to the group that I don’t trust them not to snaffle them all while I’m out of sight, I take a deep breath and turn to one of the women (she was the closest) and ask, ‘Would you keep an eye on these while I nip to the loo?’ She gives me a big smile and replies, ‘Of course.’ And yes, dear readers, I married that woman! Ha ha! – of course I didn’t, but I have to admit to a tiny sigh of relief that everything was still there when I returned to my seat. (Mind you, I also checked that they all had full pints when I went to the Ladies, which they’d have had to have drunk before bundling up all my technology and legging it!)
And there you have it, Beloved Believers – never assume that people who look like villains really ARE villains. They may just be rejects from EastEnders. Back to the unicorns, ogres and wizards…

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Faithful Followers.
(There’s someone looking over my shoulder as I write this – I wonder what he’s thinking…)