As suspected, my latest career move into radio at BBC Lancashire (Grin & Tonic with Nic and Gem, Sundays 4-6pm – blatant plug) has not been straightforward but what it has been is an absolute blast.
My shy and retiring co-host Gemma Ray (aka the work wife), and I (not forgetting to mention our work daughter – producer Sophie) are absolutely loving the show which we have managed to broadcast without major error for five whole Sundays now.
LISTEN: Grin and Tonic 15/09/19
The station has not gone off even once, we’ve only forgotten we are live on air a couple of times and I’m sure the travel bulletin journos in various BBC locations around the country don’t mind being faded down accidentally once in a while.
Ah yes, and apologies to the cricket commentators who are now fully aware of our complete lack of knowledge of the game.
But if they must have games on a Sunday what can they possibly expect?
And the evacuation on week one was NOT our fault – and it was lovely to meet the local firefighters .
The nature of radio being what it is – only one person can ‘drive’ the radio desk so Gemma ( with a decade experience in radio) has been taking on that bulk of that role as she is a self-confessed tech geek, with an app for every element of her life and has never been seen without a bag containing eight different coloured wires and multiple screens.
Much as I love technology myself I cannot profess to be a natural so my technical introduction to what my newspaper colleague kindly calls ‘my side hustle’ will more organic.
For some reason Gemma seems a bit nervous of handing over the buttons over to someone who took two left trainers to a Race for Life run and hid her all her important keys in her own house so effectively they are still missing.
Not sure I understand her point.
Anyway, I am having a fabulous time with the show and we have had some great guests – who knew you could have so much fun with strangers in a small dark room surrounded by glass?
Excitingly in the next few weeks we are doing our very first outside broadcast which will be – erm – interesting.
You can’t break airwaves, right?
This first appeared as my Jabbering Journo column in NW newspaper titles including Lancashire Post
