All of my blog posts this year have been composed from busses. I’ve decided to write this post somewhere different than a bus to see if it alters the way I write at all. See what you think. I am writing this post at the Sage theatre in Gateshead, in the cafe area, about to do a rehearsal.
The Young’uns
got an invitation to be on the soundtrack of a film that apparently features
David Walliams,
Vick Reeves,
Catherine Tate,
Miranda Hart
and
Harry Hill.
Apparently we’re singing a duet with Vick Reeves about stinky pirates with hairy knees; as you do.
I don’t think we’ll actually be meeting Vick Reeves; I think he’s recording his bit in London. I’m sure he’ll be very disappointed when he finds out that we’ll be recording our parts in the North East,.

So that’s the “Vick Reeves, hairy knees” part of the title explained. The weakest link” part is to do with a radio link that I heard while in a taxi last Friday afternoon. It was the link just before the news, and the presenter obviously wanted to try and do a clever segway between the last song (the Scissor Sisters and I don’t Feel like Dancing) into the news bulletin where the main story was the overthrowing of president Mubarak in Egypt. I don’t have a recording of the actual broadcast and so I’ve re-enacted it for you with just a tiny bit of extemporisation and exageration.

On a “weakest link” theme, my friend Ben went to Anne Robinson’s house on New Year eve as part of his band who were asked to perform for the guests. Unfortunately they didn’t use “the weakest link” theme as a riff throughout their songs which is what I would have done.

And you thought I was just an ordinary bloke. O no, I’ve got friends who play gigs at Anne Robinson’s house, and my band are singing a song with Vick Reeves about Stinky pirates with hairy knees.

We record the song for this film on Tuesday so I’ll tell you more about it in my next post.

It was around this time last year when myself and
fellow Young’un Sean Cooney
were working on a community arts project, going into some of Hartlepool’s primary schools to teach children about the history of Hartlepool. Regular listeners to the
Young’uns podcast
Will be aware that Sean works as a community artist, going into schools to teach sea Shanties and traditional folk songs.

The Young’uns
have been involved in a number of educational projects, teaching children about the history of Hartlepool and working with the children to create songs about what they have learned. We also take the children to visit old people’s homes and local churches to meet with Hartlepool’s older residents. The children ask questions about how their home town used to be and what has changed. This is obviously a valuable experience for the children and a tremendously rewarding one for the older residents, who relish the opportunity to impart stories about their own childhood.

At the start of 2010, Sean was commissioned to work on a project that taught primary school children about the history of Old Hartlepool; They were then helped to write songs, poems and stories about what they had learned. The children also interviewed Hartlepool’s older residents. Sean also got them to act in a traditional folk play known as a Mummers’ play. I was commissioned to record the whole thing and compile it all on to a cd.

We will be recording new Young’uns podcasts soon but I thought that since we’ve got loads of material we haven’t released yet, it would be sensible
To release these podcasts first before recording new episodes. Next week, we release a podcast that covers the Hartlepool Tall ships festival that occurred last summer, but this week we release the cd that covers 2010’s community arts project: Hild’s Tales: stories of old Hartlepool through music, drama and oral history.

This wasn’t originally intended as a Young’uns podcast but as a cd which was sent to the funding body who supported the project as evidence that we were doing our job; so you’ll hear a much more serious David Eagle than you normally would.
Click here to listen,
click here to download.

Well, you can’t say that this blog doesn’t have variety;
My last post was a DJ mix
and this week it’s a community arts project featuring primary school children. What will the next post bring? Will I be on a bus? Find out, soon!

So here it is, the first ever David Eagle’s Pick and Mix, just in time for the new Chinese year – the year of the rabbit, which should be manner from heaven for the promotions team at Ann Summers.

56 songs in a 40 minute mix. A DJ set that is designed to celebrate the universality of music: no genre dictations or restriction about the time period of the music. This is not a DJ
Set for the club; this is a DJ set for your ears, for your soul. I’m not trying to impassion you to char char slide to my beats, or wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care, or “oo oo” to the rhythm. I’ve just realised that I’m probably coming across as a pretentious snob, but the point I’m trying to make is that this is a mix designed for the music fan: someone who doesn’t bass their music preferences purely on a cultural identity – because a certain group of people say that a certain song or artist is “cool” or “the latest thing”.
My last blog post
was a fairly extensive explanation of why I wanted to release this project, so I think the best thing to do now is to just give you the links to listen and download and hopefully enjoy what I’ve put together.

I’ve provided a full tracklist of the music featured in the mix. There is also a link to a free Spotify playlist that contains most of the tracks in the mix. Not all the tracks are hosted on Spotify but I thought it would be good to provide a playlist with those songs that Spotify does have because a lot of the tracks are only featured in the mix for short periods of time and are generally mixed with other songs. Plus if you don’t enjoy my mixing, you can hopefully at least hear some quality music that you might have not heard before.

So then, here it is: David Eagle’s Pick and Mix: Episode 1.
Click here to listen
Click here to download.

And now on to the tracklist:

Eastenders theme
Sergei Prokofiev – Montagues and Capulets
Xzibit – X
J-Kwon – Tipsy
nina simone – feeling good
Bentley rhythm ace – bentley’s gonna sort you out
James Brown – I Feel Good
Chemical Brothers – Music Response
Flanders and Swann – The Wompom
Pendulum – Slam
Queen – We will Rock You
C. C. S – Whole Lotta Love (Top of the Pops theme)
Faith No More – Epic
Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On
Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child
Negativland – Moments to Remember Raining Hard etc
Dream Theater – Home
The Flashbulb – Kirlian Shores
System of a Down – Arto
The Offspring – Pay the Man
Bjork – It’s Oh So Quiet
Venetian Snares – Boarded Up Swan Entrance
The Flashbulb – My Life of Loving Ghosts
House of Pain – Jump Around
Bubba Sparxxx – Ugly
Kid Carpet – Jump
OPM – Heaven is a Halfpipe
CKY – Quite Bitter Beings
Papa Roach – Last Resort
Daft Punk – Oh Yeah
Soulwax – Too Many Djs
Aquabats – I fell Asleep on my Arm
Korn – Freak on a Leash
dizzee rascal – Fix up, Look Sharp
RUN-DMC – Walk This Way
Justin Timberlake – Like I Love You
Focus – Sylvia
Max Tundra – Labial
The Beatles – A Day in the Life
Dusty Springfield – Son of a preacher man
Buffalo Springfield – For What Its Worth
Skee-lo- I Wish
The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
Kelis – Milkshake
High Rankin – Dont Carry On Like A Rude Boy when Daddy’s got a Yacht
Pendulum – Set me on Fire
BT – Every Other Way
Crosby Stills and Nash – Carry On”
Gorillaz – 5/4
Canned Heat – On the Road Again
Booker T & The MGS – Green Onions
The Mojo Men – She’s My Baby
Kansas – Carry on Wayward son
Muse – Knights of Cydonia
Wolfmother – Woman

————

You can hear a free Spotify playlist
Featuring many of the tracks in the mix
Here.

That’s all for now. I already have the next mix entirely planned out in my head, but I think the next project might be the first
Youngun’s Podcast
of 2011. I’ll be back with a blog post (probably written from a bus) very soon.

When I was around six years old, my nana worked in a news agents. My brothers and I would often go there when she was working. She probably harboured the grossly inaccurate illusion that we went there to see her, whereas the reality was that we went for the free sweets. Working in the news agents, she got a sweet allowance – these were decadent times. My brothers would always have a systematic approach to sweet picking; they had specific preferences, but I would always go for the Pick and Mix option and select sweets at random. Being blind, I was able to put my hand into a jar and put a sweet into the bag without having much of an idea as to what it was. I loved the surprise element: putting my hand into my random bag of sweets, unaware of what I was about to receive. Would it be
chocolate, candy, something liquoricey, fruity or an explosion of fizz? I loved the variety, the contrasts of taste, texture, shape and size.

Nowadays I don’t really eat sweets, but I do listen to a lot of music. Music today is what sweets were to me when I was six.
Often my approach to listening to music is the same as my approach was for making a Pick and Mix. I have a large music library: thousands of tracks in every genre from any period of time. By pressing the shuffle button on the player, I get a randomized selection from my library. I also use Napster which sometimes adds tracks to the playlist that it thinks I might like, based on the kind of music I have in my library. As I have every type of music in my library, Napster usually gets very confused and starts playing any old rubbish, assuming that just because I happen to like one specific NSYNC track for its production, that I will inevitably like to listen to a Westlife hit. Now and again however it does present me with an undiscovered gem. The experience is the same one that I used to get from pick and mixes when I was younger, only now it’s with music.

When I was about ten, my dad discovered this local record shop that sold old second hand vinyl and cassettes. He would sometimes go in their and brows to see what they had. This was in my opinion the perfect opportunity for me to spend my pocket money. I had no idea what I was looking for. I taped all the songs I wanted which were in the charts from the radio, (along with a few of my favourite time checks of course). There was a section of the shop that sold records and tapes for
£1 or less. I would immediately head to this part of the store and select a handful of records. I had no idea what was on the records, I would just choose randomly. I would then take them straight to the counter, without letting dad see, and buy them. The reason I didn’t want dad to see was because I didn’t want him to know what I’d got before I did. It had to be a total surprise.
I wouldn’t know what the record was until it was playing.

I loved the whole experience: sitting cross legged on my bedroom floor with a pile of records, taking the record out of the sleeve, putting it on the player and then dropping down the arm to reveal …

Rolf Harris, singing about Jake the Peg with his extra leg. I’d never heard that song or of Rolf Harris before that moment. I remember hearing it and instantly falling in love with it. It felt as if I’d had a kind of epiphany. One minute earlier, I was a stupid, naive ten year old boy. Then this happened. I was now truly a man. I loved that record: Rolf Harris’s greatest hits. I thought Rolf Harris was a genius. The first track was Jake the Peg, and as Rolf Diddleiddlummed, I laughed loud and heartily all the way through the song. The second track was Two Little Boys. I remember being very moved by this song; I might have even cried. I was astounded by the brilliance of this man, whose name I didn’t even know yet because I hadn’t found out what was written on the record sleeve. One moment I had been laughing raucously to Jake the Peg, and then, a couple of minutes later, I was wiping the tears away as the sounds of Two Little Boys entered my ears for the first time and moved my soul. I’m sure you all remember where you were when you first heard Rolf Harris. I certainly do. It was a magical moment, one of many magical moments that my random record purchasing gave me. I wouldn’t say I’m a massive Rolf Harris fan now, but at that moment, sitting on my bedroom floor at the record player, I was spellbound.

I mentioned in a
previous blog post
that I used to love listening to the radio at nights for the same kind of reason. I used to switch over to the shortwave band and start moving the dial to see what I would find. Shortwave is nothing like
FM; you don’t know what you’re going to get. There’s about ten stations on FM and hundreds on shortwave. YOU rotate the dial on the FM band and you get the same old recognised stations, but rotating the dial when you’re tuned to shortwave is a very different experience, a magical experience. The sound that the radio makes as its tuning is a sequence of beeps and crackles, as opposed to the fairly prosaic hiss of FM. You only have to touch the dial when you’re on the shortwave band and that slight touch can tune you into a completely different station and into a completely different world. One moment you’re listening to an enraged American evangelist damning you to hell unless you send him money, then you touch the dial ever so slightly and you’re listening to a French radio drama with Lesbian sex scenes; then the sound of a Mongolian throat singer, belting out the popular Mongolian hits of the day. Again, it’s the randomness of it all, the surprise element that I loved. I got that same feeling with my random record selections,
Although disappointingly I never managed to procure a record with a Lesbian sex drama on it.

I love the concept of DJing for the same reason: mixing different tracks into each other to create a musical collage. But I often get board of a lot of DJs because they generally play only a certain type of music: They’re either a drum and bass DJ or a dance DJ or a Hip Hop DJ etc. Their DJ sets are usually designed for clubs, for people to dance to. This dictates the style of the DJ set. The tracks are often 4/4 and have a similar tempo. I want a DJ to create mixes that take on all genres and provide constant surprises for the listener. Notice I wrote listener, not clubber; I want a DJ set to be like hitting the shuffle button on a massive, diverse music library and playing the randomized selection as a continuing, structured mix. This brings me to the point of this blog post – we got their in the end.

David Eagle’s Pick and Mix is a DJ set that features all types of music, embracing anything from any period of time. I’m putting the finishing touches to my first mix and I’ll release it in just a few days. I’m slightly wary of this project because it’s unlike anything I’ve released before, but it’s an experiment I’m excited to try and I hope that we’ll go on this musical adventure together. I’m not a professional DJ, but I wanted to really try and mix the songs together, rather than just segway from one song to another. This isn’t just me playing my favourite records. I am not just picking and playing songs. O no. I am mixing them into a crazy, multifascited, all encompassing thirty minute mix. That’s my plan anyway. Wish me luck! Standby!

O well, I tried, but its back to the usual, standard, boring titles again I’m afraid; But at least I’m still blogging from the exciting locations, as I write once again from the x9 bus. I’D like to make a personal plea to Father Christmas: Can you please, next year, deliver pairs of ear phones to all the kids in the northeast of England? Please! there’s a whole orchestra of kids with mobile phones blurring out generic dance music. The vehicle is awash with hi hat and bass drum – without the bass element because the phone speakers don’t actually bother with bass. What’s going on? I assume that what’s going on is quite simply that a load of ignorant teenage tossers (Nice bit of alliteration there, I hope you appreciate the poetry) think it more than appropriate to play their music to the rest of the bus. But perhaps I’m doing these people a huge disservice. There could be a more enlightening explanation. FOR all I know, the experimental composer
John Cage
might have got on the bus a couple of stops earlier than me and initiated a group of teenagers to take part in one of his new masterpieces. Perhaps I am the odd one out here. Being blind, I could be totally oblivious to the scene around me:
john Cage, stood purposefully at the front of the bus, waving his arms, conducting his teenage entourage to choose a generic pop song stored on their phones, then start, stop, change tracks, turn volume up and down in accordance with Cage’s arm movements. There could be a whole film crew recording the event for BBC 4, and in the background there’ll see me – the odd one out – sitting there looking annoyed about it all, ruining the subtle nuances of Cage’s experimental musical epic with my typing noises as I write this post. Then, after the piece has ended, John will walk up and down the bus, signing autographs for excited teenage fans who babble enthusiastically to John about the dubstep remix of
4’33” …
But I doubt it.

So, There’s a group of kids at the back of the bus, all with phones. One of them is playing some hip hop loudly, another one is joining in, trying to get some MCing he recorded himself doing earlier to fit to the beat of the other kid’s music. Then there’s another kid, using his phone to provide visuals. He’s showing a video of him and his mates doing “wicked, ollies” and various other stunts on their skateboards.

My annoyance is heightened by the fact that I’m running late today, thanks to radio 4. My dad listens to The Today Program on Radio 4 in the mornings. I personally wouldn’t choose to do this; I find it upsetting enough to have to get out of a nice warm bed each morning, without having to listen to half an hour of doom, death and destruction while I’m getting ready to leave the house to go to my job that The Today Program informs me I’m unlikely to have for much longer. But, Radio 4 is what’s on around the house and so that’s what I hear when I potter around. The redeeming feature of The Today Program however is that it does give frequent time checks. My particular favourite is “quarter past seven” as said by Sarah Montague: very arousing! I know I’ve gone on about how I hate radio that comprises mainly of time checks, weather and travel, but I was referring then to the commercial radio format. Radio 4 is different; their time checks are highbrow.
Normally, the time checks are a useful aid to me leaving the house on time – what an ingenious strategy: using the time checks to keep me running on time. Actually, its not really the time checks, its more the various items like the sport, Thought For the Day or a trail that helps me orientate how long I’ve got before I leave the house. Unfortunately, Radio 4 failed me today, as the Today Program seemed to be running behind schedule. The sport and the trail must have happened at a later time and I was probably pottering too loudly to hear the time checks. So I missed the bus, and now I’m late. I have no idea why Radio 4 was running behind schedule; I only switched on at 7. Anything could have happened. Perhaps Thought for the Day was hosted by a rabbi with a severe stutter problem, and the presenter – afraid to offend – didn’t have the heart to cut across him.

I thought that seeing as I’m sitting here on the bus, just twiddling my thumbs – I better stop doing that actually because it’s making it a great deal more difficult to type- – I’d write a post about a strange, coincidental scenario that happened to me a couple of nights ago. Its only a very short story, so I’m quite glad that I am running late and that the teenagers on the bus are so annoying because it’s given me something extra to write about.

When your a high flying, high-profile role model like myself, it’s important to maintain one’s physical prowess, so I make sure I regularly exercise. On this night, I started off my exercise with some star jumps. My dad came into the room while I was star jumping and switched on the TV. He then made a sound of exclamation – I’ll leave you to imagine what kind of sound that might be: a gasp, a shout, a sharp inhalation … I don’t have a specific memory about it; I hope that doesn’t ruin your enjoyment of the story. The reason for this non-specific sound of exclamation was to do with the highly unlikely correlation between
me and the TV. Apparently, the picture that came on the television at that moment was of a man in y Fronts doing star jumps. I wasn’t wearing y-fronts but I was doing star jumps. “What a coincidence”, I’m sure that’s what your all thinking. I’m not an expert in the field of probability and even if I was I doubt a credible answer could be given to indicate the probability of this situation happening. If there are any maths geniuses reading – perhaps taking a light, refreshing break from a calculus conundrum – maybe they’d like to investigate this question. I suppose you’d have to work out (on average) how many TV programs at that given time of day are likely to be showing men in y-fronts doing star jumps. Then you’d have to calculate the likelihood of people, oblivious to what is about to greet them on their televisions, while they partake in a spot of star jumping. in front of their televisions. Is there a famous film that has a man star jumping in y-fronts? Maybe I’m missing something obvious. There’s all sorts of random TV channels on cable and sky nowadays, there’s probably a station dedicated to men star jumping in y-fronts. Don’t worry feminists, I’m sure they’ll commission a similar service with star jumping women soon; its only a matter of time, surely. If any maths geniuses do get in touch, I’ll be sure to upload their thesis on the subject to the blog, so watch this space.

Well, there you go. End of story. I’m not sure what the moral is. I’ll leave you to decide that. Perhaps it’s: “I should really stop wasting my time reading this blog”.

Anyway, I’ll be back very soon with the first episode in a new audio series: David Eagle’s Pick and Mix! All will be revealed in my next blog post, coming soon!

so then, here I am, back in 2011, with new, improved and even more original blog post titles. In addition to the innovative blog titles, you can also expect posts in 2011 to be written from a number of exciting locations, thanks to the fact that i now have a netbook as well as a portable writing device tailored for blind people which writes in Braille. In case you are a new comer to my blog (one of the newly converted – now that I’ve become the latest fashion -) i am blind; I’m not just some weirdo who likes to use blind technology because i get a strange kick out of it, although admittedly, Braille is rather arousing.

currently, the exciting location I am writing from is the x9 bus, travelling from Gateshead to billingham. But that’s not the end of the adventure, o no. I will then be getting on the 36 bus at billingham and travelling to Hartlepool, where I live. In fact, it is very probable that the majority of my blog posts will be written from the x9 and the 36, so you’ll definitely be wanting to save this site to your favourites list.

i am currently travelling to and from Gateshead five days a week, in fact, shockingly, i spend nearly 24 hours each week travelling on busses. Are you shocked? Thought so. A whole day a week travelling on busses. When i made the calculation, I was … well … shocked. I decided that i couldn’t afford to waist all that time doing nothing and that i should really do something valuable with my time on the bus. So I’ll be writing lots of blog posts; what could be a more valuable use of my time than that? its a good job I don’t have comments enabled for this blog, isn’t it? O yes, of course, you can’t respond. But if you could comment then I know you would all be writing, begging me to enlighten you as to why I am spending such a large amount of my life on busses.

In addition to doing the odd bout of freelance work, i had been looking for other work, unrelated to broadcasting and production. Until a few months ago, my attempts to procure such employment had been fairly fruitless; I seemed to have an uncanny knack of ballsing up job interviews. I once got an interview for a job in Wales. For the benefit of any blind people reading this post with a screen reader, or for those people listening to the audio book version – there isn’t one yet, but it’s only a matter of time– I’ll point out that this is “Wales” the country, not “whales” the mammal. I wasn’t applying to play the lead role in a crazy production of Jonah, alongside a director with a frighteningly overzealous passion for method acting. I wouldn’t want you to be thinking that. I thought I better clarify that, in order to avoid being attacked by blind animal rights activists
(that’s blind people who are animal rights activists, not animal rights activists who only feel duty bound to kick up a fuss about the treatment of bats, voles and suchlike). O, have I drifted off the point a bit?

Anyway, I attended a job interview in Wales. I was only in the room for less than a minute before I realised that my fate was already sealed. I didn’t do anything wrong, apart from not being welsh. As i opened the door and stepped into the room, I was received by a woman who greeted me in welsh. I was slightly flummoxed by this but thought it appropriate to extend to her a greeting in the English tongue. Alas, she did not share my sentiments. She muttered something which sounded rather derogatory in what I assume to be Welsh – It might have been Klingon for all I know – and tutted.

Question 1: “You have been asked to arrange a meeting for some of our clients based in South East Wales. Ideally the area you choose would not be too populated, yet would be easily accessable by rail and bus. As our clients might be staying for the whole week, it would be wise to book somewhere that has a range of varying attractions and leisure opportunities. Can you tell me your top 3 choices, and why you’ve chosen them? o, and it should be a place that doesn’t contain the letter y or l and yet is made up entirely of consonants. o and we want a place free from English scum, like you!”

I feel a bit ridiculous saying this, and I know its really embarrassing but: Welsh geography isn’t my strongpoint, in fact I’m more or less clueless. There, I’ve said it! I gave an unnecessarily lengthy answer for what was essentially, “i don’t have a flipping clue!” I was starting to get the niggling feeling that they might prefer someone Welsh.

question 2: “Spell the railway station Llanfairpwll­gwyngyll­gogerychwyrndrobwll­llantysilio­gogogoch, then recite it backwards to the tune of the Welsh national anthem”.

i’ve exaggerated ever so slightly for comic effect. (I hope it worked) but it was starkly apparent that they wanted someone welsh. She treated me with such distain; It was as if I’d defecated on a statue of SHIRLEY Bassey, Charlotte Church, Thom/Aled Jones, or one of her favourite and most revered Welsh icons. I didn’t get the job by the way.

So here I am, on the x9 bus, travelling back home from Gateshead after a day’s work. I may at some point expand on the full-time job I’m currently doing. At the moment I won’t go into the details about where I work and what i do, largely because you probably won’t find it interesting – although that’s never stopped me before – and because I like the idea that I’m leading a double life. I feel all mysterious and enigmatic leading this double life which has been aided by the work’s IT coordinator – clearly unaware of The Young’uns Podcast, the Southside Podcast, Davideagle.co.uk etc – registering me in the computer system as “Davis Eagles”. This means my email address is “Davis Eagles …”. I am also in the work’s phone directory as Davis Eagles, and if anyone external to work calls the main switchboard and asks for David Eagle, there’s a pause and then the caller is informed that no one of that name works here, although there is someone under the name of “Davis Eagles”. THIS error occurred on my first day. I notified the person responsible about it, but they didn’t seem to deem it important to reinstate me on the system with the correct name. So in the end, I gave up, and now everyone at work knows me as Davis Eagles. So i spend a third of my life travelling on public transport and a quarter of it existing under a different identity. I’m going mad. SOMETIMES, in a certain situation taking place outside of work, i might stop and think: “now, what would Davis Eagles do if he was here”; Well he wouldn’t be writing this drivel., that’s for sure

I’ve got a lot of exciting plans for this year. The big news is that the Young’uns podcast is set to make a return. The other big news is: so is the Southside Podcast! (no, only joking Alex.)
I’m also working on something completely different to what I’ve released on here before, but I think it will be a really fun project for this year. I intend to release the first episode in this new series next week, so all shall be revealed very soon. And now, having hopefully managed to stir at least a modicum of intrigue and excitement within you, I say goodbye.

There are two reasons for writing this blog post. The first reason is just to inform you that
“”The Young’uns’
latest album, ‘Man I Feel Like a Young’un’ is not only available to buy in CD form via our
“”online shop
but is now also available to download and stream from various digital music sights like
“”ITunes,
“”Napster
and
“”Spotify.

If you click on any of those above links, it will take you to the album page for that corresponding sight. You can even listen to the album for free if you click the Spotify link.

So that’s the first thing taken care of. But that’s by no means the main, important reason I’m writing this post. O no. As the title of this post suggests, the main purpose for writing is to update you on matters regarding “Sir Patrick Moore and lesbians”. Currently at the time of writing
“”my last blog post
ranks sixth in the Google search results for “sir Patrick Moore Lesbians”. This will not do! I want to be number one. I’m up for a fight. I won’t be taken lying down – which just so happens to be the opening line from my aforementioned erotic fantasy novel about Sir Patrick Moore and lesbians, ‘The Thighs at Night’. I can’t say much more on the book at the moment, but it’s all very exciting.

I’ll keep you abreast. … Ooo, that’s another line from the book.

P.S. Sir Patrick Moore lesbians, Sir Patrick Moore lesbians, Sir Patrick Moore lesbians, Sir Patrick Moore lesbians, Sir Patrick Moore lesbians,
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Right! That’s got to do the trick. That’s got to get me to number one for the search “Sir Patrick Moore lesbians” surely!

P.P.S. Being blind, I have a screenreader to read back what I’ve written. The sound of the speech synthesiser repeatedly saying “Sir Patrick Moore lesbians” is both hypnotic and strangely erotic, and I like it! Perhaps I’ll put some music over the top of it and release it as a download. I’ll send you the Napster, ITunes and spotify links when it’s released.

So then, this is the first paragraph. As mentioned in previous blog posts, the first paragraph is normally superfluous and serves as a way of helping me get into the flow of writing. There are probably a number of regular readers (ever the optimist) who simply skip the opening paragraph and get straight to my flow; and what a flow it will be. But for now, this is the first paragraph and I’m still revving up to that moment. But that’s OK. What’s the rush? We’ll get there. In fact, I can feel the flow coming. To be honest it’s quite a disconcerting feeling and it’s one of the primary reasons why I’m such an infrequent blogger. OK, brace yourselves, it’s flow time!

It was just over three weeks ago when I first attempted to tell you the reason why I left
“”Southside,
but then I got a little sidetracked and started rambling about lesbians and
“”Sir Patrick Moore.
(not that the two subjects were connected to each other in any way. Although I suppose since I’ve now mentioned Sir Patrick Moore and lesbians in the same sentence, this blog post is likely to come up in the top ten results for anyone doing an Internet search for “Sir Patrick Moore, lesbians, which is something I’m rather proud about. If you have found this blog post by searching for “Sir Patrick Moore, lesbians” then I’d like to say Hello to you, you strange creature, but I’m sorry, I don’t think this blog post will really satisfy your perverse needs. If I do find that there is a demand for it however, I might compose some erotic literature involving Sir Patrick Moore and lesbians, and upload it to this blog for you. But in the meantime, I’ll tell you why I left Southside. Feel free to stay though. Wow! I might have stumbled on a new career as a niche erotic author, writing about sir Patrick Moore and Lesbians. I’m getting quite excited about the prospect. I’m going to race through writing this blog post and then get straight to work.)

At the end of my last blog post,I was working for Southside, and things were going pretty well. I had helped them increase their transmission range quite considerably, from a couple of beds in a hospital to the entire world via the Internet. Not a bad start. I’d also started producing adverts for the station, promoting various businesses which made the station a bit of money. again, not bad going. I then began presenting the Southside Podcast and was getting quite a lot of good feedback for it. Things were going well. I didn’t have to play generic pop music. I didn’t have to mention the weather or traffic/travel, or give constant time-checks. We featured interviews with fascinating people, reported from a wide range of exciting events and locations, and I was allowed to say and produce stuff that I thought was funny, and most of the time my humour and style was corroborated by our audience and Alex, the station manager. There were times when Alex would suggest that I maybe shouldn’t have said a certain thing or done a certain feature, but then this was usually when I’d get an email or a comment from someone saying that they especially enjoyed that very same thing; and of course, I would always heed the person telling me how good it was and inexorably do more of the same the next week. I generally got away with it though. People enjoyed it, and the podcasts sounded really good and fun. I respected Alex’s view when he would comment that I maybe went over-the-top or said or did something he didn’t think was funny or of any value, but I took it with a pinch of salt. This wasn’t because I was arrogant, but because I knew the type of media he liked and the type he really didn’t like. he didn’t particularly rate
“”Chris Moyles
or
“”Jonathon Ross,
who I had a lot of time for.
He hated
“”Russel brand’s radio shows,
whereas I personally thought they were refreshingly anarchic, exciting and
unique in a world were broadcasting was starting to become more distilled and homogenised. So I didn’t really get upset or dissuaded by his negative comments because I knew that he wasn’t going to like some of the things I did and said because of his individual taste. But it generally wasn’t an issue. I tended to get away with it, plus I got enough positive feedback to quell any fears that Alex’s opinion conformed to the opinion of our audience. And I got away with it for 86 weeks and 86 podcasts, and then someone complained. I made reference to it in
“”this blog post
but I didn’t mention the issue in any detail. I was told to remove the podcast and resubmit it with the offending item omitted. Since I’m not working for southside anymore, I have no reservations about showing you what the offending item was. So, if you’re willing to risk being offended
“”click here.

Of course, this gave Alex ample opportunity to bring up all the other things he didn’t like about my presentation style. I could sense the storm clouds looming. Things were never the same again. I was getting some really good feedback from listeners. In fact, people were commenting that the podcasts were getting better and better, but it seemed as if every single podcast I did from then on would be followed by more criticism from Alex. I played my
“”Leona Lewis Parody
on a podcast, and I got a phone call from Alex, telling me that there is no room for such content on the podcasts, and that it wasn’t at all funny and that I should leave the parodies to Chris Moyles and his ilk! Alex used to have a habit of ringing very early in the mornings. Often I was just getting up or was still in bed when he’d phone, and so his increasingly frequent negative phone critiques were becoming my regular alarm calls. I remember this particular morning call distinctly because I’d just woken up and I had a long, stressful day ahead of me, full of things that I really didn’t want to do. I had just managed to motivate myself to get out of bed and face the day when I got Alex’s call telling me how rubbish I was. he obviously didn’t say those exact words, but that was generally the vibe I got from the calls. He tended not to address his views against me as an opinion but as an obvious fact that I really should have known myself. So when he told me that my material was rubbish, a part of me started to believe it as fact. He would almost suggest that I should be able to regulate myself, and automatically know that what I was creating was pointless and unfunny. I didn’t personally see that this was possible, since the material that he tended to hate was the kind of material I and others liked. But these frequent criticisms were really starting to grind me down. I would sometimes dread checking my emails in case he would have sent me a written version of his thoughts, so that I could keep it and read it if I ever dared to get a little positive about myself. The day after this particular phone call, I was tentatively checking my emails and saw a message from an address I didn’t recognise. The message was titled ‘The Latest Southside Podcast and the Leona Lewis Parody!” I sat there for a few minutes, bracing myself for the negativity that was about to greet me. “I’ll read this email which will confirm my ineptitude and then I’ll resign from Southside and forget this radio presenting nonsense forever” I thought. I mentally prepared myself for the abuse and then opened the email.

“Can I have a signed copy of Bleating Love as sung by yourself… it was great, it really made me laugh. I nearly crashed the car, I was laughing so much.” 

(You might think it’s a bit sad that I’ve got all this saved on my computer, but I want to assure you that this is not the case and that I found the email by doing a search for it in GMail. Glad I cleared that up.) So, it wasn’t a negative comment after all. Instead of resigning from Southside, I became more defiant. Alex’s opinion was just that – his own individual opinion – and I would no longer take his point of view as fact, no matter how he tried to put it across to me.

On the 90th Southside Podcast we had an interview with
“”Groove Armada
and
“”The Nolans.
Alex made a comment to groove Armada that they should collaborate with the Nolans. Obviously their styles of music are rather divergent. A jocular response was given to this suggestion from groove Armada. I decided therefore to try and persuade Groove Armada to take Alex’s suggestion seriously and enthuse their imaginations about how such a collaboration might sound by creating a
“”mix which blended the two groups together.

When I played this out at the end of the 90th podcast, I got a morning phone call from Alex telling me that the mix didn’t work, and that it wasn’t really necessary. I tried to ignore this assessment and to keep believing in myself and my judgement. Sure enough, I got an email from someone, saying how much they liked the mix. So I got more defiant. I would keep going, and do what I wanted, and what I believed in.

Then there was the 98th Southside Podcast. I’m sure you all remember it word for word, but just in case you don’t, there was an interview with a man who called himself a “Systems Management Engineer”. (Don’t ask). he was going on about how he hated people who used confusing language, lengthy complicated sentences and long words to describe things. He reckoned that things should be as least various as possible so as to make the point simple to understand. “A sound idea” you might think, but he tried to support this thinking by reading a long, various quote from an 18th century philosopher. You can hear what he said, and my opinion on the matter
“”here.
We then got an email from the man himself, complaining that he had been misrepresented. I was a bit baffled as to how I could misrepresent someone by playing exactly what he had said, word for word. So I’d misrepresented him by playing a recording of his own voice, saying his own words, in the very order he said them, within the context he made them? But Alex didn’t see it from my perspective. Still, I wasn’t to be concerned about that. And so, like the heroic protagonist (or idiot, depending on your view) that I am, I overreached just a little bit more, and managed to receive yet another complaint in the 99th podcast. Two complaints in the space of two podcasts. Now I must be getting good! The main point of this rather lengthy complaint was (funnily enough) to do with (you could say) a fledgling attempt at erotic fantasy – a genre that I am soon to perfect with my stories concerning Sir Patrick Moore and his active interest in lesbianism. We featured an interview with a science fiction author who was talking about people who were obsessed with Doctor Who. He said that people who had an abnormal obsession with Doctor Who were termed “Whomosexuals”. So I followed this up by imagining an erotic scenario involving Daleks, as anyone naturally would do. But for some reason, this wasn’t deemed normal or acceptable and there was a complaint. However, I did again get another email from someone redressing the balance, saying that they had enjoyed that part of the podcast. So I obviously became more defiant. Don’t worry, we’re nearly at the point where it all goes horribly wrong, and I get my just desserts. Incidentally, you can hear the offending items from the 99th Southside Podcast
“”here.

But they couldn’t stop me now, surely? I’d done this for 99 podcasts. It was quite a while before I finally recorded the 100th podcast. I probably should have made this my swan-song. A lengthy imagined erotic scenario involving the Queen and the Pope should have done the trick nicely I think.

Then I decided that the southside Podcast really deserved a bit of a makeover, a revamp. So I created a new opening jingle for the Podcast, changing it from the plain old ‘Southside Podcast’ to the new and improved title, ‘The Southside Podcast with David Eagle’. I think, to be honest I was just trying to see what it would take to make Alex crack and get rid of me once and for all. I was “crusin for a bruisin” which I believe is a line from a Shakespeare play if I remember rightly. Alex protested at this change of title, but I was still in a position of power. I was doing a lot of work for Southside and not really getting much money for it. Alex didn’t really have any idea of how to upload podcasts, plus he didn’t have the means or skills to edit a podcast together in the way that I was doing. Then the 102nd Southside Podcast came. My final Southside Podcast. There was a report from the London Boat show that I was given to play out on the podcast. This I duly did, but when the report ended I dissected the whole thing and tore it apart. One of the interviewers kept asking a sailor questions about being a salesman. Alex did an entire interview with someone, constantly getting his name and the name of the company wrong, and failed to mention what the company actually did. There were loads of other mistakes that I played and gave mention to. I did this because I thought it was funny. Alex was often calling me up at 7:30 in the morning to criticise me, and so I thought it only fair that I should do the same, only make a funny feature of it on the podcast. You can hear this podcast and my open critique
“”here.

This was the last Southside Podcast I ever did. I didn’t release another thing on Southside for about six months. Alex didn’t let me release another Southside Podcast, although he was happy to give me a load of editing to do. He gave me a load of reports and interviews to edit and upload to the website. He wanted me to edit them and then upload them as individual files, rather than packaging the items together into one podcast. I wasn’t getting any money at all for this and so I essentially became an editing slave. I wasn’t allowed to speak or produce anything, but I was expected to sit for hours listening to Alex’s voice, editing and uploading the content. This was no fun at all. I was doing quite a bit of freelance work at this point and so when I’d finished working for the day, the last thing I wanted to do was sit for a couple of hours, editing Alex.

Then I got an email from Alex. He said that I could do another podcast series, but that I must keep it simple and not decorate it with any features or “humorous” content. He suggested that I go for the “vanilla” approach. It sounded utterly boring to me, but I thought I’d give it a go. So I released
“”the first episode of the Spotlight.

Because I wasn’t allowed to do any features or extended items of my own, I decided to take on some of the interviewing duties. But there’s little point mentioning this podcast too much, since it only lasted for one episode. I was happy with the first episode. I felt that both Alex and I did a good job on it. While Alex was positive about my interview, he made no bones about telling me that the podcast still suffered from my attempts at humour. “Very disappointing” he wrote. I was working on a couple of projects at this time, and things were going really well for me. I was getting really positive feedback for some production work I was doing, which I was actually getting paid for. After reading Alex’s email, I suddenly came to a realisation. I didn’t need it anymore. southside and I had grown apart. Where once we had worked together, benefiting from a symbiosis where I was allowed to broadcast in my own style, and I allowed Southside to actually broadcast to a bigger audience than just a couple of hospital beds. This partnership worked really well for a few years, but then we both outgrew each other. So I sent Alex my resignation email – which wasn’t at all unpleasant – and I’ve not heard from him since. I sent the email in Mid May, so that’s four months ago.

I’ve just had a look at the Southside website, and they’re doing really well. I personally feel really well and am doing some production work, and some other jobs unrelated to radio. And so the story has a happy ending for all concerned.

So there you have it. Thanks for reading to the end. IN fact, as a reward for all your hard work, my next blog post will be an erotic story about Sir Patrick Moore and lesbians. ‘The Thighs at Night.’ Standby for my first exciting story in the series in which sir Patrick turns from respectable star gazer to filthy bra gazer. But now I’m off to post this. Maybe I should do some research into what legally constitutes character deformation, just to make sure I’m allowed to write this sort of stuff and post it to the Internet. … Nah! I’m sure it’ll be fine! if I end up in court, at least I’ll get some publicity from it. I’m sure Sir Patrick would be thrilled and honoured. He might even agree to read the audio book version, or play himself in the television drama. Now there’s a thought. Things are really picking up a pace. I’d only conceived this idea a few minutes ago. This is how J. K. Rowling must have felt when she came up with the concept for ‘Harry Potter’. Maybe this will be the new ‘Harry Potter’. A cinema blockbuster. Wow! I suddenly feel like my life is meaningful at last. I’ve discovered my great purpose in life!

I’ll keep you posted. Bye for now!

P.S. Sorry for the length of this blog post. I’ll try to write something a bit more substancial and lengthy next time.

Every time I write a blog post I always suffer from the same problem. Once I get started writing I’m fine. I can easily think of things to write. I always find it difficult knowing how to start. I sit at the computer for ages without writing anything. I’ve tried to just type the first thing that comes into my head, just to get me going, but generally the first thing that comes into my head is something completely inappropriate that is best left in my head for all our sakes. My theory is that if I start writing, then my brain will eventually kick in and I’ll eventually start writing something semi-decent. Then I can go back at the end, delete my warm-up introduction and replace it with something amazingly genius. The trouble is however that I tend to forget that part of the process, and so my first attempt remains.

anyway, this should be the point when my brain kicks in and I start writing something amazing and hilarious. … Failing that I could always tell you why I left
”Southside.
What a great idea.

firstly, I’ll try and summarise my time at Southside, starting with my first experience of the station. In case you haven’t read
”parts 1
”2
”and 3
of this epic story, we’re currently at the stage where I’ve tried to apply to numerous hospital and community radio stations in order to gain some live radio experience, but have been turned down on the basis that I am blind. I was also getting increasingly disillusioned by my visits to these radio stations, as they seemed more interested in time checks, traffic and weather reports and playing moreorless none-stop music in between. I wanted to do so much more than that. So imagine my excitement when I discovered Southside.

I rang the hospital radio station and explained who I was. I wasn’t a celebrity back then you see. Alex, the manager of the station arranged a time for me to come in and sounded enthusiastic. I hadn’t heard any of the station’s output so didn’t know what to expect. I probably expected another experience similar to my previous experiences, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I assumed my first experience of the station would be a brief introductory meeting with the manager. This had been the case for all the other stations. So I prepared myself for half an hour of discrimination and possibly a bit of uninspiring talk about how radio was all about weather, traffic, one minute generic links, and made-up texts from invented listeners. But no. This experience was completely different.

I entered the hospital and located the radio studios. I knocked on the door and was ushered into a cupboard by a teenager. The door was then closed behind me, and I stood opposite a man, seated behind a mixing desk. I was just about to say something when the man spoke.

“Well now we have David Eagle with us who is visiting the station for the first time. Would you like to take a seat David and ask our guest a question?”

This was more a statement than a question, so I sat down in the cupboard, which I realised was obviously actually a very tiny radio studio, and looked around to see where the guest was. There wasn’t anyone else in the studio. I was beginning to think I’d accidentally stumbled in to the section of the hospital that treats the mentally ill instead of a radio studio. I did however recognise the man’s voice as that of the station manager. There was a pair of headphones in front of me. I quickly put them on and spoke in to the microphone, wondering who the hell I was speaking to.

“Hello” I said. Always a good opener I’ve found.

“hello” came the voice at the other end.

There was a pause, and so I proceeded to ask my question.

“How are you?”

“very well thank you” came the response.

Then there was another pause. I waited for a few seconds expecting the station manager to take over, but he didn’t. “Maybe I should ask another question then” I thought. “Who are you” didn’t really seem appropriate, even though that was what I was thinking, as well as “what the hell is going on?”

“So, what have you been up too today?”

“Well” came the voice in my headphones, “we started filming the new series of ‘the Sky at Night’ today which was very exciting” …

”Sir Patrick Moore?
I was talking to Sir Patrick Moore?! There was a pause. It didn’t seem like Alex, the station manager was in any rush to ask anything himself and so I continued. At least I knew who I was talking to now.

“So, what can we expect from the new series then Sir Patrick?”

he started to talk. I was only half listening. I was stunned. I’d literally just walked in the building two minutes ago. I expected a general introduction with the station manager, but now I’m sitting in a cupboard with a mute radio presenter, interviewing Sir Patrick Moore on the radio over the phone.

Alex eventually took over the reins and continued the rest of the interview. After a few minutes, Alex bid Sir Patrick Moore goodbye and put on some music.

“Welcome to southside” he announced,. It certainly was an unorthodox introduction, but now I assumed we’d have a little chat about the station and where I would fit in etc. Alex didn’t seem to think that was immediately necessary. He announced that he needed to go into the other studio to retrieve the phone number of the next guest. By the time he got back there wasn’t time for any off-air chat. The song finished and Alex introduced the listener (and fortunately this time me) to the next guest. I think it was some woman I’d never heard of talking about her cosmetic products or something. I’m not an expert when it comes to cosmetics. I’m just lucky to have been gifted with the kind of face that really doesn’t need any enhancing. I was however prompted to ask the lady some questions and so I conducted my second interview. I’d been trying to get some radio presenting experience for years but to no avail. Now here I was on my first visit to the station talking to Sir Patrick Moore and a random lady about cosmetic products.

Then the programme ended. Finally, I had a reasonably sane introduction to the station. The meeting went really well. I was encourage to produce jingles and production items for programmes and they were enthusiastically received and played out on the station. Within a month of signing up to join the station I was co-presenting with Alex, interviewing all sorts of people. I spoke to
”Nicholas Parsons,
”Sir Jimmy Savile
”and David Vine.
We regularly spoke to television director
”Graeme Harper
Who was directing the new DR who television series, and had also directed DR who in the 70s. These are just a few of the celebrities we spoke to. You can check out the vast and varied array of guests by listening to the back catalogue of over 100 podcasts. I’ll package all the podcasts together in one place at some point, because the website that hosted the podcasts has been taken over, and the main homepage has disappeared. It’s probably a ploy against me. The Internet is conspiring to purge me from it.

So, we’re interviewing all these amazing guests every week. We’re producing some really good content. My production material is being played out on the radio, and everything is going great. But then I make a shocking discovery. In order for the station to survive, it needed a little financial assistance. Every week the station would conduct a raffle to raise money for the station. Someone would walk around the hospital wards selling raffle tickets. One day the person who usually did this duty wasn’t available, and so I took on the role. I went around the wards telling people that we were raising money for the hospital radio station. Some of the people I spoke to commented that they weren’t aware there was a radio station in the hospital. I went round the whole of the hospital selling raffle tickets and discovering that no one knew there was a hospital radio station. I maybe came across a handful of people who knew that there was a radio station in the hospital, and this was merely because they’d been told the week before by the man selling raffle tickets. It became clear that no one in the hospital was listening. No one knew there was a hospital radio station, and if they did know then they had no idea how to listen to it. Since the station wasn’t broadcasting on FM, the station was only being transmitted to the hospital, so that meant we were sitting in a cupboard on a weekly basis, talking to amazing guests like Sir Patrick Moore, Sir Jimmy Savile and Nicholas Parsons, and there was no one listening and appreciating it. It seemed like complete madness. The station manager had managed to accumulate all these brilliant contacts and bring them on to a fantastic radio programme, but hadn’t managed to accumulate an audience. We were basically having private conversations with these people.

This realisation led me to set up the Southside Podcast. Now we’d gone from broadcasting to ourselves in a cupboard, to broadcasting online to the world. Not bad going really. I was already doing a few bits of Voice Over and production work and getting a tiny bit of money for it, so I decided to see if it was possible to expand this with Southside. We found a few companies who wanted to sponsor us and I wrote, voiced and produced adverts for them. This gave some extra revenue to the station and myself, and brought in a lot more money to the station than the raffle. So things were on the up. I’d now taken over podcasting presenting duties and was co-presenting the interviews with Alex. We seemed to be getting listeners too. Plus I was even getting some money for my work. So where did it go wrong? Why have I left Southside. Well it’s getting late and … etc. I’ll be back shortly to talk about that, but we’ll leave the story there on that incredible cliff-hanger.

I’m away all this weekend doing folk stuff, and so sadly you won’t get the rest of the story till sometime next week, so don’t wait up for me OK?

byeeeeeee! xxxoMIA

It’s the final part of the epic trilogy. Perhaps when I die they’ll turn this into a film, like Lord of the Rings. It would be a challenging project to undertake. As long as they keep it true to the blog. I don’t want to be portrayed as a hobbit. Anyway, it’s time for me to actually write about the thing I planned to write about when I started my post two days ago. If you haven’t read
Monday’s and Tuesday’s blog posts, then I recommend that you do. There’s so many things you wouldn’t understand if you just started reading from here. So many thematic elements that are interwoven throughout the texts. There’s a very complex story ark going on. Even Noah would find himself a bit out of his depth. So give it a good read. Take your time to digest the information, and come back when you’ve recovered from the emotional rollercoaster.

So we’ve established that I want to work in radio. I had done since I was really young. I’d been wooed by quality bbC comedy, and creative radio presenters. I’d also been inspired by the production of radio. I wondered about How the sound effects were designed for science fiction radio drama’s such as Doctor Who, and the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. The great thing about radio for me was how you could be transported to another world without any effort on the part of the listener. Television never really did that for me. Obviously being blind I couldn’t engage with the visual aspect of television. But that wasn’t the only reason I loved radio and not tele. The television could only show four channels, and often they didn’t show any content late at night, or the content they did show wasn’t really tailored for a blind person, although I’m sure many of my friends probably appreciated late night channel 4 quite a bit. Televisions were bulky. Radios could be tiny. You could listen to a radio late at night with headphones on under the bed clothes and no one would know. You couldn’t do that with a television. Radios had much more than four channels to offer. You had loads of stations on FM, medium wave, long wave and even shortwave. You couldn’t get any of that on tele. Imagine all the things I discovered about life, all the new worlds that were revealed to me as a ten year old boy just by listening to the radio late at night.
My ears were Opened up to a world of astonishing music thanks to
”BBC Radio 1
with
”John Peel.
Flick the dial and you got satirical comedy (most of which went totally over my head, but I loved it anyway) from
”BBC Radio 4.
Move away from the bBC and you got late night local commercial radio. Nowadays it’s generally all automated music being played out by a computer all night. In those days however you got late night phone ins. And the phone in presenters didn’t have to try and be unbiased like on the BBc. O no! They were opinionated, loud, brass and arrogant, more than happy to be controversial or a complete arsehole to gain listener reaction and ratings. But the programmes made for fascinating listening. Again, my ears were opened to a completely different world. People would talk about the issues of the day, their relationship problems and sex. . Sometimes the calls were funny, sometimes they were sad, and now and again there was the poor old, depressed lady who just wanted her life to end. You would get to know certain characters. If a particular person hadn’t rang in to the show for awhile, people would ring in to ask where he/she was and if anyone had any information. The shortwave frequency boasted every type of radio station from every place on the earth. There were French radio dramas. In fact I remember tuning into a french radio station one night to hear the sound of two women groaning. At first (being younger than ten at the time) I assumed perhaps they were in pain, but as I listened longer I realised that they were very much enjoying themselves. I got my first sex education lesson about lesbianism thanks to French shortwave radio. I was also the only person in my class to be so fluent in French. Sadly, the teacher wasn’t impressed by me knowing the french for dildo. Still, you never know when such information might come in handy. There were also a plethora of right wing Christian radio stations from America. Imagine me as an impressionable pre-teen, channel hopping between French radio dramas about lesbian sex and a gruff American man shouting at me about how I was damned for hell if I didn’t send him money. All this has helped shape the David Eagle you know today … Which explains a lot.

“So what has any of this got to do with why you left
”Southside?”
Patients, I’m getting to that. My point is that the reason I got into radio was so that I could be a part of all this. I wanted to weave myself somewhere into the great tapestry of radio. Does that sound pretentious? Good! So I grew up listening to radio in all it’s forms and this inspired me to present something that maybe would enthral someone else, like I had been enthralled. And that’s what inspired me to work in radio. And that’s what inspired me to write my radio drama all about lesbian sex at just the age of twelve year old. So now we get back to the story of how I tried to get into radio, and how I increasingly became disillusioned as I was turned down from joining radio stations because of my blindness. Radio had always been a source of security, friendship and inspiration to me, but now it was turning ugly. I started to hear more and more presenters who got on my nerves. Cringe-worthy clichéd presenters with their affected radio voices and their generic links. I wanted to do something inspiring and interesting, but they wouldn’t let me in. Then to top it all off, I go into the studio of a local community radio station, only to be told that quality radio wasn’t inspiring witty presenters, astonishing music like what John peel played, nor was it speech based broadcasting were listeners were invited to interact. Apparently real radio was one minute links consisting of time checks, made-up weather and traffic reports, and text messages that were merely invented by the presenter, accompanied by repetitive playlisted pop music. That one station manager with his fake radio voice and his obsession with weather and time checks nearly destroyed my desire for working in radio with his proclamation of “That’s Radio”. But then I found Southside! We got their eventually.

But it’s getting late and I’ve gone on a bit longer than I expected. So I’m going to get to the point tomorrow. Maybe. I’ll definitely be back tomorrow, and I’ll try and get round to explaining why I left Southside. I know that this means I can no longer call this a trilogy, and I may have just sacrificed my chances of this being turned into a film as a result, but never mind.

I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, why not pour yourself a glass of wine and chill out in front of a shortwave radio set. You never know, you might find a french radio drama containing lesbian sex scenes.

P.S. In case you’re interested, the French for dildo is godemiché, from the ancient Latin word for dildo godemichus, just in case it comes up in a pub quiz or something.