Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The perils of late-night broadcasting...



This week and next I'm on the late-night Radio Scotland shift, from 10.30pm until 12.30 am. It's a strange business, as without even thinking about it I've found myself adjusting voice and tone to the new time... it's a much more measured, laid-back kind of broadcasting, more intimate, less...breezy.
It is knackering, though, when you're not used to it, and especially with the light nights and early dawns of midsummer in Shetland. Monday and Tuesday, I've been staggering to bed about 1.30 am (I always wake up the dogs when I come in, so they need to have a run), and then a full blast of sunlight usually hits my face about 5.45 am. Still, the programmes themselves are really enjoyable to do. I like having a guest who's on for a good while and prepared to chat at length about music, life, the universe and everything. First two were excellent - former footballing ace Pat Nevin, a lifelong, very erudite music fan and the complete anti-stereotype of the retired footballer, and Lawrence Donegan, former bassist with the Bluebells and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, now an author and the Guardian's golf correspondent.
Alas, no calls of midnight intimacy a la Play Misty For Me! Rest of the week is fairly frenetic - today, midsummer, I'm on air most of the afternoon with Claire English and Mary Anne Kennedy, with live music from The Radiocroft courtesy of Malachy Tallack. Tonight, the 10.30 show comes from Lerwick with live music from Sheila Henderson, tomorrow we have Mark Radcliffe from Radio Two, who is in Shetland for midsummer, and on Friday Roddy Woomble of Idlewild, with the fiddle player John McCusker. Probably no time or space for 'Misty' after all...

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