I am sitting in the inner sanctum of The Mothership, minding the Radio Tea continuity suite on a lazy Sunday afternoon. After being here for four hours, I have absolutely no idea if there is sun or rain outside, owing to the lack of windows in here. Except for one large, soundproofed window which separates me from the very nice announcer. We have one desk and one playout system each. Between the two of us, our job is to broadcast one programme plus one trail and open one mic fader per hour.
Well, I have not been in here for perhaps a couple of years, but comfortingly absolutely nothing has changed. The announcer has been asking for my help with Word Code from The Tempo newspaper. Lying on the desk in front of me are some channel markers written in permanent pen on camera tape in my own handwriting, created some seven years ago. You sometimes find that when it has been over an hour since you set up the next tape to play in – and your brain has been addled by crosswords and lack of vitamin D – that they can be strangely reassuring.
After a few hours of all this you cannot help feeling like your personality has morphed into that of a twitchy librarian. Kind of sedate yet highly strung all at the same time, taunted by the fear of imperfection.
In high contrast, I was in Nate’s Fave this morning banging in a lot of short records, trails, jingles, news junctions, segues, fading presenters and reviewers up and down whilst mixing two bands live to air without a bead of sweat. Funny old world. Ooh good, teas up.
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