First night nerves

I’m sure that’s all it was because today went very well. It was my second stint as a presenter and I managed to get everything in the right order and didn’t forget to press the sound buttons. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There was one time I didn’t but that was because the person reading didn’t gesture. Anyway, it was a slight hiccough and I took the rap.

Oddly I had two women both called Christine. In general terms this is, of course, not odd at all but when you have to introduce the readers to your listeners, saying Christine, Richard and Christine feels odd to me. Actually it was a pity Richard wasn’t a Christopher. I missed a trick there.

Today I was presenting the Haslemere papers (12-4 shift…which is actually 11-4 given I need to be an hour earlier than everyone else). There were a few funny things that happened.

When we read pieces that feature a website, we only read it out if it’s essential, the reasoning being that a partially or non-sighted person may not be interested in it. We prefer to use telephone numbers. However, with more websites being accessible to them, a few of our listeners voice activate their computers and surf quite easily. So, generally the rule is phone if there is one, website if that’s all. Generally, though, not both.

Well, clearly Richard doesn’t understand this because every time he had a contact, he’d read out the web address followed by a phone number. And every time he started up with his “www.” Christine would shake her head with disapproval, staring down at her next story. He couldn’t see her and just ploughed on. Before my next session, I’ll have to mention to my next lot of readers not to do it.

Anyway, it was quite funny. For me on the other side of the desk, it was like watching tennis. Richard starts the url, Christine shakes her head in a return volley.

The other thing is Richard doesn’t edit very well either. His pieces go on and on. I think I might mention this as well for future sessions. No-one wants to listen to screeds of numbers in a story about council profit and loss. A few maybe but not screeds. Actually, I’m not sure I know how many are in a screed. Must be quite a few though.

I managed to get a fantastic laugh at the end of my sport report this week (I’m amazed anyone actually listens!) when I read out a headline I’d saved for last. It was about a 10km bike ride. The guy who won was Patrick Bell and second place went to Bill Ferret. The headline read “Bell chased by Ferret”. Genius. Though I missed a great opportunity to sign off with “…but now it seems the ferret of time is about to chase us out of the studio, giving us just enough time to say goodbye. So it’s goodbye from Christine…” So, not quite comfortable yet, but one day I will be.

I’ll have a listen to the recording when it arrives and maybe (just maybe) I’ll post an excerpt.

I took the poodles to the park early this morning and I thought the Queens Bottom was looking particularly nice.

Carmen leads the way across the Queen's Bottom