The Matthew Hansen Blog

It’s been a busy two weeks. Two shows have been transmitted. So, what happened during these two shows? Well I’ll tell you.

FRIDAY 13/11/2009

Friday the 13th. The day associated with everything crashing around you. Strangely, for the Friday Night Lounge, that wasn’t the case.

The show went well. Although, I did notice that the mp3 CD problem wasn’t to do with the CD decks. It was the CDs themselves. The discs were brand spanking new, so I’m assuming it was something to do with the burning settings.

Anyway, inbetween playing music from the Kaiser Chiefs, Happy Mondays, Abba and Donna Lewis, we talked about: Didier Drogba’s generous donation towards an Ivory Coast hospital; a robber sending his own mugshot to the police; why 30,000 people in UK still watch television in black and white; and a proposed 93 page guide for police officers telling them how to ride a bicycle.

Of course, along with that, we had the usual Trivia’s Cocktail. This week it was about Formula One, the connection between the FISA-FOCA war of the 1980s and the FIA-FOTA row, was they both threatened breakaway championships.

Plus, That’s From this week was an easy one. Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey from, you’ve guessed it, Goldfinger – the third Bond film staring Sean Connery.

That was last week’s edition. What I didn’t know was that the next week would be a bumpy ride.

FRIDAY 20/11/2009

Waking up to only 5 hours of sleep; being soaked while waiting for a bus; stuck in a jammed supermarket car park; along with a bad week in general, I wasn’t wanting anything else to go wrong.

Arrived at the studio around at 6:45pm. Began to set everything up. After that, and a few phone calls to friends about other affairs to kill the time later, I was all ready to go. The great thing about being in the studio with an hour or so to showtime, is that you get to relax and ponder on things. When you’ve done everything you needed to that is.

And with Children In Need being on BBC 1, I was expecting a lower listener reach. I mean, who would rather listen to some nutter playing music and then chatting inbetween like a madman, when one of the biggest broadcasts on the British TV calendar is on? So, less pressure on me then. Providing it goes to plan.

9:03, Smooth Radio completes it’s hourly news bulletin. Fade out. Cue a Slow Radio West Fife jingle. Fade up the mic. “It’s Friday 20th of November. And this is the show you only listen to because the Television is broken…” I said, introducing the show before starting the theme tune. Then I did the standard procedure of outlining what was coming up on the show. Then fade out to Genie In A Bottle by Christina Aguilera.

What happened next was another example of me having a bad day. As Genie In A Bottle was about to fade out, I was about to fade up my microphone to begin discussing Children In Need. When I realised something…

On the mixing desk, at the very top, are two rows of buttons. The first row were PGM buttons. When on, whatever gets said or played, is transmitted to the listener’s headsets across the hospital. The second row were AUD buttons. These mean “audition” and when they are on, whatever gets said or played can be heard in the studio.

The PGM button on the presenter’s mic was off. It was off since I went on air.

So what the listeners heard, instead of me self-deprecating and introducing the programme, was: 30 seconds of silence and a theme tune faded up and down slightly at various points.

I normally leave it off before I go on air, so then anything unbroadcastable (like a private conversation with friends or swearing at faulty equipment) doesn’t get transmitted if I accidentally nudge the mic’s fader up.

I thought I pressed it. But in my blind panic, I obviously didn’t press the PGM button hard enough. A schoolboy error, frankly. So after Genie In A Bottle, and pressing the PGM button, I had to make the quickest introduction ever.

Apart from that, the first hour was uneventful. For once, the show was running bang on time. Unlike three to four minutes fast it usually is. Throughout the show we talked about how you can get your name translated into other languages, and find out what they mean. Along with, Crocodile Fossils and where to get a tuxedo for only £30.

Plus, this week’s That’s From returned to the adverts with Search For The Hero by M People, this appeared in the Peugeot 406 advert during the mid-1990s. And as for Trivia’s Cocktail, it was quite a fizzy one. With a single share in the company from 1919 worth $92,500 by 1997 and it’s name came from it’s medicinal ingredients. The link is of course Coca-Cola. Which reminds me, their Christmas adverts should be on soon.

It brought a bad week to a close. Thank god!

Well, hopefully I should also be starting voice-over work again. Schedule permitting. I may even put them up here for you to hear. We’ll see.