Hit The Beach Track Listing - 06/10/09

Hit The Beach Playlist - October 6th, 2009

Oasis Cigarettes and Alcohol (Definately Maybe)
Paul Rose Ninth Life (Note To Self)
Chris Rea Working On It (Still so far to go...The Best of Chris rea*)
Juliette & The Licks Smash & Grab (Four on the Floor)
Randy Newman Gone Dead Train (Perfromance Soundtrack)
Freddie King Going Down (Greatest Hits)
Thunder Feeding The Flame (Laughing on Judgement Day)
Dave Hole Lets Get Loose (Working Overtime)
Sonny Landreth Bad Weather (Outward Bound)
Chris Rea Come So Far, Still So Far To Go (Chris Rea*)
Fleetwood Mac My Heart Beat Like a Hammer (Best of Peter Green)
G3 Going Down (G3 Live)

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - October 2009

Carefree fresher days

Now that we are experiencing the autumn equinox, several of my friends who still have time left to do at university have packed their bags and headed away south again. I must confess that it does feel a bit weird that I'm not going away as well, made all the worse by the fact that my girlfriend is one of them and even my younger brother has headed off to New Zealand for a year.
Several of my friends have made comments on Facebook about how they wish that they were a fresher again. These discussions have conjured up great memories for me of those first few hours when I had just arrived in my flat and was introducing myself to my fellow house mates.

We were all nervous but I can recall being incredibly excited. I remember well how cool it felt having that first pint in the student bar, going to the first party, shaking hands with a seemingly endless stream of people from all over the country and the first night in my student room. The week or so that followed was a drink-fuelled haze of great fun, constant laughs, junk food, endless hellos and not enough sleep. I'll never forget my fresher's experience - it was a truly fantastic time. However things inevitably move on and I think even if I could do it all again I'd rather not, instead I'll opt to keep it as a great memory.

Although there are obviously a lot of attractions to being a student - the ability to go for a sleep in the middle of the afternoon and take a long lie in for a start - I still think I prefer having a job and working. I feel a bigger sense of achievement when I'd doing radio things 'for real' rather than an exercise at uni. Plus I enjoy having money in my pocket all the time, as opposed to the three times a year when the government decided to give me my student loan.

However, one thing about employment I am not enjoying much at the moment is trying to sort out how to do my accounts and pay tax. Although I'm working full time at Radio Orkney, I am technically a 'freelance journalist' and classed as self-employed. As a result I have to do my tax returns myself, rather than having it deducted from my pay slip automatically. I'm led to believe this has advantages because I can clam for certain things like mileage and part of my phone bill as business expenses, and therefore save money, but it all seems a bit tedious.

I know there are a lot of people in Orkney who have been self-employed all their life so this may well be a familiar issue to you. If it is then I'm sorry for reminding you about it. If it's not but you think it might be soon I wish you the best of luck because although I've always been pretty organised with money, I won't pretend that I'm not finding it a stretch. Even Vince Cable finds tax facts a challenge!

Continuing on a work theme, the Radio Orkney team and I are gearing up for the beginning of evening programmes next week. This winter will see the return of the usual favourites; Bruck, 'The Dashing White Farmer Show' with Liam Muir, 'Tuesday Folk' with Andy Cant and 'On The Border' with Norrie Drever. I will also be presenting a second series of my music programme, 'Hit The Beach' starting on Tuesday. I absolutely love having a chance to play some of my favourite blues and rock tracks on the radio and I tend to spend hours mulling over which tracks to include each month.

As well as the music programmes there are several exciting additions to the evening line-up this year. Dave is working on a new programme called 'Hoose Wark' that will look at many different aspects of building. Robbie will be presenting a programme about farming, and Andrew will be offering listeners the chance to find out more about the history and development in Orkney's many parishes, in his new programme, 'Parish Pump'.

I'm really excited about the new line-up, not least because it will involve a lot more programme trails - the making of which is one of my favourite jobs. It also means I'll be spending more time presenting programmes live 'on air' which is another. The downside of course is a couple of hours of extra work every day!

Another part of the job that I enjoyed recently was getting the chance to learn some camera skills. The team who produce Reporting Scotland, the half-hour teatime Scottish news programme on BBC One, sometimes ask for coverage of a major story happening in the county.

The requirement for camera work to be done in Orkney is sporadic and when the call does come, it's always Fionn who goes off to do it. However, as he's currently the only member of the team with the skills to put a TV piece together, Dave and his bosses further South were keen for some of the rest of us to learn some basic camera skills. This would then enable us to at the very least record and send unedited footage to our colleagues in Glasgow. That way, when Fionn is on holiday, someone else may be able to step in.

As a result we were paid a visit a few weeks ago by a video journalist and camera trainer from Glasgow who came up to show Dave and I how to use the equipment. Luckily for me, footage of the Fair Isle bird observatory pods that I shot while on a training trip to the Hatston pier ended up on Reporting Scotland later that evening. I won't lie and say I wasn't pretty chuffed! All in all it's been a busy four weeks and frankly I don't know where the time has gone. It will doubtless be Christmas before we know it, but until November, cheerio.