Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - October 2010

Since moving to London I was aware that there was always a chance someone would attempt to break into my flat at some point. Since some builders had started work on the flat upstairs I was concerned that scaffolding which they had erected up the back of the property would pose a security risk. My fears were proven correct when someone climbed up and broke in over the weekend while I was away with family. I had left in a sleepy hurry after a run of night shifts and stupidly forgot to close and lock the bedroom window. Although it was only open a couple of inches it was obviously enough for an opportunist criminal to somehow remove the safety bolts and get it open wide enough to climb through.

I had been staying with my aunt and uncle in the picturesque village of Dinton, which is about an hour out of London by train. Their son was helping to organise a picnic ball in the village marquee and my cousin had invited me to come and join them.
Everyone brought their own food and decorations and there was a bar and an excellent three-piece cover band from Wales. After a day to rest and potter about in the garden, we spent a sunny Monday at the annual Dinton village fete. As I wasn’t due back to work until the Tuesday I thought I’d stay to see how it compared to the agricultural shows in Orkney.

As I expected it was a quintessentially English affair. The marquee used for the ball was left up to provide covered space for the tea and home bakes. There was a bouncy castle and an ice cream van, a coconut stand and a bric-a-brac stall, most of which was of a considerably higher quality than what I’d class as such.

A brass band replaced the pipe band, and a wheelbarrow race between three local villages replaced the sheep shearing display as one of the main attractions. I was persuaded to join the ‘visitors’ team, which got through to the final only to lose to the home side by the narrowest of margins. I think my cousin and his mates must have put a slick tyre on the barrow.

I was also introduced to a gentleman called Douglas Watkinson who has written several episodes of the ITV drama series, Midsummer Murders. Throughout the day there was an elderly man walking around the park with a wireless microphone constantly wittering about this and that. The PA was reasonably loud and I overheard a lot of people grumbling about how he was giving them a headache. I found his commentary quite amusing, especially when he was speaking about the wellie throwing competition and promoting the barbeque stall through a mouthful of burger. I suggested to Douglas that the ‘silencing’ of this man might provide some inspiration for a future episode.
To round the day off we were due to be treated to a flypast by a second world war Hurricane and a Spitfire. As I missed the one that came to Orkney I was particularly looking forward to this. However, about an hour before they were due to make the flypast microphone man announced that the planes were unable to take off due to high crosswinds at the aerodrome. This prompted my uncle who is ex SAS to make a quip about the unlikelihood that we would have won the battle of Britain if the pilots had been deterred by a slight crosswind.

Anyway, back at the flat and I found that I couldn’t get the front door union lock open. To cut a long, stressful and expensive story short I had to get an emergency locksmith to break in. When I went to my room to get my chequebook I discovered that my bedroom door was also locked, from the inside. He then had to break that lock too allowing me in only to discover that my room had been searched and my possessions scattered everywhere.

What is strange is that it looks as if all that’s been taken is an Xbox, my small backpack and some 20 and 50 pence coins from my change collection. They didn’t take Lizi’s jewellery, my passport or chequebook. I consider myself to have been extremely lucky as the outcome could have been so much worse. The police came round and a forensic expert took a copy of a footprint the criminal left on the windowsill. I’ll just have to hope the insurance will cover the theft and damage and perhaps we’ll see the culprit on the next series of police, camera, action!

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - December 2006

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Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - January 2007

It doesn’t seem like over a month since I last sat down to write this column. I am now home in Orkney having finished my first term in Sunderland. So many things have happened since I was home for reading week in November. Firstly, as soon as I got back down south I was bombarded with work. We were given two 2000 word essays to write about popular culture and media theory as well as TV and radio programmes to produce for assessment. As well as all this course work I was busy making a total of 22 hours of ‘as live’ radio for the radio society’s trial net cast.

One of my classmates, Danielle, and I were given the 8 till 10 breakfast show to do each weekday morning which we had to pre-record as if it were live. I also produced and presented a two hour blues show on my own called ‘Big Rory’s Blues’. This was a fantastic chance to gain further experience, not to mention demo material. Apart from a play list of current music which we were given we were left pretty much to our own devices to produce ‘Morning Glory’ as we called it. It was great fun getting on air and just talking about stuff that interested us for a couple of hours a day. However, it did result in us having little ‘off air’ chat because whenever either of us started to tell a story the other would interrupt with “save it for link material”.

All this work did not, surprisingly, have much success in curbing my social habits. My flatmates and I organized a big party on the second of December to get us ‘in the mix’ with the student party scene. There are six of us in the flat and we spent a week planning how we were going to make it top the unofficial leader board of flat parties. The result was that over 65 people turned up to a party which included a laser and strobe light show, my record decks, which a lot of people enjoyed having a play with, the all important ‘second room’ for the more chilled out chats, and obviously a lot of drink.

The party was going exceedingly well until about midnight when the constant traffic through the door into the living room wafted the product of a smoke machine into the path of a smoke detector, thus setting the fire alarm off. Our contingency plan for this situation involved burning toast and hiding all evidence of the smoke machine. Very luckily for us this worked well enough to convince the fire brigade and residential security that it was a hungry guest needing a snack that was to blame.

Once satisfied that there was no fire and that there would be no more toast we were left to it and the party continued on its alcohol fuelled journey to 8am on Sunday morning. Overall, it got a healthy 9 out of ten in the leader board with everyone saying it would have got a ten if it wasn’t for the fire alarm spoiling the momentum a little. (No smoke machine next time I think will nail it). I think my distinct lack of ability at competitive sport is evident to anyone who knows me but my friends have told me that I have taken this party rating thing very seriously so maybe I have found my niche.

Just a few of the other things which I have been involved in since I last wrote was to form part of a team on a 90’s TV quiz show organized by 2nd Year students. I have to say I was rubbish. I don’t know where I was during the 90’s as I didn’t recognize the teenage mutant ninja turtles, I couldn’t name any stars of Baywatch and I didn’t know who wrote the ‘Macarena’! Actually, come to think of it I was on Auskerry so that’s probably a good enough excuse. A particularly exciting development for me this term came when I went for a meeting with a senior editor at BBC Radio Newcastle. It looks like I will be starting a part time job/work experience placement with them in early January driving programmes at weekends and helping out with phone-ins. I’m really excited about this because if it comes off it will be fantastic experience and may lead to future employment. As you will have gathered by now, I absolutely love university life, but, in the last week of term I was really looking forward to getting home. The trip home began on the Saturday morning after a heavy night out, a last ditch attempt at consuming cheap drink I suppose. Anyway, I left Sunderland at half ten, and after a pleasant journey I arrived in one piece, on time, in Aberdeen. After spending months in a place where you don’t expect to recognize anyone I was not in the ‘looking around to see if there’s anyone I know’ frame of mind. So when I was spotted by four friends all in the space of five minutes after leaving the railway station I was quite overwhelmed.

The trip up on the boat was spent with my mates having a laugh and reminiscing about old times at home. We all agreed that going away has been a really important step in our development into adulthood, as well as a fantastic experience. I think no matter where you have been, or how much you love it, there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get from getting back to familiar territory and home comforts. Mum summed this up well by describing me as “bouncing around like Tigger”.

Being home has so far been excellent; the only disadvantage of this new life for me is that wherever you are you miss someone but that seems a small price to pay. Folk have told me that next term will be the hardest; I’m not convinced, I know what I’m going back to, I love it - and Easter isn’t that far away is it?

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Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - February 2007

As I sit down to write this it’s just dawned on me that this week marked a small mile stone in my development into adulthood. This ‘life marker’, as I like to call it, occurred because dad has come down to Sunderland to visit me. What so special about that then? You may ask. Well for me, the fact that I am now being visited in my home, all be it a student flat, by my father is a sure sign of the transition I’m making between being a boy, dependent on my parents into a young adult, able to look after myself in a strange city 400 miles from home. Plus it’s cool for me to be the boss of my ‘pad’!

As some of you may have been unlucky enough to find out I started taking driving lessons with Peter Laird when I was home in November. I really enjoyed it and to be honest I wasn’t finding it all that hard. Last week I started taking lessons here. What a shock I got. Multiple lanes, large roundabouts, traffic lights, busy crossings, complicated junctions and probably most significantly, busy roads! It is so much more unnerving here and to be honest, the first couple of lessons were not much fun at all. Anyway, I’m improving again and I feel a little more in control and therefore more confident in what I’m doing. I have to say though, I’m very glad I did lessons at home as it did give me confidence to attempt it down here which I probably would have struggled with otherwise. I would suggest to any young people in Orkney who are planning to take all their lessons at home that they might be wise to take a couple of lessons somewhere slightly busier, even after passing their test. I think no matter how conscientious the instructors are at home, I just don’t think anything can prepare you for city driving short of having a go. Trust me, it’s scary! Anyway, I’ve booked 20 lessons with ‘Mr. Bus’, (I had to have him because the name amused me), and by having two lessons a week I hope to be at a test ready stage by Easter, hopefully.

Saturday 20th of January saw Flat 11 go for gold in the student party leader board. As you will be aware if you read last month’s column, we had quite a party at the beginning of December. Suffice it to say that this one was even bigger with over 90 people getting involved through the course of the night. We had a DJ from one of the local nightclubs who’s a mate of mine doing a set for us, plus a set of decks on both floors of the flat. Luckily for us we escaped without a fire alarm, in fact it was quite a civilized do. The lesson I feel we learnt this time is that you can over do it and have too many people. Not that it was a problem having so many people, only it took away some of the ‘student flat party’ atmosphere and made our modest home into a sort of mini night club! I think we now have enough friends between the six of us that we could have plenty of guests by invites only. This way we will have a more manageable group which is less stressful. Anyway, there was plenty of good vibes and lots of people told us how much they enjoyed as they left in the wee small hours.

Last Monday marked the beginning of the second semester. This is the second part of the first year and means we have a different timetable and a completely new set of classes for our new modules. I have a feeling that this semester is going to be harder than the first because the video production and the digital video effects modules are supposedly quite time consuming. As well as this I have four 9 a.m. starts instead of two. This means I will miss Jeremy Kyle, and people wont have an excuse to keep phoning me up at lunch time with sarcastic comments like; “Sorry if I woke you up”!

There is a possibility that Danielle and I will be given the weekday breakfast show to produce and present on Utopia FM which is the student radio station broadcasting to the whole of Sunderland. If we get it we will have to start at 7 a.m. so I had better get used to early starts just in case. In the meantime I am working as part of the Utopia management team to help get the station ready for going live in May. I think I’m the only first year that has a management role so at the moment I’m observing how it’s done and helping where I can in preparation for perhaps a more senior role next year. However, as deputy training and development officer I have been helping other presenters to record and mix demos for the station.

One thing I have done this year, which I hope to stick to, is set my self a New Year resolution. I usually don’t bother because I can never keep them but this time I have, and so far I’ve stuck to it. My plan is to go out one less night a week and buy a CD instead. This way I’m going to save money because a CD is cheaper than an average night out, plus the heath benefits are obvious. It also means that, in theory, when I leave university I will have better health, and a bigger CD collection than my contemporaries. I’ll keep you posted as to how I get on. Cheerio for now.

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Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - March 2007

Only yesterday was I thinking of a way to begin this month’s column. As if by magic at about 11:40 last night the power went off. There was some confusion over whether or not we had run out of money in the meter. However, after looking outside at the other flats it was quickly realized this was not the case. What had actually happened was a power cut had knocked out the entire two blocks of student accommodation as well as the street lights on both the road and river side of Panns Bank. It had even thrown the Southern half or the Wearmouth bridge into darkness. What amazed me is how quickly a bunch of students can gather together with a bag of newspapers, a lighter and a guitar despite being so useless at getting up for work. A nice ‘camp fire’ community spirit ensued until a pack of stressed security guards came and utilized the fire extinguisher that one conscientious student had supplied, and put the small paper fire out.

Something struck me this week to do with students eating habits. Very few of us seem to be able to cook at all. Luckily for me I have a mother who passed on a good deal of culinary experience to me when I was home educated which has stood me in good stead whilst away from home. However, the number of people I know that can’t even cook the simplest things amazes me. Some people are very bad for throwing things away that are only a day or two out of date even though they are fine. If the milk smells and tastes ok, it is ok. Frozen Margarita pizzas will not make you I’ll if they are ten days out of date and neither will a carton of apple juice that’s been unopened in the fridge! Anyway I’m doing my best to eat healthily and give advice where it’s asked for. I suppose you learn best from your own experience.

As you would expect, us lazy students consume a lot of media, especially TV programmes. For me and the rest of my flatmates, the television watching experience has changed quite dramatically in the last few months. As we are all media students being encouraged to analyse, criticize, evaluate and discuss the media in all its forms we all find ourselves constantly judging whatever it is we’re watching. Some of the most common statements are: “That’s a badly composed shot.” “That package was badly edited and the music was totally wrong for that advert.” “The CGI effect on that building doesn’t look real.” I suppose it’s what we’re meant to be doing and it is interesting. Having said that this, sometimes subconscious, analysis and debate can get a little tedious when you just want to relax in front of ‘Midsummer Murders’. Our TV decided to blow up last night so we no longer have this problem for the time being.

This week I received some of my results back from last semester. I was pleased to find that close to a first for my essays on popular culture and analysis of narrative and genre respectively as well as for my Radio module. I still haven’t heard anything about the introduction to T.V. module yet but I’m confident it will be fine. I was pleased with these results because if I’m honest I didn’t put as much effort into them as I could have. I figured that the marks I get this year don’t count towards my degree and only serve to get me onto the next level, i.e. second year, so therefore it was more important to just make sure I pass and spend the extra time on other things. So to get these results gives me confidence that with a little more effort I will be well on my way to getting some really god grades in my second and final year here.

Despite having been totally settled with a good group of friends for a while now I’m still constantly meeting new people which I think is fantastic. What amazes me the most is how many people I meet have done really cool and interesting things in their life already. One of my mates who is now 28 gutted the living room in his London flat when he used to work there and, together with his mates, built a studio. From this studio they broadcast a daily three hour live radio show over the internet. What started as a group of mates having fun turned into something which attracted approximately 8000 listeners per day. People tuned in from as far away as China to listen to live DJ sets from quite big name DJ’s at the time as well as from the guys themselves. They intermingled the music with idle humorous chat and informal interviews with DJ’s from big London nightclubs. Another lad who I was introduced to the other week whilst on a night out in South Shields has built a recording studio in his bedroom and has worked with some big name dance DJ’s and produced, amongst other things, a top 40 hit. He’s just 19.

It never ceases to amaze me how open minded students seem to be when it comes to a whole host of issues. I find it incredibly encouraging that in a society that’s currently threatened by climate change and war, my generation seem to be pretty switched on when it comes to issues like race and sexuality. I can honestly say that I have encountered no racism, those with alternative sexualities are open about it from the off and everyone seems to be, as they should, completely comfortable with it. My contemporaries come across to me as a thoughtful group of individuals who are thinking about the world we are inheriting. If what I’m seeing on this small scale is in any way an accurate reflection of what young people are like in general then I think we have a good chance of getting ourselves out of the mess that our so called ‘elders and betters’ have got us into.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - April 2007

This has been a comparatively quiet month for me although things have recently begun to get busier in the run up to exams and the hand in dates for assessments. What I really can’t believe is that after the Easter break I only have five weeks left before I complete my first year in Sunderland. It genuinely only feels like yesterday when I packed my things and set off into the unknown. Now nearly a whole academic year on, this place feels almost as familiar and homely to me as Orkney.

My flat mates and I have all been granted accommodation for next year in the same complex that we are currently residing in, however we will be moving from flat 11 to flat 30. This means we get a balcony and a slightly bigger living room, new neighbours plus some re branding for our ‘Flat 11’ parties!

Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen this month was when Danielle and I were officially given the 7 till 10am weekday breakfast slot on Utopia FM. The station is broadcasting for three weeks from May 5th and we will be online as well as on FM. All of the Utopia team are busy organizing advertising, promotion and music scheduling as well as mixing the jingles and station idents. It’s a lot of work for everyone involved and it’s hard to find time to do it on top of course work, particularly for the third year and masters students who are involved. I’m so excited about it because I know it’s a fantastic opportunity to gain loads of on air experience in commercial radio not to mention how much fun it will be. I’m already thoroughly enjoying introducing myself to people as “Rory from breakfast”. To add to the fun, 12 students from Utopia’s core team, including myself, are going on a three day Radio Society trip to London on a tour around several stations including BBC 6 Music and Magic 105.4 and BBC Radio 2. This should not only be very interesting but it is also a great way to really bond the team before we go on air in May.

My pet project this month is a DJ event/party which I am organizing in my local student pub at the end of the month. I decided that due to the growing numbers of people attending our ‘Flat 11’ parties, is was perhaps time to try and do something which could include more people and involve slightly less risk to our property. Saturday nights are expensive in town and there is almost no cheap alternative unless someone happens to be having a party. My flat mate Andy who’s a whiz on Photoshop has make the posters and although I’ll be doing a set on the decks I’ve booked two DJ’s from local clubs who will form the backbone of the event. Having foot the small bill myself the event will be free to the public and because the drink is cheap at student rates, were hoping the night will be a success. I figure that if there is ever a time in life to experiment with things like this, now is that time. If it really is a success, I will certainly do it again and I am considering following in dad’s footsteps from his Leeds University days and running for Entertainments Secretary next September as I feel that the student nightclub could do with getting some new ideas breathed into. Numbers have fallen dramatically since fresher’s week and I think it’s largely due to the fact that it’s always the same DJ playing the same music and people are bored.

As for course work, this terms big job is a film that a team of five of us are making for our ‘introduction to video production’ module. The film is only supposed to last for three minutes, and this may seem silly, but it has already taken us hours and hours of work to produce. We still haven’t shot anything like all the footage we need yet and we are due to be editing as soon as Easter break is over. It amazes me how much work is involved with making something, which is, on the face of it pretty simple. We’ve re-written the script three times and we’re still not even sure of where exactly we are going with this so I have my doubts as to how good it’s going to be. Having said that, in my experience things like this have a knack of coming together at the last minute plus it’s our first attempt at doing anything like this so I’m just going to do my best and try not to get worked up about it.

This month saw me pass my theory test and according to my driving instructor I’m not far off being ready for my practical test. I’ve booked it for the end of May in the hope that I will be ready by then. I don’t intend to get a car until next summer but I want to get the test out of the way so I don’t forget things over the summer and then have to take more lessons in September and waste more money. Having said that it’s pretty likely I’ll fail and therefore end up doing just that!

There has been an unusual amount of discussion about the weather recently as we have had two days of snow last week followed by a few days of gorgeous sunny, dry conditions. As you can see from the picture a spontaneous ball game began on the lawn outside our flat. We played for a couple of hours while I blasted music out of my bedroom window and this made me think how much of a shame it will be that none of us will be here in the summer to really make use of our balconies! I know that most of us living around here will greatly miss the people and the atmosphere in Panns Bank this summer, but I can’t say that I’m not looking forward to getting out on my bike on a warm summer evening or taking the dingy out to try for a fish. Anyway, Happy Easter when it comes.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - May 2007

Having just returned to flat 11 after spending two weeks in Kirkwall for Easter, I have realized how much I feel at home here. It was great to get home and spend some time with family and catch up with friends, but at the same time I was really keen to get back ‘in the mix’ down here.

This term is going to be manically busy with the breakfast show starting on Monday May 7th. As well as that I have a 2.5 hour history of broadcasting exam on May 11th and my driving test is booked for May 24th. I’m trying to maintain a laid back approach with all of the above because I don’t like stressing but I’m expecting it to be a month of hard graft.

Having said that, this seems a perfect opportunity to reassure readers that University is not just ‘a bit of a laugh’. It has been suggested that I mention parties a fair bit. Fair comment. However, I’ve never claimed that these monthly ramblings are anything more than a representation of my personal experience of university life. I’m not ashamed to admit this does involve a few socials but I’m sure if I was pondering whether or not to go to Uni the idea of lots of parties would certainly have influenced my decision.

Definitely the most exciting thing to happen last month, and one of the best things that’s happened all year, was the trip I took to London with our radio society. I won’t go into too much detail as I did all that in the April column. I’ll just say that after arriving in London and having a night of little sleep due to the inevitable chatting that ten students all sharing a room would be expected to do, we were all reluctant to get up on Monday and go on the tube to Magic. However, as soon as we arrived and our tour began, we all perked up with excitement. It was fascinating to see how a leading commercial radio station operates, it was also interesting for us to see what equipment they use, all of which was new and up to date. We were all given the chance to record a link as if we were Magic DJ’s and then we were had a Q & A session with the head of music who explained how the stations play lists are calculated and he also answered general questions about the station. One of the most interesting things for me was the fact that Magic has just 250 tracks on a rotating play list for a 4 week period. He explained that the average radio listener only listens for 20 minuets at a time and are therefore unlikely to hear the same record twice on any given day.

I had organized to go and visit ‘Planet Rock’ which is, to quote their tag line, ‘The UK’s Classic Rock Station’. It does what it says on the tin and broadcasts 24/7 on DAB, Online and on Sky. I spent an hour with the on air DJ, Mark Jeeves, who gave me some fantastic advice about how to make our breakfast show as popular as possible. I think one of the most useful things he said was that the public are interested in 5 main topics which a good presenter will constantly relate to what they are saying. There topics are, in no particular order: Money, Sex, Family, Health and Celebrity.
On Tuesday morning we again rose early and headed to the nearby ‘Princess Productions’ studios to be in the live audience for Channel Five’s ‘The Wright Stuff’. This was great fun and it was again very interesting to see how a TV show is made, the fact that it went out live and that we got to meet Lez Dennis only served to make it even more exciting!

Later that day we went to visit BBC 6 music and Radio 2 which are both located in the same new building. When we were waiting to go in we all felt exhausted from lack of sleep, neither were we expecting to get to see anything like as much as we had at Magic purely because the stations were comparatively so much bigger and getting a tour is almost impossible. However, as soon as we went through the entrance and began to climb the stairs of the building we all felt a sense of excitement just from knowing that we were only steps away from the centre of this famous national radio station which, whether you’re a fan or not, oozes talent, quality and all the fundamental qualities of good radio. We were shown everything from the open plan office’s where Brand, Evans, O’ Leary, Ross, Winton, Wogan, Wright, and many others sit to prepare their programmes, to the studio’s that broadcast these personalities to the nation. By the time we arrived on the 6th floor and were ushered in to the empty studio we soon learned was used every Saturday by Jonathan Ross, we almost couldn’t contain our glee. To then be taken to the control studio were only a pain of sound proof glass separated us from Chris Evans as he addressed the nation was truly fantastic. I can categorically say we really did think this was as good as it got. Again we were wrong. Seconds after walking into Evan’s view he called us into the studio, live on the air!

The faces of the nearby producers and senior staff went white as they helplessly watched this potentially disastrous situation slip from their control, we piled into the studio and began to talk to Chris and his millions of listeners! On the way out of the building we met Dermot O’ Leary and got a group picture with him and for a good while after leaving none of us really talked because we were simply too high! I don’t feel as though I need to say anymore. This trip was totally awesome and I feel very privileged to have been part of it.

Next month I’ll have a round up of how Breakfast goes but make sure you check it out for yourself if you get a minute. www.utopiafm.net. Cheers.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - June 2007

It is with a touch of sadness that I sit to write this month’s column as tonight is my last night in Flat 11. This place has been my home since September and I have been very happy here throughout. I can’t believe that I am already one third of the way through my degree, it simple doesn’t feel like I have been here any time at all. I feel that I have learned a huge amount this year, not just academically but about myself and others around me. When I think back to how nervous I was in September when I left Orkney and compare it with how much confidence I have now, the change, to my mind, is really astonishing.

May has been the most hectic month so far as I have had lots of deadlines for work as well as the show on Utopia FM. I got all my work handed in last week, quite how I managed to fit it in around getting up at half five every week day to present a three hour show I will never know. Doing the Breakfast show was, as I knew it would be, an awesome experience. I think the most significant thing that I have taken from it is that I am now even more convinced than ever that being a radio presenter is what I want to do as a long term career. I thought that getting up that early every day would be almost impossible but I found it surprisingly easy. Every morning when the alarm went off I got the same feeling of ‘oh my god, I’m going to be on the radio in an hour!’ The buzz was immense and usually lasted until around lunch time each day. The problem was that were I suspect most breakfast DJ’s, and indeed anyone working awkward hours, would go for a sleep after lunch for a few hours to re-charge. Unfortunately, most days I could not afford the time to do anything of the sort and was instead found drinking copious amounts of coffee trying desperately to get some work done before I simple fell asleep at my desk. As dad said it would, this lack of sleep gradually built up to the point were I had to let some things slide and make time for a rest.

I found this whole situation to be the single biggest problem through out the broadcast, and I have to say, sad as I was to see it finish, the return of the lie-ins was much appreciated. In my opinion, our show improved quite a lot over the three weeks we were on for. I think we found our niche as it were and were able to get into an on-air routine each morning. Danielle and I realized quickly that even if we planed things before or during the show, we would rarely stick to them so we ended up in a situation where we would literally be 20 seconds before the end of the record and whoever was operating the desk would call mics live and we would just start speaking. I really enjoyed the ‘seat of the pants’ style because it was very spontaneous and it kept the pace of the show up.

Last month saw me team up with a mate to put on another gig in the local student pub/venue. This time we booked a funk/rock band to do a set as well as a couple of DJ’s. It didn’t attract as many people as the ‘Bollocks to work’ event which I did at the end of April, but this was expected. Small bands never seem to attract as big a crowd as DJ’s but it was never the less a great evening for those who were there. As a result of the success of both the afore mentioned gigs, coupled with the fact that the student nightclub (Manor Quay) and the only other student bar are closing, a small group of my mates have teamed up to try and rectify the situation in time for next year. We are in the process of forming ‘Northern Hype’, which will be our group name, and will give us a brand which we can use on promotional stuff and for a website etc.

Within our small team we have Barry who has had three years experience of booking and promoting bands through his own successful promotion company which he has now left friends to run while he is based away from home. We have Andy, my flat mate, who is a whiz at producing good posters and websites. Chris, a mature student studying first year media, who happens to be a fantastic local DJ, very popular with the crowds both here and in London where he often goes to do gigs. And finally me, who will be the overall group leader in charge management and finance. I’ll also get a minute to play a few records as well!

We want to put on several different events roughly three times a week which will kick off in the Bonded (the local student venue which I have used before) and then move to Independent, a 600 capacity night club in the town centre. The idea to try and do something like this came to me when I first heard that the Union was selling off two of its venues as I felt that there will be a severe lack of student based entertainment for next year, for not only the fresher students, but also my self.

Obviously ‘Northern Hype’ is in its early stages but I really feel that the team we have assembled will be able to make this work. We will just have to see what happens in September; all we know at the moment is that there’s a lot of work to be done.
In the meantime I’m looking forward to coming home and spending a decent spell of time in Orkney at a time of year when it really is at its most beautiful.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - July 2007

It’s hard for me to believe, but it’s been a month since I stepped off the ferry from Aberdeen at the beginning of June. I’ve had a pretty busy time as I’ve been working full time at Radio Orkney as well as helping out with the St. Magnus Festival not to mention make time to go to Auskerry.

If I’m honest I was a little apprehensive about how I would feel when I arrived home knowing how different it is here to my life in Sunderland as well as the fact that I will be here for three months, but, after a couple of days of feeling a little lost without my flatmates, broadband and digital radio, I soon got re initiated into the ways of Orkney life. Becoming involved once again at Radio Orkney was instrumental in helping me to re adjust because not only does it give me a reason to get up and not spend half the day in bed, it has also got my finger firmly back on the local pulse.

Having a purpose to get into the heart of the community and talk to people face to face about the things that effect and interest them on a daily basis is very rewarding and has reminded me what is missing in the anonymity of life in the city. Once again the team at Radio Orkney have made me feel very at home in the office and I have really enjoyed the last five weeks. In the past I have mostly filled the role of producer/tech ops for many of the evening programmes as well as presenting weather and the occasional sport report. However, this time I have been involved with compiling the morning news programme which has been a very steep but equally rewarding learning curve as I have had the opportunity to amongst other things, carry out interviews, make packages, edit audio and read scripts. I have briefly touched on many of these elements of broadcasting before, both at Radio Orkney and more recently at university.

However as this last month has been ‘learning on the job’ as it were, I have crammed in a lot of new information. All of which will prove invaluable in my prospective future career as a radio presenter and in the more imminent future, passing my degree. One of the best things about radio for me is that no two days are ever the same. While I was presenting ‘Morning Glory’ with Danielle our show was always different and exciting and it’s no different here. Everyday I meet new people, hear new stories, see things I haven’t had the chance to see before and learn things that without the banner of ‘Reporter’ I would not otherwise be allowed to, at least not perhaps so easily.

One of the things I enjoyed a lot recently was covering the junior Inter County. Those of you that know me well will probably be laughing at this point as I have admittedly never had much of an interest in sport. I put this down to the fact that growing up on an island with two brothers and about 400 sheep, there wasn’t much opportunity during my childhood for a game of five a side. Anyway, for one reason or another I picked music over sport as my passion and have since struggled to feel much emotion for sport apart from perhaps the world cup. However, during the Inter County I quickly got the bug. I suddenly saw why people get so excited about the whole thing and I felt myself being swept along, quite willingly, in a tide of admiration and support for our young sports people.

As the excellent result in the hockey brought the first day to a close leaving Orkney looking like they had a real chance of winning I felt myself being genuinely excited about the next day and was keen to be given the whole event as my baby to cover by myself which I was. Everyone I spoke to throughout the whole event was helpful and accommodating, people went out of their way to give me score info and the sports people from both sides were happy to speak which always make life easier. By the end of it all I had mixed feelings of both happiness that we had won, and sadness that it was all over. A big thank you to everyone involved.

More recently I have been helping out with front of house duties at the Magfest Spiegel tent. This has been really good fun. I haven’t really done anything like it before apart from a couple of times at my own parties, so again it’s been a good learning experience. It’s been nice to feel part of the team, if a very small one, still, I’ve got to meet new people and watch some excellent performances that I probably would not otherwise have seen.

One of the things I have been most glad to return to is the sea. I love boats and I have greatly missed the trips to and from Auskerry with the local boatmen. I still laugh when I get aboard a boat to Auskerry and think how much of an extreme contrast life on the island it is to ‘doon sooth’. I love the variety and am altogether glad to be back. I will be equally glad to proudly show off this beautiful place to my university friends when they come to stay in August. Looking ahead to this coming month I am planning to spend a decent amount of time on Auskerry as there is a fair bit of work to do out there with fencing and the like but I also want to have some time rowing and fishing. I will also be spending time in town enjoying my bike and seeing the friends who I have missed while being away. I just hope the weather warms up a little! See you around.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - August 2007

I have never been very keen on books, much to the disappointment of my parents both of whom love reading. When I was a kid I used to read Biggles stories but mostly if I was reading anything it would be genuine manuals for pilots or articles in Pilot magazines. This was because of my growing obsession to become a helicopter pilot which I had had since the age of about 8. I still plan to get my pilots licence at some stage as it continues to excite me immensely, despite my new goal of becoming a radio broadcaster.

Anyway, students are required to read academic books about the subject they are studying to enable them to write informed essays about their subject. This was always going to be a sticking point for me due to my dislike of reading. I’m pleased to say that I have passed the history of broadcasting exam and all my modules for this year which did include two 2000 word essays on the topic of popular culture. The point to all this lies in the internet and the secondary school education system. I agree that research and background knowledge is very important and I admit that books are an obvious source of reliable information. However, I am disappointed that it’s taken me until half way through my first year at university to discover some of the other, perhaps more user friendly sources of information available on the internet, particularly through Google.

The story started when I walked over the river to get some books to help me write one of the essays. It was over a week before the deadline so I was not expecting any difficulty in getting the books I needed from our reading list but I was wrong. I couldn’t get a singe one of them and as a result went home slightly concerned with only a couple of vaguely relevant books that I’d picked up just to stop the trip being wasted. When I explained this to one of my second year mates he immediately said. “Why don’t you use Google?” I do of course use Google for just about everything from finding song lyrics to settling arguments over obscure issues. I hadn’t until this point ever heard of Google Books or Google Scholar.

It’s worth checking out your self but basically Scholar is a section of Google dedicated to articles, websites, journals, and essays etc all of which have been vetted as containing genuine scientific or bona fide information, while Google books is a section of the search engine devoted solely to providing either the whole or selected parts of a huge range of books. It even tells you all the information about the book that is necessary in order to reference the source correctly. This means you can search key words, find a relevant book (some of which were actually on my reading list), read the parts which are most relevant, copy the text into your essay and reference the text correctly in your bibliography, all much quicker, and without having the effort of going to the library and carting books around.

I strongly believe that if there is technology there which can help you then why not make full use of it. What I struggle to understand is why I have never been told about this service before, either at school or university. I did computing at Standard Grade and enjoyed it. However, I can now see that a lot of the things I learned on the course have been almost useless to me and more importantly, things I wish I had been taught I was never even introduced to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing teachers as I’m well aware that they are obliged to teach a curriculum set by the SQA and the Scottish Executive. Even so, why was I taught about programming, databases, and every intricate detail of spreadsheets instead of how to get the best from the internet, build websites, set up online banking or use Photoshop for example? Most of the things I was taught at school to do with computers was out of date and has not proved very useful. After all, computing is an area which is moving faster than most and therefore even more emphasis should be put on ensuring that it is as up to date as possible.

But I’m pleased to hear that things are changing. Senior staff at the OIC Education Department have told me a brand knew curriculum is being worked on and it should be fully in use by 2009. It will remove many of the rigid guide lines of the current system and replace them with something much more flexible allowing teachers and pupils to have more say over what is taught. Maybe even this does not go far enough. Perhaps pupils should be encouraged to give feedback to their school about their courses and how useful what they have learned has been once they have spent some time away so that the authorities can fine tune what the next generation is taught to make it as relevant as possible. I think at the very least there should be some serious debate about these issues.

I have spent most of July in Auskerry which has been excellent. I’m going to be busy this weekend as five of my friends from Uni are coming up to visit tomorrow. I’m taking them out to Auskerry on Monday for a couple of days so I hope the weather is nice as we are meant to be camping and with a bit of luck we will get out in the boat for some Mackerel, and maybe get a few creels out too.

To finish off I might as well make a school related suggestion, even if it’s a little tongue in cheek. I remember one 6th year assembly when I suggested the school motto should be modernized because most of my year didn’t know what ‘Si Deus Nobiscum’ means. If it must be in Latin, how about changing it to something like ‘Vade Atque Vale’ because although there was never a phrase exactly like it in Latin, it’s as close as I can get to… Keep It Real.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - September 2007

If you’re reading this on the day it’s published I will be leaving Orkney tomorrow on my journey back to Sunderland to begin my second year. In am really excited and very much looking forward to getting back to my ‘other life’.

This is not to say, however, that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed being in Orkney for the summer holidays. It’s been a busy three months cramming in five weeks full time work at Radio Orkney, helping mum and dad on Auskerry with fencing, building a garden wall, general maintenance and in the last week, bringing the peat home. We have also had a lot of friends and family up to visit and I have had some of my own friends from school out to Auskerry for a camping weekend. We do this every summer as it’s a chance to have a bit of ‘lad’s time’ and get away from the town.

I have also had five friends up from university to visit Orkney, and particularly Auskerry, but unfortunately they never quite made it that far. They arrived on the Scrabster boat on the Friday night and we planned to spend the weekend on the mainland doing a bit of partying, then go to Auskerry on Monday morning and have a couple of days camping before they headed home on Wednesday. But sadly even the best laid plans can be ruined by the weather and that’s exactly what it did. On Sunday morning we had a nice day cycling out to Scapa and in the afternoon we loaded the Creole with the supplies we had bought on Saturday ready for Auskerry. By Monday morning the weather had broken and it was raining so hard that we were all soaked through by the time we got from the house to the boat. Mum and a couple her friends on holiday from Spain were on the boat too so some of the lads went below decks with the luggage as there was not space in the wheelhouse. It was a very windy day and it soon became apparent it was going to be a choppy trip, not the sort you spend sitting on the forward deck admiring the view! Anyway, we started to head up the string and my mate Mcduff and I were out on deck by the wheelhouse using our phones to film our own version of the BBC TV programme, Trawlermen. One of the videos showed Mcduff walking along the side of the wheelhouse and saying in a Peterhead accent; “It’s a pretty course day like, but err, we have to catch some fish or we can’t pay the crew.” Then he turned away from the sea, looked into the camera and said, “You can see how rough it is.” At which point a wave licked over the bow, seeing it through the camera, I ducked into the wheelhouse, and he got wet. We thought it was hilarious and I was really enjoying the trip despite being soaked from the rain.

However some of the ‘crew’ were not having such a great experience and when a wave slightly steeper than the rest knocked the boat enough for the pile of boxes in the cabin to collapse, I began to think it was time to call it off. It was perfectly safe, but it wasn’t much fun for some and it would have been a nightmare trying to get people dry and put tents up in the poor weather so when mum and Smith made the decision to turn back I was disappointed but relieved at the same time. It was a real shame for the lads who travelled miles up the UK just to get a misty glimpse of the east side of Shapinsay, but that’s just what happens sometimes.
They all enjoyed Orkney and they all agreed the trip on the Creole was a good character building experience. I’m sure I’ll not have too much trouble in persuading them to come back next year and try it again.

Meanwhile I have hardly been off the phone trying to get ‘Northern Hype’ up and running. This is the promotion company that I and five other mates at uni are setting up with the plan being to run a weekly student night in the well known Sunderland night club, Independent. I knew it would be a lot of work and we have really only just begun but were all really keen to get back and get started properly. At the moment we are working on finalizing bookings for various bands, DJ’s and venues. We also have to get posters and flyers made up and distributed around the area. Andy has completed the website and the forum has been up and running for over a month now so things are beginning to come together at last.

One of the many things that’s enthused me this summer has been talking to people I was at school with who have gone off and done interesting things, and returned with various experiences. Richard and Gary have joined shipping companies and spent the year travelling the world, visiting many famous city ports as far away as Singapore. Alex and Nick both went to America, Alex for a few weeks and Nick for a year. They have all come back with a much broader idea of life having had a chance to experience a real sense of independence.

Last week I signed up to doing the weekday 12 to 2pm slot on Utopia FM, Sunderland University’s student station. You may remember that last May I did the weekday breakfast show with Danielle. We decided that it would be good experience for us both if we did a show on our own this time and then we could perhaps team up again next may to do ‘Drivetime’. I’m really looking forward to getting back on the air again and I’ve been trying to come up with features and names for the show. Due to the time of day I’m considering giving it the tongue in cheek name: ‘Student Breakfast’.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - October 2007

I’ve been back in Sunderland three weeks now. Just to recap, my self and five friends from Uni have teamed up to form Northern Hype which is essentially a promotion company. We have been given the chance to run a local nightclub every Friday and I therefore decided to come back a week before fresher’s even started so we could all work together for the final preparations. I knew there would be a lot of last minute stuff to do in preparation for the launch of ‘Hype’, the name we have given to our Friday night party, but what we have managed to achieve in the last couple of weeks has been a pleasant surprise.

We designed and bought 5000 flyers which we can use for the next few weeks as they are reasonably generic but we have already shifted 3500 of them. We did the same with posters and a large canvas banner with our logo on it. All the lads have pulled their weight consistently and after hours spent distributing flyers, putting up posters, talking to people about the night, going to meetings and on the night even going round the halls of residence with poster boards and a megaphone we felt we had done everything we could. Despite all this effort, by 6pm on the big day I was really tense, to be honest I was pretty hopeful it was going to go ok but I’m a worrier and there was just this nagging doubt that we had forgotten something or the band wouldn’t turn up or my mixer would crash or something.

In the end we did have a bit of a worry because the band turned up but our sound man who had been booked by the guys who run the club didn’t. We were faced with having to tell the band they couldn’t play, pay them and send them home. However, we were very lucky and got a stand in sound man at the last minute. In the end we half filled the club with about 250 people, the band got a good review, the bar sold out of Alco pops used to make our exclusive ‘pints of hype’ and despite letting in all the students for free and only charging non students after 12 we even made a small profit from the door. We all felt that it had gone better than we had even hoped and went home contented if a little worn out.

The trouble is, were doing this every Friday so on the Sunday night we had a meeting to decide who’s doing what in preparation for the new week, more posters to be designed and distributed, more flyers and more talking to people about the night. I feel very strongly that one of Northern Hype’s key selling points is the fact that we are all students running a club owned and managed by two young men from Sunderland who did what we are doing when they were at university. We are not some faceless money grabbing corporate entity.

Therefore people see us out and about giving people flyers and actually having a bit of banter with them, not just handing them out as people walk past, then they see us chatting to people in the pre club bar, and then they see us on the decks in the club. We are expecting a lull now after the initial ‘hype’ of the first week, but we are hopeful the night will grow and develop into a weekly fixture in peoples social calendars.

In this last few hectic weeks I have moved into my new flat, just 100 yards along from Flat 11, I’m now upstairs in Flat 30 with three of the guys I lived with last year and two new ones, Andy and Darren. The two Andy’s is proving quite confusing but nick names are helping, plus we have a balcony and an even better river view than last year so its all good.

I have also been doing the lunchtime 12 to 2pm slot on Utopia FM for the last two weeks. It will be over by the time this is published and I have to say I haven’t enjoyed it much as last time when I did breakfast. I believe this is due to two things, firstly the format of the show, and second the general lack of promotion for the station. First of all, doing a play listed show on my own quickly made me realize that I much better suit a format of radio programming called ‘zoo’. The Chris Moyles and Steve Wright shows are Zoo format, it basically means upwards of 2 presenters talking or at least in the studio at one time, often 3 or 4. It’s like a party on the radio and gives the presenters the chance to ‘bounce’ off each other. It’s very difficult to be funny and entertaining in a room on your own with nobody there to even smile at your jokes, whereas if you have two people with you laughing and bantering with you, you can be fairly sure you are reasonably entertaining. I would be happy playing classic rock music by myself in the evening because then the emphasis is on the music rather than the presenters banter.

The second reason for me not enjoying doing the show that much is the fact the station has had virtually no promotion. Therefore there are almost no listeners and as a result the presenters get no text messages or emails to speak of. This leads to people feeling they are making a lot of effort for it just fall on deaf ears. Also, without listener feedback you have no way of knowing whether you are funny, or rubbish so doubt creeps in, you get disheartened and a bored, the quality of your output drops and then you are rubbish. This cycle then continues. The reason there has been no promotion is because the University management have dragged their feet so much over money there is no cash available even for a poster campaign around the city. This makes me very annoyed and I’m therefore intending to run for management in May with Chris from Northern Hype so we can start making a fuss and try and make things change for the better of the presenters and the listeners. Cheers.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - November 2007

In the last four weeks the work load has really begun to increase quite considerably. I have the task of producing three radio adverts, a five minute radio package and two essays, one on media studies and one for a module called Power, Politics and the Media all to be completed in less than two weeks. Just as I sat down to get on with that I realised it was once again time to write this as well. It’s funny how things manage to creep up on you even if you are reasonably organised.

I have held the opinion for a while now that a large proportion of my fellow students are coasting a bit. I get this idea because there are so many students with very poor attendance, who don’t ever contribute anything to class discussions and who actually look moderately annoyed when people like my self attempt to debate an issue in class time. My attitude to this is simple.

The education I am getting is costing in excess of £6000 a year including £3070 for tuition fees, about £2300 for accommodation and the rest for food and the odd pint. This is pretty much the same for everyone and therefore I can’t understand why there are so many students who don’t seem bothered whether or not they get their moneys worth. This is not to mention the fact that I want to feel as if I have actually achieved something from my three year course. As a result I want to discuss things, I want to be able to talk to the academics that are here to teach us and I want to be able to voice an opinion and have it challenged and debated by my peer group. I don’t want to sit quietly in a corner, watching the clock and waiting for the end off the lesson so I can go home and play computer games.

I believe there are two reasons for this general lack lustre approach by some people. Firstly, a lack of motivation for which the parents are partly to blame because they have failed to enthuse their children and persuade them make more effort, and partly the fault of the individual for not thinking about their aspirations and deciding to get on with the job in hand.

Secondly, I blame the University for failing to have a system in place that can help students who lack motivation. I totally understand that University is about pushing yourself, and trying to learn without having someone hold your hand but this system clearly does not work for a lot of people. The result, as I see it, is a split between two groups of students, one group who feel frustrated because they are stuck in a class with people who don’t contribute to discussions, and another group who are unconvinced by what they are being taught, why they are there and basically spend their time thinking about what other things they could be doing with their time which would benefit them more.

It ultimately begs the question; why come to University if you don’t want to get involved in what I believe University life to be about? Ultimately I think our society puts far too much pressure on young people to go into higher education who would actually be much more likely to succeed and develop positively from going straight into the work place. When people arrive at the decision to come to University it should be because that is what they feel is going to be right for them at that time, not because that’s what they think is expected of them by their family, teachers, friends or in fact, anyone.
Going back to my own situation, I strongly believe that once you are at Uni, simply turning up to lectures, completing the work set, and at the end of it getting a degree is not what university is all about. That’s partly my motivation for getting involved with extra activities and having other projects such as Northern Hype and student radio.

To update you, this Friday (November 2) is week 7 of ‘Hype’. We have consistently got good attendance numbers, around 250 per week, and we are getting good feedback from people who have been down to the club. We now have a substantial core group of people who turn up every week and we are also turning a small, but consistent profit. We are all feeling pleased about how the business venture is going and are quite excited about where it may lead us.

Another thing that’s been bothering me since I last wrote is that I have discovered Sunderland University is not a member of the National Union of Students. Coupled with the recent closure of two university owned student bars and the lack of a proper central union building I’m a little concerned to say the least. Most Uni’s in this country have a central building which often incorporates a bar or a night club (often both), a shop and a café area. We do not have this and as a result it’s difficult for students to meet people from different departments because they all hang out in different places instead of everyone dropping into a communal location for a pint after work. It’s rumoured that this is largely down to the fact that the university makes three times the amount of money from international students as it does from indigenous UK residents and because the majority of international students don’t share the same drinking cultures as people originally from the UK, and as a result it’s not financially worth while to provide a union bar facility because the number of people who would use it is regarded as not being a big enough proportion of the students studying here. To me, and indeed a lot of my contemporaries, this seems very unfair and gives the impression that the University’s senior management are much more concerned about money than providing what they sell as a ‘Life Changing’ experience. Again, this is something I hope to be able to get to the bottom of at some stage before I leave at the end of my course.

On a final note I’d like to say how much I’m looking forward to coming home in a couple of weeks time for reading week and the BBC children in need appeal show on Radio Orkney.

Keeping it real with Rory Auskerry - December 2007

It’s less than three weeks until Christmas and I will be home in less than two. It seems daft to be returning home again so soon after being back for Radio Orkneys children in need show. This was as usual, a really enjoyable community event for which I was lucky to be involved. The fast approaching deadlines are proving a bit stressful as I still have a lot of work to do between now and home time. Nevertheless, I’m still really enjoying life here and although I’m really looking forward to coming home, I will miss the lads in flat 30 over the festive period.

As well as the essays and various other academic studies, I have been busy working on some other projects which are more fun but still beneficial to my career. The student radio station, Utopia FM, has been recruiting new management for the next three weeks of broadcasting and I have won the ‘head of training and development’ position. I am responsible for helping people with a little or no radio experience to improve their skills in anything from editing to driving the desk. Nearer the time of the broadcast in May I will listen to the demo tapes and, along with the Programme Controller and Station Manager, give feedback and ultimately help decide on the final schedule.

I have also been getting involved in the new Sunderland student T.V. station that’s being set up by one of my friends. He aims to broadcast a weekly show over one of the spare network channels recently installed into the university halls. This will be a great opportunity for a lot of people, including myself, to get some extra hands-on experience of live TV. This will build on what I have learned in my TV studio modules both last year and this. At the moment we are working on a ten minute children’s show called ‘Fun Time’. This is proving to be great fun and very interesting as we are all getting a chance to try our hand on the cameras as the vision mixer, floor manager, director etc. The whole thing is also a great team building exercise. My only real problem with TV is that unlike most radio shows, it takes a lot of people and a heck of a lot of time to produce a programme. At times I find it a little frustrating because it always takes so long to set up the studio just to record two minutes of TV, where a lot more radio could be made in a fraction of the time. Having said that, I do really enjoy the module, and as my tutor said the other day; now that I know how TV works, I can watch bad TV and still get some enjoyment from it when I see them make mistakes.

Perhaps the most exciting thing which I’m embarking on at the moment is podcasting. I remember one of my computing teachers, Russell Manson, telling me when I was at school that I should have a go at it. I always thought it was going to be too difficult, and I suspect there was an element of laziness as well. Anyway, he told me that it was an exciting new thing and in light of my interest in radio, I should give it a go.

He was right and I have now begun to produce a fortnightly podcast called ‘The Rory Auskerry Show’. The podcasting process is actually quite simple once you have been shown what to do. Basically you need somewhere to host the mp3 file online, (I use a site called switchpod.com which is free and easy to use), you also need an iTunes account which is also free and very straightforward to set up. Once you have got this organised it’s just a case of recording your podcast, either at home on a portable mic or better still in a studio, uploading it to your host site and ‘pinging’ it to iTunes.

I have decided I’d like to experiment with lots of styles of radio show, and because a podcast isn’t broadcast it doesn’t need to conform to the usual broadcasting standards for quality and content set by OFCOM. Because I have access to broadcast quality studios and editing facilities I am able to make the technical quality sound pretty professional. As for the content I’m aiming to cover quite a lot over the course of the next few months.

Last week I produced a half hour show with Ian, one of the lads who came to Orkney last summer. In the show we chat about the trip to Orkney, (including the boat journey half way to Auskerry), some news stories which amused me and the ‘Kirby’ game that resulted in a broken front window, as well as various other things. He didn’t hold back and as a result I think the show is honest and funny, if at times a little explicit.

I hope that this does not put anybody off the shows as a whole because the next podcast will be totally different. I’m going to be joined by two of the most vocal students in my power, politics and the media seminar. Like my self, Caroline and Chris get quite heated during class debates and are both quite willing to play devil’s advocate over topics like Iraq, terrorism, religion and climate change. This show will be a properly organised, professional radio debate and therefore very different from the show with Ian.

Overall I’m aiming to produce a portfolio of work demonstrating that I can take the lead role in a variety of radio shows. It will also help me to discover exactly what I am best at, and what types of shows I enjoy doing the most.

Well it looks like that’s it from me until January. All that remains to be said is happy Christmas and I wish everyone a very good new year. I hope you will have a listen to the podcast, and I will now get back to my essays. Cheers.