Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - December 2011

By the time this magazine hits your coffee table I’ll already be in Manchester, working in the BBC’s brand new building at Salford Quays. However, as I write this, I’m becoming acutely aware that my remaining days in London are numbered. In fact, I’ve got about a week left here, before I load the van I’ve hired to drive myself and my stuff to the North of England.

I’m very excited. I’ve been looking forward to making this move for almost two years, but now that it’s finally on the horizon, I’m starting to think of what I’ll miss about London. It’s been a steep learning curve living somewhere so big after growing up in Orkney. When I first arrived, I found it all quite overwhelming and there were days when I wasn’t sure if I’d manage to cope with it. It’s just so different from what I was used to back home, and even my city experience at University in Sunderland seemed insignificant in comparison to the vastness of London.

As I settled into the job and made friends, things got easier and I started to feel that I would manage ok. After a few months passed I began to understand the attitude of Londoners themselves. I became confident using the public transport system and I felt like I was really getting to know the areas in which I lived and worked.

I think it must take a while to get used to anywhere that is unfamiliar, but I still think London is in a league of its own, within the UK at least. I’m expecting to go through many of these ‘newbie’ emotions over the coming weeks as I get settled in Manchester, but I’m convinced it will be easier for two main reasons. For one thing I’m down sizing quite significantly – from being one of over 7 million in London to one of under half a million in Manchester. The second, and probably the most significant, is that I’m moving with a group of colleagues and friends who are in the same situation as me. It’s going to be new and exciting for all of us, and the fact that we’ll be getting to know the city together will inevitably make it easier and more enjoyable.

I’ve spent almost two years in London working in two buildings neither of which are likely to be occupied by the BBC for much longer. Next year, the various staff and departments that have not been relocated to Salford - including Radio 4 - will move out of Television Centre back to Broadcasting house in the heart of London. Their World Service colleagues from Bush House will also join them. It means that when I leave after my last shift, I’ll be leaving behind a piece of BBC history that will more than likely be just a memory when I next visit London.

Members of the public can apply to be taken on a free tour of Television Centre and I’d recommend that you go on one if you get the chance. It’s an iconic building full of memorabilia from all kinds of popular BBC programmes and shows. You’ll be shown the TV studios which over the years have been used to create shows and diverse as Strictly Come Dancing, Jools Holland, Room 101 and Not The Nine O’ Clock News - you even get the chance to try your hand at presenting a TV weather report!

Although many of the friends I’ve made in the capital are also making the move North, there are plenty who aren’t and I will miss them a lot. Now that I’ve lived in London I won’t be worried if for any reason I decide to move back for work in the future. It’ll be nice to live close to the countryside for a while though, and I’m already looking forward to my next trip to Orkney, which will be in early January.

I hope the festive period and the New Year brings excitement, prosperity and happiness to you all. I also hope it brings a few more Doonie wins in the Ba’. Happy Christmas!

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - November 2011

Goodbyes and ‘the end’ of things are often sad and difficult events. The last day at school or university, leaving home or a job you enjoyed, the end of a holiday or the demise of a relationship can all be less than happy experiences. I have had to cope with some reasonably tough adjustments in my life over the last wee while. My girlfriend, fellow Orcadian Lizi Pendrey has moved out. I'm pleased to say this is not because of anything I've done, but because she has landed a new job as a Journalist. The only problem is that the job is based in Edinburgh, not in Manchester, which is where I will be relocating to in a couple of months time. This is largely great news as she has been looking for this kind of work for months in London without much luck. However, we've both got used to each others company and we were looking forward to finding a new flat together in Manchester when my job with Radio 5 Live moved North.

I must admit that I wasn't overly keen for her to accept the job to begin with, but after discussing it with Lizi as well as with family and friends, I came to the conclusion that it was probably a good move in the long term. I've been very fortunate that my career has started off pretty well, and I'm very lucky to already be working in the industry that I’d like to succeed in. Lizi has not been so lucky, in fact journalism jobs for university graduates appear to be about as rare as rocking horse manure.

We both think that aged 23, and without wedding rings, kids or a mortgage, now is the time to take some risks in order to try and get our careers onto a good trajectory for the future. It's far from ideal as you can imagine. The distance between Manchester and Edinburgh is over 200 miles, which will take more than 4 hours to drive. Add that to the fact that because of my shifts, we don't often have days off at the same time. Living apart when you've grown used to having someone there all the time is difficult, and it's giving me a greater empathy with folk who's work means they spend prolonged periods of time away from loved ones.

As you’d expect, I’ve have had a fair amount of time to contemplate since Lizi left. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will just have to keep myself busy, and with a bit of luck the next few months of being apart will pass by quite quickly. I’m very fortunate to have a fantastic group of friends around me, many of whom are also in long distance relationships. I also have various other projects outside of work that I’d like to spend more time on.

The main one of these ‘extra curricular’ activities I’m involved in is voiceover work. I’ve been interested in the industry for several years, and as I researched more about it, the more I came to realise that it might be something I could turn my hand to. It’s a notoriously difficult industry to break into because clients tend to find voiceover artists they like, then use them over and over again. It is also a job which has become cool and trendy, thanks to the prominence of voiceover artists like Pete Dickson who’s ‘massive’ voice can be heard introducing the performers on TV shows like the X-Factor and Britains Got Talent. Others include Dave Lamb, who's dry humour spices up the entertainment factor on Channel 4’s hit show ‘Come Dine With Me’, and Mark Halliley, the narrator of ‘The Apprentice’ on BBC One.

Having said this, I have been impersonating teachers, celebrities and politicians since my teens and I like to think I’ve a decent range of voices that I’m fairly good at. (People certainly used to laugh at me at school, but perhaps the less said about that the better.) Anyway, I’ve made a demo featuring many the voices I can do, signed up to several voiceover agency websites and the work has started to come in which is great. I don’t think I’ll be making millions anytime soon, but it’s good fun and if my client list continues to grow at the rate it has been I should make a few quid by Christmas.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - October 2011

Fifty years ago in July 1961 Auskerry lighthouse became automated. The two lighthouse keepers and their families packed their things and left the island for the last time. Since then, the light has kept on flashing every 20 seconds thanks to a gas lamp revolved by weights and pulleys, and more recently bulbs and computers powered by solar produced electricity.

The lighthouse is, in fact, the reason behind by childhood dream to become a helicopter pilot. The bright red BO-105 chopper, which the Northern Lighthouse Board used to fly men and equipment to and from their lighthouses, totally captivated my imagination from the first time I saw it. I used to spend hours just watching the helicopter fly back and forth from ship to shore with a load slung under its belly. I thought it looked sleek and cool; the way it could move and hover was amazing, and I even loved the noise and smell of it. I still have an obsession with flying. The sound of a chopper overhead always makes me look up.

Sitting at my old home school desk in Auskerry with its sea view, the helicopter posters on the walls and the sound of the wind generators humming outside brings back many happy childhood memories. This time I’m not doing maths or English, instead I’m writing this on my laptop, a technological luxury, the likes of which I could only have dreamed of when I was still getting to grips with my seven times table. To be honest I’m not all that hot on my tables still.

It’s wonderful to be back on the island. I haven’t been here for over a year, but not much has changed and there is still the same feel about the place. Ever since I first went off to university my bedrooms in Kirkwall and in Auskerry have been more or less kept as I left them; full of my things, the walls covered in my posters and photos.

I will soon be moving from London to Manchester and there are strong arguments for my clearing out of my old bedrooms. It’s a hard thing to do though, as I’ve been discovering over the last few days. I’ve descended from a family of hoarders and therefore I have a large amount of stuff that most people would probably class as junk. I keep things either for sentimental reasons or because I’m convinced they ‘might come in handy’ sometime.

Fifteen years of this behaviour has resulted in these two rooms, and quite a large section of loft, full of old things, most of which would be best left in the recycling centre at Bossack dump. I am reluctant to tackle the issue because my rooms being full of my things make them feel like home. It may seem silly, but although I live and work in London, Orkney is still feels like home and long may that continue.

When I move to Manchester in the next few months I will be living with a friend in his house. I was going to be moving into a flat with Lizi, but she’s got a job as a journalist in Edinburgh that’s just too good an opportunity to miss. The result of this is that in the meantime I won’t have anywhere that I can call my own place. Not to say that I’m not looking forward to living there, I am, but I won’t have a place I can take all my boxes of things, unpack them onto my own shelves and begin the process of hoarding again. As a result, while I’m working on a combination of packing and throwing away in my bedroom in Kirkwall, I find myself wondering what it will be like when I come home to a ‘spare’ room, cleared of my possessions, next time.

Every time I come back I am stunned by how quiet Orkney is compared to the cities down south. In London you have to learn to live with the constant rumble of traffic, the sound of bustling life, sirens and passing trains. When I stepped off the plane at Kirkwall airport I was struck by how amazingly quite this county is. To me, coming back here it feels like an oppressive weight has been lifted. When you live here all the time the quiet feels normal, but to visitors and folk like me who can only be here for a few weeks a year it is immediately noticeable, and very comforting. As I pack away my things I wonder how the keepers felt, knowing that they would probably never return to Auskerry. I certainly hope I will be able to continue coming back here for many years to come.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry – September 2011

There's no column this month due to a lack of space in 'Living Orkney' magazine. I'll be back in the October edition.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry – August 2011

This may sound a bit daft from someone who’s recently turned 23, but I have just returned from my first holiday abroad without my parents. Up until my mid teens I was very fortunate to have been taken all over the world on family holidays. We visited lots of interesting places including Sydney, San Francisco, Toronto, Spain, France and Belgium. However, when I went off to University my priorities changed and I become more interested in coming back to Orkney to spend my holidays seeing family, friends and working at Radio Orkney than I was on jetting off somewhere exotic. As a result I don’t think I’ve been abroad since I was about 17.

After quite a bit of cajoling and persuasion from my girlfriend, I decided to bite the bullet and change this. A good friend of mine from work was also keen to go away with his girlfriend so we thought it would be fun for the four of us to go together. Having agreed that we all enjoy Italian food, we settled on Naples as our destination and booked flights and 4 nights in a hotel, online.

I was pretty anxious during the run up to our departure. I’m an inherent worrier at the best of times, but going abroad with all the potential problems you might face stressed me out. Happily, we arrived at the hotel in glorious sunshine after an entertaining taxi journey from the airport. The hotel staff were very friendly and the room was lovely.

Before we left, I’d noticed a news story on the BBC website about how Naples is currently struggling with a backlog of uncollected rubbish piled high all over the city. During the taxi ride we saw quite a few giant heaps of trash on pavements and street corners so I asked the driver what he made of it. In a strong Italian accent he said; “It’s very bad. The president is doing nothing about it. The rubbish is better than Berlusconi!”

On the second day we decided to take an open top bus tour of the city, and along the sea front past the various marinas. This was great as the bus provided a lofty vantage point for us to view our new surroundings. I must admit I often take the mickey when I see tourists in London going about on similar bus tours, but it’s actually a great way to get your bearings in a new place, and have all the main attractions brought to your attention. I think its easy to be amused, if not annoyed by tourists getting in the way when you are a local going about your business, so it was quite enlightening to have the boot on the other foot so to speak.

The following day saw us take a very run down and heavily graffiti adorned train to a town at the base of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius. From there we haggled down the price of a coach journey, which carried us up 800m of very narrow and windy road to just below the summit. This journey made a couple of my companions feel a bit queasy, but I loved watching the coach drivers negotiate round impossible bends as well as other coaches. We then walked the last 200m to the crater summit where our efforts were rewarded with a breathtaking view. Having caught our breaths and filled our pockets with pumice stone we began the decent where yet another mozzarella and tomato pizza was devoured with gusto.

The highlight of the holiday for all of us was a boat trip around the island of Capri. It’s a stunning outcrop of steep cliffs and trees jutting out of beautiful pale blue sea. It amused me that the thing I enjoyed most was a trip on a boat not too dissimilar to many that take tourists around Orkney.

We were sad to leave, but as the saying goes, there’s no place like home. Whether that’s London or Orkney, it’s always nice to get back. It’s just a shame there was no space in my case for the Italian weather, but that’s budget airlines for you.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - July 2011

What is your idea of a perfect holiday? Everyone seems to have different views about what the key requirements are, but there seems to be some common themes. I think the main things are probably to do with the company you are with and whether or not the holiday destination and accommodation actually lives up to what the brochure led you to expect. Other key things might include value for money, the weather and the beauty of scenery or variety of things to do.

I’ve been discussing this with friends since returning from a fantastic weekend away in Wales. Lizi and I traveled to Abergavenny for my family’s annual gathering. My aunts and uncles on mum’s side were all there, as well as most of my cousins and our grandmother. The ‘adults’, as we still refer to them despite a third of their combined offspring now qualifying as adults themselves, had booked a 16-bed bunkhouse for us all to stay in.

We arrived in high spirits and glorious sunshine, the countryside was beautiful, the air was warm and the beer cool. I knew straight away that we had the makings of a great couple of days. As you can see from the pictures, we took a trip on the canal in Brecon, and on the Sunday we went horse riding up in the hills.

The boat was great fun. I’ve always wanted to take a trip on a canal as its an area of boating I’d not yet had a chance to experience. As well as the peace of it, and the beautiful scenery, the trip was made even better as I was able to stand outside on the stern and chat to Dave the skipper who had a fantastic thick Welsh accent. I have always loved listening to how people speak and spend a fair amount of time trying to perfect my repertoire of accents and impressions. I’m pleased to say that my Welsh accent now sounds a lot more convincing.

The other main excursion we had booked for the weekend was a two-hour trek on horseback over the Brecon Mountains and through some more wonderful countryside. I must admit I was very apprehensive about this activity. Despite having been brought up on a sheep farm I must confess I’m not the worlds biggest fan of animals. Horses are particularity frightening to me because of their size and power. Lizi has been riding horses almost all her life so while I was worrying about whether I’d end up in hospital after falling off, I was also trying to be cool about it so as not to get the mickey taken too much.

Once I’d successfully mounted ‘Harry’ I felt slightly better about the situation, in fact as our long procession began to trot out of the stable yard I began to relax a bit. As we went through the first field I even felt the need to crack some gags about the lack of a clutch or brake. All was going well until we left the flat field and began to walk along a very narrow rocky path with a steep hill to our right and an almost sheer drop to our left. The most alarming thing is that when you are on the horse, it looks like the animals legs must be about to go over the edge because their body blocks your view of their hooves. I found this very unnerving and the banter quickly stopped.

I can reveal that I didn’t fall off, and while I’m not going to be buying a horse anytime soon I wouldn’t be against having another go sometime. Everyone we met was very friendly, we all had a fantastically fun and relaxing time and I’ll certainly return to Wales.

Whatever you are doing for your holiday this summer, whether that’s jetting off to the Caribbean, having a barbeque on one of Orkney’s beautiful beaches, or simply taking a week off work in August to attend the agricultural shows, I hope it’s a good one.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - June 2011

There's no column this month as there wasn't any space in the June Magazine. Too many other more interesting articles, so I got biffed. I've been reliably assured I will return next month.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - May 2011

In the age of austerity measures and budget deficits it’s no surprise that we keep hearing about painful cuts to public services. You will have more than likely heard many ways in which the local council, national government and perhaps the BBC might be able to save money. Doubtless you have your own opinions about what should be shrunk, scrapped and in many ways more importantly, what should be saved.

One suggestion that has caused a great deal of anger and alarm surrounds the future of BBC Local Radio. Concern grew swiftly after an article in a national newspaper suggested that BBC Local Radio stations should stop broadcasting local content apart from a breakfast and drive time show, replacing the rest of the days output with Radio 5 Live.

The proposal, which the BBC says is only one of many put forward for discussion as part of an ongoing consultation by the corporation, called ‘Delivering Quality First’. The reason for the debate is a freeze in the licence fee until 2017, and new funding obligations - including paying for the BBC World Service. Staff across the 40 local BBC radio stations in England have reacted angrily to the suggestion. This is no surprise given that the NUJ have suggested this could result in the loss of 700 jobs.

I believe BBC Local stations are unique in their ability to engage with the communities of which they form a part. They can often provide much greater detail on local news stories than the national networks can. They cover local sporting, political and community events which commercial rivals often don’t or won’t. They provide a wealth of expertise and contacts which journalists and producers at the national stations can tap into when need be, and due to their locations in the centre of towns and cities across the country, they are the public face of the BBC, easily accessible by licence fee payers.

Radio Orkney listeners are very loyal to their station, and this is something reflected nationally. Listeners turn to their local broadcasters for information all the time, not least during bouts of bad weather and snow for up to date information about school closures and travel problems.

Another area where I believe local radio plays an important role is in providing a great learning ground for new talent and young people looking for a way into the industry. As many readers will know, when I was still at school I was given an amazing opportunity by Radio Orkney to get involved with the station. The team, which at the time was led by John Fergusson, took me under their wing and showed me the ropes. In the years that followed I was given countless opportunities to learn new skills both on and off the air. I am convinced that if it weren’t for this amazing opportunity at a young age, I would not be working in radio now.

Figures fans may be interested to know that Local Radio shares 17% of the licence fee with all radio at the BBC. The sums indicate the 40 stations in England account for approximately 34p a month or £4 of a standard yearly licence fee. For comparison, TV accounts for 66% of the annual licence fee spend.

In an article in Ariel, the BBC’s internal newspaper, Caroline Thomson, chief operating officer, said: “It's important to remember that representing the UK's regions and communities is one of the BBC's six public purposes. With the rest of the local news sector at increasing risk of market failure, the BBC's contribution to local journalism is more important than ever. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at the most effective way of delivering it.”

Radio 5 Live is a great station and I’m sure there are a lot of local radio fans that would also enjoy 5 live, but I think it would be a big mistake, and a great loss to even partially replace one with the other. Looking ahead, the BBC’s plan is to bring all the ideas together and test them against the organisations public purposes and priorities. The findings will then be shared before being submitted to the BBC Trust for its approval in July.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - April 2011

My Girlfriend and I are now well settled in our new flat in West London. It’s a cozy little pad and now that my Hi-Fi is set up, there are a few familiar pictures on the walls and plenty of our clutter about the place it feels like home. There is one thing missing though. I am a bit of an Internet o’ holick so broadband is one of my home comforts. I actually don’t know how I managed to cope with the old dial up Internet we had when I was at school, let alone the complete lack of online entertainment when I go out to Auskerry.

The annoying thing is, that we actually signed up for Broadband with o2 at the end of January, only to be told they wouldn’t be able to connect it up until the 3rd of March! I don’t remember it taking anything like that long to get our broadband connected in Kirkwall back in 2008 or whenever it was. It seems bizarre that in London, the UK’s capital and centre of business, it takes over four weeks to get connected. I’ve been told that the reason for this waiting list is due to the fact that most broadband providers have to rely on BT Openreach engineers to actually do the connecting on the street and they are totally over booked.

As you don’t start paying until you actually get connected, providers such as o2 must be loosing a lot of money as a result of the delay. I would have thought that with such obvious demand, BT would have made more effort to employ more engineers to help cut the waiting times. Luckily we have been able to get online to via a USB dongle, which uses the 3G mobile phone network, but its very slow and only really any use for things like booking train tickets and checking e-mails. For someone who’s quite reliant on the internet for entertainment and social reasons, it’s been quite interesting for me to have had to adapt to cope without it.

However, the last month has been so busy at work, that I suppose I haven’t had as much spare time to miss the internet as I would normally. This is because I have finally moved over from the World Service in central London to working at Radio 5 Live in Television Centre. As regular readers will know, when I took this job back in November 2009, the plan was for me to work for 5 Live. However, as part of our training we were initially posted to Bush House, the current home of the World Service, to learn the ropes as a Studio Manager. With 5 Live scheduled to move to the new Media City site in Salford later this year, our bosses have moved us over to TVC so that we can learn the skills and tasks specific to 5 Live programmes prior to the move North.

It’s sad to have said goodbye to my colleagues at the World Service, many who have become good friends. However, it’s very exciting to be starting this new chapter of my SM’ing career at the BBC’s home of live news and sport on the radio.

As you can imagine, learning the ropes in a new building, which incidentally is huge and like a maze is quite a challenge in its self. Imagine your first week at Kirkwall Grammar School, but it has about 5 more floors and half of it a big circle, so you can just keep walking round and round for ages with no idea where you are.

The other aspect of working at Television Centre that I hadn’t really considered is that fact that I keep coming face to face with celebrity TV presenters that you don’t expect to see while you’re walking around work, or making a cup of tea. Presenters like Sian Williams from BBC Breakfast, Kate Silverton and George Alagiah from the News Channel and Mark Lawrenson from Match Of The Day work in this building along with people like me every day. I’m just not used to it so I’m trying to learn to be nonchalant and cool about it and not draw too much attention to the fact that I might be just a little star struck.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry – March 2011

My Girlfriend and I are now well settled in our new flat in West London. It’s a cozy little pad and now that my Hi-Fi is set up, there are a few familiar pictures on the walls and plenty of our clutter about the place it feels like home. There is one thing missing though. I am a bit of an Internet o’ holick so broadband is one of my home comforts. I actually don’t know how I managed to cope with the old dial up Internet we had when I was at school, let alone the complete lack of online entertainment when I go out to Auskerry.

The annoying thing is, that we actually signed up for Broadband with o2 at the end of January, only to be told they wouldn’t be able to connect it up until the 3rd of March! I don’t remember it taking anything like that long to get our broadband connected in Kirkwall back in 2008 or whenever it was. It seems bizarre that in London, the UK’s capital and centre of business, it takes over four weeks to get connected. I’ve been told that the reason for this waiting list is due to the fact that most broadband providers have to rely on BT Openreach engineers to actually do the connecting on the street and they are totally over booked.

As you don’t start paying until you actually get connected, providers such as o2 must be loosing a lot of money as a result of the delay. I would have thought that with such obvious demand, BT would have made more effort to employ more engineers to help cut the waiting times. Luckily we have been able to get online to via a USB dongle, which uses the 3G mobile phone network, but its very slow and only really any use for things like booking train tickets and checking e-mails. For someone who’s quite reliant on the internet for entertainment and social reasons, it’s been quite interesting for me to have had to adapt to cope without it.

However, the last month has been so busy at work, that I suppose I haven’t had as much spare time to miss the internet as I would normally. This is because I have finally moved over from the World Service in central London to working at Radio 5 Live in Television Centre. As regular readers will know, when I took this job back in November 2009, the plan was for me to work for 5 Live. However, as part of our training we were initially posted to Bush House, the current home of the World Service, to learn the ropes as a Studio Manager. With 5 Live scheduled to move to the new Media City site in Salford later this year, our bosses have moved us over to TVC so that we can learn the skills and tasks specific to 5 Live programmes prior to the move North.

It’s sad to have said goodbye to my colleagues at the World Service, many who have become good friends. However, it’s very exciting to be starting this new chapter of my SM’ing career at the BBC’s home of live news and sport on the radio.

As you can imagine, learning the ropes in a new building, which incidentally is huge and like a maze is quite a challenge in its self. Imagine your first week at Kirkwall Grammar School, but it has about 5 more floors and half of it a big circle, so you can just keep walking round and round for ages with no idea where you are.

The other aspect of working at Television Centre that I hadn’t really considered is that fact that I keep coming face to face with celebrity TV presenters that you don’t expect to see while you’re walking around work, or making a cup of tea. Presenters like Sian Williams from BBC Breakfast, Kate Silverton and George Alagiah from the News Channel and Mark Lawrenson from Match Of The Day work in this building along with people like me every day. I’m just not used to it so I’m trying to learn to be nonchalant and cool about it and not draw too much attention to the fact that I might be just a little star struck.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry - February 2011

I knew it was going to hurt my wallet when we moved. My godmother and her family have been incredibly generous letting me live in her Knightsbridge flat for the last year. It’s enabled me to get settled in London without having all the hassle, not to mention the expense of finding somewhere to live. However, I never planned to be in her place for more than a year, so before Christmas my girlfriend and I started looking at flats to rent in the Shepherd’s Bush area of West London.

I had a viewing of a small but cozy flat in the area back in November. Because the rental market was moving very slowly at the time I decided to put in an offer to rent the place. It’s in an ideal location for us because I will be able to walk to work at Television Centre in about 15 minutes and Lizi will be able to get a direct bus to work without having to change buses or use the tube.

Anyway, we have now moved in, which wasn’t a lot of fun due to the three flights of stairs all our stuff had to be carried up. The main thing that’s hit both of us is the cost of renting on the open market in London. To say that my godmother was giving us ‘mates rates’ is a severe understatement. Not only were we paying very little rent, but we also didn’t have to worry about council tax, electricity or gas bills, the TV licence or broadband. We are now paying just over £1000 a month in rent alone, as well as two-three hundred for the aforementioned extra essentials. I’m not really complaining because we could have been paying that for the last year as well as now, just stating that it has come as a bit of a shock to our bank balances.

Since I last wrote I have been on a BBC familiarisation visit to Manchester. We went to see around the MediaCityUK site where 5 Live will be broadcast from later this year, as well as some areas of greater Manchester, which the estate agents thought we might want to live. Having seen where I’m going to be living and working in less than a year’s time has made it all the more real and exciting. Even from the brief time I was up there I got a real sense that the city has a community vibe, unlike much of London. I’ve written in Living Orkney before about how much I miss this side of Orkney life so I found it very encouraging to find how friendly and chatty people seem to be in and around Manchester.

On a different note, I wanted to briefly make a point about student tuition fees. While it will be of major concern to many young folk that in the years to come they will begin their working lives with a substantial amount of debt, I wouldn’t like to see them put off going to university. I’m still convinced that the benefits of an appropriate course can be very substantial. Many university courses, mine included did not have a timetable of work to cover 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Far from it, in fact, we had a total of around two or three days a week ‘off’ which I used to get involved in other projects like the student radio station and being a student ambassador.

I think this is one of the critical issues here; If you plan to go to university just to do the minimum in order to pass, and spend the remainder of your time in less than constructive ways then you may well graduate with a lot of debt and not much to show for it. On the other hand, if you are prepared to use some initiative and apply yourself to a variety of other projects that will either widen your skills and experience, or help to finance yourself then you’ll have had a much more valuable experience. You will probably meet more people as a result, and make yourself more employable whilst making more friends and ultimately having a much more enjoyable time.
So, if the tuition fees are raised, I hope it will mean that our universities are full of folk who are determined to make the most of the experience rather than seeing it as a way of putting off having to get a job.

Keeping It Real with Rory Auskerry – January 2011

If I had been at home last September I would have spent a good proportion of my time supping lager and rocking out to the sound of local talent at the Orkney Blues Festival. I’ve always enjoyed live music, especially when the musicians happen to be my contemporaries from school. I’m thinking in particular of the excellent local group called Bad Taste, but there are plenty of others too; like the Condition and Bad Dog, No Biscuit.

Sadly I wasn’t able to attend last year’s festival, as I was committed to work in London. However, that didn’t stop me from going to several excellent live music events in the capital. The first was probably the most spectacular, a concert held in Wembley Stadium in front of over 90,000 people. It was exciting, energetic and very loud; just what I expected from Muse and their excellent support bands; Biffy Clyro, White Lies and I Am Arrows.

I’d never been to Wembley before and although I had been to the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, the sheer size of the place was quite overwhelming. It struck me that the entire structure was designed and built purely as a money making cathedral of fun and entertainment. Unlike some farmland that becomes the site of an outdoor festival for three days a year, or a barn that’s used for a dance now and again, this gigantic concrete and steel oval was built almost exclusively to host football matches and music concerts. It is pretty impressive.

The other two gigs were a much smaller affair held in the rather tired looking Shepherds Bush Empire. The first performance was given by the ex Procul Harum guitarist Robin Trower, with the excellent young axe man, Aynsley Lister as the support act. Our second trip to the same venue was to see the American guitarist, Walter Trout who was touring to promote his new album.

Most of the Empire punters were men in their late fifties and sixties, and several of them had a son with them who was clearly being initiated into the classic rock brethren. After the Trout gig, the sister of one of my dad’s old school friends who had accompanied us commented that, to put it politely, the band members were not exactly oil paintings. I feel that comment was indicative of a wider change in opinion about music entertainment. It appears that the modern tendency is to place as much, if not more emphasis on the looks and ‘sex appeal’ of the band members as on their actual ability to play brilliantly.

Perhaps the influx of television talent shows in recent years has steered us towards an expectation that musical artists and performers should look like a star, as well as play like one. I think this is wrong. I have a theory that maybe some of the less charismatic youngsters, finding it hard to gain popularity amongst their fickle friends, perhaps decided to concentrate their energy on becoming highly skilled at playing their chosen instrument rather than chasing the opposite sex? But that’s just my theory.

This leads me to a second point, which is the contrast between the Muse and Trower/Trout performances. Both of the Empire gigs were very simple affairs. Musicians dressed in jeans with a fairly simple array of sound kit and some coloured lights. Conversely, the Muse concert was an epic display of pyrotechnics, rotating space ship stage platforms, flashing lights, visualisations and dancers.

Don’t get me wrong, they played extremely well and the band’s leader, Matt Bellamy, is widely regarded as one of the best guitarists of my generation. But I do wonder if it’s now considered necessary to include these elements in the concert to retain the attention of some members of my generation, many of who’s attention span has been shrunk by the fleeting nature of the Internet and the constant availability of interactive entertainment.

I’m looking forward to seeing more bands and guitarists playing in London as we go through 2011. But for me there is nothing quite like the sweaty, no frills gigs often played out in the pubs around Orkney. It will also be interesting to see who my generation get excited about going to see when we get a bit older. I wonder if Jedward or Lady Gaga will have quite the same appeal when they reach their sixties?