When I got into LBC this morning the office was completely empty.
Obviously I thought the whole work force had been invited to a junket and I was being ostracised for missing my ‘news’ cue yesterday.
I opened up my emails, found the top ten list of topics up for grabs and set about reading the papers.
The silence was suddenly broken by a brace of boisterous broadcsters and Steve Allen, they had been to a presentation of the new shape of the station.
I should have been there but I’m not yet on the system so nobody thought to invite me.
I was relieved I can tell you.
I don’t know any performer who isn’t deeply insecure.
We may not all admit it but we are all waiting to be tapped on the shoulder and told to go and get a day job.
Anyway after the intial shock of thinking I was going to get sacked, my producer and I set about making a running order for three hours.
We knew we wanted to talk about homeopathy, but the little Readers Digest book provided us with out first topic.
Three seconds is all it takes to distract a driver. The attention span of a goldfish is all it takes for an accident to happen….3 seconds of tapping out a text, or applying lipstick, or turning on the radio can reek havoc.
It started off, sort of frivolousy, until the implications of hands free and attention span hit home.
I left the studio at 4.10, walked across the road to the car-park and fiddled around for my fob. Hanging on the end of red string I have a special black plastic widgit which opens the car-park gates.
The gates opened slowly, I climbed into my little red car and instead of turning on my hands free visor box, instead of switching my mobile onto ‘Bluetooth’, I turned the damn cell-phone off and put it in my purse.
I drove back to the flat listening to Whitney Huston wondering if I could silence the thoughts about all the people I would have normally phoned.
I managed it
What me a phonaholic? Never.
I went shopping and made three phone calls by the avocados.
Drove back to the flat sans mobile. I had survived, in fact without the phone I felt a lot less pressured. I hope I can stick to it.
The big debate on homeopathy was heated and will run and run.
It aint ‘alternative’ its ‘complimentary’,or as one caller, Dr. Kaplin, said, finding the ‘APPROPRIATE’ cure for any individual is the responsibilty of the healer.
When the callers call and the texters text, when the e-mailers e-mail and the producer smiles, it has to be one of the best jobs I’ve ever done, it doesn’t stop me being paranoid though!
It’s 9 of the clock and I feel guilty because I haven’t got more exciting news for you. But on the back of todays debate I am now going to sign up to www.homeopathyworkedforme.org/, write up my journals, read a bit of DEAD AIR by Ian Banks, about a shock jock – which I’m not – then sleep the sleep of the just – or not.
That’s it, have a good night
and
cu2morrer