A Radio Star Is Born

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Sorry to those of you who missed Tory Boy’s radio show.  Not his, exactly: he co-hosted because the usual host was out.  It’s his second time filling in.  It’s just a little campus station but he assures me last night they had as many as thirteen listeners.

Special mention goes to slp’Slip’martin for being the show’s only American listener.  Probably ever.  And to Flo for giving up Monk.

If you missed it, you can catch it on the podcast when it appears online sometime in the next decade.  I’m still waiting for the podcast of his debut a couple of weeks ago.  We only heard about it after the event because he’s, well, Tory Boy and that’s the way it works.

I know how disappointed you must be to have missed him so I have put together Tilly Bud’s DIY Guide To Re-Enacting The Activities Of A Complete Stranger’s Son:

1. Have a son.
2. Wait twenty years.
3. Send him to Lancaster University, eighteen years in.
4. Wait by the phone for the calls that never come.

Hang on a minute; that’s a different guide.  Here you go:

1. Pretend to be a twenty-year old student male.  Unless you already are one, in which case, pretend to be yourself.
2. Get a pair of Eighties’ earphones, the great big ones that look like Princess Leia’s hairdo encased in plastic.
3. Have a huge amount of curly hair and a distinctive laugh.
4. Talk into a microphone to thirteen of your closest friends and relatives and your Mum’s friends.
5. Babble a lot about whatever comes to mind (required element).
6. Play some records (they should be some sort of computer files, not records, I know; but anyone actually acting upon this guide is forty-something with no life and a massive record collection, so why waste it?).
7. Laugh at every opportunity (good advice in general).

And that’s it.

I thought he did pretty well once he got into it.  I’m proud that he even tried: I like a kid that will grab every opportunity.  I think I’ll keep him.

The highlights for me were when he looked particularly daft (I didn’t get to be the mother I am by not enjoying my sons’ foolish moments to the full).  The other host put on Booker T & The MGs’ Green Onions but didn’t say what it was (quote the source!  Always quote the source.  Don’t they teach you anything at uni?).  I sent a message while it was playing, saying ‘green onions booker t & the mgs’ (I lost the ability to use the Cap button in my excitement).  The song finished; the hosts chatted a little; then Tory Boy said, ‘We’ve had a request for green onions by booker t & the mgs’ (young people never talk in capitals any more), only to be told that that was the song they’d just played.  Co-host was amazed anyone knew what it was called and TB was forced to admit the message was from his mother.  Co-host then co-admitted that the only other person in the world who probably knew the song was his own mother.

The other highlight came when TB read the request from Flo to sing along to a Robbie Williams song (there being some confusion as to whether one or other of the hosts sounded like Robbie Williams and Flo being the only person who agreed with herself that someone did).  All of the people in the studio sang along to a song beginning with ‘F’ (I forget which because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t hear it); not everyone in the studio, however, knew they were live on air.  Tory Boy did, but didn’t care. 

TB is the apple of my pie and I love him dearly but I can safely say without hesitation, repetition or deviation that he will never, ever top the charts, bless him; but his ability to poke fun at himself might win him some new friends.  It works for me.