February 2012

Dispensers, Films from the Nineties and Leg-Bombing...

28th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

Well, hello! In my opinion, today’s show was slightly above average. Nick and I expertly covered the news that was dominating all the front pages, which, today, was largely about Angelina Jolie’s right leg. Angelina Jolie went to the Oscars the other night in a beautiful, velvet, floor length, Versace gown, split up to the thigh on one side. So far, so good...until she started leg-bombing all over the red carpet.

Keen to show off that the dress featured a split, (or maybe she was keen to show off the fact that she definitely has a working right leg) she proceeded to pose in a bizarre, most unnatural manner, thrusting said leg out at an uncomfortable angle, knee bent abnormally outwards, hand on hip. She could have got away with this dramatic posturing once or twice during the evening, but she stood in that crazy way countless times, throughout the night to the point where fellow Oscar attendees started mimicking the pose on stage and a Twitter account @angiesrightleg was set up, tweeting such insights as ‘Get a load of this! I’m a leg!’

The Secret Sound guess on today’s breakfast show was of the ‘dispenser’ variety. A paper towel dispenser to be precise. It wasn’t the right answer. I don’t think I’ve heard the word ‘dispenser’ as often as I’ve heard it whilst people are making guesses at the Secret Sound.

In other news, Nick told us that he broke his heart watching the film ‘My Girl’ last night – a coming-of-age drama about a little girl and her best friend who dies when he’s stung by bees. (Nick’s an emotional guy and can’t watch ‘50 First Dates’ without balling his eyes out. (When he first told me this, I misheard him and thought he said ‘51^st State’ – an action thriller about a master chemist becoming embroiled in a web of deceit with Samuel L Jackson.)

Tune in tomorrow for more up-to-the-minute film reviews from the early 1990’s.

Posted by Jennie at 2:03pm

Cosy Studios, Secret Sounds and Rubbish...

27th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

It’s so nice to be back in the studio after a week of being on the road. The studio (which is pretty snug) feels vast after broadcasting largely from the inside of a mini. It’s nice not to have to wear three layers of clothes every morning to keep warm and it’s great to have tea and coffee back on tap again.

Nick’s introduced a twist to the Secret Sound. You’re allowed to ask us one ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, live on air just before you make your guess. It didn’t really go according to plan. Today’s caller, Fiona, was absolutely lovely, but we didn’t make her sound like the sharpest tool in the box when the conversation went like this:

Nick and Jen: “So, Fiona, what’s your 'yes' or 'no' question for us?”

Fiona: “Is it something to do with rubbish?”

Nick and Jen: “No.”

Fiona: “...is it a rubbish bin?”

Nick and Jen: “No.”

I suppose it’ll work best when we get a caller who has a couple of ideas about what the Secret Sound could be. Poor Fiona. Sorry about that.

See you tomorrow everyone. Have a great day. You stay classy.

Jen.

Posted by Jennie at 10:24am

Car Parks, McMuffins and Rain...

24th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

You might think that doing an outside broadcast in a McDonald’s car park in Ripon is a bad idea. You might even say it is foolish and that there are plenty of other, more visible, more picturesque, places in Ripon that would have been a better choice.

Well, Nick chose the place and Nick is Stray FM’s Programme Controller – so you can take your location issues up with him directly at nick.hancock@strayfm.com if you have a problem with it. If there’s one thing Nick loves, it’s listeners questioning the decisions he makes as PC. Just like Depeche Mode, he just can’t get enough.

I will continue to defend his decision, unwavering in my respect for him and any decision he makes as PC.

So, rubbish location aside, it rained on and off all morning, Gav and I lost our way there in the first place, making us late for the first two links and the signal kept dropping out,  in spite of me doing a very through site check prior to the broadcast.

Surprisingly, we had an array of unexpected visitors; Steve G Craggs, Tony Martin and Sue Williams from Ripon, Lucy from St Michael’s Hospice to name all of them. McDonalds treated us to breakfast on them and passers by bibbed and waved cheerfully (as they drove past we could hear them shout “why are you doing your breakfast show from a car park?”

“What a dubious location for a live outside broadcast!” They seemed to imply.

Anyway, we had a lot of laughs, as always, and that’s the main thing. I’ll level with you though, it’ll be nice to be back in the studio come Monday.

Posted by Jennie at 1:30pm

Fat Rascals, Rude Gestures and Fit Baldies...

23rd February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

Today’s breakfast show was broadcast live from Brook Street, Ilkley. That meant that Nick, Gav and I had alarm calls for 3:30, 4:10 and 4:15am respectively. (Now you know why we often look like we’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards in Stray FM photos.)

Ilkley is such a lovely place and with such friendly people too. During our three  hour show, we were visited by the staff from Dacre, Son & Hartley Estate Agents (who bought us a gorgeous, personalised cake) Claire from Betty’s (who bought us coffees and Fat Rascals) Mike the Ilkley window cleaner and Kathleen from Phillip’s Jewellers...we were inundated with great pressies and good wishes. We can’t wait to go back.

On today’s show we chatted about Adele’s rude gesture at The Brits, Nick’s thinning hair and who’s the best baldie. My vote would go to Yul Brynner.

Posted by Jennie at 12:33pm

Drizzle, Porkies and brackets...

22nd February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

Today’s breakfast show was brought to you from outside The Royal Hall, opposite The St George Hotel (who kindly sorted us out with tea, coffee and biscuits - thanks guys). As the sun rose and the traffic built up, we got loads of waves and bibbing horns (thanks for that too).

It was cold, windy and rainy today, but the show was still a good one, tons of fun, loads of visitors and lots of laughs. David from Stratstone (who’s given us our Mini Coupe for our mini adventure all this week) and Mark from HACS (who sponsors the Wednesday Weigh Off) popped down to take part in the Wednesday in – which, for a change, went well (if you don’t count Mark) – with everyone maintaining their weight or dropping a few pounds (four off since last Wednesday for Stu – nice one fella). There really are too many brackets for my liking in this blog. (They are really starting to get on my nerves.)

Tomorrow is an even earlier start (cheers Nick) as we’re off to Ilkley (about a 40 minute drive away from Stray Towers) to do the breakie show from there. (Lovely place, beautiful scenic drive over.) So I’ll catch you again tomorrow. (Hopefully with less bracketed extra information.)

Posted by Jennie at 1:45pm

Layers, Pancakes and Cider...

21st February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

Another day, another outside broadcast. This time at Henshaws, Bond End, Knaresborough. Having learnt from yesterday’s broadcast (where we nearly froze our bottoms off) Nick, Gav and I met up at the radio station at silly ‘o clock and headed out, all of us layered up to the mega max.

I wasn't taking any chances. I wore thermal long johns, two pairs of fleece lined tracksuit bottoms , two pairs of long woolly socks, and four, count them, FOUR! thick sweatshirts. Add to that a pair of sheepskin lined Uggs, a Stray FM bodywarmer and a pair of gloves and I could barely move. Seriously, I couldn't bend my limbs. Plus, I was still cold.

As it was Pancake Day, Gave bought his trusty camping stove and cooked up a storm in between delivering his news bulletins. We got so many passing cars beeping at us, that back at the ranch - at Stray Towers - our colleagues were fielding complaints from Knaresborough residents being woken from their slumber because of the racket. Sorry about that, we did try to discourage people from doing it by wildly gesticulating at the passing traffic, but it only seemed to encourage them all the more.

The highlight for me was when we interviewed Julie from Henshaws (a lovely lady, who along with John Fox, who rocked up unexpectedly, bought us lots of tea and coffee) and Nick, in a roundabout way, outed her as a rampant cider drinker.* Julie was very good natured about the left-field accusation, but still Nick wouldn’t let it go and kept bringing the conversation back round to her supposed wild cider drinking antics, “...are you sure you don’t drink cider? I’m sure that it was you who told me about a great cider. I could have sworn that you recommended a fantastic cider to me once..”

Tomorrow we broadcast the breakfast show live from in front of the Royal Hall.  Now, this should be interesting.

*Julie is a responsible drinker.

Posted by Jennie at 2:21pm

Mini Adventures, Brass Monkeys and Pancakes...

20th February 2012

Get up to no good with Nick and Jen...

We’re doing outside broadcasts all this week because we’re on a mini adventure courtesy of Stratstone Harrogate. This morning we were sat in our mini at the Empress roundabout, watching the traffic go by and freezing our bottoms off. We kidnapped our newsreader Gav too, so that he could read the bulletins from outside in the freezing cold too – he hasn’t thanked us yet.

We did our Monday Moan In as usual though and had some good ones, Janet moaned about the price of petrol, Kev moaned about the weather, I moaned about not being able to get back to a great dream once you’ve been woken up, Nick moaned about not being able to go for a wee, Gav moaned about dirty communal microwaves and Dave moaned about three deejays broadcasting from a roundabout, making the traffic even slower than usual...good point Dave.

There was a rather amusing moment when Gav realised that he'd sent the below photograph to a stranger. He was attempting to text the photo to me so I could upload it onto our Facebook page, but he selected a random phone number by accident and sent it without so much as an explanation. So, if you received this photo (of Gav, the Manager of The Holiday Inn, me and Nick) we're sorry and hope it didn't cause you too much confusion at 6:45 this morning.

It was brass monkeys, tomorrow we’ve all vowed to wear three more layers. We’ll be at Bonds End, Knaresborough between 6 and 9am on the morrow and Gav’s bringing his camping stove so we can make pancakes!

Jen.

Posted by Jennie at 1:39pm

Ox Roast, Boxes and Panettoni...

17th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

Today we chatted about Ronnie Corbet getting his CBE, a possible three day ox roast on The Stray to celebrate The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and our plans for the weekend.

Nick’s going to watch one of his friends who’s in a cool band. I’m doing something that I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I’m sorting through a suitcase stuffed full of old special cards and letters, and gig and cinema tickets. I’m sorting them out and putting them into pretty boxes. I know, I’m so rock and roll.

For some reason I like to keep cinema stubs that remind me that in April 1993 I went to see Groundhog Day at the Sutton Coldfield Odeon. Nick says I’m a geek, I just think he’s jealous because deep down he knows that he doesn’t have any proof whatsoever that he saw that film. What a loser.

It was Sally from Sales birthday today. Nick was in charge of sorting her birthday lunch, cake, present and card out. (When it’s someone’s birthday at Stray, we all get lunch bought for us – the type of food is chosen by whoever’s birthday it is.) Sally wanted a panettoni for her birthday cake (apparently that’s a type of Italian Christmas cake) Nick didn’t know what it was so he bought her the closest thing to it he could think of. She got some Pantene shampoo.

Oh, and of course we played our Friday song at 8:30. The theme to Baywatch, it’s seriously one of the best songs ever recorded. Get involved. See you on Monday. Have a great weekend.

Jen.

Posted by Jennie at 2:12pm

Pam, Goats with Accents and dear, dear Pam...

16th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

This morning Nick and I were rocked by the news that Pam, someone who started to listen to Stray FM a couple of weeks ago, is now an ex listener. Something about us not paying enough attention to what our listeners want bla bla bla...I couldn’t tell you exactly what her problem was because we weren’t really paying that much attention.

Now, don’t get us wrong, we love complaints as much as the next radio station, but when that complaint is delivered to us via our public Stray FM Facebook wall (a social networking site, where thousands, if not millions, of our listeners can read the said complaint) we see no reason not to base the whole breakfast show around it and take the mickey out of it for all it’s worth.

So, the playlist for this morning’s breakfast show was therefore tweaked to include the songs that reflected our mood - Please Don’t Go, If You Leave Me Now, I Have Nothing, Don’t Give Up On Us Baby, You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, I Can’t Live If Living Is Without You, and many, many more.

We were very heartened however that hundreds of our other listeners (the decent ones who know the meaning of loyalty) got in touch in every conceivable way.  #withoutpam starting trending on Twitter. The switchboard nearly burst into flames as so many people tried to get through to us to express their shock and sadness at Pam deserting us. The sheer volume of emails received caused our website to crash. Nick and I went through all seven stages of grief between the hours of 6 and 9.  It was intense but we’re alright now. We’ve just got to remember all the great times we shared with Pam and hope that one day we can come to terms with the loss.

Oh and we did some impressions of goats with accents, which was quite funny too – Pam would have loved it.

Posted by Jennie at 2:56pm

Dumping People, The Drunk Tank and The Wednesday Weigh Off...

15th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

This morning Nick and I discussed all manner of things. Our James Stanley from Hometime told us yesterday that a fifth of people have dumped someone via the medium of a text message. So Nick and I got to reminiscing about the ways in which we’ve dumped people in the past. (Nick’s been with his Sarah for over ten years, prior to that he wouldn’t have been able to dump anyone by text as mobile phones weren’t commonplace then.  He could have dumped someone by paging them.)

Nick recalled how he’d once used the immortal line: “It’s not you, it’s me.”

To my shame, I recalled how I’d once used the alternative line: “It’s not me, it’s you. You suck.”

David Cameron announced today that Britain might introduce ‘Drunk Tanks’ in a bid to deal with public drunkenness. Sounds like a great name for a pub; The Drunk Tank.  I, for one, fancy checking it out. 

The mystery package that I picked up from the Post Office Depot yesterday, did turn out to be a Valentine’s Day present from my boyfriend who is currently on holiday snowboarding in Japan. (Nick doesn’t believe that people go to Japan to snowboard – he says that my boyfriend may as well have told me he’s gone paragliding in the Bungle Bungles.) The present was a hot water bottle all cosy inside a red knitted cover.

The weekly Wednesday Weigh Off at 8:30 was an eventful one. Nick’s dropped two pounds, Stu’s stayed the same weight and Alex barely made it at all as he’d lost his car keys and had to get the bus in. He made it by the skin of his teeth though, and despite the run across the car park and into the studio, he didn’t see any change on the scales either. I don’t want to speak too soon, but it looks like Nick’s actually starting to take this weight loss challenge seriously.  Watch this space.

Have a great day.

Jen.

Posted by Jennie at 11:26am

Valentine's, Supermarket Rage and Surprise Packages...

14th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

It’s Valentine’s Day today, so first and foremost – Happy Valentine’s Day! If you’re celebrating it, have a good one, if you’re not, it’s all a load of commercial rubbish really isn’t it?

On today’s breakfast show Nick told us all about his supermarket rage at M&S yesterday. He went there to pick up a three course Valentine’s meal deal (romantic and thrifty) after work and he said it was utter bedlam. There were people elbowing each other out of the way, orderly queues went to pot and someone took him out with a trolley.

My boyfriend is in Japan, snowboarding - allegedly. (Nick doesn’t believe that Japan has snow. He thinks it’s an elaborate ruse to avoid doing Valentine’s Day.) Therefore I wasn’t expecting any other than a text wishing me a happy Valentine’s Day – but low and behold, I received a post office card telling me that I have a mystery package to collect. (It’s probably a hand knitted scarf from my Nan.) I shall report back tomorrow.

The same Secret Sound is still going strong.  The money up for grabs increases by £10 every day that it isn’t won. You currently stand the chance of winning £1,060 if you identify the sound correctly!

Tune in tomorrow for the world famous* Wednesday Weigh Off. I won’t lie to you, it doesn’t look good.

Jen.

*It isn’t world famous.

Posted by Jennie at 9:58am

Whitney, Bafta's, Grammy's and Valentine's...

13th February 2012

Get up to no good in the morning with Nick and Jen...

Well, this morning’s breakfast show was pretty good. We covered loads of stuff. The Monday Moan In was an interesting one this week. I took issue with words containing silent letters – what’s the point in silent letters? Seriously? And Nick went off on one about footballers not shaking each others hands. He really got a monk on about that actually.

We had Nick’s Mrs on the phone regaling us with stories about how she has to cut Nick’s toenails for him. They weren’t joking.

It’s awards season so we told you all about the winners at this year’s Bafta’s and Grammy’s. (Silent movie - The Artist and the not-so-silent Adele, respectively.)

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Nick’s thinking about getting some M&S ready meals in tonight in preparation and my boyfriend is away snowboarding so I might celebrate it once he’s back...if I remember to.  Who said romance is dead?

We also spoke about the very sad news that Whitney Houston died at the weekend and played loads of Whitney classics in tribute. Such a huge star, so many amazing songs, such sad news.

Make sure you tune in tomorrow, we’ll tell you more about the Mini Adventure we’ll be having all next week.

Jen.

Posted by Jennie at 11:45am