July 2012

You'll have to do it in your pants...

31st July 2012

Another day, another Olympic medal. Well done Team GB!

Granted it was a bronze medal, and yes, it was won by male gymnasts in their funny little stretchy trousers, but a medal is a medal and nobody can argue with that.

All the gymnastic chat this morning led Nick and I onto reminiscing about PE at school. Now, don’t get me wrong; I generally liked PE, but I don’t think my springboard skills have been utilised since then.

Neither has my ability to shoot up a piece of rope like a bolt of lightening. (Yes. A bolt of lightening.)

And don’t get me started on my ability to walk along an upturned bench without falling off – I haven’t been in a single situation where that was expertise has been called for.

As for being forced to do PE in your undercrackers if you accidentally forgot your kit – how on earth was that ever deemed appropriate?

Check out the audio below and thanks for stopping by.

Posted by Jennie at 10:01am

Well done Lizzie from Otley!

30th July 2012

Good morning!

Well, the opening ceremony went down a storm, didn’t it? I was out on Friday night so have yet to watch it, but according to Nick, I will not be disappointed.  I dipped in and out of the Olympic sports over the weekend too. I’m absolutely loving the volleyball and Nick’s been so inspired by the cycling that he’s dusted off his penny farthing.

Team GB has won two medals so far and one of them has been won by a woman from Otley! Well done Lizzie Armitstead! You’ve done Yorkshire proud.

Have a great day. We’ll be back in the morning with more gumf.

Posted by Jennie at 9:54am

Nick and Jen at Breakfast - The Olympic Spesh

27th July 2012

The Olympics London 2012 officially kicks off today.

‘The greatest show on earth!’

That’s what some have said about Nick and Jen at Breakfast on Stray FM.

Some people are now saying it about the Olympics opening ceremony. Before it’s even happened. Bit pre-emptive isn't it. I think we'll hang on the the acolade for the time being.

Oh, it’s a historic day alright, we’re aware of that, but Nick and I were struggling to keep everyone’s over-excitement in check this morning. Just keep calm guys, there are several hours to go until the much hyped opening ceremony this eve. We’ve got the bell ringing spectacle at 8:12 to do yet for God’s sake. Let’s give that a chance first, shall we.

Nick also posed the question this morning – ‘Have you ever won a medal?’

Seems like a straight forward question, but to be honest, some listeners struggled with it. Audio evidence below.

Enjoy the ceremony tonight. Come down and join us tomorrow for Zumba on The Stray, kicking off at 10am. Check out www.zumbaonthestray.co.uk for further details.

We’ll catch you again on Monday morning from 6am. Have a great weekend and, in all seriousness, thank you for listening. You rock!

Photo from this morning below, which features medals, and there's some amusing audio from this morn beneath that. Do have a listen. It's especially good if you like bells.

Posted by Jennie at 11:41am

It's bound to have something to do with Myleene Klass...

26th July 2012

80% of us are depressed by our appearance, according to a recent survey. The perfect female body would allegedly consist of Cameron Diaz’s long legs, Kim Kardashian’s generous bottom and Jessica Simpson’s ample chest. The male body would ideally be made up of David Beckham’s spindly pins, Mark Wahlberg’s enviable abs and Donald Trump’s questionable hair. (I might have added one of those myself.)

Nick and I thought we could do better than that.

I said I’d opt for David Bowie’s different coloured eyes, Vanessa Paradis’s gap toothed grin and Will Smith’s charisma. Nick wants Gary Lineker’s legs (circa 1990), Simon Cowell’s chest nest and his own face. (The one from 2008, when he’d lost weight for his wedding day).

Keeping with the animal theme from this week, we touched on the subject of horses and how some of them can appear to be quite judgemental. They certainly look down their noses at you. I don’t think anybody can argue with that.

Nick’s been on the scrounge in car parks again. K-Stew and R-Patz (the Twilight couple) are in a pickle and some insolent kid sneaked onto a plane bound for Rome claiming it was because he needed a wee.  Ludicrous. We can’t make head nor tail of it either, but it’s bound to have something to do with Myleene Klass - singer, pianist, media personality, model, reality TV star, presenter, dancer, ex Hear’Say member, author, actress, fundraiser, radio host, clothes designer and Mothercare endorser. Let’s be fair; she’s involved in nearly everything else.

Have a great day. We’ll catch you again tomorrow. Thanks for getting involved. Now listen to this:

Posted by Jennie at 11:23am

Cat walking is rife in Yorkshire...

25th July 2012

Two days to go until the Olympics begin proper. Nick said his mate (who Nick reckons is a big, butch, brute of a man) saw the rehearsal of the opening ceremony - he said it was so moving that it made him cry. (Man up! You big, brave brute, you!)

Nick saw someone walking their cat on The Stray yesterday. Like you would a dog. With a lead. Well, as you can imagine, Nick was shocked to the very core.

Although walking your cat isn’t the norm, I have to say that I used to walk my own cat sometimes, before she died. (Be strong Jen, be strong *bites fist*.) Just for a laugh. Her name was Nermal and she didn’t mind in the slightest. She found it exciting, if anything. Well, this opened the floodgates because (much to Nick’s astonishment) loads of people take their cats for a walk. It was all going very well, until someone sent us a photo of their dog sat in a pram. There’s always one isn’t there? Always one person who goes too far and puts their dog in a pram. It happens every time.

Oh, we’re doing our bit for the animals of the world this week; Chicken Death, Poodle Watch, Cat Walking, Dogs in Prams and today we’re all about the Humble Dolphin. Make sure you tune in for tomorrow’s show, which will, no doubt, be about another species of the animal kingdom.

Thanks for listening. It really would be quite pointless if you weren’t.

Posted by Jennie at 12:14pm

On today's episode of PET PATROL...

24th July 2012

A 10ft shark has been spotted in the UK on the coast of Cornwall. Onlookers said that the sight of it caused a commotion as paddlers and surfers frantically tried to get away from it and back to the safety of the beach.

“There was no need to panic - it was only a basking shark!” The lifeguard said, patronisingly.

I don’t know about you, but when a shark sidles up to me, I don’t hang around to check its ID.  

Mop-Topped Pop-Rockers; McFly are in Yorkshire this weekend and we’ve got tickets and meet and greets to give away. Nick has been thinking of ways listeners can win these awesome (if you’re a fan) prizes.

My favourite mechanic was his family friendly: Win The Tickets Or Lose Your Life!

We had a great topic planned for the show today, we’d done research and everything, but the whole show got derailed by an unexpected instalment of THE PET PATROL!

When a PET PATROL case comes in, everything else is immediately shelved. Nick and I go into PET PATROL overdrive and do not rest until the pet is reunited with its owner. (Or until it’s 9am and we come off air. Whichever comes first.) Today’s PET PATROL case was that of an AWOL poodle that goes by the name of Brandy. Brandy was legging it around Harrogate, causing traffic havoc and worrying her owners sick. The Stray FM PET PATROL switchboard went into meltdown during today's POODLE WATCH, as listeners who’d sighted Brandy got in touch with us to report her various whereabouts. Nick and I really had to keep our heads on a swivel whilst working on this PET PATROL POODLE WATCH.

Was Brandy reunited with her owners? Well, I guess you’ll just have to listen to today’s podcast to find out that she was. (Or wasn’t.)

Posted by Jennie at 11:57am

Oh! That's a likely story Gav...

23rd July 2012

It’s sunny! YES!!! (I think that warrants more than one exclamation mark.)

So, on today's Breakfast Show; Nick would take anti-baldness pills, even if it meant that he’d have to wear a bra. (Listen to the attached audio, it’ll all make sense.) Jen wouldn’t say no to a bit of Brand and Gav’s banging on about some bike race.

This bike race is a big deal to Gav for some reason. Well, he would want us to believe that wouldn’t he!

You see, Gav applied for the government funded Bike To Work scheme last year (you get a lovely shiny new bike and only have to pay for it after that in cut price instalments). So, cue Gav rocking up to work in full on cycling gear for about a week in the summer of 2011. I don’t think he’s set eyes on that bike since. It was probably on Ebay before the year was out.

Check out the audio from today’s show, it's pretty amusing.

Catch you tomorrow munchkins. Do get amongst it and enjoy this beautiful weather!

Posted by Jennie at 10:34am

Holy Hand Sanitiser Batman!

20th July 2012

Christian Bale, the actor who plays super-tough, crime-fighting hottie - Batman, shakes hands with fans then skips off to his comfy limo to dowse himself down with sanitiser. He's afraid of germs, you see. This is unimpressive superhero behaviour by anyone's standards. Cowboy up Batman.

It's the last day of term today. Lots of kiddiwinks leaving primary school so good luck! You will be fine.

Nick and I had a couple of great callers on air this morning:

One of them told us he was getting wet. (It's not that kind of show.)

The other hung up on us live on air just when it was getting to the good bit.

Oh dear. At least it's Friday. Nick reckons the weather's going to be awesome this weekend. So, quick! Make some plans to be outside for God's sake.

Catch you on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Posted by Jennie at 9:55am

The show that winners listen to

18th July 2012

 
It’s going to be ok, it’s going to be ok, it’s going to be ok. Keep chanting the mantra.

So I may have given away lots of money this morning but it’s fine as Sarah the Big Bad Boss of Stray FM is away at the moment on a ‘works conference’ in Italy...a likely story. Anyway not to worry I can blame Alex Cann when Sarah gets back.

So well done to the lovely Sarah who lives near Nidd Gorge and bagged £1370 for correctly guessing the Secret Sound was cotton wool buds being taken out of their little box. You don’t need to know this but this all happened in my bathroom at home #showbiz.

Also this morning a survey says half of married people regret getting hitched within two years of saying ‘I do’.  I’ve been married for nearly three years to my wife Sarah and I think weddings are fab. You get a big party with all your mates, you chose the presents they buy you and you can pick all the songs at the disco afterwards.  My secret to a happy marriage – do your share of the housework and always admit you were wrong. Even if you weren't.

Back tomorrow with more Flowers for Teachers at 7.30am.

Posted by Nick at 9:37am

The lowdown on the ho ho ho down

14th July 2012

Hey and welcome to the Breakfast show Blog.

Now I am no stranger to not being able to open my office door at 9.03am due to the number of complaints {about me of course} spilling out from my email. Oh I’ve upset them all in my time – caravan owners, the ‘Travelling’ community, goldfish, teachers, Vikings, Liverpool fans, fat people, thin people and my favourite of all time someone who complained I said ‘Stray FM’ too much. The lot. 

One way to stir up trouble is to celebrate Christmas in July. 

So I am very surprised that we seem to have gotten away with yesterday’s Harrogate at Christmas appeal called ‘How big is your bauble?’. All day yesterday we were asking local businesses and residents to pledge money for Harrogate’s town centre Christmas lights. The council are kind enough to match fund the first 10k raised.

As I’m sure you’ll agree we had fantastic Christmas lights in Harrogate last year and they make a big difference to helping the local economy and stopping people heading off to Leeds or York.

If you missed the big announcement last night with James Stanley the total raised for Harrogate at Christmas was £24,160. Or put another way Stray FM as saved Christmas.

Oh yeah and we even had Santa himself calling into the Breakfast show.

Thanks for reading and of course thanks for listening.

Nick

Posted by Nick at 1:44pm

what time does Andy Murray have his breakfast? Around ten ish

9th July 2012

Well that was #emosh wasn’t it? Poor old Andy Murray. Did he make you cry at the end when he broke down? There were 14 of us at my Aunty Jo’s house and just about everybody was slightly weepy. Sarah my missus has been away with work – apaz – and she phoned me in floods too.

All the celebs managed to get tickets. Cliff Richard was there threatening to sing at any moment and Dr. Who, David and Victoria Beckham, Kate and Pippa Middleton and David Cameron too. Poor Dave Cam is being blamed for ‘the curse of Cameron’ and causing Murray to lose. However the PM has quite rightly pointed out that he did inherit Andy Murray from the previous Labour Government.

Now tomorrow at 7.30am we’re launching one of my favourite Stray FM competitions. We do this every year in July and we always get thousands of entries. It’s End of Term Flowers where kids can nominate their Teacher or Teaching Assistant for a beautiful bouquet of flowers that will be hand delivered by me next week. So make sure the kids are up and tuned in at 7.30am tomorrow.

Have a good day.

Nick

Posted by Nick at 9:54am

Persisting it down

6th July 2012

So this morning we celebrated the start of the ‘wettest weekend ever’ with one month’s worth of rain expected to fall in the next ten minutes...or something like that.

Personally I’m not bothered. My wife has left me* and I didn’t have any plans for this weekend anyway apart from eating cold baked beans straight out of the can and watching Hollyoaks.

However I know lots of people were upset at the news that the M-Fest at Harewood has been called off. The Steps fans were especially sad.

Gav did offer to sing a Steps track. I suggested ‘Tragedy’ as it would sum up his career to date.

A highlight of my morning was the front page of a national newspaper which said:

‘Inside our guide to having the perfect bbq’ delightful.

Now some really good news. Noel Edmonds is coming back to Saturday night TV on the beeb. Do you remember when telly was decent on a Saturday night. You’d have Baywatch at 5, Gladiators at 6 – or Big Break and Noel’s House Party at 7.

My family watched Noel’s House Party religiously. Do you remember NTV? The bit where Noel had cameras set up in someone’s front room. Each week my mum would start plumping cushions and cleaning up our living room. She was convinced we were about to be featured on NTV. We never were. Of course.

Well that’s it for this week. Thank you for listening and reading and enjoy your weekend. Oh and come on Andy Murray.

*she has only left me for the weekend as she is working away, apparently.

Posted by Nick at 9:56am

The Bang Big Theory

5th July 2012

Hi-de-ho here is a little briefing on this morning’s Breakfast show:

Rain, rain, rain and more rain....there is two months’ rain forecast over the next three days. My advice – run to the hills.

Andy Murray is more British than Scottish today. I said something very profound at 8.43am – when Andy Murray wins Wimbledon and they make a film of his life Julie Walters should play his mum.  If you’re not sure that was the profound thing.

Pudsey the Britain’s Got Talent dog is writing his auto-bi-dog-raphy. It will be a ‘paws and all’ story of Pudsey’s rise from ‘wags to riches’. That’s enough now.

As I’m sure you’re aware we pride ourselves on producing intelligent radio for the high brow Harrogate masses. So we had to talk about ‘Higgs Boson’. Now whilst I totally understand that this is big, massive, epic news......I don’t actually understand what Higgs Boson is. I can’t be the only one. I know I’m not. Gav from News has no idea either but he won’t admit it as he fears he’ll become the laughing stock of Harrogate if he does.

So we asked you to explain Higgs Boson to me and Gav in just 140 characters:

Janet: I can’t explain Higgs boson either, googled it, still don’t know what it is! Some kind of particle!

Simon: HiggsBoson is a small piece of dust that doesn't matter to normal human beings, only to scientists @StrayFM

Jon: basically loads of geeks got excited because they actually discovered something but even they don't understand it

Emma: important in the scientific world because scientists believe its responsible for giving mass to all known particles

Sarah: Higgs Boson is the super glue of life - basically it bonded the

universe,stars and possibly humans etc - love Sarah – Starbeck

I hope you have found that enriching and life enhancing.

Talk to you tomorrow morning.

Nick

Posted by Nick at 9:39am

I know you and I've been watching you.

4th July 2012

Well Hello. Long time no Blog. Apologies for that.

So this morning on the Breakfast show I talked about all the usual gubbins...Bankers, 50 Shades of Grey and Scientology – like you do. Oh and a bit more 50 Shades of Grey.

I also told the story of my celeb spot in Harrogate last night. I was in town to host the Harrogate College End of Term awards at the Royal Hall. I was very good – thanks for asking. Walking up Parliament Street at about 8.30pm I spotted four drunk women. I could tell they’d had a few as they were walking from side to side, a bit like a crab. I thought it best to make ‘friends’ with these creatures so I smiled politely. The ‘leader’ of the group – the Top Crab – looked at me and said ‘I know you...you’re from Stray FM’. Delighted to be celeb spotted I exclaimed ‘yes...yes I am’. The crab went on ‘yes you’re Alex Cann’.

Fail.

Anyhow I thought it was safe to tell this story on air this morning as I assumed the crab in question would not be up early. I was wrong. So big hello to Joanne who phoned the station immediately to protest ‘I wasn’t that drunk’. She was.

I must have been hanging around Harrogate town centre far too much last night because I also spotted Sue our caller having a jog on the Stray. She was more than a little surprised when we discovered our paths had crossed....oh and we talked about 50 Shades of Grey...of course.

Have a listen if you like...at the top.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning.

Nick

Posted by Nick at 10:02am