I was hit with two moments of
panic today as I sat down to record this week’s edition of The Sound of
Nottingham UK. The first one occurred when I couldn’t get my
microphone to work. This has happened before on the odd occasion and is easily remedied
by switching the computer off and switching it back on again, although how this
sorts out the microphone I don’t know. To be honest I don’t care why, as long
as it sorts it out then I am happy. My main panic was the loss of the memory
stick containing not only this week’s live session but also all the previous
ones, plus several photographs, written articles, and hundreds of songs from
Nottingham musicians that I haven’t yet used on the show. I have several memory
sticks on my desk in a cigarette packet, and many is the time that I have picked
it up expecting to find cigarettes in there only to find it full of memory
sticks. Had I accidently smoked them? Had I been clearing rubbish from my desk
and chucked the packet out thinking it was an empty cigarette packet? Will I
absent mindedly try and insert a cigarette into my USB hole (whatever that hole
is called) and wonder why it isn’t recognising it? Of course not, I had merely
put the box in the drawers next to my desk. The level of cold sweat panic was
akin to getting your hand caught in railings, or getting to the checkout and realising
that you have left your money at home or that big worry when you do the
keys-phone-wallet pat down. Anyway, I still have the full archive of live
sessions along with everything else, (currently boxing up a load of archive
stuff with a view to leaving it to either Nottingham University or the
Nottingham archive in my will) so I was able to record the show and send it
over to America before heading off out to Goose Fair.
Although we usually go on
Saturday to go on the rides, I do enjoy walking around the fair on a Friday
night. This is partly done as a fact finding mission to scope out where all the
rides actually are so we don’t waste any time wandering around looking for
things. We also went and had mushy peas at the mushy
pea stall, which has enjoyed a massive publicity drive this year thanks to the
attention that I drew to it. This goes back to what I have written before about
the concept of ‘negative marketing’, maybe without realising it. The woman who
served us (Mandi, my dad and I) didn't flinch when I commented about how much
better it was to have the bowl back. Perhaps they weren't aware of the Internet
shit storm that was going on because they don’t have computers, or aren’t on
Facebook (it is 2013 after all, if it was 2008 they’d be on Facebook and
throwing sheep around with wild abandon). They should at least be partly aware,
because I showed one of them the newspaper article last year, so chances are
that they didn’t want to say anything controversial and risk it being quoted on
the radio. Perhaps they laughed behind my back at the fact that The Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it) has totally
ignored this story.
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