I was late waking up this morning so very quickly put all the music for this week’s podcast in the playlist tool I use (luckily having already compiled the music yesterday) and got ready to go to my dad’s for lunch. Although I prefer not to do it this way, I recorded it when I arrived home and got it online as soon as I possibly could. Last week’s edition didn’t do as well regarding listening figures as it should have done, nothing to panic about – just a slight dip, so I made sure I did my cynical marketing trick of tweeting a link with the names of featured artists tagged in, knowing that a cheaply earned retweet would get their fans onside. I’m not sure what time the show appeared online, but within two hours it had marched last week’s total figure so panic over. Mandi bought a Hallowe’en related film on Saturday so I left her to watch it while I recorded and did a bit of admin in the office. I had originally intended to start recording the Dickens audio book for this Christmas but could not be bothered getting involved in anything too heavy on a Sunday.

Even though I wasn’t sure if we were even still mates anymore (mainly because of the whole Hockley Hustle thing that I have already written about), I was pleased to see this blog appearing yesterday from my old NottinghamLIVE co-presenter Darren. With all of the sniping between Mark ‘literally’ Del and myself it is refreshing that Darren has come along to offer a more neutral and grown up approach. That old adage ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’ is a good way to go about things and I don’t doubt that it suits NottinghamLIVE and NUSIC but it simply isn’t my style. I don’t have that filter, whether it is using the written word to say that a band is crap or to tell someone they have put on weight. As daft as it sounds, I don’t actually do it to cause upset or offence, I believe that by telling someone the truth that perhaps nobody else has had the heart/courage to tell them then I am helping in some way. If I tell a band that I like them or that they did a great gig or have released a great song then at least they know that I am telling the truth and not merely trying to protect their feelings.

It isn’t as though I woke up one morning with the intention of styling myself as the baddie when it came to my role within the Nottingham music scene, when you think about it I am probably the most respectful of the lot because at least I go out and see for myself what is happening rather than just ‘liking’ someone on Facebook and pontificating from the comfort of my own home. Anyway, Darren’s blog was a well put way to settle this ridiculous shit-slinging once and for all. He put both sides across and wrote with honesty (something I advocate) regarding the bumpy relationship we had when we were on the radio together, and the fact that I have been praised and criticised for my approach. As far as I am concerned there is no argument between any parties as we are all fighting the same corner, I just point out the little quibbles. When we were presenting NottinghamLIVE we became a big deal (I disagree with Darren’s observation that his organisation is small fry), I pushed things a bit but was never rude for the sake of it. One of the things I kept quiet about, because it was an unnecessary fight to start, was NUSIC’s policy regarding their session guests. It states on their website somewhere that a NUSIC session has to be their first recorded session, yet we frequently got there first and yet we didn’t use that as a stick to hit them with.

The best course of action now is to draw a line under all this silliness and agree that we are all on the same side. I look forward to seeing all of these fellow champions of the music scene at gigs from now on. Should I record which gigs I see them at? No, it’s over and nobody is going to write any more on this subject from now on. If they do, we’ll see who the real troublemakers are.

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