Up until the early summer my Friday routine was consumed with the recording of my American radio show The Sound of Nottingham UK. Even though it was only an hour long (technically it was 58 minutes) it took me far longer to get the finished product done and dusted. I then had to wait for it to upload to Google Drive so that I could email it over the Atlantic with plenty of time for Robin Hood Radio to get it into their system and play it at eleven o’clock at night USA time on a Friday. As this was four o’clock Saturday morning our time I was thankful for the Sunday repeat at one o’clock in the afternoon USA time and six o’clock at teatime. In fact for a while Sunday was my radio day when I was live on Trent Sound straight afterwards.

I’d spent a good amount of time in my office leading up to the day I had announced that I was recording, and had even taken a day’s ‘holiday’ from Crown Court in order to get the show made. There wasn’t a massive influx of Christmas songs pinging in my direction from the cream of the Nottingham music scene, although there was a lot of initial enthusiasm which nobody followed up. In fact, if anyone wants to write a book about the Nottingham music scene, Initial Enthusiasm is a title you can have for free. Luckily I had enough material to go on thanks to the Christmas in Slab Square album and a new album by Steve McGill with a smattering of new tracks; I heartily recommend a listen to Beth Frisby’s cover version of ‘White Christmas’. My intention was to play all new songs that I hadn’t played on the previous two Christmas shows, which meant not playing ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Christmas’ by Drew Rivers, a largely forgotten track by a largely forgotten musician who was once all over the Nottingham live circuit. Last year we played it on the NottinghamLIVE Christmas show and I was surprised that neither Darren nor Mike Atkinson had heard of him. I had to Google the song and all the results went nowhere and his online presence was outdated so he will for now at least, remain at large.

Having sent the show over to Marshall Miles, head of Robin Hood radio, he thanked me and informed me that my show would be broadcast on Christmas Eve with a repeat on Christmas Day. I’m not sure what the time of broadcast will be yet, which will make a difference to the time it will be heard in this country as the East Coast is five hours behind us, or ahead of us, I can never remember which it is.

Before I set about recording the show I woke up at ten o’clock and took Jack to the park for an hour before breakfast. I wanted to have a clear head and not be under any pressure, recording this on a regular basis used to set my stress levels up to ridiculous heights. Having said that, I haven’t handed my key in at reception just yet.

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