Radio

Tomorrow on Ujima

~ Cheryl

The first hour of tomorrow’s Women’s Outlook will see me interviewing Dr. Olivette Otele, an expert on the history of the slave trade. It should be a fascinating interview. If you have any specific issues you’d like me to raise with Olivette while I have her in the studio, please let me know. I can’t guarantee to have time for everything, but if something interesting comes up I’ll try to fit it in.

The second hour will be all books. Jo Hall will be in to talk about her latest novel, the Art of Forgetting: Nomad, which launches at Forbidden Planet on Saturday. After that I’ll be playing an interview with Karen Lord that I recorded at Ã…con.

You can listen live from Noon tomorrow via the Ujima website. I’ll post links to the Listen Again service when I get home.

Yesterday on Ujima – Friends, Radio & Museums

~ Cheryl

The studio was a bit busy yesterday because we were hosting the first ever live show by @FemFMFutures, a group of young girls who had been through a training course aimed at boosting the number of women in radio. They did a great job. You can listen to their show here.

We’d planned to follow that up with an hour-long discussion of the role of women in radio, but Harriet Robinson, who was one of our guests for that, had been involved in the training and needed a bit of debrief time with her crew. To give her time, Judeline and I filled in for half an hour.

I did actually have quite a few things to mention, including Gareth L. Powell’s BSFA win, and meeting Karen Lord in Finland. The main thing I want to draw to your attention, however, is this petition aimed at saving two young people being threatened with deportation by the UK Immigration authorities. Their parents have been given leave to stay, but because they are over 18 Ahad and Anum Rizvi have been assessed separately and told to go. They have no family back in Pakistan as their entire extended family has fled the country due to religious persecution. The fight to keep them here is being led by Easton Cowboys, the local cricket club that Ahad plays for.

We filled in the rest of the half hour with a discussion of friendship and what it means in these days of social media. I wish I had been to the Pelican Books event (of which more in a later post) before we did this, because some of the discussion there was very relevant. Humans do badly on their own, and it is an open question as to whether online “friends” can fill the gap left by evaporating local communities.

The second half hour was the planned Women & Radio discussion, for which I was delighted to welcome Harriet Robinson & Mary Milton into the studio. They both have a lot of experience with BCFM (Bristol’s other community station) and the BBC.

You can listen to the first hour here.

The second hour was devoted to a new, community-led exhibition in the M-Shed. I think the best way to describe it to you folks (an idea I came up with during the show) is that it is Long Hidden for the current Bristol community. That is, the museum is looking to highlight the work of amazing people from marginalized groups in the local community. Unusually, it has reached out to those communities for the material. Many thanks to Karen, Ric, Alex & Remi for a great discussion.

You can listen to the second hour here.

The playlist for the show featured mainly songs to do with radio in the first hour, and songs by people with a connection to Bristol in the second hour. I also played a song especially for our young trainees. Here’s the full list:

  • Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves – The Eurythmics
  • On My Radio – Selecter
  • Radio Silence – Thomas Dolby
  • Bristol Rock – Black Roots
  • Stranger on the Shore – Acker Bilk
  • The Riddle – Nik Kershaw
  • Overcome – Tricky

Launching You Make Bristol

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This evening I took myself off to Bristol for the launch of a new section of the local history exhibits at the M-Shed museum. Called You Make Bristol, it is a series of features on local people who have done a lot for the city in various ways. Unusually the exhibition has been curated as a joint project between M-Shed and various community groups. Each group put forward their suggestions for people to honor, and then wrote the captions for those people selected.

While there are a few very famous people in the exhibition (Brunel and Plimpsol, in particular), most of the honorees are less well known and many are still living. From Out Stories Bristol we put forward the trans pioneer, Michael Dillon, and our dear friend, the long-time lesbian activist, Dale Wakefield. I was asked to write the caption for Dillon.

Amongst the other people honored were those who worked with various immigrant communities, those who worked for various disabled groups, people who had done a lot for youth charities, and so on. Paulette, my producer from Ujima, came along and spend most of the evening chatting with various people from the Afro-Caribbean community, some of whom we’ll doubtless have on the show soon.

Peter Main, the former Lord Mayor, did the civic duties opening the event. There was also a small skit put on by a youth group where the kids played the part of some of the honorees. I was not surprised to see them pick two famous sports people: rugby player Gareth Chilcott, and boxer Jane Crouch. The lad who took the part of Chilcott clearly had ambitions to play for England himself, right down to the Dylan Hartley haircut.

On Women’s Outlook on Wednesday I will be talking to Karen Garvey from M-Shed who curated the exhibition, and therefore had the job of coordinating all of that community involvement. We’ll be joined by Ricardo Sharry, a local youth worker who was one of the honorees; and by Ujima’s own Remi who directed the youth group skit (and got a part in it at the last minute when one kid had to drop out).

Today on Ujima – Vicars, Media, Arms Trade & Mayfest

~ Cheryl

Very briefly as I’m on the road in Oxford and have a work conference to attend tomorrow.

First half hour: Caroline Symcox talking about God, being a trainee vicar, her book and being married to Paul Cornell.

Second half hour: The Bristol Cable on their plans for independent local media.

Listen to those here.

Third half hour: Students from UWE protesting against having arms fairs held on their campus.

Fourth half hour: Sarah Thorp from Room 212 talking about the Gloucester Road community’s Mayfest celebrations, including Jack-in-the-Green and various other pagan survivals.

Listen to those here.

Exciting News About Murder Most Magical

~ Cheryl

The Severed Streets - Paul CornellHeads up, Bristol people, and indeed anyone within easy reach of Bristol. I have some exciting news about the author event we are doing on May 16th. As some of you will know, Paul Cornell has a new book out in May. It is called The Severed Streets and it features the same group of dysfunctional London coppers that appeared in his previous book, London Falling. The official launch of The Severed Streets will be at Forbidden Planet in London on May 21st. However, Tor UK have kindly agreed to try to get us a few advance copies for our event. So if you come to Bristol for Murder Most Magical you should be able to get a copy of Paul’s new book almost a week before the rest of the country. He’ll probably sign it for you too.

To whet your appetite, Tor has posted an excerpt from The Severed Streets on their US website.

As a reminder, doors open at 7:00pm at Waterstones in The Galleries. The store tells me that they are expecting a big turnout, so we won’t start until around 7:30pm to give everyone time to get seated. Please don’t assume this means you can arrive at 7:45pm. We do need to get the authors out of there and fed. There may also be restrictions on the number of books each author will sign. Tickets are £3 and are only available from the store, but if you ask nicely someone in Bristol will pop in and buy some for you.

While I’m on the subject of Paul, his equally fabulous wife, Caroline Symcox, will be appearing on my radio show tomorrow at Noon. She’ll be talking about what it is like being a woman trainee vicar in the Church of England, and plugging her book, The Vicar’s FAQ.

Today on Ujima – Local Politics

~ Cheryl

Today’s show was a Women in Politics special. With both City Council and European Parliament elections coming up in May, we took the opportunity to invite a bunch of local women politicians into the studio.

The first hour saw us highlighting a couple of minor parties: TUSC and RESPECT. These are both essentially Socialist alternatives to Labour (who these days have drifted a long way from their roots). For the RESPECT lady we also had a group of kids from a local school doing work experience in the studio. I think they did very well for their first experience of political interviewing.

As Ellen from RESPECT was talking about the party’s origins in the anti-Iraq War movement, I did ask about the issue of arms fairs at a local university, which I know is getting some of the students very concerned. Sadly Ellen wasn’t aware of that one, but I hope to have some of the students in the studio next week.

The Listen Again link for the first hour is here.

In the second hour we had a more high powered group in. There were two ladies from the Lib Dems, one from Labour and one from the Greens. The Conservatives, sadly, were unable to send us anyone. Apparently they all have jobs and were unable to get time off.

Topics covered included the proposed biomass power plants at Avonmouth, the withdrawal of the Tory nominee for Lord Mayor over his alleged homophobic comments (both mentioned here), the “Boy’s Club Britain” report from the UN, and the need to get more women involved in local politics.

The Listen Again link for hour two is here.

I’m sorry that this week isn’t of much interest to people outside of Bristol, but I will make up for it next week. My first studio guest will be a certain Caroline Symcox who will be talking about life as a trainee woman vicar and possibly a little about being married to Paul Cornell.

Some Bristol Politics

~ Cheryl

Those of you who listened to last week’s Women’s Outlook show will remember that we were visited by Tasha from the Avon Coalition Against Big Biofuels. She talked about plans for new biomass power stations at Avonmouth. There was day of action yesterday, and it seems to have got the attention of the city’s Elected Mayor. Here is George Ferguson writing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to add his voice to the campaign. Tasha and George are quite right. While it is perfectly possible for a biomass plant to class as renewable energy, one that relies on importing wood cut from rain forests in South East Asia is another matter entirely. George says in his letter, “Bristol has loudly and very clearly said ‘no’ to these developments, yet the UK Government has chosen to override our local decision-making process.” I’ll be interested to see what sort of response this personal intervention gets, and I’ll try to get Tasha back on the show so we can discuss the issues in more detail.

Talking of mayors, you may remember me waxing lyrical about Bristol Lord Mayors. We have had some good ones during my time in local radio. Two years ago we had Peter Main, the city’s first gay Lord Mayor. Last year the Council appointed Faruk Choudhury who is the city’s first Muslim Lord Mayor. I’ve met both of them as part of the work I have done for Out Stories Bristol and local radio, and they are lovely people.

While George was elected by popular vote, Lord Mayors are appointed by the City Council. The major parties take it in turns to put forward nominees, who are generally accepted unopposed. Peter was put forward by the Liberal Democrats, while Faruk came from the Labour group. It is almost time to appoint a new Lord Mayor, and the turn of the Conservatives to put someone forward. Their choice, Councillor Chris Windows, was known for his opposition to LGBT people. Most notoriously he tried to stop Sir Ian McKellen (yes, Gandalf) from visiting Bristol schools as part of Stonewall’s gay awareness campaign.

Understandably the local LGBT community was not best pleased. A petition was started. I didn’t think it had much chance, because there is a strong tradition that Lord Mayor candidates are unopposed. The fear is that if one party starts trying to interfere with another’s choices then their next choice will probably be opposed regardless of who it is, and the whole thing will descend into petty bickering.

On Friday, out of the blue, Cllr. Windows withdrew his candidacy. As per this BBC report, he blamed an “unpleasant and slanderous attack upon my character” by “a very vocal minority”, and said he was withdrawing to avoid further distress to his wife. It was a classic piece of victim politics, but one I was rather suspicious of because I know a lot of the people involved in the petition, and they are sweet and lovely folks.

Yesterday Daryn Carter, the Director of Bristol Pride, got his chance to put his side of the story in the local paper. While you can argue over whether slanderous things have been said forever, the key point in the story for me was this:

It has also emerged today that Bristol’s Labour councillors yesterday withdrew support for Mr Windows’ nomination.

Labour Chief Whip, Cllr Chris Jackson said: “We had initially believed that Cllr. Windows had genuinely learned after his offensive comments in the Council Chamber, but regrettably this does not seem to have been the case.”

There’s a lot more from the Labour councillors in the paper. So it seems that while Cllr. Windows and his family may indeed have been distressed by the campaign, he didn’t actually withdraw until he had already lost the support of a significant part of the City Council.

It so happens that we have a bunch of city councillors on Women’s Outlook this coming Wednesday. I may ask them a question or two.

Today On Ujima: Er, Everything!

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Well that was a bit mad. Today we had a very busy show.

We started off with some ladies talking about fostering and adoption services in Bristol. Apparently there is a major shortage of families willing to foster or adopt children from ethnic minority backgrounds, especially as the authorities would like to place them with families from similar cultures so as to make them feel more comfortable.

Then we had the fabulous Rita from Bristol’s Palestinian Museum, which is allegedly the only physical museum of Palestinian life outside of Palestine (please do correct me if I am wrong here, but it is the first one that comes up on Google). It is a real shame that we didn’t have TV because the embroidery that Rita had to show was beautiful.

Next up we had Sian and Cezara from Bristol Women’s Voice and the Bristol Woman magazine, talking about all sorts of woman-centered projects (and NOT pulling faces when I mentioned intersectionality — Yay Bristol!). Ovarian cancer was one of the main topics.

And finally in the first hour we were joined by Tasha from the Avon Coalition Against Big Biofuels to tell us all about how Bristol power stations are involved in rainforest destruction.

Yes, that was all in the first hour. You can listen to it here.

In the second hour I was joined by Lucy from Stand and Stare, an amazing company that is revolutionizing museum exhibitions by making them much more interactive. (Off air Lucy and I talked quite a bit about augmented reality and hacking QR codes — I wish Tim Maughan had been there.)

Also in the studio with Lucy was Ade, one of the back office volunteers at Ujima. She has kidney problems, and is running a campaign to make people in Bristol more aware of the need for donors, especially if they are from ethnic minorities. People like Ade find it much harder than white folks to find suitable donors when they need them.

I sent Lucy and Ade off talking about interactive exhibits to educate people about organ donation, which I was rather pleased with.

In the final half hour we had three ladies in from the Bristol & Avon Law Center. Paulette came and tormented them. Do not worry, they are good friends of ours. Indrani runs a regular immigration clinic from our offices, and Noopur has a regular slot on Paulette’s Thursday show.

You can listen to the second hour here.

The playlist for today was:

  • Feelgood by Numbers – The Go Team!
  • Codeine Blues – CN Lester
  • Talking ‘Bout a Revolution – Tracy Chapman
  • Back Street Luv – Curved Air
  • The Man With the Child in His Eyes – Kate Bush
  • Theme from Mahogany – Diana Ross
  • Irreplaceable – Beyoncé

Ujima: Anansi, Maroons, Health, Poetry

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s show on Ujima was a bit scary. Paulette had asked me to host the entire show as she was expecting to be on course. As it turned out, she was around, but I did the whole show anyway despite not knowing anything much about several of my guests.

The first half hour featured two fascinating ladies: Pearl, one of the elders of the Afro-Caribbean community in Bristol; and Dr. Olivette Otele, an academic from The Cameroon who is an expert in the slave trade. I was expecting Pearl to be talking about cricket, but as it turned out she treated us to a lovely folk tale about how Anansi stole the stories from Tiger. Olivette and I talked about several things, including Maroon communities because I knew Nalo Hopkinson would be interested in that.

Next up were my good friend Lesley Mansell from Bristol North NHS Trust, and a young lady called Subitha from Volunteer Bristol. We talked mainly about women’s health issues.

The first hour of the show is available here.

In the second hour I was joined by various poets and performance artists. Isadora Vibes has been on the show before and is always good value. We also had a young lady called China who is (amongst other things) a political activist clown. And we were joined by Jackie from our regular team who is also a poet.

You can listen to the second hour here.

Drowning in Aether

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Aether - CN Lester
The cover art for CN Lester’s new album, Aether, shows CN underwater in various ways. The symbolism is apt. Aether is one of those albums where you want to turn all the lights off and just let the music wash over you. You can drown in it.

Those of you who already own CN’s debut album, Ashes, will be pleased to hear that Aether is much in the same vein, a collection of achingly melodic songs accompanied primarily by CN’s haunting piano playing. The new album, however, has a sharper edge provided by additional instrumentation — electric guitar and various bits of percussion, as far as I’ve been able to make out — played by CN’s producer, Jack Byrne. The basic feel is the same, however. If you loved Ashes (and I do), you will love Aether too.

Most of the eight songs on the album are CN’s own compositions. My current favorite is “Anonymous” because I think it makes best use of CN’s incredible (opera-trained) voice. There is also one cover version, and had you asked me to guess in advance who CN might choose to cover I would never in a million years have guessed Buffy Sainte Marie. “Cod’ine”, on the other hand, is a very CN song, and it works brilliantly in their inimitable style.

Talking of cover versions, CN has also done a cover of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” as a trailer for the album. It is not actually on the album, but you can listen to it or download an MP3 below.

Promote your mixtape at ReverbNation.com

I’m not really competent to do a proper music review, but if there’s one on So So Gay that should fit the bill if you want such a thing.

The album is available on Amazon and iTunes as an MP3 download. This is the point where I tell you smugly that you really should have backed the crowdfunding campaign for the album, because I have both a physical CD and wav copies of the songs. Copies of the CD will be available from CN whenever they play live gigs, and I note that they’ll be in Bristol on May 17th, of which more nearer the time when tickets are available.

More information is available from CN’s website, but what I recommend you do is listen to this podcast of the interview I did with CN on Ujima last month. It contains some fascinating discussion of gender bending in opera, and the world’s first woman opera composer, and CN talking about their career in trans activism. CN has kindly given me permission to include the two tracks from Ashes that we played during the show (which I have patched in direct from the album download for best quality).

One of the things we discuss in the interview is the Welsh National Opera’s Fallen Women season. They’ll be at the Bristol Hippodrome in April performing Puccini’s Manon Lescaut on Friday 11th and Verdi’s La Traviata on Saturday 12th.

Today on Ujima: Media Diversity & Airships

~ Cheryl

I’m delighted to report that the Women’s Outlook show has been back on air today. That was a great relief to all concerned.

Today’s show was mainly about media diversity issues. That was specifically with respect to women, but we did also cover race issues and trans & intersex issues. A whole hour and a half was devoted to this, with a rotating list of guests in the studio:

  • Darryl Bullock, owner of The Spark
  • Christina Zaba from the National Union of Journalists
  • Mike Jempson from Mediawise
  • Tim Pemberton, Managing Editor of BBC Radio Bristol (who is black – yay Bristol!)
  • Paul Hassan, one of the Ujima Directors

Paulette hosted the first hour, and I did the final half hour of this bit. We covered a lot of different issues. Here are a few things worthy of note.

One of the best points made all show was when Christina noted that with access to education getting so much more expensive media diversity is likely to go down, not up.

I’m very pleased that Mediawise is producing a handbook on LGBTQI issues (I understand that Christine Burns is involved). Personally I’m prepared to allow journalists a fair amount of slack, and am happy to do education. (I have a lot of sympathy with this piece from today’s HuffPo, though I am sure that Piers Morgan, and even more so Caleb Hannan, knew exactly what they were doing). Of course it is often the people who think they are progressive who have the most to learn. Anyone care to tell me what Darryl got wrong?

I’m also very keen to learn more about The Bristol Cable. Their workshops look great.

Tim was very impressive. He’s very corporate, of course, but he knows the right things to say.

I got to mention things like the VIDA Count and the lack of SF&F by women in Waterstones.

For the final half hour I had Roz and Jo in the studio to talk about Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion. Fun was had.

Paulette’s not as keen on music as me, especially as we had so many high profile guests to talk to, but we did manage to get some in. Here’s the playlist.

  • Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
  • Michael Jackson – Leave Me Alone
  • Steely Dan – Barrytown
  • Don Henley – Dirty Laundry
  • Amanda Palmer – Leeds United (because I’m not allowed to play Map of Tasmania)
  • Led Zeppelin – Whole Lot of Love

You can listen to the show via our Listen Again feature. The first hour is here, and the second hour here.

Back On Air Monday @UjimaRadio

~ Cheryl

Ujima Radio chairman, Roger Griffith, has posted on Facebook that the station will be back on air on Monday (March 24th). Thanks are due to The Utilities Warehouse for being willing to work with us to get power restored as quickly as possible, to Mayor George Ferguson for his personal intervention in the case, and of course to all of you lot for asking George for help on our behalf. Well done, people!

Wednesday’s show will be mainly a Women And The Media special. Paulette has arranged for a number of special guests including Christina Zaba, who looks very interesting. For the final half hour, from 13:30 to 14:00, we’ll be joined by Jo Hall and Roz Clarke who will talk about Airship Shape and Bristol Fashion.

Book Review And More – Karen Joy Fowler

~ Cheryl

Karen Joy Fowler will be at Foyles in Bristol on Wednesday night promoting the UK release of her new book, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. As a reviewer, I am somewhat reluctant to say that you should not read reviews of a book, but in the case of this one it is absolutely true. Don’t read any reviews, not even mine. Don’t read the jacket blurb, just in case. Just go out any buy it, and come to it free of preconceptions.

Of course if you don’t trust me on that, I have a review here. I have tried hard not to say too much about the book. I have also interviewed Karen for my show on Ujima which should, if all goes well, air on Wednesday lunchtime. However, if today’s meeting doesn’t result in a firm date for us getting back on air then I will podcast the interview tomorrow.

Further Update: #BringBackUjima @UjimaRadio

~ Cheryl

There is an update on the Ujima Radio website. It includes Roger’s statement that I reported yesterday, and the following from Mayor Ferguson:

I have asked officers to intervene in order to ensure that Ujima Radio is back on air as soon as possible. We have asked British Gas, which provides power to 97 Wilder Street, to install individual meters for all tenants so that everyone is responsible for paying for their own power and we anticipate that power will be restored some time around the middle of next week.“The radio station provides an important service to the local community and I want to ensure that this situation is resolved as quickly as possible so that it can resume service once again.

I’m still not sure whether my show on Wednesday will go ahead. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.

And once again, thank you so much to everyone who contacted George on our behalf.

Update On @Ujimaradio #BringBackUjima

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Paulette phoned me this afternoon to say that the show of support outside the station had gone very well. The event was covered on ITV news this evening, and I was delighted to see lots of people there, including our friend Pat Hart who is the station manager of BCFM, the other community radio in Bristol.

While ITV was filming, the city council phoned Ujima’s chairman, Roger Griffith. The upshot of this is that we hope to be back on air very soon. There are more meetings to be had, but Mayor Ferguson is taking a personal interest in the situation (thanks George!) and consequently things are moving as quickly as can be expected. Roger issued the following statement:

We welcome this bold intervention by the Mayor to ensure our Radio station is back live on-air. I would also like to thank city councillors from all parties and our many friends who rallied around us in our time of need, from the community, arts and media groups. Finally we would like to pay tribute to our tireless volunteers and loyal listeners for their fantastic support and total dedication to our important cause.

That includes you folks, of course, and he tweeted me privately to thank you all for the help you have given. Well done, people. Here’s hoping that things get sorted out in time for next week’s show.

By the way, I think this is an excellent illustration of how social media can be used for good. Next time you see someone saying that Twitter is full of awful people doing evil things and they are glad that they are not on it, remember this campaign.

We Need Your Help to #BringBackUjima @UjimaRadio

~ Cheryl ~ 7 Comments

Save Our Station

As regular readers will know, for the past year or so I have done a lot of volunteering at Ujima, a community radio station in Bristol. Currently we are off the air. A statement by the Directors is on our website, but the short version is as follows.

While we have been paying our rent regularly, our landlords, Ceed Ltd., have not being paying their bills, as a result of which the electricity supply to the building containing our studios has been cut off.

Obviously Ceed are primarily at fault here, but a crucial detail is that the building is owned by Bristol City Council. They therefore have the power to sort this out. Community radio is a vital service. Just on the Women’s Outlook show, which I co-host, we have done a huge amount of work on a variety of issues including promoting literacy, campaigning against FGM, LGBT issues, women’s health, local arts charities and so on.

Moving a radio studio is not easy. The equipment is delicate and you can’t put it in any old room and expect quality broadcasts. So we can’t just up sticks and find another home in a hurry. The only way we will get back on air quickly is if the City Council takes action to restore the electricity service.

The Directors of Ujima Radio have called for a public show of support outside of our building in Wilder Street, Bristol at 10:00am tomorrow (Facebook event here). However, most of you won’t be able to be there, so I’m asking you to take action in another way.

What I would like you to do is contact Bristol’s Mayor, George Ferguson, and let him know that Ujima is a vital part of the city’s culture that is spreading Bristol’s good reputation around the world. If you have listened to my show from outside Bristol, tell him so. If you have been on my show, tell him so. Please be polite. It is not his fault that we are off air. He just needs to know what Bristol will lose if we can’t broadcast. Ask for his help to get us back on air.

You can contact George on Twitter via @GeorgeFergusonx, or write to him via his website. You can also leave comments on the City Council’s Facebook page. If you are using Twitter, please use the hashtag #BringBackUjima and add our handle, @Ujimaradio so that we know you are supporting us.

Anything you can do will be much appreciated. A radio station will die if it can’t broadcast. I do not want to see Bristol lose this vital community resource.

For my own part, over the past year I have done interviews with the following people that you may know:

  • Karen Lord
  • Nalo Hopkinson
  • Stephanie Saulter
  • Tade Thompson
  • Bill Campbell
  • Tobias Buckell
  • Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
  • Gareth L. Powell
  • Emma Newman
  • Amelia Beamer
  • Sarah Hilary
  • Joanne Hall
  • Roz Clarke
  • Eugene Byrne
  • Rebecca Lloyd
  • Bea Hitchman
  • Jack Wolfe
  • CN Lester
  • Jonathan L. Howard
  • Tim Maughan
  • Nene Ormes
  • Lucienne Boyce

And probably a whole bunch that I have forgotten (apologies all). I also did this amazing interview with the mother of a trans child. There’s no way I would have been able to do that on anything other than community radio.

No Radio, But Playlist

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

There was no radio show today, for reasons well beyond my control. This is a shame, because we had a great show reflecting on International Women’s Day planned, and I had put together a playlist of songs by women from around the world. As you can’t listen to it, I thought I might share the list with you here.

  • Barbados – Rihanna, “Only Girl in the World”
  • England/Pakistan – Bat for Lashes, “Horse and I”
  • Benin – Angélique Kidjo, “Voodoo Chile”
  • Australia – Merril Bainbridge, “Garden In My Room”
  • Germany – Nena, “99 Red Balloons”
  • Denmark – Savage Rose (Annisette Koppel), “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”
  • Wales – Cerys Matthews, “Awyrennau”
  • USA – Diana Ross, “Theme From Mahogany”

Yeah, I was going to play a song in Welsh. That would have confused people.

Also I know nothing about music from most of Asia and South America. Feel free to enlighten me.

Today on Ujima – Crime & Education

~ Cheryl

The first half hour of today’s show was given over to a local writer whose debut novel has been released today to much fanfare. Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary is widely tipped to be one of the hottest properties in UK crime fiction this year. I’m not surprised. It is a very powerful book, and of particular interest to Women’s Outlook as a major theme of the book is violence against women. My thanks to Sian Norris for reminding me about the Counting Dead Women project so I could bring to light the dreadful statistics of murders of women by their husbands/boyfriends/families in the UK.

For those of you saying, “I don’t do crime novels”, I note that an awful lot of SF&F is actually crime fiction of one sort or another. Also Sarah’s book, while definitely a police procedural, is not a mystery. As I say in the interview, it has definite similarities to a horror novel. It sure scared me anyway.

Sarah is having a launch party at Foyles on Friday. I’ll be there, as will Nikesh Shukla, Tania Herschman and doubtless a whole load of other Bristol literary folks.

The second half hour is all about free schools and academies, and the creeping privatization of the British education system. My guest was Christine Townsend, a well known local activist. My producer, Paulette, who is an ex-teacher herself, also joined us. Half an hour wasn’t nearly long enough. I’m sure we’ll have Christine back again soon.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

For the third half hour I handed control over to Judeline for the “Lighter Look At Life” segment and for “Woman of the Week”, who this week was our new intern, Ingrid Hoxha. Her family emigrated here from Albania when she was young. Amongst other things, we allow Ingrid to make it clear that she is not related to That Man.

Finally I took the reins again for a brief round-up of LGBT History Month. I got to ask some of the team what they had learned during February, and Paulette made me blush.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

As with the rest of the month, the music has been all LGBT-related. This week I played Tracy Chapman, Soft Cell, Goldman (feat. Smiler), Queen Latifah, Dusty Springfield, Lucy Ray and Bronski Beat. The final song is one that is very important to me. I was delighted to be able to thank Lou Reed live on the radio. I’m sure he’s listening, somewhere.

Today On Ujima – LGBT History Month Part III

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Another Wednesday, another show in the bag. I’m very pleased with this one.

In the first hour I have the fabulous CN Lester in the studio to talk about the history of opera and their own music. Along the way we get to talk about Francesca Caccini, the first woman opera composer, and we play music by Noah Stewart, a gay black opera singer. We also play two tracks from CN’s debut album, Ashes. Inevitably CN and I talk about trans issues too.

You can listen to the first hour here.

The first segment in the second hour is all about new things for the new year. Has the team made any resolutions? If so have them managed to stick to them all the way through to February? CN and I enthuse about whisky.

Segment two sees our regular team member, Judeline, getting a go in the Woman of the Week slot.

In the final half hour Patsy Staddon joins us to report on the Women and Alcohol conference that took place in Bristol on Monday.

Along the way we play music by the amazing trans woman, Angela Morley, and from the “Dirty Blues” revival group, Vinyl Closet. I strongly recommend the podcast on the Vinyl Closet website. Once you have listened to it, you will never be able to hear any Little Richard song, or Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” in the same way again.

You can listen to the second hour here. I’ll get a podcast done of CN’s interview as soon as I can.

LGBT Radio Interview

~ Cheryl

I have made of podcast of the segment about the history of LGBT radio in Bristol that I did on Ujima last week. Sadly I have to remove the music for podcasting, as I don’t have the necessary licenses, but it is till a good show, I think. You can listen here, or through the embed below.