Radio

Yesterday on Ujima – Domestic Violence

~ Cheryl

In the wake of last week’s protest at City Hall regarding provision of priority housing for women who are victims of domestic violence, I devoted most of this week’s show to the issue. For the first hour I was joined in the studio by representatives of Sisters Uncut and Bristol Women’s Voice. We also used material from last week’s parliamentary debate on the Istanbul Convention and information provided by the Women’s Equality Party. It was a really good discussion and it provoked quite a bit of audience feedback.

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

In the second hour I was joined in the studio by my colleagues, Frances and Judeline, both of whom gave personal stories of their experience of domestic violence.

In the final half hour we wished happy birthday to our producer, Paulette, and also wished her well in her forthcoming retirement.

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

Quite what Paulette’s retirement means for the future of the show, I am not sure. I have told the station management that I’m willing to commit to one show a month, but I can’t do more than that because I need to earn a living and I have three businesses to run. However, thanks to the magic of the internet (technology gods willing) I should have shows on Dec. 28 and Jan. 4. These will just me playing some favorite pieces of music; in particular longer stuff that I can’t use on a normal, chat-based show.

It being that time of year, the playlist for yesterday was all Christmas music:

  • Greg Lake – I believe in Santa Claus
  • Jackson 5 – Santa Claus is Coming to Town
  • Clarence Carter – Back Door Santa
  • Isaac Hayes – The Mistletoe and Me
  • Otis Redding – Merry Christmas Baby
  • Temprees – Its Christmas Time Again
  • Luther Vandross – May Christmas Bring You Happiness
  • The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping

Yesterday on Ujima – Manuelita, Barnett, Pinborough & WEP

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s radio seemed to go off OK. Here’s the traditional round-up post.

We began with a live interview with the fabulous Tamsin Clarke of the Popelei Theatre Company. Much of the conversation was about Manuelita, the one-woman play based on the life of the South American revolutionary leader, Manuela Saenz. We also talked about theatre more generally, and about other projects that Tamsin is currently involved in. If you are in Bristol on Saturday evening and you don’t have a ticket for Against Me! then you can catch Tamsin and friends in Carved, a Christmas dinner of absurd anarchical performance and cabaret for the sinful and undeserving, at The Cube.

Next up was an interview with David M Barnett about his forthcoming novel, Calling Major Tom. David and I recorded this at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature back in October, but there was no point airing it until now as the book isn’t out until January (and then only as an ebook). Obviously I had to play Amanda Palmer’s version of “Space Oddity”. Not only is there the Bowie connection, but David’s editor, Sam Eades, used to be Neil Gaiman’s UK publicist.

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

The second hour began with the interview I did with Sarah Pinborough at BristolCon. I think this is the first interview I have done that involved two large glasses of Merlot. Sarah is great fun to interview. She has a great story to tell too. Thanks are due to Gareth Powell because I based a bunch of the questions on Sarah’s Guest of Honor interview, which Gareth conducted.

Finally on the show we had my report on the Women’s Equality Party conference. That includes a whole lot of comments from people who were at the conference, including Stella Duffy, Catherine Mayer and Sophie Walker. I was joined in the studio by my colleagues on the show, Frances and Judeline, and was pleased to see that they liked what WEP was doing.

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

The full playlist for the show was as follows:

  • Edwin Starr – War
  • Cat Stevens – Peace Train
  • Otis Redding – Try a Little Tenderness
  • Amanda Palmer & Jherek Bischoff – Space Oddity
  • Martha Reeves & the Vandellas – Nowhere to Run
  • Diana Ross & the Supremes – Reflections
  • The Temptations – Ball of Confusion
  • Sly and the Family Stone – I Want to Take Your Hand

Amanda aside, all of those tracks were taken from the soundtrack album of the V&A’s new 1960s exhibition which I reviewed here.

Yesterday on Ujima – Art, Books, Steampunk

~ Cheryl

It was a busy Women’s Outlook show on Ujima yesterday. It started with a full studio as three artists came to tell me all about this year’s North Bristol Arts Trail. SF&F readers will be most interested in the work of Lou Gray who is a set designer, costume maker and puppet maker. I’m very sad that I’ll be out of town the weekend of the Trail because I would love to see her work.

For the second segment I welcomed Rebecca Lloyd, whom some of you may remember was a World Fantasy nominee last year for her collection, Mercy and Other Stories. Her latest book is Oothngbart, which is one of those delightfully uncategorizable novels. Hopefully the interview will give you some idea of the flavor of the book. I’ll try to get a review soon, because it is a lovely story.

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

Next up were Kate and Tina, two fabulous ladies who are setting up the Bristol Steampunk Museum. They are looking for all sorts of fun steampunk things to exhibit and sell. They plan to have an online shop as well, so steampunk fans around the world will be able to order from them. The major interest from my point of view is that they also want to host readings of steampunk stories, and I happen to have an entire anthology full of them. I may end up buying some clothing and jewelry too.

Finally I had a pre-recorded interview with Tade Thompson about his newly released novel, Rosewater (which I warmly recommend) and other forthcoming work. We also discussed the newly-formed African Speculative Fiction Society, and there was brief mention of Piracity.

There’s a lot more of that Tade interview. Some of it has been badly mangled by the Internet, but I hope to be able to post a much longer version on Salon Futura in due course.

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

The playlist for yesterday’s show was as follows:

  • Get Up, Stand Up – Bob Marley
  • Expression – Salt ‘n’ Pepa
  • You Gotta Be – Des’ree
  • Working Day ‘n’ Night – Michael Jackson
  • Night Train – James Brown
  • The Ascent – Ren Stedman
  • Automatic – Pointer Sisters
  • Loving the Alien – David Bowie

I’d like to draw your attention in particular to the new Ren Stedman single. It is a charity record. All proceeds are donated to Hesten Lodge Activity & Wellbeing Centre to raise the money to build a sensory room for adults with severe learning disabilities. You can buy it for as little as £1 here.

#Piracity on the BBC

~ Cheryl

This is a bit of a shaggy dog story. Bear with me, please.

One of the big local news items in Bristol this month has been the story of Ray Webber who is publishing his first collection of poetry at the ripe old age of 93. (The book, High On Rust, is being published by my friend Richard Jones through his company, Tangent Books.) John Darvall, who presents the mid-morning show on Radio Bristol, decided to see if he could find any other local literary geniuses in the city, and asked people to call in if they wanted to get published.

I knew nothing about this, because I was busy preparing to give some lectures to a gender studies class at Bath Spa University yesterday morning. However, I got email from Becky Walsh. I know Becky through the women’s network in local radio, and specifically because she was down to chair the Festival of Literature event I was speaking at today. Being a kind and supportive sister, Becky emailed all of us on the panel about John’s plans for the show.

This was too good an opportunity to miss. I phoned up Radio Bristol straight away and gave them the Piracity pitch. They sounded interested, so I got back to doing lecture prep, put the show on to listen to, and waited for a call.

It was a great show. John played some fabulous music (James Brown, y’all) and his other topic of the day, home care for the elderly, was really well done. It did, of course, bring to mind the panel on care for ageing LGBT people I chaired on Monday. As John clearly showed, straight people have quite enough trouble.

John got into talking to people about getting published around 11:30, and spoke to a couple of people. Then he had one of those things where a caller is so good you can’t ignore them, and went back to the home care story. In his final hour he spoke to a woman who got married to the man of her dreams but soon after found herself nursing him through a terminal illness. It is a great piece of radio, and I can quite see why John abandoned the publication issue. I would have done too.

By this time I had left home, because I had things I needed to do in Bath before the lectures. No phone call came, so I assumed that was that. Hey, it was a long shot. But this morning as we were chatting before the panel Becky asked me if I had heard John mention my project on the show.

Wait, what???

And he did. You can listen to it here. The bit about me comes in around the 2:50 mark, just after Feargal Sharkey’s “A Good Heart”. It is a bit garbled, but at the end John asks his producer she can get me in to talk more about the project.

I have no idea if this will happen. I know what live radio is like. Other news stories may pop up that are more interesting. But I have pinged John on Twitter and if I do hear from him and we can agree on a date I’ll be delighted.

Watch this space, as they say.

Yesterday on Ujima – Bristol Festival of Literature

~ Cheryl

I was hosting the Women’s Outlook show on Ujima again yesterday. The entire show was devoted to the Bristol Festival of Literature, which starts today.

The first half hour was devoted to the panel that I am chairing on Monday 24th. This will be on ageing in the LGBT community. We have some excellent guests speakers. Full details here. In the studio with me was one of those speakers, Dr Paul Willis of Bristol University, who has done a lot of research on the issue.

At 12:30 I was joined by Pete Sutton and Gavin Watkins of the Festival of Literature. They talked through many of the events that will be taking place next week. At 13:00 Jo Hall joined us, which was a good excuse to talk about the panel I’m doing on Thursday 27th on Stories of Strong Women. That one is sold out, I understand. We also talked about BristolCon.

In the final half hour, Jo and I talked about her latest novel, The Summer Goddess, which I very much enjoyed reading.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here, and the second hour here.

The playlist for yesterdays show was as follows:

  • Old Folks Boogie – Little Feat
  • Emma-Jean – Amazing Rythym Aces
  • Dark Moon, High Tide – Afro Celt Sound System
  • Captain Dread – Dreadzone
  • Sun Goddess – Ramsey Lewis & Earth, Wind & Fire
  • Farewell, My Summer Love – Jackson 5
  • Thieves in the Temple – Prince
  • Big Cat – Afro Celt Sound System

My next show will be on November 16th when, if all goes according to plan, I will be talking to Rebecca Lloyd and Tade Thompson about their new books. There should also be more talk about pirates.

ShoutOut Does Trans Pride

~ Cheryl

The nice folks at ShoutOut Radio did some promotion for Trans Pride South West in their Thursday show. Part of that involved using some of the material that I collected at Brighton’s Trans Pride. Those interviewed include Sarah Savage, Fox Fisher, Kate Adair and, of course, Ren Stedman. Kate makes mention of this little episode from my trip to Hay. Should you wish to listen to the show, you can find the podcast version here.

Trans Pride On Ujima

~ Cheryl

Today I devoted the whole of my show to the South West’s first ever Trans Pride. I was joined in the studio by Sophie Kelly of the TPSW committee, and Tara Fraser who works with our friends ShoutOut on BCFM.

Our one non-trans guest was Liz Sorapure of Bristol Mind who is helping set up a new helping specifically for trans people. Liz is looking for trans people who would like to be trained up to be helpline volunteers, because it makes a big difference to know that someone with similar life experiences is on the other end of the phone.

I had a whole pile of pre-recorded interviews, mostly from my trip to London last week. These included Ruth Cadbury, MP; Helen Belcher of Trans Media Watch; Jay Stewart of Gendered Intelligence; and journalist, Jane Fae. Obviously they were all talking about the state of the campaign for trans rights.

Later in the show I spoke to Henry Poultney of Off the Record who talked about issues facing young trans people in Bristol.

All of the music on the show was by trans artists. I also included an interview with the headline act from trans pride, Ren Stedman. I played three of Ren’s songs, including a new one he tells me has never been heard in public elsewhere.

Apparently we were off FM briefly at the end of the show. I’m told that there were some power cuts in Bristol and the building that houses our transmitter was hit. Thankfully the studio was OK. Internet streaming was unaffected, and the Listen Again links are fine. My apologies to anyone listening on FM in Bristol. Hopefully you can catch the missing bits of the show via the links below.

You can listen to the show’s first hour here, and second hour here.

The playlist for the show was:

  • I Am What I Am – Amanda Lear
  • What I Have Become – Ren Stedman
  • White Wedding – CN Lester
  • You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) – Sylvester
  • Grow Up – Ren Stedman
  • Love Will Save the Day – Koko Jones
  • Alfred Parks – Ren Stedman
  • True Trans Soul Rebel – Against Me

More Awards for Ujima

~ Cheryl

commradio
Some very nice people have set up awards for Community Radio. About time, you might say, as we’ve been around for years now, but I know how much work these things are so thanks to the kind people at the Community Radio Awards.

The first ever award ceremony took place in Birmingham over the weekend. Ujima was shortlisted in three categories: Community Development Project (for our work with Bristol’s Green Capital year), Female Presenter of the Year, and the big one, Station of the Year.

And we won two. Congratulations to Miss Prim, and to the team as a whole. The photo above shows two of our directors, Kevin and Roger, plus Miss Prim, collecting the Station of the Year award.

I guess I need some new patter to celebrate that.

By the way, my next show will be on September 21st and is devoted entirely to the first ever Trans Pride South West.

Freedom Youth in the News

~ Cheryl

The Bristol Cable has just run a nice little article about Free to be Me, the history of Freedom Youth that was launched at Bristol Pride this year. The article also includes a few quotes from some busybody called Cheryl who was on hand as an expert in local LGBT history.

By the way, the layout was done by Joe Burt who also did Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion and the Colin Harvey novels for me, and is published by my friend Richard Jones at Tangent Books. Richard, like me, is heavily involved in the Bristol Festival of Literature, about which you will be hearing much more in the run up to the end of October. And on that subject, Pete Sutton was on Radio Bristol talking about the festival yesterday. This listen again link is here, and Pete comes on at about 1:22.

Mike Carey in the Salon – Part I

~ Cheryl

Fellside
Today on Salon Futura I posted the audio from my interview with Mike Carey on Ujima Women’s Outlook back in May. We were mainly discussing his latest novel, Fellside, but conversation also strayed onto The Girl with All the Gifts and the X-Men.

Mike’s comments are particularly interesting in view of the US Department of Justice’s recent decision to stop using private prisons. Whether the UK will follow suit is very much open to debate.

As I note in the interview, I was also scheduled to interview Mike at Waterstones that evening. I have edited the audio from that and hope to have it online for you later this week. In the meantime, here is Part I.

Paul Cornell in The Salon

~ Cheryl

Here’s another Ujima interview that I am posting because the Listen Again link has expired. In keeping with our theme of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who, here is Paul Cornell.

Obviously the main topic of conversation was Paul’s Shadow Police novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes. We also discussed some of his other projects, including This Damned Band which is now available as a graphic novel. Along the way we discuss diversity in fiction, fandom, and why a vicar’s husband is so obsessed with devil worship. At one point I do actually say, “this interview has gone completely off the rails”, which I guess shows you how much fun Paul and I were having.

If you haven’t bought Who Killed Sherlock Holmes yet, you might like to listen to Paul read from it at his recent BristolCon Fringe appearance.

Next week, Mike Carey.

Cavan Scott in The Salon

~ Cheryl

I have been working on processing some of the interview material that I did for Ujima and has now vanished from the Listen Again service. This week will be mainly about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who, with a bit of Star Wars and The Beano thrown in. I’m starting up with Cavan Scott who does all of those things. Later in the week I’ll bring you Paul Cornell as well.

Here’s Cav. I had the poor man in the studio for a whole hour. With the music, news and ads removed it boils down to about half of that. Among other things we talk about how he came to have the #1 selling book in the whole of the UK.

Congratulations, Ujima!

~ Cheryl

My good friends at Ujima Radio have been awarded a major grant by the Arts Council, as reported here by Bristol 24/7. I should note that this does not mean money for my radio show. The money is primarily intended to help run events alongside the radio station, and will be aimed at the various black communities in Bristol. It will, however, help keep the station running, which is a good thing from my point of view.

This Week on Ujima – Pete Sutton, Hate Crime & Teenagers

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s Women’s Outlook show was supposed to kick off with Sarah Hilary talking about her fabulous new crime novel, Tastes Like Fear. However, Sarah is not well, and Pete Sutton gamely stepped in at the last minute to talk about his debut short story collection, A Tiding of Magpies.

Special congratulations were due to Pete and Ian Millstead (both of whom are in Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion) because their stories in North by South West got honorable mentions in the latest Year’s Best Horror anthology from Ellen Datlow. I apologize profusely to Ellen for describing her as the Simon Cowell of the horror industry, but I did say that she’s a much nicer person.

Pete and I also talked briefly about the forthcoming Bristol Festival of Literature. We provided a sneak preview of some of the exciting events that will be happening.

Next up I talked to Jaya Chakrabarti and Paul Breedon about a Peace Picnic that they organized in Knowle West last weekend. There have been some fairly unpleasant hate crime incidents in south Bristol since the Brexit vote, and the community wanted to do something to stand in solidarity with the victims.

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

The second half of the show was given over entirely to a group of young people on a National Citizenship Scheme training program. We had them in the studio as a sort of work experience thing, part of which involved getting interviewed live on air by Paulette and myself. They did very well.

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

The playlist for the show was as follows:

  • Chic – My Forbidden Lover
  • The Pointer Sisters – We Are Family
  • Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Peace, Love & Understanding
  • The O’Jays – Love Train
  • Marvin Gaye – Abraham, Martin & John
  • Stevie Wonder – Superstition
  • Bob Marley – Get Up, Stand Up
  • Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child

Peace Picnic in Knowle West Tomorrow

~ Cheryl

For those of you in Bristol, there will be a Peace Picnic in Knowle West tomorrow. This has been prompted by a rise in hate crime in the community. Further details on Facebook. I won’t be there, but I will have Jaya Chakrabarti, and hopefully some of her fellow organizers, on the radio to talk about it on Wednesday.

Today on Ujima – Cat Valente, Rape Prevention, Hate Crime & Brexit

~ Cheryl

Sorry about the weird company, Cat. That’s the way it goes with radio some days.

Today’s show began with an interview I did with Cat Valente at Finncon. As usual with such things, I was only able to broadcast about half of it. All of the in-depth writerly stuff got cut. The full thing will appear on Salon Futura in a few weeks. Cat and I seem to have done a lot of giggling in that interview.

In the second half hour I was joined by Charlotte Gage from Bristol Women’s Voice to talk about the “R U Asking 4 It” fiasco, in which members of Avon & Somerset Police were taken to task by a group of Bristol teenagers for entirely inappropriate comments on rape prevention. I should note that following the initial disaster the response of the police has been fantastic. Very senior people have got involved, and I understand that today another email went around the force reminding officers of the need to be on message over such issues.

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

Next up I spoke to Jennie Darch from SARI about the rise in hate crime following the Brexit referendum. SARI is a charity that specializes in helping the victims of hate crime, and there is no doubt that their case load has increased dramatically since the vote. Charlotte also mentioned women talking to BWV about a sudden upsurge in racist harassment.

I was delighted to see that during the music breaks Charlotte and Jennie were busy comparing notes and thinking of ways in which their agencies could work together to tackle this problem.

The final half hour was given over to vox pop interviews about Brexit that I collected at Finncon. My thanks to the many lovely people from around the world who were willing to share their views.

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

The music this week was mostly on the theme of immigration. That included “Get Back” by The Beatles which was very much on an immigration theme before the Fab Four thought better of it and re-wrote the lyrics to be more politically safe (including some casual transphobia). The full playlist is as follows:

  • Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?
  • Jama – No Borders
  • Bob Marley – Buffalo Soldier
  • Horslips – The Man Who Built America
  • Tabby Cat Kelly – Don’t Call Us Immigrants
  • Maryam Mursal – Lei Lei
  • The Beatles – Get Back
  • Fontella Bass – Rescue Me

At Bristol Pride

~ Cheryl

Scarlet Fever - photo by Caz Milford
Bristol Pride took place today. As usual, I was on hand to help the good people from ShoutOut Radio with their day-long coverage of the event. I wasn’t actually on air much as Ujima was not co-broadcasting the event this year. However, I did spend some time out and about interviewing people and some of the results of that may appear in this Thursday’s ShoutOut show. The above photo (by Caz Milford) shows me interviewing drag Queen, Scarlet Fever. Scarlet’s costume included a full peacock tail made from actual peacock feathers. Scarlet made the entire outfit himself (and yes I did ask about pronouns).

This year Pride was in a new home at the harbourside. The main stage was in the amphitheater in front of the Lloyds Bank building while most of the stalls were in Millennium Square. We had more room than in Castle Park, and it was much drier underfoot. I’m glad it didn’t get too sunny as the black bricks that pave most of the area could have got very hot, but at least we weren’t wallowing in mud. Daryn Carter was interviewed on the show and he said we had 9000 people at the event. It looked like a very diverse crowd. I was particularly pleased to see so many young people wearing trans flags and badges. That bodes well for Trans Pride in September.

One thing in particular that I want to highlight is the online mapping project that my colleagues at OutStories were busy doing this year. That is now launched and you can find the map here. There’s not a lot of trans stuff on it at present, which is in large part down to me not having had time to do it, but there are some 70+ other items mentioned and we’ll be adding to that as time goes on.

Of course the main focus of our day was the music. We get a lot of great acts at Pride. Most of them a singers who work off a backing track. While many of them are very good singers (hello Rozalla), I yearn for people playing actual instruments. Today we had a couple of great bands.

Joanne Joanne - photo by Thomas Page

Here I am with Joanne Joanne (photo by Thomas Page). They are an all-girl Duran Duran tribute act. They do a fine job, especially when you consider that the original material is heavily produced and multi-layered which is hard to reproduce on stage. The photo shows me getting a hug from lead singer, Val Gwyther, which is about as close as I will ever get to getting a hug from Simon Le Bon.

My favorite act of the day, however (bearing in mind that I was unable to stay to hear Little Boots and Lisa Stansfield) was this lot, a local rock band called I Destroy.

IDestroy

On the left is Becky (bass guitar); on the right in the shades is Bec (lead guitar & vocals), and Jenn (drums). I was impressed with how tight they were, and it was great to have a proper rock band on stage along with all of the pop material. They work hard too. They are playing a gig in Stokes Croft tonight and are currently touring including gigs in Manchester and London. I’m hoping I can get them on my Ujima show.

Here’s one of the songs they played today.

Music for Wednesday

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

That’s R Kelly with a the song from the soundtrack to the 2001 movie Ali (starring Will Smith, obviously). I’m astonished at how many of the songs about Ali are by white people. Even the chart-topping “Black Superman”, which Ali allegedly hated, was written by a white guy for all of its reggae rhythms. I’m glad I found something I can use.

I have this weird vision of Ali and Spartacus sitting down together to have a little chat and see who really was the greatest. I expect that Ali will win, because while he might have been a brilliant fighter he didn’t believe in killing people.

Mike Carey Reminder

~ Cheryl

Fellside - Mike Carey
This is mainly for Bristol people, but there will be radio coverage too.

Next Wednesday (May 18th) Mike Carey will be in Bristol to promote his latest book, Fellside. He will be on the radio with me at lunchtime, and in the evening we’ll be doing an event at Waterstones. So poor Mike gets to be interviewed by me twice in one day. I hope he doesn’t get too bored.

I, er, promise not to ask him about the next Felix Castor book more than once per interview, OK?

Anyway, it should be great. If you are in Bristol, please do come along in the evening. You can book (for free) here. If you are not local, I’ll be posting the Listen Again links to the show. I’ll try to get audio of the thing in Waterstones too, but I can’t guarantee I’ll get anything of decent quality.

Oh, and Fellside? Gripping.

This Week’s Women’s Outlook Show

~ Cheryl

Sorry this is a bit late. I’ve been rather busy with doing trans awareness training and various LGBT-related meetings in Bristol. Here’s what we had on Wednesday’s show.

The first hour was mainly my interview with Guy Gavriel Kay about Children of Earth and Sky. Guy and I talked for almost an hour, and I managed to boil that down to three 7-8 minute segments. I’ll post the whole thing on Salon Futura later. The discussion will be of particular interest to Croatian readers. There are brief mentions of Mihaela and Iggy.

After the second ad break I talked a bit about Prince, and other black musicians who died recently. Any recommendations as to what Papa Wemba songs I should play would be gratefully received. I also chatted brief with Olly Rose about musical heroes, “dad music” and the like. (Or in my case more like grandma music.)

You can listen to the first half of the show here. Thankfully it is audio only, so you can’t see me playing air guitar along with Nils Lofgren.

The second half of the show begins with me talking to Olly Rose about their fabulous sf audio comedy, Ray Gunn and Starburst. Series 1 is well worth a listen, and if you want to contribute to the crowdfunding campaign for series 2 you can do so here.

My final guest this week was Paul Cornell. We talked mainly about his new Shadow Police novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? Because Paul and I know each other rather well the conversation went a bit off the rails in places and there was giggling. Paul will be reading from the book at BristolCon Fringe later this month, and at a book launches at Forbidden Planet London and Bristol a few days later.

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

The playlist for the show was as follows:

  • When Doves Cry – Prince
  • I Feel For You – Chaka Khan
  • Manic Monday – The Bangles
  • Purple Rain – Bruce Springsteen
  • Let’s Go Crazy – Prince
  • Little Red Corvette – Prince
  • How Come You Don’t Call Me? – Alicia Keys
  • 1999 – Prince

All of the songs were written by Prince.

I’ll be back on air on May 18th, with Mike Carey. Mike and I are doing two interviews that day: once on the radio and once at Waterstones in the evening. I’m currently reading Fellside and am very impressed.