Radio

Yesterday on Ujima – Historical Fantasy Preview

~ Cheryl

I wasn’t in the studio for long yesterday. I just had a half hour slot previewing the Historical Fantasy event we would be doing in Foyles that evening. I had been expecting Juliet McKenna to join me, but an accident near Swindon blocked her access onto the M4 and left her parked and fuming for an hour or so. Thankfully Luciennce Boyce and I were able to have a good discussion, which mostly didn’t overlap with what we said in the evening.

The rest of the show was given over to an interview with the head of the Bristol Green party, Councilor Daniella Radice. I need to listen to that myself. I couldn’t stick around for too long as I had to go and find Juliet.

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

Game of History Reminder

~ Cheryl

A Game of History
As noted last week, tomorrow evening I will be chairing an event at Foyles in Bristol. It will feature Juliet E. McKenna, Lucienne Boyce, Helen Hollick and Jack Wolf. I hope to see some of you there.

Also, Juliet and Lucienne will be joining me on Ujima Radio’s Women’s Outlook show at noon to discuss the panel and their work.

It should be a great day. I’m certainly looking forward to it.

This Week’s Radio – Judy Darley, Bristol Homeless, Black Identity

~ Cheryl

I began Wednesday’s show with a few mentions of people. As many of you will know, Caroline Symcox has just been inaugurated as Vicar of Fairford, which is not that far away from Bristol. I suspect that Paul Cornell is hoping that the vicar and her spouse get an invitation to the town’s famous air show.

Also in the mentions list were the environmental campaigners from Avonmouth, whom I had on the show back in July. Council staff had tried to sneak through approval of the biomass plant without debate, but the Councillors insisted on discussing the matter and, much to everyone’s surprise, denied the planning application. The expectation is that the power company will go running to the government who will order Bristol to change its mind, but at least our local politicians have made a stand. My colleagues at Bristol 24/7 have the story.

Finally I played a tribute to the great Acker Bilk, one of our local area’s finest musicians, who sadly died on Sunday.

My guest for Wednesday was local writer, Judy Darley. As Judy mainly does short and flash fiction, she was able to read some of her work on air. Much of Judy’s writing is inspired by works of art, which makes it very different from the sort of thing I normally read, but fascinating all the same.

Paulette took over for the next half hour, and welcomed Caz from the One Love Breakfast Show (which Ujima co-hosts with BCFM). Today they were doing a fund raiser for homeless people in Bristol, which is a very good thing to be doing at this time of year. Caz also looked back on the special edition of the show that featured Mayor Ferguson answering questions live in the studio.

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

The second hour was given over entirely to a discussion of black identity, so it was very much a Paulette thing.

I suspect that most of you won’t know that Haile Selassie once lived in Bath. The house where is lived is now a museum, and naturally it is a focus for local Rastafarians. It was great to have Shawn Sobers from that project on the show.

Some of the discussion will ring true with those of you who get irritated by the habit of our American friends of referring to all black people as African-American. (He’s from Wakanda, damnit! He’s African.) I was also reminded of a discussion on the Writers Of Colour tweet stream over the weekend in which they talked about being “politically black”.

You can listen to the second hour here.

As a reminder, next week I will have Juliet McKenna and Lucienne Boyce in the studio to talk about historical fantasy. I think I might play some Bat for Lashes.

Today on Ujima: BristolCon, Maya Angelou & Thomas Glave

~ Cheryl

First up on today’s show I had the fabulous Roz Clarke in to do a quick preview of BristolCon. We may have mentioned several people that you know. It gave me a warm and cosy feeling to note that almost all of the authors we mentioned had been on the show themselves at some point in the past.

At the half hour point I handed over to Paulette who had Rachel de Garang in from Breathing Fire, a black women’s theatre company, who are putting on a show in honor of Maya Angelou. I didn’t catch all of the content, but it sounded fun. With Rachel in the studio was performance artist, Joanne Tremarco, from the Nomadic Academy for Fools. They are in Bristol at the moment and Joanne’s contribution is something called Women Who Wank.

Of course we are not allowed to say wank on the radio. Tommy Popcorn and I were highly amused at the gymnastics Paulette went through to get the point over.

I provided all of the music for the show. Two of the songs Paulette played are from Maya Angelou’s 1957 album, Miss Calypso. She has a great voice, and was clearly thinking along feminist lines even back then.

I got the studio back for the final half hour and played a pre-record of an interview I did with the Jamaican LGBT activist, Thomas Glave, when he was in Bristol the other week. Amongst other things, we discussed anal penetration, which apparently you are allowed to say on the radio. I also played a couple of songs that have Kenneth Williams levels of innuendo in them, both about gay sex. I may also have had a thing or two to say about Mike Read’s pro-UKIP single, which I am delighted to note he withdrew from sale shortly after the show was broadcast.

If you want to listen to the show, you can find the first hour here, and the second hour here.

Kizzy & I Talk Trans for #SpiritDay

~ Cheryl

I was delighted to be able to mark Spirit Day by appearing as a guest on Kizzy Morrell’s show on Ujima talking about trans issues. Kizzy kindly let me do pretty much a trans 101. It wasn’t quite as slick as I would have hoped, but I was fairly pleased with it. Of course I haven’t listened back to it yet, and doubtless I will cringe at some of it.

Anyway, I got to enthuse about fabulous people such as Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, Isis King and Geena Rocero. I also got in a plug for the Dwayne’s House appeal. Job done.

You can find the interview on the Ujima Listen Again service here. I start about 22 minutes in and I am on for most of the rest of the show. In due course I’ll excerpt it and put it in a podcast.

Yesterday on Ujima – Off the Record, Coaching and Tangled Roots

~ Cheryl

Yesterday was one of those days when I arrived in the studio knowing next to nothing about the people I was going to be interviewing. We also had one or two technical issues that resulted in it not being the best broadcast I have ever done, but the content was great.

First up we had some lovely ladies from an organization called Off the Record which does amazing work with young Somali and Afro-Caribbean kids in Bristol, particularly in the area of mental health. That ran for 45 minutes.

Then we have two life coaches in the studio, and my colleague, Judeline, bravely volunteered to be a guinea pig and be coached live on air. You can find more information about my guests here.

And finally there was a half hour session on a literary/theatre project called Tangled Roots which is visiting Bristol at the weekend. I did my first ever live phone interview. The project is about encouraging people of mixed race backgrounds to tell their stories, and feel proud of their heritage. It sounds like a very fine thing, and I’m delighted that Bristol is one of the cities they felt it was worth visiting.

You can listen to yesterday’s show here and here.

I’ll be back in the studio this afternoon chatting to Kizzy Morrell about trans issues. That should be around 3:00pm.

The Abominable Crime

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I spent most of Saturday in Bristol. In the afternoon I was at the Arnolfini for a screening of a film called The Abominable Crime. This follows the lives of two gay Jamaicans. Simone is a young lesbian and single mother. When the film opens she has just survived an attempt on her life by homophobic gunmen. Maurice is a lawyer and gay rights activist. When he is outed in the Jamaican press he is determined to return to the island to carry on the fight, even though his husband in Toronto fears for his life.

Simone and Maurice are real people. In Jamaica, being gay can be deadly.

The film was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Roger Griffith, one of the directors of Ujima Radio. Also on the panel was a Jamaican writer, Prof. Thomas Glave, who has won two Lammy Awards. Thomas and Maurice are two of the founders of J-FLAG, the current LGBT rights organization for Jamaica. Thomas and I did a brief slot on the radio last week, and on Saturday I bagged a slightly longer interview that I’ll air on Women’s Outlook when I get a free slot.

From my point of view, the most interesting part of the discussion was the discovery of the Dwayne’s House charity project. Dwayne Jones was a young trans girl from Jamaica. When she was 14 she was thrown out of the family home by her parents. Two years later she was chased through the streets by a mob and beaten to death. The Dwayne’s House project seeks to purchase a building where homeless LGBT kids like Dwayne can have a safe place to sleep. The project also hopes to provide medical care, counseling and education. Details of how to donate can be found here.

By the way, the panel was keen to make clear that while the situation for LGBT Jamaicans is not good, it is not always as bad as you might think from the film and news reports. Just like anywhere else, class makes a huge difference. Also things have got a lot worse over the past few decades. As with Africa, much of that is due to heavy lobbying by rich American religious fundamentalists. Of course the people behind Dwayne’s House are also Christians. Nothing in life is simple.

Tobias S. Buckell Interview

~ Cheryl

Hurricane Fever - Tobias S. BuckellContinuing in the spirit of the Afrofuturism season at The Watershed, here the last of the interviews with Caribbean writers that I have in the can from Ujima. This one is with Tobias S. Buckell and was done around the time Hurricane Fever hit the streets.

The book is quite significant for Tobias because it touches on some of the reasons that caused him to leave the Caribbean and settle in the USA. We cover this in the interview. Another thing we talk about a lot is the origin of the character, Prudence Jones, who is a Bond-like secret agent working for a united Caribbean government. Tobias also goes into the future history that he developed to explain how that political union of the islands came to happen. We may have taken Karen Lord’s name in vain…

Towards the end of the interview Tobias talks about how he got to be a successful writer despite the fact that he suffers quite badly from dyslexia. It is a remarkable story of determination and well worth a listen.

Black Pride on Ujima

~ Cheryl

As part of the Black History Month celebrations in Bristol we have a number of interesting Jamaican visitors in the city. That includes the Jamaican Poet Laureate, Mervyn Morris, who is doing a public event tonight at Bristol University.

Also in town in Thomas Glave, who is a well known gay writer with several Lammy nominations to his name. Thomas is also one of the founders of J-FLAG, the Jamaican LGBT rights group. I met up with Thomas yesterday at the Ujima studios where he was appearing on the Kizzy Morrell show. I’d been invited along as the LGBT expert.

As it turned out, Thomas was a bit late arriving, and Kizzy had a very packed show, all of which conspired to give us less time than we had hoped. However, the first hour of the show is well worth listening to because of the fascinating interview with a chap from Little Rock, Arkansas, who is in Bristol to explain how his city is helping is poorest citizens. You can find that first hour here.

Thomas and I are on towards the end of the second hour of the show. We start about 49 minutes in. We managed to cover a bit of what is happening in Jamaica these days, including the excellent news that J-FLAG is raising money to provide a safe house for trans teens who are homeless because they have been thrown out by their parents. You can find the second hour of the show here.

Today on Ujima – Afrofuturism, Prostate Cancer, Regulating Landlords, Somalia

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Well you can see how busy that was just from the title.

Firstly I had Edson Burton in the studio to talk about the Afrofuturism season at the Watershed. Well, I should have done anyway. What actually happened was that Edson fell through a warp in the space-time continuum and was a bit late. Fortunately my colleague, Tommy Popcorn, had been at the screening of the George Clinton film and was able to talk about George for a while. My thanks to Tommy for filling in so ably. Also I related the story about the Playtex seamstresses who made the Apollo spacesuits (which I got from Hannu Rajaniemi’s Guest of Honor speech at Finncon).

Edson finally made it to the studio and previewed some of the up-coming Afrofuturism material. The item on black superheroes on Saturday sounds good, and obviously I’m looking forward to next Wednesday when they’ll be showing Pumzi, followed by a film about black science fiction writers, including interviews with Chip Delany, Octavia Butler and Steven Barnes. The later will be introduced by Ytasha Womack (live via Skype from Chicago), and I’ve just been writing a web article to go with it.

The second half hour was given over to a young lady called Vanessa from Bristol University who is studying Caribbean men who have had prostate cancer. I discovered the scary fact that as many as 1 in 4 Caribbean men in the UK can expect to be diagnosed with the disease, a much higher percentage than for white or Asian men. No one knows why, and Vanessa’s research is an important part of trying to find an answer so that something can be done about it.

I note in passing that most trans women will have prostates and can therefore get prostate cancer. Most GPs have no idea about that.

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

For the second hour I handed the mic over to Paulette who had some more political material. First up were a couple of ladies from the City Council who help run a scheme to regulate private landlords. This is obviously great for tenants, but it can also be good for landlords too because going through an approved City Council scheme can be cheaper than using a letting agency.

In the process of doing the interview Paulette and I discovered, to our horror, that it is now mandatory for private landlords to check that anyone they let property to has the right to be resident in the UK.

For the final half hour we welcomed three young people from the Bristol Somali Youth Network. Many of you will have heard the story of Yusra Hussien, the 15-year-old Bristol girl who is believed to have flown to Turkey. The tabloid newspapers have been spinning this as “radicalized Muslim girl flies to join IS”. The story we get from the Somali community in Bristol is very different. The young people of BSYN have been trying hard to give their fellow teenagers a sense of community and belonging, but that must be very hard when so much of the British media is so openly hostile.

Talking of BSYN, they have a wonderful project going at the moment to collect unwanted books and ship them to the library in Mogadishu. Hopefully I will have them back to talk about this in a couple of weeks.

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

The play list for the show was as follows:

  • Dance Apocalyptic – Janelle Monae
  • Alphabet Street – Prince
  • Children of Productions – Funkadelic
  • Clouds – Prince
  • Our House – Madness
  • Burning Down the House – Talking Heads
  • I Feel Alone – Maryam Mursal
  • Welcome – Maryam Mursal

The track “Clouds” comes from Prince’s new album, Art Official Age. My thanks to Edson and Charlie Jane Anders, both of whom enthused about the album to me. It is a very Afrofutrist piece, telling the story of a Mr. Nelson who is awakened after being in suspended animation for 45 years. One of Prince’s collaborators on the album is Lianne La Havas, a Jamaican-British musician whom Karen Lord tells me I need to listen to. And hey, if Prince thinks she’s good, and so does Karen, that’s good enough for me.

Maryam Mursal is Somalia’s best known musician. Both of the tracks I chose come from her album, The Journey, which tells the tale of the seven-month trek she and her five children undertook to escape from the Somali civil war and find a new home in Europe. The album is co-produced by Simon Emmerson and Martin Russell of Afro-Celt Sound System, and is available from Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records. Peter plays, and sings backing vocals, on it. To find out more about Maryam and the record, go here.

Launching the Mothershed

~ Cheryl

Last night saw the first event of the Afrofuturism season at the Watershed. The main item was a screening of Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, a rare film about the amazing jazz musician, Sun Ra. The film was preceded by a short discussion involving Edson Burton, the curator of the Watershed events, and two guests from across the pond: Ytasha Womack and Floyd Webb. Sadly they were only able to attend by Skype, and the sound quality wasn’t always great, but I was very happy to get to hear Ytasha at last. I highly recommend her book, Afrofuturism, and am still distraught that it just missed out on being a finalist for Best Related Work this year. I know a lot less about Webb because he works mainly in film, but he certainly knew his black SF.

Sadly I had to leave to catch a train part way through the film. I also missed out on the dance party that was staged after the film by some of my colleagues from Ujima Radio. I’ll also miss out on Courttia Newland’s flash fiction workshop because I’ll be in Cheltenham tomorrow. However, I hope to be at BristolCon’s Fun Palace events on Sunday, and I see that there’s a film about George Clinton in the evening. Also, next Wednesday Edson will be in my studio to talk about Afrofuturism. I can guarantee that there will be plenty of that funky stuff.

Today on Ujima – Ann Leckie, Art, Massage & Trauma

~ Cheryl

Well, that was… not up to my usual standard.

I’ve been getting very little sleep of late, and you need to have your wits about you to host a radio show. Even with the Ann Leckie interview being a pre-record, I managed to stuff up somewhat. I couldn’t even do basic arithmetic. Thankfully I have a bunch of great songs on hand for when I do mess up and need something to get me out of a jam. Also Valentin, my engineer, was heroic. Paulette and Frances provided valuable support, and our studio guests were wonderful.

Anyway, first up was my interview with Ann Leckie, recorded at Worldcon the day after she won the Hugo. Sadly it does not contain the conversation we had later about how to film Ancillary Justice and keep that sense of unease that the use of “she” creates in the reader. I do want to see that happen.

After Ann I talked to Suzie Rajah about Art on the Hill, one of the many fine local arts trails that happens each year in Bristol. Thankfully Suzie needed very little prompting from me.

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

For the second hour Paulette joined me to interview two ladies: Nealey Conquest of Community Conscious, and Judy Ryde of Trauma Foundation South West. Nealey is a holistic massage practitioner, while Judy runs a charity that helps people who have suffered extreme trauma, such as refugees fleeing war zones.

You can listen to hour two here.

The playlist for today’s show was:

  • Just Like a Woman – Bob Dylan
  • Another Girl, Another Planet – The Only Ones
  • Electric Avenue – Eddy Grant
  • Running up That Hill – Kate Bush
  • Vincent – Don McLean
  • If I Can Help Somebody – Mahalia Jackson *
  • I Can make You Feel Good – Shalamar
  • Midas Touch – Midnight Star
  • Everybody Hurts – REM

* This is one of the songs that my mum asked to be played at her funeral. It was also a favorite of Dr. Martin Luther King. Mahalia Jackson is probably the finest gospel singer ever.

Last Week on Ujima – Amy Morse, Glenda Larke, Bicycles, Art

~ Cheryl

I did manage to get a radio show done last week. Despite everything, I think I did OK. Here’s what went down.

In the first half hour I welcomed local author, Amy Morse. We had a lovely chat about starting to build a writing career, social media, crowdfunding and all that stuff that many of you will be familiar with.

That was followed by the second of the interviews I recorded at Worldcon. This was with Glenda Larke. We talked quite a lot about living in Malaysia and Tunisia, and how this has influenced Glenda’s writing.

You can listen to the first hour here.

The second hour began with a discussion of cycling in Bristol. It featured Celia Davis from the city council, and our front of house manager, Frances, who does actually cycle. You know me: if I have a bike I want it to have a motor.

Finally we had a lovely bunch of people in from the Bristol Biennial arts festival, which was running all over the city last week. I wish I had been able to go to see some of the installations and performances.

You can listen to the second hour here.

Today On Ujima – Israel, Serbia & Iraq

~ Cheryl

Thanks to my uncle, and Tracy the cleaner, holding the fort during the day I was able to get up to Bristol to do my radio show today. This was a great relief as I had a busy show planned.

First up was a pre-recorded interview with Gili Bar Hilel, an Israeli translator who, amongst other things, has been responsible for bringing the work of J.K. Rowling and Diana Wynne Jones to Hebrew readers. The discussion included shout outs for Frances Hardinge, Garth Nix and Philip Reeve. Gili and I also briefly discussed the situation in Gaza.

The second half hour saw me joined in the studio by Karen Garvey from Bristol Museums and Gordana Grabež, the Executive Director of the National Museum of Serbia, who is in Bristol on an exchange visit to learn how we do community-based museum exhibits. Karen will be teaching her all about things like the Revealing Stories exhibition that I helped put together, and also the You Make Bristol exhibition that Karen masterminded. In return maybe Bristol will get a loan of some of the fantastic art collection that Belgrade has, including everyone from Hieronymous Bosch to Rubens to Picasso. We talked quite a bit about the history of the Balkans, from Roman times through to Tito. There was also some brief mention of Zoran Živković, and of the embarrassment of the tennis. At least Novak did beat Andy, so we were even less happy than Gordana.

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

For the second hour I was joined by Jo Baker from the charity, Child Victims of War. The main focus of our conversation was the situation in Iraq, which is quite horrifying (and not for the reasons you’ll hear in the British media). Of particular note was the accusation that US forces are using radioactive weapons (not just depleted uranium) in Iraq, and that these weapons have been sold to Israel. The discussion of how drones are used was also quite horrifying, and led to us speculating that Bristol’s expertise in robotics could lead to the city becoming a leading manufacturer of actual robot war machines.

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

The playlist for today’s show was as follows:

  • World Party – Meet Your Feet
  • Money Don’t Matter 2 Nite – Prince
  • Friendship Update – The Go Team
  • Rescue Me – Fontella Bass
  • War – The Temptations
  • Save the Children – Marvin Gaye
  • Tribal War – Black Roots
  • Life During Wartime – Talking Heads

Next week’s show, assuming I am able to get to Bristol, will feature Glenda Larke.

Today on Ujima – Australians!

~ Cheryl

It was my great pleasure to welcome four Australian writers into the Women’s Outlook studio today. Cat Sparks, Donna Hanson, Rob Hood and Matt Ferrer are on vacation together after Worldcon and kindly agreed to come and talk to me for an hour. We chatted away about what they thought of the UK, and eventually got onto talking about their books as well. Special thanks are due to Thoraiya Dyer for listening in all the way from Australia. I love broadcasting to the world.

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

In the second hour I was joined by Gary Thompson of 121 Creatives, a local design company. We had a chat about the design industry and the sort of work Gary does. It is hard to give an impression of his work without images, but if you check out his website you can see some of the things we were talking about.

Finally Paulette and Judeline joined me in the studio for a chat about the various things we had been up to in the past couple of weeks. There is a small amount of Worldcon reporting in there, though obviously nothing in depth because the audience is very general.

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

The playlist for today’s show was as follows:

  • 1999 – Prince
  • Fantasy – Earth, Wind & Fire
  • Thriller – Michael Jackson
  • We Were Rock ‘n’ Roll – Janelle Monáe
  • Dark Moon, High Tide – Afro Celt Sound System
  • Winter Fields – Bat For Lashes
  • Ali Baba – Dreadzone
  • Night Boat to Cairo – Madness

Bethany Black & Alice Denny on Shout Out

~ Cheryl

The podcast of last night’s edition of Shout Out is now available, and it contains a lot of my Trans Pride coverage. In particular there is material featuring Bethany Black and Alice Denny.

Alice had written a new poem especially for Trans Pride. She kindly gave me a private reading of it so I could get good quality for the broadcast. It is a really powerful piece.

Beth, for those of you who don’t know, has landed a supporting role in a new Russell T. Davies TV series, which is sort of a modern day Queer as Folk. Beth plays a trans woman in the show, which will be the first time a trans person has played a trans person in a British TV drama. There’s not a lot that she’s allowed to say about the show, but she did give me a great interview which we have used a lot of on the show.

I’ll be posting about an hour’s worth of Trans Pride material to my gender-related podcast feed when I get the time during this crazy road trip.

Yesterday on Ujima – Piracy, Massage & Old Age

~ Cheryl

The first segment of yesterday’s show saw me interviewing Huw Powell about his middle grade book, Spacejackers. I was delighted that we had listeners texting us pirate jokes. Huw and I had a good chat about SF for kids, gendered marketing, piracy and so on.

In the second half hour I welcomed massage therapist, Tom Taylor Bigg. I knew nothing about him beforehand, and was well impressed with his sensible approach to health. I wish I’d had time to chat to him about RSI.

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

For the second hour I was joined by Judith Brown, a local older people’s rights activists. Judith puts us all to shame. She’s 75, has one plastic knee, is a leukemia survivor, and still has more energy and enthusiasm than many of us in our 50s.

During our chat we talked a bit about Molly, a care robot being developed by Bristol Robotics. Judith commented that Molly was a bit like a Dalek, which I suspect may have given George Osborne some ideas as to have to save money on caring for the elderly.

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

The playlist for the show was as follows:

  • Captain Dread – Dreadzone
  • Notorious – Duran Duran
  • Sexual Healing – Marvin Gaye
  • Do That To Me One More Time – The Captain & Tennille
  • If You Don’t Know Me By Now – Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes
  • Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever – The Four Tops (and dedicated to Kevin)
  • Help Me Make It Through The Night – Gladys Knight & The Pips
  • Save The Best For Last – Vanessa Williams

I’m not doing the show next week as I need to get turned around from London and ready to head to Dublin. I’ll be back on air on the 27th with a studio full of Australians.

Today on Ujima – Space Pirates!

~ Cheryl

Today I’m delighted to have Huw Powell (Gareth’s younger brother) in the studio to talk about his book, Spacejackers. There will be thrills, adventure, piracy! As scurvy a bunch of knaves as ever set foot in a radio studio.

Also on the show I have a massage therapist. I could probably do with taking him to Worldcon with me, because you sure need a massage after one of those.

I’m not 100% sure what’s on for the second hour. If we don’t have anyone in the studio, we might just talk a little about media harassment and the spurious “balance” arguments used by the BBC and others to justify broadcasting hate speech.

Yesterday on Ujima – Reggae History & Short Stories

~ Cheryl

Yesterday was Jamaican Independence Day, which I had planned to celebrate with a little bit of discussion of reggae history. We got off to a slightly rocky start because my first guest, Jonathan Pinnock, had trouble finding the studio. Clearly I need to revisit the instructions I send to people. Huge thanks are due to Judeline and the two young lads who came in and improvised a discussion for the first 15 minutes. Fortunately Jon arrived in time for the next segment.

Jonathan was in the studio to talk about his new book, Take It Cool, which is the story of his search for his namesake, Dennis Pinnock, an early star of the Lovers’ Rock sub-genre of reggae. He also covers this history of the Pinnock family with the founding of Jamaica, which made the discussion especially appropriate for the day.

Also in the studio was Natalie Burns (who is part-Trinidadian) from the Small Stories group who are co-hosting the Ann & Jeff VanderMeer event later this month. Small Stories sounds like a really interesting group, and one I’d like to get involved with. Nat, Jon and I had a good chat about writing, including the value of experience of being an advertising copywriter.

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

I had the second hour off as we had turned it over to the Second Steps group who are well used to running their own shows. If you would like to listen to their discussion of health issues, go here.

The playlist for my hour of the show was:

  • My Baby – Dennis Pinnock
  • Crying Eyes – Dennis Pinnock
  • Jamming – Bob Marley & The Wailers
  • Ricochet Man – Horslips

Next week I’ll be talking to Huw Powell (Gareth’s brother) about space pirates.

Trans Pride on Shout Out Radio

~ Cheryl

The good folks at Shout Out Radio ran some more of my Trans Pride coverage on their show last night. Yesterday, in London, Fox & Lewis were at at Channel 4 for the launch of the Patchwork Project, a series of 25 films about trans people. They were kind enough to talk to be about the project last Saturday, and your can hear that interview here.

Here’s a short video that the guys put out as a trailer for the project. It includes a brief section with Nicole Gibson, the trans model whose interview I ran on Women’s Outlook on Wednesday.

The boys have also put up a brief video shot during Trans Pride. There’s a brief shot of my back at the beginning, but the rest of it is safely Cheryl-free.