Radio

Today on Ujima: Comics, Bristol Pounds, Kids & Trans Pride

~ Cheryl

First up on today’s show was Lorenzo Etherington, the art half of Bristol’s highly successful comics creation scheme, the Etherington Brothers. Lorenzo and Robin work primarily on books for comics kids, but comics are comics no matter who they are aimed at. Lorenzo and I shared our mutual love of Calvin & Hobbes.

The next segment saw me talking to Steve Clarke of the Bristol Pound, our city’s very own currency. I restrained myself from talking economics. My thanks to my colleague, Judeline, for playing the part of the Woman in the Bristol Street.

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

The second hour opens with a group of kids who have been working on the National Citizenship Project. Most of them were a bit shy, but they told me how they put together a charity fundraising event in just a week so they clearly have a lot of talent.

Finally I ran some of the audio from Trans Pride. It includes parts of the opening ceremonies — featuring Fox, Sarah Savage, Steph Scott & Caroline Lucas, MP — and an interview with trans model, Nicole Gibson. Judeline sat in to do her Woman in the Bristol Street thing again.

You can listen to the second hour here.

The playlist for today’s show was as follows:

  • Dance Apocalyptic – Janelle Monáe
  • Beat It – Michael Jackson
  • Simply Irresistible – Robert Palmer
  • 10 Out of 10 – Paolo Nutini
  • Let’s Dance – David Bowie
  • Lose Yourself to Dance – Daft Punk
  • Electric Avenue – Eddy Grant
  • Bright Side of the Road – Van Morrison

Trans Pride – Day 2 Revisited

~ Cheryl

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Brighton. I gather from Bethany Black that other parts of the country were actually hot (by which I mean over 30C), but here it was warm with a cool sea breeze. It was ideal for just about everything except spending the whole day out in the sun on your feet, which is of course exactly what I was planning to do.

I began with an hour’s stroll along the sea front from Hove to Kemptown. You can very quickly tell why Brighton has a trans pride, because trans people don’t particularly stand out here. I passed a lot of people in (fake) grass skirts on their way to an event in Hove. When I got to Brighton there was a big group of obvious gay boys heading to the beach wearing Victorian women’s bathing costumes. Later in the day there was apparently a mermaid march through the town in aid of marine conservation (something I would love to have supported). And at night the stag and hen parties come out, both of which appear to involve adopting over-the-top feminine gender presentation.

This year saw the first Trans Pride March, and by “first” I mean not just for Brighton, but apparently for the whole of Europe. I know, San Francisco friends, what took us so long, eh? But we have got there. The marchers, some 450 in all, assembled at the Marlborough and walked up St. James St. through Kemptown to the park where the Pride was being staged. I was lucky enough to be invited to sit in on the rehearsals for Rainbow Chorus, Brighton’s LGBT choir, who provided some of the music for the march. You’ll be hearing more from them on the radio in the coming weeks.

The event was officially opened by Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion (and therefore for Kemptown). She gave a rousing speech calling for an end to discrimination against trans people by the media, the government and the health service. I was very impressed.

After the opening ceremonies I went for a sit down out of the sun, finding a lovely little Thai restaurant called Sawadee just around the corner. There was a large party of young Thai people in there, so you don’t need my recommendation.

The afternoon was spent gathering interviews. I have a bunch of vox pops that I need to edit together, plus a number of longer pieces with people like Sarah Savage, Fox & Lewis, and trans model Nicole Gibson who was MCing the event. Alice Denny gave me a reading of a poem that she had written for the event, and I can guarantee you’ll get that on the radio soon.

During periods when there were rock bands on stage and interviewing was impossible I tried to get some shade and rest. Huge thanks to the barmaid in Neighborhood Kitchen who made me a wonderful non-alcoholic mojito when I desperately needed something long and cool that wasn’t water.

Part of the celebrations for the day were provided by Brighton*Transformed, a local history project focusing solely on the trans community and managed by my friend Kathy Caton who also produces the Out In Brighton radio show. They had got large posters featuring photographs of their subjects in many of the shop windows along the route of the march. In the evening they projected 30-foot square photos onto the wall of the (very supportive) Unitarian Church. Here’s the one of Sarah:

Sarah Savage

As you can see, this took place in a very busy location, with lots of local people and tourists out on the town for Saturday night.

The final event of the evening was the afterparty, for which the opening act was comic, Bethany Black. Beth has given me a lovely interview about the new Russell T. Davis TV series that she has been acting in. That too will be on the radio soon. And of course I finally got to see Beth perform, which was great.

I managed to get back to the hotel just before midnight. The damn seagulls woke me up at 6:00am again. It is definitely seagull pie for them if I catch them.

Update: I forgot to note that, despite it being Saturday night, I got a table at Indian Summer, one of the finest Indian restaurants I know. It is a foodie place — obviously, I like it — but if you like that sort of thing it is well worth going to.

Today on Ujima: WWI, Music Courses & Fair Trade

~ Cheryl

I’m online at the Ujima studios because I have a meeting this evening and won’t be home until late. Getting some blogging done is a much better use of my time than going shopping.

Today’s show began with my friend Eugene Byrne talking about his new book about Bristol during World War I. Eugene has collected a lot of great stories. The book, Bravo Bristol!, is available on Amazon around the world, but if you want to get a preview of the material there is a website and a free app (which includes suggested walking tours).

The next half hour featured some people from the Trinity Centre who are running music courses for young people. As luck would have it, I had a studio full of teenagers on a National Citizenship Scheme course. They didn’t have a lot of interest in WWI, but once we mentioned music they all lit up and basically took over the show. One of them was even texting his mates getting questions to ask.

You can listen to the first hour here.

The second hour of the show was all about the Fair Trade movement, featuring our good friend Jenny Foster whom I have had on the show before. With her was Lucy Gatward from the Better Food Company. It was an interesting and wide-ranging conversation. Also I got to explain who Thor really is. Because it is radio you did not see me playing air guitar in the studio.

You can listen to the second hour here.

The playlist for today’s show was:

  • My Heart Belongs to Daddy – Ella Fitzgerald
  • It’s Too Darn Hot – Billie Holiday
  • Hot Stuff – Donna Summer
  • Boogie Nights – Heatwave
  • It’s Raining Men – The Weather Girls
  • Purple Rain – Prince
  • Higher Love – Denise Pearson
  • Dr. Meaker – Dr. Meaker

The final two tracks were recorded live on the main stage at Bristol Pride and appear courtesy of Shout Out Radio.

Yesterday on Ujima – The Green Power Show

~ Cheryl

What I should have been doing yesterday was sleeping. What I actually did was host a 2-hour radio show on climate change and green power issues.

We started out with a pre-recorded interview with Tobias Buckell whose new novel, Hurricane Fever, is just out (and is a lot of fun). I have a longer version of the interview that I’ll be posting on Salon Futura in due course. The reason I had Tobias on the show was that his latest books talk a lot about the effect of climate change on the planet, and in particular on the Caribbean.

Next up were Tasha & Tin from the Avon Coalition Against Big Biofuels. This was mainly a discussion about how all biomass is not equal. Chopping down rain forests in South-East Asia and transporting the wood to the UK to be burned is not, by any stretch of the imagination, green.

You can listen to the first hour here.

At 1:00pm we were joined by Steve Norman who is part of a group protesting about existing activities at Avonmouth. Any wonder what happened to your household refuse? If you happen to live in the South-West of England much of it got baled up and stored at Avonmouth docks waiting to be shipped to Scandinavia for incineration. The local seagulls got rather excited about this, and once the bales had been pecked open the local flies took an interest and started breeding. It got so unpleasant event the Prime Minister was moved to comment. And as there are not enough incinerators in the UK to cope, the stuff is now going into landfill again.

This is, of course, a complicated issue. Ideally we’d throw away less refuse, but recycling facilities in the UK are dreadful and the amount of packaging on things we buy keeps going up. Incineration is better than landfill, but incinerating safely is challenging and companies are tempted to cut corners. Also the ash left after incineration is nasty stuff. So we end up exporting refuse to countries who are prepared to pay for proper incineration, or whose inhabitants don’t protest incinerators as loudly.

My final guest was Harriet from the Centre for Sustainable Energy because I wanted to end by talking about what we can do to help with the energy issue. The CSE does a lot of good work helping people reduce their energy use, and even generate their own. I was particularly interested in Harriet’s comments that people are much less likely to protest green power schemes (such as wind and solar farms) if they are community-owned, and supply power direct to the community, as is generally the case in Germany and Scotland, rather than being owned by multi-national corporations and feeding into the Grid, as is the case in England.

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

The music for the show was chosen by the guests, mostly by Tin. The songs were:

  • Breathing Underwater – Metric
  • 007, A Fantasy Bond Theme – Barray Adamson
  • Green Garden – Laura Mvula
  • Appletree – Erykah Badu
  • Everyday Life Has Become a Health Risk – Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
  • Electioneering – Exit Music feat. Morgan Heritage
  • Sleeping In – Postal Service
  • The First Cut is the Deepest – I-Roy

And here, just for you, Tobias, is Barray Adamson once again.

Post-Finncon

~ Cheryl

Today we traveled back to Helsinki from Jyväskylä. As usual, my Finnish friends insisted on showing me some of the best parts of their beautiful country.

The day began with breakfast with Irma at a cafe on a place called Women’s Island. I have no idea where the name came from, but the island is in part of the network of lakes and waterways that surrounds Jyväskylä. There are a couple of hydro-power stations on the island: an old one which is now a bat sanctuary, and a new one that actually provides power. There is also a large lock that we got to see in operation as a Finnish family on a boating holiday came through while we were looking around.

While we were eating a red squirrel wandered into the cafe gardens. Wisely it wasn’t going to let the very large cat get too close, but Paula managed to sneak up and get a good picture.

Red squirrel

In the afternoon we took the scenic route back to Helsinki. The road Otto took ran along a narrow ridge between two lakes and had some magnificent views.

Back in Helsinki we checked out some of the new construction by the railway station. It is mainly offices, but several of the buildings have restaurants on the ground floor. A place called Eatos doesn’t sound very promising, but Otto had seen it recommended in the Helsinki Sanomat so we checked it out. The food was seriously good. So if you want Mexican food in Helsinki you now know where to go.

I’m flying back to London tomorrow and will be offline most of the day. Then it is back into the Ujima studio on Wednesday, for which I have an interview with Tobias Buckell.

Becca Lloyd, M.P. Wright, Outset & Bristol Pride

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s radio all went very smoothly, thanks in no small part to Seth, my engineer, being available again. It is so much easier presenting the show if you don’t have to be constantly thinking about running the desk as well.

We began with an interview with Becca Lloyd, a local writer of strange and macabre tales. Becca and I talked about obsessive people with odd ways of seeing the world, and a penchant for killing people. We also discussed how the peculiar reticence of the English might contribute to such behaviors. Becca’s latest books: Mercy (from my good friends at Tartarus Press) and The View from Endless Street are newly available and are having a little party at Foyles tomorrow night.

Next up was the interview with Mark Wright about Heartman, which I have been trailing for the past few days. It is well worth a listen. Mark talks intelligently and respectfully about the difficulties of a white Englishman writing a book featuring mainly black characters. It would be great if someone like Tobias Buckell could get the same sort of deal that Mark did, but the world doesn’t (yet) work that way. Indeed, as Mark noted, the publishing industry wasn’t that keen on him to begin with (which is why his book is being published by a small press from Edinburgh). It wasn’t until the TV people started sniffing around the rights that the book started getting noticed. Right now, of course, all Mark has is payment for an option. But if that does turn into a J.T. Ellington TV show I see no way it can be whitewashed, given that almost all of the major characters in the book are black. I’m less sanguine about it getting filmed in Bristol, but we can hope.

One thing I forgot to mention on the show is that the book does include quite a few murders of women. That generally requires a content warning. However, I was discussing this with another woman who has read the book at the launch party, and we agreed that this isn’t a misogynist book. Guys, we can tell when you are salivating over the deaths of pretty women.

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

The third half hour was given over to Outset, a Bristol organization that helps people from disadvantaged groups set up their own businesses. This is a fine thing to be doing, and I note that it is jointly financed by Bristol City Council (George, unsurprisingly, is a fan) and the EU. Yes folks, the European Union is subsidizing business creation in Bristol. Take that, UKIP.

Finally Jayne Graham-Cummings from Bristol Pride came in to preview next week’s events. On air we mainly talked about what people could go and see, because that’s what most people would be interested in. Off air Jayne and I were chatting about how we could keep Bristol Pride fully trans-inclusive and methods of keeping a political edge to the event.

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

Tomorrow on Ujima

~ Cheryl

I’m currently at the Ujima studios. I’ve just been editing the interview with Mark Wright about his new book, Heartman. It includes a brief chat about how he used code-switching in his book to indicate how his lead character needed to behave differently within the St. Pauls community here in Bristol, and in the wider white community. Sounds like Mark has worked very hard on this.

First on tomorrow’s show, however, will be Becca Lloyd who has two new books out, and will be having a launch event at Foyles on Friday. One of them is a horror collection from the fabulous folks at Tartarus Press.

In the second hour I have some people in from Outset, a Bristol organization that helps people set up their own businesses. And for the final half hour I have Jayne from Bristol Pride to tell us all about the amazing events that I will be missing because I am going to Finncon.

By the way, talking of book launches, Gareth Powell’s brother, Huw, is launching a kids’ book about space pirates on Saturday, also at Foyles. Like I said, it is a busy week.

Busy Week

~ Cheryl

This week is going to be a bit mad.

To start with I have two days in Bristol. I have the radio show as usual on Wednesday, but I will also be in the studio tomorrow. That’s because of this book. Yes, someone has written a crime novel set in the Afro-Caribbean community of Bristol. The book is being launched at Bristol Foyles tomorrow night, and the author, Mark Wright, has a busy day of interviews before then. He’ll be on BBC Radio Bristol tomorrow afternoon, and at lunch time he’s popping into the Ujima studios to record something with me.

It is also the end of the month, so I have a whole lot of business housekeeping to do, most importantly sending out the accounts for Wizard’s Tower. That’s otherwise known as the Make Authors Happy process.

And finally, because I’ll be heading off to Finland next week, I need to get as much day job work done as possible before I go.

So blogging will be a bit limited, but there is some audio in process. Also I have a little surprise for you coming up tomorrow. It may involve monsters.

Liverpool Coverage Elsewhere

~ Cheryl

This isn’t new material. All of the interviews I have from the Unstraight Conference in Liverpool are on the podcast. However, a few people have kindly asked to use parts of that material elsewhere.

First up, Mary Milton took an edit of material to create a report focused on the April Ashley exhibition for Shout Out last Thursday. That show is available as a podcast here.

In addition the folks at the Tom of Finland Foundation have posted my interview with Durk Dehner on their blog.

Many thanks to both of them for the additional signal boost.

I note also that Durk and Homotopia were at Helsinki Pride yesterday. It looks like it was a great event, and it was lovely to see my LGBT contacts and science fiction contacts both reporting from the same event on Twitter.

Yesterday’s Radio

~ Cheryl

Well that was a learning experience.

When I arrived at the studio I discovered that Seth, my usual engineer, could not make it in because of a plumbing issue. As it turned out, all of the potential backups that Paulette phoned were also unavailable. Enormous thanks to Miss Delicious for getting us up and running. Guess who ended up running the desk for most of the show?

Actually operating the desk isn’t that hard, if you know where to find the material. The big issues are a) if anything goes wrong, and b) multi-tasking. Thankfully everything went smoothly yesterday. However, looking back on the show, I’m pretty sure that having to think about the desk as well made me a lot less sharp as a presenter. Doubtless the more you do it the easier it gets. Also if you are expecting to run the desk then you can check out all of your jungles and ads in advance. But I think if I have to do it again I’ll script the show in a lot more detail so that I don’t forget anything.

Anyway, Nick Harkaway and Philippe Bonneau were great guests, and are well worth listening to. My apologies to them for my having been somewhat distracted. You can find the first hour of the show here.

The second hour was much easier as I handed the microphone over the Judeline who ran a fine discussion about being a school governor. Thanks to Christine Townsend for being a great resident expert, and to Jackie from the Outlook team for taking the part of the concerned mother. You can listen to part 2 here.

Most of the music for yesterday was on a summery theme. The songs were:

  • Summertime – Sam & Dave
  • Long Hot Summer – Dizzy Gillespie
  • Heartman Blues – Dan Britton
  • Summertime Blues – Eddie Cochran
  • In the Summertime – Mungo Jerry
  • Boys of Summer – Don Henley
  • Girls in their Summer Clothes – Bruce Springsteen
  • Summer in the City – The Lovin’ Spoonful

Today in Bristol – Harkaway, Chartreuse & Frogs

~ Cheryl

Today on Women’s Outlook I’ll be running the interview with Nick Harkaway that I made last week at Mr. B’s. You can listen online via the Ujima Radio website. I’ll post the Listen Again links tomorrow.

Also on the show is Philippe Bonneau. I so enjoyed the talk about Chartreuse that he gave at Independent Spirit that I wanted to share it with everyone.

In the evening I’ll be off to the theatre. I’ll be seeing a performance of Frogs by Aristophanes, put on my by pals the Hecate Theatre Company.

Nick Harkaway at Mr. B’s

~ Cheryl

Yesterday evening in stopped off in Bath to visit Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, where Nick Harkaway was due to talk about his latest novel, Tigerman. Those of you who have read the book will know what I mean when I say that it is “roarsome”.

Nick very kindly agreed to do an interview with me before the event. That will be broadcast on Ujima next Wednesday. Nick, as always, was charming, erudite, and full of interesting ideas.

My thanks as always to Mr. B’s for being a fabulous venue. They also excelled themselves with the food last night.

Yesterday on Ujima – Rhonda Garcia & Leah Moore

~ Cheryl

Yesterday morning I got an emergency text from my Producer, Paulette, to tell me that James Gibbs wasn’t going to be able to make it to the studio. He had to rush off to London. I’m guessing that was something to do with getting his visa for Nigeria so that he could take part in the Wole Soyinka 80th birthday celebrations.

Fortunately I was well prepared. I had two pre-recorded interviews in the can, and had only been planning to run one. So I just ran both, and all was well.

First up was a chat with a new SF writer from Trinidad, Rhonda Garcia. Her book, Lex Talionis, is available from the usual outlets. As mentioned on the show, there is a interview with her on Tobias Buckell’s blog. There is also a longer version of the radio interview that I will post to Salon Futura in due course. And I’ll try to find the time to write a review. Rhonda was a lot of fun to interview. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did.

The other interview was the one with Leah Moore that I bagged before we went on our Liverpool pub crawl last Saturday. On the radio we cover following a famous father in his career, and doing mom journalism. The full version of the interview also discusses the new Electricomics venture and again will appear on Salon Futura.

Both interviews have a bit of background noise — Rhonda’s because we were on the phone between the UK and Trinidad, and Leah’s because we were sat in the foyer of the Liverpool Hilton. We also had an annoying technical glitch as the beginning of Rhonda’s interview. When you record from Skype you have the option to reserve one channel for yourself and the other for the person at the other end. It gives an impression of stereo. When we played Rhonda’s interview we discovered that one channel on the board wasn’t working, so only one voice was coming through. Thankfully Seth, my genius engineer, was able to quickly switch into mono for the broadcast and save the day. Live radio, it is terrifying at times.

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

For the second hour I handed over to Paulette for a couple of race-related issues. First up the head teacher at the center of the racism complaints we discussed two weeks ago has chosen to pursue other career options. Secondly, as you may remember from my discussion of Bristol & the slave trade with Olivette Otele, there is some controversy in the city over the honors given to Edward Colston, who is feted as a philanthropist bit who made most of his money from the slave trade. Colston Hall, Bristol’s premier music venue, is now considering changing it’s name. In the studio to discuss these issues was civil rights campaigner, Paul Stephenson, the only non-white man ever to receive the Freedom of Bristol.

You can listen to the second hour here.

While I was at the studios I had a brief chat with Lady Nia who, together with our station manager, DJ Styles, hosts the highlights show on BBC Radio Bristol & Radio Somerset. She was telling Paulette that their last show had featured a clip from our show where Paulette was talking about her trip back to Jamaica. I’m briefly in that clip introducing Paulette. Much to my surprise and delight, Nia mentioned that they had also used my interview with Karen Lord from Ã…con. Unfortunately the BBC only keeps those shows on Listen Again for a week, but I’ll keep an eye on them from now on to see if they use anything else I’ve done.

Another Busy Wednesday

~ Cheryl

Radio again today. I think I’ll only have an hour of the show, but it should be good stuff.

First up James Gibbs will be back to talk more about Wole Soyinka. I’ve managed to find a version of one of the songs that Soyinka wrote with Tunji Oyelana & His Benders (lovely band name, that) for the album, Unlimited Liability Company. The original, sadly, is only available online via YouTube.

My other slot will be an interview I did yesterday with a lady from Trinidad who has a new science fiction novel out. She’s Rhonda Garcia, and the book is Lex Talionis. You can learn more about her via Tobias Buckell’s blog. I have a full half hour of interview which I shall podcast, hopefully next week.

In the evening I will be at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath where I shall be interviewing Nick Harkaway about his fabulous new book, Tigerman. That should be in next week’s radio show.

And now, to whet your appetite, here are Tunji Oyelana & His Benders.

Ujima Tomorrow

~ Cheryl

It looks like we have a packed show for you on Women’s Outlook tomorrow. First up I’ll be talking to my friend Edson Burton about the life of the great Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka. He (Soyinka, not Edson) will celebrate his 80th birthday next month. I know very little about him, but he does have a Nobel Prize for literature, which is no small achievement. I look forward to getting educated.

In the next segment I’ll be talking to Norma Daykin, the musical director of the Bristol Reggae Orchestra. I have been spending a happy morning texting Norma about music and I can promise you some really great tunes, both reggae classics and from local bands.

The second hour I’ll be interviewing one lady about the Fair Trade movement, and another who is crowdfunding a film about trade unions. As Norma has given me far more music than I can play in one half hour, I’ll be continuing with her selections in the second hour.

As usual you can listen in online via the Ujima website. The show starts at Noon UK time. And it will be available for the next few weeks via our Listen Again service.

Yesterday on Ujima: Jamaica, Housing & Racism in Education

~ Cheryl

Not much literary stuff on the show yesterday, but some great content all the same.

Paulette was back from her trip to Jamaica. We spent the first half hour talking about that. With us in the studio was Auntie Pearl from the local Caribbean cricket club, who is also Jamaican. We may have talked about pirates for a while.

In the second half hour Judeline and I interviewed Tony Crofts who runs an organization looking to buy up empty office space and turn it into affordable housing. This isn’t anything to do with the situation at The Fleece which we highlighted last week. Tony’s organization is very responsible, and is in fact looking to take the place of council housing, which has more or less disappeared in the UK. To give you some idea of the problem, I note that the average UK home costs around 11 times the average annual salary (compared to about 3x when I stared work), and that average rents are above what you can afford on an average salary.

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

For the second hour I handed the mic over to Paulette who did a wonderful piece on racism in Bristol schools. One of her studio guests had been very badly treated by one school and ended up taking them to an employment tribunal, as a result of which the school was (quite rightly) deemed institutionally racist.

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

My playlist for the show was:

  • Montego Bay – Amazulu
  • Don’t Stop (Funkin’ for Jamaica) – Mariah Carey featuring Mystikal
  • Burning Down the House – Talking Heads
  • Build – The Housemartins
  • Another Brick in the wall, Part II – Pink Floyd
  • Maggie May – Rod Stewart
  • Baggy Trousers – Madness
  • My Old School – Steely Dan

I did try to find songs that had something positive to say about schools, honest.

Word of Mouth at the Thunderbolt

~ Cheryl

I’ll be in Bristol all day tomorrow. There are no author interviews on the Ujima show, though I will be quite busy on it, I think. In the evening I’ll be at The Thunderbolt pub for Word of Mouth, a monthly readings series curated by Richard Jones of Tangent Books. This month the event has been turned over to BristolCon. The readers will be Pete Sutton, Scott Lewis and Joanne Hall. I will be hosting the event. Hopefully I’ll get recordings.

Today on Ujima: Flash Fiction, Autism, Somalia

~ Cheryl

Today’s show didn’t have a lot of me in it, and may well have been better for it as I was very tired and could have done better. Fortunately the biggest contribution I had was like falling off a log.

I started out by talking about a petition to save The Fleece, a very fine live music venue in Bristol, which is threatened with closure because some offices across the street are being converted into flats. If you are wondering what has gone wrong with Bristol’s planning laws, local MP Kerry McCarthy explains. Even if you don’t live in Bristol, this campaign is well worth supporting because something similar could affect any music venue in the UK.

The first guest was Bristol’s Mr. Flash Fiction, Kevlin Henney. It was fortuitous timing as Kevlin had recently won the Crimefest flash fiction contest, with a story riffing off The Bridge, which he read for us. We talked about all of the things we talked about at the BristolCon Fringe flash event, and Kevlin announced a couple of events that will be happening in Bristol for National Flash Fiction day on June 21st. Further details are available on the Bristol Flash Facebook page. He also read a second story, which was just beautiful.

The music for Kevlin was “Scorpio” by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (not my favorite of theirs but I had trouble finding a track that was under 7 minutes and not full of banned words); plus “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix, which is about as short as a rock song gets without invoking Wire.

The second half hour was taken up with Jackie talking to some guests about mental health services in Bristol. I didn’t catch all of it, but it sounded really good. I left Jackie with “Within” by Daft Punk, which seemed appropriate. (Ingrid, Valentine, it is on the album Random Access Memories — glad you liked it.)

You can listen to the first hour here.

Next up we had Judeline talking to Ian and Matt, two fabulous guys who campaign for services for adults on the autism spectrum in Bristol. I had been quite nervous when Judeline suggested this as a topic because I know several autistic people, mainly online, and I know how much crap they get from the NHS and cure peddlers. I’m delighted to say that I was absolutely blown away by our two guests. Ian and Matt are not only devoting their lives to helping autistic people, they also have a huge amount of respect for the people they work with. Matt’s job is in part to go out and talk to businesses around the city, telling them what good employees autistic people make, and how easy it is to adjust your practices to help them fit in. (The rest of his job is less happy, and involves going to places like prisons teaching them how to treat autistic people fairly and respectfully.)

I must admit to feeling a bit frustrated and jealous listening to Ian and Matt talk. At around 1%, the proportion of autistic spectrum people in the general population is about the same as the proportion of gender variant people. Here we had two NHS people talking confidently about how autism is just a natural form of human variation that does not need “curing”, and indeed can’t be cured. Ian also mentioned how improved knowledge is allowing medical practitioners to spot symptoms early on in childhood, resulting in much better lives for autistic spectrum people. In contrast, what treatment there is for gender-variant people still tends to treat us as dangerous freaks who are not really deserving of help. While were are getting much better and spotting symptoms in kids, the national media campaigns actively against providing them with treatment.

Still, I understand that Bristol is well ahead of most of the country in its services for autistic spectrum people. I’m very happy about that. I hope what Ian and Matt do spreads to other parts of the country.

For music I did a bit of research on autism forums looking for songs that autistic people said spoke to them, rather than the more common songs by neurotypical people about autistic folks. The songs I picked were “Pi” by Kate Bush, which is all about a man obsessed with numbers, and “I am a Rock” by Simon & Garfunkel. My apologies if those were inappropriate in some way.

We had originally planned to have Ian & Matt on for an hour. However, we bumped them from the final 15 minutes because tomorrow we have a really high profile guest due in and we wanted to preview that.

Tomorrow at the Silai Centre there will be screenings of Through the Fire, a film about three remarkable women from Somalia. Hawa Abdi and Edna Adan Ismail are both doctors who have done a huge amount to bring good quality medical services and training to the war-torn region. Hawa has been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, while Edna has received France’s Legion d’honneur. The third woman featured in the film is Ilwad Elman who campaigns to rescue and rehabilitate child soldiers.

The film is currently on tour, and will be in Cardiff on Friday. Edna Ismail is touring with it, and I’m delighted that she’ll be on Ujima tomorrow lunchtime to talk about the film and her work. Today I interviewed Tove Samzelius from The Silai Centre, where the film is being shown. The afternoon screening is apparently sold out, but they are arranging to show it again in the evening.

It is worth noting that Edna Ismail is not only a doctor and peace campaigner, she’s also a high profile politician. She’s a former First Lady of Somalia, and a former Foreign Minister of Somaliland. If that’s confusing, don’t worry, I had no idea either. The region of Africa inhabited primarily by Somali people stretches all around the coast of the Horn of Africa. The southern part, bordering on the Indian Ocean, still calls itself Somalia. It is also the primary venue of the civil war, and where most of the pirates are based. The northern part declared independence 21 years ago, though it has yet to receive international recognition. (Wales is one of the few places to have acknowledged it — there are a lot of Somalis in Cardiff.) That country calls itself Somaliland.

At this point you are probably wondering if there’s a colonial aspect to this, and yes, of course there is. The region that calls itself Somaliland was formerly the British Somaliland Protectorate, while the rest of the region was under Italian control. Almost every mess in Africa can be traced back to colonial powers stirring up trouble.

I know next to nothing about Somali politics (though thanks to Sofia Samatar for patiently talking to me this morning to make sure I didn’t make a total arse of myself), and I’m not going to dabble. The point of the film is not to take sides, but to provide help, support and much-needed medical care to the people caught up in the wars. My sole contribution to the politics was to invoke Mr. Eddy Grant who has some simple words of advice for his brothers in Africa.

Unless you live somewhere with a big Somali population, the film probably won’t get shown anywhere near you. However, you can watch the trailer. Content warning for grief-stricken people.

While I’m not going to say any more about the situation inside Somalia & Somaliland, I did promise Sofia that I’d raise awareness of the plight of Somali refugees in Kenya. Here’s Amnesty International to explain.

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

Today On Ujima: Bristol & Slavery, plus Talking Books

~ Cheryl

Today’s show began with good and bad news. The good stuff included Nalo Hopkinson winning the Andre Norton Award for Best YA Novel of 2013 at last weekend’s Nebula Awards ceremony. It also included the really good news that Ahad & Anum Rizvi, the two young Pakistanis whose plight I highlighted last week, have been released from detention and will be having their applications for asylum reconsidered.

The bad news was that today’s programming has been dedicated to our of our regular presenters, DJ Flora, who died from cancer yesterday. She was younger than me. Because she presented a late-night show I hardly ever saw her, but many of the staff at the station were very upset about it. There’s an official tribute to her on the Ujima website.

However, the show must go on, and the first hour today was devoted to discussion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and Bristol’s role therein. My main guest in the studio was Dr. Olivette Otele from Bath Spa University who is a well known expert in the history of slavery. Alongside her we welcomed three young people from Cotham School who were with us on a work experience placement. I’m really pleased with how it went. And thanks to Olivette we had some great music. I played Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”, Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit” (one of the most disturbing songs I know) and Louis Armstrong’s “Go Down Moses”. It was great to see the kids’ faces light up with recognition when they heard Satchmo’s voice.

The fourth piece of music was Violin Concerto #9 by Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, played by the Orchestre de Chambre, Bernard Thomas. Saint-Georges is an amazing fellow who really ought to be better known. Those of you setting books in revolutionary France should take note. I also want to see books about Nanny Maroon, one of the other amazing people that Olivette introduced us to.

The discussion includes an appeal to George Ferguson to get Bristol to do more to acknowledge, apologize for, and memorialize the city’s role in the slave trade. You can learn more about the history of Bristol’s involvement in the trade from the M-Shed website.

You can listen to the first hour of the show via Ujima’s Listen Again feature here.

I note that this was the first time I call recall having someone text the studio to tell us how much they were enjoying the show.

The second hour was given over to fiction. I had Jo Hall in the studio to promote her new novel, The Art of Forgetting: Nomad, which is being launched at Forbidden Planet, Bristol on Saturday. That was followed by an interview with Karen Lord that I had recorded during Ã…con. I still have the much longer interview that Karen and I did as part of the convention program. I’m hoping to get that edited and on Salon Futura soon.

Jo got music appropriate for epic fantasy. Bat for Lashes was a no-brainer (I played “Horses of the Sun”, because I had played “Horse and I” a few weeks ago and didn’t want to repeat). The other song I chose was “Killer on the Rampage” by Eddy Grant, because I was teasing Jo about the number of people she killed off in the book. (Really, George would be proud. Whole towns massacred.) Jo’s soundtrack for the new book, which we mentioned in the show, is available here.

Karen had asked for jazz, which I was very happy to provide. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to play either track in full. The two tracks were: “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by the Cannoball Adderley Quintet; and “Stolen Moments” by Oliver Nelson.

Any discussion of SF&F on the show is liable to get into name-dropping of people we know. Jo enthused about Joe Abercrombie. I invoked Juliet McKenna when we got on the question of discoverability of women writers. And Kate Elliott needs to listen to the Karen Lord interview.

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

Next week most of the show is being run by Jackie and Judeline, but I will have half an hour with Kevlin Henney talking about flash fiction. Kevlin won the flash competition run by Crimefest last weekend, which pleased me greatly.

Dicing With Dragons: A Blast From The Past

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Some of you may have noticed that this year is the 40th Anniversary of the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. Wizards of the Cost* have marked the occasion by, amongst other things, unveiling a new logo. Ten years ago, however, BBC Radio 4 took it upon itself to mark the 30th Anniversary by commissioning Kim Newman to make a documentary about the strange game which Beeb staffers probably still think is a weird and possibly dangerous cult. The program was called Dicing With Dragons, and it is currently available once more via the iPlayer.

In putting together the show, Kim talked to a variety of people, including Steve Jackson (UK) and Ian Livingstone, the founders of Games Workshop. He also hauled in some of the formerly-young people who had made a name for themselves through the game, including Marc Gascoigne (now of Angry Robot) and myself. There was also someone who played the game at school and wrote numerous letters to White Dwarf, a chap called China Miéville.

I was in California at the time Kim was making the show, so the BBC arranged for me to pop into a local radio station in San José so that Kim and I could record an interview of sufficient quality to put in a BBC program. Needless to say, most of my contributions ended up on the cutting room floor, but I do get two short sound bites. As this is probably the only time I will appear on national radio, I still remember to program fondly.

It is also interesting to note that, despite Kim’s air of doom and gloom, role-playing is still not yet dead. Obviously it is no longer the cultural phenomenon that it was, but I don’t think interest in it has decreased at all in the intervening 10 years. If anything it might have grown a bit. I find that strangely comforting.

* Deliberate invocation of a legendary typo.