Today on Ujima: Pagan Festivals and Stuart Milk

~ Cheryl

We were a little light on guests for today’s show, it being that time of year, so I am especially grateful to Liz Williams and Trevor Jones for coming all the way from Glastonbury to be with me today. Most of you will know Liz as a science fiction writer, but you may not know that she and Trevor run the Cat & Cauldron witchcraft shop in Glastonbury. I had them on the show to talk about midwinter festivals. We covered a wide range, from the origins of Santa Claus to Roman Saturnalia and German Yule. My French colleague, Melody, was on hand to provide a European perspective.

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

At the start of the second hour I shamelessly used my place in charge of the microphone to send a Christmas message to Kevin. After that I played the interview with Stuart Milk that I recorded in London a couple of weeks ago. Thanks again to Dan Vo and his colleagues at Heavy Entertainment for the use of their studio.

If you want to see some of the things that will be happening in Bristol for LGBT History Month, check out the OutStories Bristol website. There will be lots more posts coming during January.

Melody and I were joined in the studio by Mary Milton who, amongst other things, is the Producer of ShoutOut, the LGBT radio show on BCFM (and now a host of other local community stations). In the final half hour we had a chat about the state of LGBT rights and what we we need to do to improve matters.

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

The playlist for the show was inevitably seasonal, though I did try to avoid most of the obvious choices. Having to play mostly black music helped a lot. I was especially pleased to be able to play Eartha Kitt. The full playlist was as follows:

  • Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt
  • Sun Goddess – Earth, Wind & Fire featuring Ramsey Lewis
  • Santa Claus is Coming to Town – The Jackson 5
  • Run Rudolph Run – Chuck Berry
  • All I Want for Christmas – Mariah Carey
  • So Strong – Labi Siffre
  • Winter Wonderland – Booker T and the MGs
  • Hot Stuff – Donna Summer

As Paulette is on holiday in Vietnam I’ll be hosting the show again next week. If anyone who lives in or around Bristol fancies being on, do get in touch. It is hard to find guests at this time of year.