URY 1350AM: Summer 2004 - It's Better Than The Evening Selection

Summer 2004.  Tony Blair announces a referendum on the new EU constitution (which sounds a TERRIFIC idea), some programme called Strictly Come Dancing is launched and some bloke called Piers Morgan is sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror.

URY Summer 2004: the schedule poster to be distributed to campus (credit: Chris Osborne)

Meanwhile in a corner of York known only as Heslington I'm nearing the end of my second year at university.  This is my sixth compilation of University Radio York output, so strap yourselves in for more medium wave mediocrity madness as I trawl my MP3 folders and cassettes for audio gold.  There's a fair range of station output here but my recordings by this point have sadly become a bit egotistical and focus mainly on yours truly.  This is quite an achievement this term given my relatively slight regular presence on the schedule...but more on that later.  As well as being a terrifying insight into my own past this one comes with huge slice of Life-with-a-capital-L.  If you thought it had been self-indulgent so far, you've seen nothing yet.

Time to hit play on the C90s.


00:05 Late Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (22/04/04)
Week 1 and a special schedule is on air due to various presenters tied up in exams which until the day before this clip included me.  It had been some time since I'd flown solo on air and I really loved the opportunity to have a go and see if I could still do it.  This week the Breakfast Show was cut back to a two hour slot, with me on air on Thursday and Friday of that week at 11am.  Given my on air history there was only one title I was going to use...

Listen out for Verity Wilde gatecrashing the studio (I still like Lucky - sorry) and my hermit-style existence during exam revision, though at least I thought they went well (narrator: the exams didn't go well).

03:58 URY Breakfast with Chris and Jo (23/04/04)
We later did a Nation's Favourite parody of these two managing to cover multiple subjects in a single link completely seamlessly which as you'll hear here was based entirely in fact.  But my favourite bit is the plugging of my show where despite having done Breakfast for two terms myself, they have no idea who I am.  That's showbiz kids.

05:40 Late Breakfast (23/04/04)
Listen up everyone for the very first mention on air of "Kate", who I'd known through YSTV for a few months.  Here we establish we've already been to the Gallery nightclub and she doesn't think much of my musical taste.  More on that story later.  Also featuring a story of the British Transport Police at our house which I have no recollection of and random emails from strangers inviting me to parties in the days before Facebook was invented.  And apparently my Gran was a fan of the Cha Cha Slide?!

10:48 Matt Wareham and Mark Fenton (23/04/04)
A look at URY's cheesy jingles (I entirely agree) and that day's schedule, which apparently at 4pm includes Overnight Music.

12:12 The Nation's Favourite with Michael and Jonathan (28/04/04)
Back for a brand new term with a bit of confidence under our belt, we started with an elaborate Nation's Favourite version of Perfect Day (check out out red hot seven-year-old satire!) featuring our various characters and none other than Tom Hughes on lead vocals.  It's a bit hit and miss but I'm surprised to hear my John Peel impression is actually not bad.  And I will admit to laughing at our tagline "it's better than the Evening Selection", so it gets to be this blog's subtitle.

As if that wasn't enough, new jingles! A new bed!  30 minutes less!  Oh.  URY's schedule was extremely tight this term and we were asked to go down to 90 minutes, which we did without complaining about it on air at all.  And on a selfish note, having given up Breakfast it meant I now only spent 45 minutes a week driving that lovely Sonifex desk.

15:42 URY Breakfast with James Brookes (01/05/04)
James on air on Roses weekend, this year in Lancaster, meaning we were about to hand over the airwaves to Bailrigg FM.

16:28 Roses 2004 Bailrigg FM simulcast (02/05/04)
Starting with one of Bailrigg's own ads for a sticky carpet Lancaster nightclub, and confirmation that Lancaster had won.  Bailrigg were recently in the news themselves facing removal of their FM licence.

18:59 URY Breakfast with Matt and Dave (05/05/04)
Warming the chairs and stinking out the studio before The Nation's Favourite, Matt and Dave are on the air again.

19:19 The Nation's Favourite (05/05/04)
A (I'll stop being self-deprecating for once) cracking edition of our show starts with another email from Kate and the in-joke at the end of her email refers to the previous night in Goodricke Bar, where she'd had one too many vodka Red Bulls.  Pay attention at the back, this might be leading somewhere.  Also today, the papers review Roses, The Two Freds call into Matt Wareham's show (which has quite the punchline), we fill extra seconds to the news with URY's still-very-new jingle playout system, Newsbeat is back on the air with more incisive journalism, and further thoughts of Adam Bell.

26:54 URY Breakfast with Owen Murphy, Verity Wilde and Tom Hughes (12/05/04)
The dream team stand in for James Wickham, but after three hours on air this trio appear to have fallen out somewhat.

27:40 The Nation's Favourite (12/05/04, 19/05/04, 26/05/04 & 02/06/04)
Or Jen and Jon in da Studio.  Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.  Jen Ayerst fills in for Michael and joking aside is better than I am.  This is also somewhat unbelievably the only time I co-presented on URY with a female of the species.  There's some Generic Student Radio about disgusting housemates too, the final email being a fabrication from myself but the story itself is sadly true.

The following week our only number 1 fan Robert Johnson rings in to give us a DJ masterclass following some on air "mistakes", featuring some more early computer playout chat if that floats your boat.

On 26th May we feature the debut of Teflon Pillock's long-awaited follow-up to Great Bridges - Hidden Toilets.  Yes, really.  You'll hear a few of these in this compilation mainly because a listener called Kate (did I mention her?) really liked them, especially when she found out I had written them.  Then we have an interloper in the studio who we manage to upset.

Finally as we enter June we read a biography that had appeared on URY's website (sorry Adam), Hidden Toilets visits the familiar surroundings of the Politics department, I drop a swear-bomb on air, James Brookes is back with more Fascinating Facts and as we prepare to Swap Shop there's a cryptic email from KATE RUSHWORTH.  Take the hint, Bufton.

42:16 Gone in 90 Minutes with Jonathan Bufton (05/06/04)
I was keen to take any fill-in slots thrown my way this term and it appears I had found out just 12 hours earlier I was doing this one, though I'm rather glad I did it.  Apart from continuing to enjoy solo presenting again, this show ended up being rather significant for me.  Kate was emailing in again with an entertaining subject line, and I must have been on fire today because afterwards she suggested we meet up together that evening...ta, URY.  Also today there's talk of the legendary one-off URYVision Song Contest.

44:45 The Score with Verity Wilde, Jonny Wilkinson & Mark Fenton (05/06/04)
Saturday's sport coverage kicks off with racing news provided by IRN.  Verity spent the next academic year in France so this is my last audio of her - she's now an Assistant Editor at BBC News.

46:01 Gone in 60 Minutes (06/06/04)
The following evening I'm back again as URY's supply teacher.  It's the morning after the night before and the email from Kate is what's known as a private joke.  The rest, after a weekend and a half, isn't vintage, so that's all you're getting!

46:21 The Nation's Favourite (09/06/04)
Another URY first as Listen Again is launched - initially via Real Player (whoooooooo), but still beating Radio 1 by some months in making every show available on demand.  Well, not quite.  Ironically this one was not, due to one of Michael's increasingly controversial remarks.  Then a final Hidden Toilets as Teflon visits Vanbrugh.

48:42 Gone in 60 Minutes (13/06/04)
It was only as the day of my latest fill-in dawned that I realised I was presenting during England's opening match in Euro 2004 against France.  No wonder no-one else wanted to do it.  What else to do other than play football songs in the run-up to kick-off, then ridicule the fact that no-one's listening?  (England lost 2-1, by the way).  Afterwards I went to watch the rest of the match in Goodricke bar...with Kate.

51:06 The Nation's Favourite (16/06/04)
At Monday 14th's York University Media Awards Michael had won Best Presenter but not turned up, leaving me to collect it on his behalf.  What a charmer.  Hear here just why he won it.  Then another first as you can now text into URY!  ("finally", screams an ecstatic campus).  Note the slight tension at the start of the show as we'd got into trouble yet again the week before.  Michael did enjoy controversy, while I was less keen on needlessly pushing it.

54:53 Student Broadcast Network (16/06/04)
The SBN folded that August so were now nearing the end.  We were obliged to air their news, ads and promos at the top of each hour, a Breakfast Show between 0800 and 0900, specialist output between about 2100 and 0100 each weeknight and the Student Radio Chart each Sunday between 1700 and 1900.  At all other times they aired their own programming which would get put out on 1350AM (or any student station that subscribed to them) if there was a gap in the schedule.  Here's an example of a DJ link of theirs already in progress as we faded up the sustaining feed at the unusual time of 1330 after our show.

55:15 Woodstock 2004 promo (16/06/04)
Janos Bene promotes the annual campus last-Saturday-of-the-year music festival taking place that weekend...

55:45 URY Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (20/06/04)
...and guess who got the bum deal of filling in on Breakfast the morning after.  In my final ever appearance presenting the URY flagship we have news reports of a late night bar brawl (based entirely on me seeing it as I was walking home), reference to the YSTV crew members still asleep on my bedroom floor as I left to do the show and many more memories of the day.  Also listen out for promos for URY Breakfast with Chris & Jo and James Wickham (voiced by Matt Wareham), the URY Evening Selection (voiced by someone who hasn't woken up yet) and, now into their final week as URY's sustaining service, more SBN as it was heard during the show.

1:03:21 URY Breakfast with Matt and Dave (23/06/04)
The final appearance on URY of the Wednesday studio stinkers as they crash headlong into SBN News.

1:03:56 Jonathan Bufton (23/06/04)
Michael was unavailable again so my last show of the year was flying solo, which was probably for the best after the last couple of Nation's Favourites.  Listen out for a somewhat uncharitable farewell to Matt & Dave, sexual chemistry & requests with James Gallagher in his final week at York (James is now Health and Science Correspondent at BBC News) and a request fest including *cough* Rolf Harris *cough*.  I've also included the last full SBN news bulletin, ads and promo junction I've recorded.  Apparently we weren't allowed to mention them on air by this point, which I gleefully point out.

The main that I hear listening back to this show was how absolutely knackered I was following an awful lot going on off air in the previous couple of weeks.  As you'll hear those exams results weren't great and there was copious amounts of URY and YSTV off-air politics to deal with too.  However, Kate and I got there eventually, and shortly after the end of term we became "official".  Sixteen years later we're married with a daughter, so my apologies in advance to Elise for having to listen to this when she's old enough...

1:10:56 The Oddbin with Sarah Forster (23/06/04)
Ever wondered why the show was called The Oddbin?  Wonder no more.

1:11:47 URY Breakfast with James Wickham (25/06/04)
Following one of the last airings on URY of SBN's pips that were a signal to us to opt-out, the final words go to a URY legend in a very brief clip from his final show on the station after three years (which is sadly all I have).  James can now be found at BBC Radio 5 Live presenting the North American Sports Show.

So ends my second year at York.  Coming next time, we're into the final year, with Autumn 2004.  Shit's about to get real.

Fifteen years on...myself, James Gallagher, Verity Wilde and Tom Hughes at BBC Wogan House, Christmas 2019

URY 1350AM: Spring 2004 - When MiniDiscs Attack

January, February and March 2004.  The BBC is rocked by the Hutton Report whitewash and the government pushes top-up fees through by a whisker.  Meanwhile in the charts Peter Andre has an unlikely comeback nestling alongside Michelle McManus and Britney Spears at the top of the charts.  On TV I'm a Celebrity hooks Andre and Katie Price up, and on 2nd February a new company called "ITV plc" is formed.

Spring 2004 schedule (scan courtesy of Tim Bateson)

This is my fifth compilation of URY output recorded and downloaded during my student days, this time from the half-way point of my degree.  As well as my own broadcasts I found a surprising amount from the rest of the station buried in the cassettes and MP3 folders, much of which probably doesn't exist anywhere else.  As ever most of it is from 1350AM itself so adjust your audio expectations accordingly.  It's how the station was mostly heard at the time - deal with it!

I actually really enjoyed listening back this time (and for the first time didn't always cringe at my bits) so it's a bit of a monster selection.  I say this every time but I forget how much fun it all was until I listen back to it all, so strap yourself in for 82 minutes of early noughties student radio.  You'll hear the good, the bad and the ugly - sometimes in the same show.
00:00 URY returns for 2004 (11/01/04)
As I had the honour of putting the station back on air for the new year I decided to be exceptionally geeky even by my standards and lead up to the first news bulletin with a compilation of our jingles (yes, like Radio 1 used to do).  Listen carefully for a) long-dead shows The Nerve and Spin It Or Bin It and b) a bizarre "piss in your pigeon hole"  jingle which had otherwise been wisely binned off.

02:12 Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (11/01/04)
This term started with a repeat of the previous term's schedule for a week whilst the new schedule was prepared, which meant my final Early Breakfast was the first show of the year - almost exactly a year after I started.  I loved being on air at this time of day but living off campus in my second year had made it an earlier start with obviously darker and colder mornings than previously, and you can tell here I'm not exactly upset to be going.  At the start I'm referencing a loop of speech-based Autumn 2003 highlights that had transmitted over the Christmas break for the first time instead of the transmitter being turned off.  Look out for a topical gag at the end followed up nicely by IRN.  Sadly (for me at least) this was my last solo show other than stand-in slots until the following October.

04:28 URY Breakfast with Jonathan, Tom and Adam (15/01/04)
Fun and games as my breakfast co-host baton is passed from Adam Bell to Tom Hughes.  This morning we peruse Tom's "Stars of Soap" album and "Play Your Post Right" with some of URY's promo CDs (and place your bets now as to how on earth I'd heard of Easyworld).  Shame Academy touches on Adam's singing, and Tom and I discuss the likelihood of London getting the 2012 Olympic Games.  Mystic Bufton is spot on as ever.

09:48 The Classical Show (18/01/04)
Somewhat unusually for this period URY had a classical music show every Sunday afternoon.  My housemate and co-presenter Michael Brothwell became a little obsessed with Peter and Tim, the two verbacious chaps who presented this, and later you can hear a bit of our weekly parody.

10:46 URY Evening Selection with Tim Bateson and Simon Taghioff (19/01/04)
URY long-floated "drivetime show without the driving" finally launched as the "Evening Selection" this term and this is the first edition.  It ran 1800-2000 each night, but in a classic bit of committee compromise the daily news programme The Source remained at 1800.  As we were obliged to play SBN's adverts at 18:02:00 each edition started with this two minute pre-recorded intro and that obligatory ad break, followed The Source (tonight with James Wickham and Tom Scott - that's if we can hear Studio 2).  I've also included the "campus bar report" (yes really) so you can hear Adam telling us that funnily enough there weren't many people in the old Langwith bar at 7pm on a Monday night - but check out those bar prices!  It appears the show ran under that clunky title until at least 2008, continuing today as URY:PM.  There is no longer a campus bar report.

16:57 URY Top 20 with James Brookes (19/01/04)
James Brookes kicks off the first URY chart show of 2004.

17:42 The Nation's Favourite with Michael and Jonathan (20/01/04)
Michael also quit earlies this term and we decided to club together to do to get a daytime slot to do something new.  We ended up doing lots of sketches and spoofs, many of which were centred around URY itself.  We did it until we graduated in the summer of 2005, though later on we were a bit negative and off-message.  It was a bit hit and miss at the start as we found our feet, but for a while it was the most creative and rewarding thing I did on the station and even had some actual listeners.

Unlike most of our shows we did a fair bit of preparation each week, spending the morning shouting ideas between our facing bedroom doors at home before heading onto campus to do the show at midday.  This is from the first show as we take a trip to "The Quiet Place" to contemplate amongst the peaceful solitude.  Notice Michael is yet to learn to shut up when I'm talking.

21:16 Lunch with James Gallagher (22/01/04)
Described during his barely audible handover with Verity Wilde as a cross between "Jeremy Vine, Breakfast with Frost and The Wright Stuff", JTG - now a hot shot science correspondent at BBC News - launched his new journalistic lunchtime show this term.  I never heard Frost throw to Justin Timberlake after his intro, though.  Listen out for some expert scheduling of the B&Q advert voiced by James himself and Tom Hughes being about as good at predictions as I am.

25:18 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (23/01/04)
Starting with something that was clearly a theme this term - gravity.  As Tom reads the What's On guide, the Evening Selection mini disc falls noisily from the notice board to the floor.  Then we compare the winners of Pop Idol 2 and Pop Idol 1, and after the news a triple bill of ads - Nightline (voiced by Kate Harries and an unknown chap), Battle of the Bands (voiced by Matt Wareham) and...whoops.  The B&Q ad on the Mini Disc I was due to play had accidentally been replaced by a random audio clip and in not pre-fading more than the first couple of seconds, ended up being put to air.

Finally the first play of a track that was to become a monster hit and one of the defining sounds of my time at uni - Toxic by Britney.  It was highly unusual to get a promo copy of a song like this, least of all 5 weeks before its release, so we gave the ridiculous PR guff on the CD slip case a big push.  Unsurprisingly I changed my mind on the track itself before the term was out.

30:40 The Nation's Favourite (27/01/04, 03/02/04 & 10/02/04)
Play-and-record jingle fans, it's the full News In 2.  Following complete silence from SBN at the top of the hour we do the news ourselves.  Michael always knew how to push the envelope and that he does - firstly after a techie invasion, and then towards the end of a the show after relaying some station gossip (listen for the audible gasps in the studio).

In show 3 James Wickham gives us a shock, the Classical Boys enter the studio (just as another MiniDisc falls off the wall) and following an Aftershock advert I channel my inner Jay-Z with one of the entries.

The week after starts with a jolly little handover with Wickham in Langwith following the previous night's Battle of the Bands heat.  Then our own take on James Brookes' long running feature Fascinating Facts (with another ad libbed fact when Michael mucks up the next track), and finally gravity and physical media are still not getting on well.

42:59 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (13/02/04)
Each week in The 11 O'Clock Tom we would indulge Mr Hughes - better known as host of The Big Cheese - with a chance to play an incredibly cheesy track of his choosing.  This one was a particular stinker...

44:19 The Nation's Favourite (17/02/04 & 24/02/04)
Once we stopped talking all over each other Michael and I complemented each other quite well.  He was a better presenter than me and far more spontaneous on air, and I did the bulk of the writing and pre-preparing features in advance.  Here is our regular take on Radio 1's Newsbeat.

The following week's show starts with the culmination of "when MiniDiscs attack" as the entire rack collapses on the desk right at the start of the opening link.  Now everything airs from hard drives it is easy to forget how much of an absolute tip radio studios could be if the previous show didn't tidy up properly.

Next up is our version of BBC Two's Great Britons called Great Bridges (yes, about the many bridges on York's campus), written by me and presented by Michael as Teflon Pillock (a name we were taken with when Paul Merton used it discussing Tecwen Whittock of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire coughing fame).  This feature was recorded for Weekend Early Breakfast in the summer of 2003 and we gave it a lunchtime airing on The Nation's Favourite.  Long term bridge-watchers will of course be aware that the description of the Langwith bridge was out of date by the time we repeated this, as health and safety got the better of the uni and railings were attached.  Teflon was to become a regular stooge in our sketches.

Finally, BBC Radio Heslington takes to the air for the first time.  From what I recall the porcelain frog incident was a genuine story from Michael's work experience at Radio York!

48:53 Kinki Indie with Owen Murphy (26/02/04)
Another URY long-runner from the Thursday night buildup to Toffs, here with Station Manager Owen sitting in.

50:42 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (27/02/04)
A bit of history here as URY introduces computer-based playout for the first time, initially for jingles only, and yours truly cocks it up massively.  I recall this being used on-and-off as the system was refined and when I graduated in July 2005 MiniDiscs were still the default.  It was extremely handy though in allowing you to play one wet jingle between two songs from MD and then another dry jingle in the intro to the second song from hard drive (yeah, check me out).  Followed by a promo for Elections 2004 voiced by Angela Davidson.  The mention of YSTV doesn't sound much but was a great leap forward in cooperation between the two societies at the time.

52:39 The Nation's Favourite (02/03/04)
More Great Bridges with Teflon Pillock.  The Alcuin bridge (RIP) is a particular highlight here.

54:30 The Source at Six (03/03/04)
James Dickin talks up to the aforementioned 18:02:00 SBN ad break, but instead of a break gets the three pips immediately signalling to opt out again.  I'm guessing this was a Studio 1 hot-seat-handover as it all goes a bit wrong when Richard Hubbert and Frank Arnold clearly aren't ready, so fill with one of the bizarre five years old "that was the 20th century" promos (which here imply URY News covered the Second World War) before starting again.

57:22 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (05/03/04)
I used to find the What's On Guide feature really really dull, so here I childishly try to liven it up using a sound effects CD I got in the Virgin Megastore sale in York.  Then after the news (using a stolen 90s 1FM jingle) it's a National Missing Persons Helpline ad voiced by Simon Taghioff.  Finally it's Tom's turn to push boundaries with his own version of Mysterious Girl.

1:01:30 The Big Cheese with Owen Murphy (08/03/04)
Owen appears to have been URY's supply teacher this term, here taking on Tom's usual berth of The Big Cheese.  Unlike the rest of us Owen knew when to shut up and get on with it and despite this show being quite the opposite of his usual musical taste he holds the fort like an absolute pro - check out that talk up to Amy Grant!

1:02:18 Elections 2004 Hustings (11/03/04)
All I have of this year's election coverage is this clip of a candidate for Services Officer (who I have a hunch was elected) running through their ridiculous list of pledges.  Spoiler alert: Your Shop didn't get a slush puppy machine.  James Gallagher is your host.

1:04:45 URY Breakfast with Tom Hughes (12/03/04)
Student union election day itself was a huge day on campus, with the results announced in a big event in Derwent College that evening.  I was producing YSTV's coverage in 2004 so ducked out of that morning's breakfast show, instead heading to Goodricke to begin the daunting job of transporting half of the station to the other end of campus on trolleys.  As I stood in Your Shop listening on my Walkman I heard it suggested I was missing the show to have a lie in.  URY was just round the corner, so I couldn't resist...

1:05:34 Midnight Messiah with Janos Bene (14/03/04)
A controversial edition of the show (which I downloaded after hearing the fallout) where Janos themed the show around masturbation and orgasm.  Yep you read that correctly.  Aural stimulation indeed.  (Bad to the Bone?  sorry...)

1:07:19 URY Breakfast with James Wickham (16/03/04)
We've all had mornings where you just want to give up and here our host does just that, all caught on my recording as we were on straight after with The Nation's Favourite.  Matt Wareham and Matt Fullerton are left holding the baby.

1:10:10 The Nation's Favourite (16/03/04)
To add to this, the 5-months-away-from-going-bust sustaining service the Student Broadcast Network were visiting Heslington that morning and we'd been told to be on our best behaviour, so we pointed out all the things they definitely didn't do.  Followed by our spoof promo for the Evening Selection.

1:11:54 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (19/03/04)
The last day of term and it's my turn to have an off day.  I'd overslept and arrived half an hour late which hadn't got us off to the best of starts, but listening back I was clearly in a funny old mood.  Here are the last few links starting with our medical slot and some more station gossip, then our rundown of the Top Ten and a refusal to play the number 1 now my opinion of Toxic had improved.

Finally a URY posse fills the studio as we awkwardly discuss if I was carrying on with the show next term.  Tom and I had been something of an arranged marriage in being placed on breakfast together, and our natural styles (Tom upbeat and positive, me cynical and downbeat) didn't always gel as you can hear in these clips.  That said, listening back has been a lot more enjoyable than I expected and there are some genuine laugh out loud moments, but as my degree was suffering it was probably the right decision to get a morning a week back.  Fourteen years later it was a pleasure to welcome Tom onto my Alumni Takeover show to relive our memories of radio's most successful breakfast show (on Fridays, in Spring 2004, in the Heslington area).

Next time, FURB, it's the summer of 2004!

URY 1350AM: Autumn 2003 - The Station That Respects The Dead

October, November and December 2003.  The country is still reeling from the Iraq War fallout and the opposition are in disarray.  On television, Dirty Den has risen from the dead and it's just been announced that Doctor Who will shortly be doing the same.  On the radio Sara Cox is about to leave the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and Chris Moyles has been announced as the next host.  In the charts the Black Eyed Peas have had their first hit and The Darkness are limbering up to fail to hit the Christmas number 1 slot.

More important than any of that was my fourth term at the University of York, controversially following on from my first, second and third.  I'd been on University Radio York since January 2003 and regular readers will know of my discovery of masses of cassettes of various bits of output, which have formed the basis of my compilations of each term's output.

Freshers' Week flyer

I'd hate to say these recordings are in any way representative, and certainly not the best bits - indeed this term seems to mark the point where my clips of other people's shows begins to decline - but, as I always point out, it's quite possible this stuff doesn't exist anywhere else.  Any after listening to it, you might wonder why I bothered keeping it.

Freshers' Week 2003 schedule

A reminder that the quality of these clips vary hugely due to mostly being recorded on C90s from medium wave. However for the first time during this compilation there's also some AM audio logger, as when we were given access I'd generally choose to download it in that format.  It just seemed...right.

Largely illegible URY Breakfast flyer. "No cheesy crap" - advice not passed onto the presenters

So here we go with 43 minutes of student radio from Autumn 2003.  After a long summer off the air I remember being incredibly excited about getting back in the studio and particularly about my breakfast show debut.  Enjoy!

My presenter contract

00:11 URY Breakfast with James Brookes (04/10/03)
URY returns after 14 long weeks off air.  A special Freshers' Week schedule operated although James was as ever in position on Saturday breakfast.
01:38 Weekend Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (05/10/03)
7am and 8am openers from my return to the air, in my summer term Saturday and Sunday early slots for one final week.  Listen out for a remixed URY News jingle which launched that week and the first time I used the Pearl and Dean theme which eventually opened all my shows, including (naturally) my Alumni Takeover show fifteen years later.
03:11 URY Freshers' Week Breakfast (09/10/03)
Some of the special breakfast show that ran all week, here from the morning after "Fresh" featuring Eurovision 2003 no-hit-wonders Jemini and 90s legend Pat Sharp.  With James Wickham, James Dickin, Simon Taghioff and Lizzie Whitebread.
05:50 URY Live from Freshers' Fair (11/10/03)
James Brookes is live from the Exhibition Centre, interviewing Station Manager James Dickin and keeping fingers crossed people would sign up.  I on the YSTV stall a couple of metres to the right.
08:25 URY Breakfast with Michael Brothwell (12/10/03)
Michael's first Sunday breakfast show - a slot he was made for, and indeed over the next two years Sunday's Freshly Brewed became something of an institution.  He was quite good at spotting future stars, here bigging up the debut record from someone called Amy Winehouse.
09:48 B&Q advert
Voiced by Adam Leith, and running throughout this term.  Considering we all lived in rented furnished accommodation, I imagine B&Q's appeal to students was limited.
10:38 URY Breakfast with Adam and Jonathan (16/10/03)
My first breakfast show proper, which Adam Bell and I mainly spend talking on top of each other.  Here's some incisive chat about the toilets in the just-opened Roger Kirk Centre.  We did get better.
12:14 Soldier of Hell with Spencer Vale (07/10/03)
Despite the graduation of the Soldiers the previous term when they graduated, the singular Solider (here feeling very old at 23) was back.
13:32 The Source at Six Special (29/10/03)
URY's news programme stayed on air to cover the no confidence vote in Iain Duncan Smith live.  Campus Conservative Iain Lindley - a nice guy who was the go-to-Tory for campus media as he was always happy to come on and chat - is interviewed by Jameses Doughty and Gallagher.  Here he correctly predicts Michael Howard will be the next leader, and incorrectly thinks his popularity isn't an issue.  Apologies for the particularly grotty audio quality.
15:52 URY Breakfast with Adam and Jonathan (30/10/03)
The following morning, Adam and I indulge in some "satirical comedy" around the same issue.  Watch out Rory Bremner.
16:20 URY Breakfast with Sam and Simon (11/11/03)
It's the 85th anniversary of the end of World War One, and Sam and Simon observe two minutes silence in their own inimitable fashion.  You can hear the disdain for the Student Broadcast Network sustaining service throughout this, which although giving us a lot of funding was often pretty shoddy.  Now into their final year as a going concern, they even forget to do the Armistice Day silence.  Sam (or is it Simon) links out of their (edited down by me) silence with a compelling new slogan for URY.
20:54 URY Breakfast with Adam and Jonathan (06/11/03)
When I was parachuted into Adam's breakfast show I suggested a feature parodying Challenge Anneka called (yes, you guessed it) Challenge Adam.  Most of my features were based around an old TV theme tune and this was no exception.  Adam gamely went along with it and here, with help from Owen Murphy and James Gallagher, he's sent to sing at a porter in Langwith.  Just to date it even more, listen out for the Bo Selecta audio at the start.  Followed by me closing the show with another old theme tune and an accidental whopping double entendre which got me onto the URY Quotes Board.
25:08 Sunday Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (16/11/03)
Although Michael and I were both placed on the breakfast show this term we were still quite fond of our early slots, and so he took on Saturday Early Breakfast whilst I kept the sabbath.  The appeal wore off quite rapidly with colder weather and a longer walk onto campus, and you can definitely hear that in our voices here as Michael guests on my perennial "week in news" feature.  What was that I was saying about old theme tunes?  True to form this started as the Lottery of News, became the Wheel of News and finally here was Play Your News Right.  Listen out for "news" of the URY AGM.
27:36 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (20/11/03)
Taken from a week when Tom Hughes was standing in for Adam, a few clips from where "Challenge Tom" became "Challenge Jon and Tom", with new Station Manager Owen Murphy taking control to resolve the bickering by setting me the ultimate challenge: talking to women.
32:37 James Wickham (10/12/03)
Some technical problems are resolved by Terry Withers followed by one of Mr Wickham's jingles.
34:06 & 41:25 Christmas jingles 
Made for use during the final fortnight of this term.
34:26 The Block (11/12/03)
A big selling point of URY this term was the station's very own soap opera, The Block, set in the fictional Vanbrugh D block (geddit?).  A lot of effort went into it and it was actually quite good, although as heard here during this short edit of the Christmas special it got surreal quite quickly.  We used to play it out during the breakfast show which meant as well as being able to listen to it we got to put our feet up for a bit - 25 minutes in this case.  Look out for my shameless theft of an old 1FM news jingle at the start...
41:43 URY Breakfast with James Brookes (13/12/03)
The last show of the year, and Santa Brookes is here with his little helper to see the station off the air for the final time in 2003.

The Block flyer

Coming next: fire up your Top Up TV box, it's Spring 2004.

URY 1350AM: Summer 2003 - What's Korfball?

This is my third compilation of audio memories from University Radio York fifteen years ago, and we've reached the end of my first year, and the long hot summer of 2003.



If you've missed round 1 and round 2 then let me fill you in.  In my student days I presented on the University of York's student radio station URY, and recently I've found the tapes.  As well as my own, there's plenty of random unlabelled stuff that I recorded for reasons unknown, but thanks to my odd devotion to C90 a lot of material that was presumably otherwise lost forever lives on, admittedly as fuzzy medium wave recordings.

The desk in 2003.  Photo courtesy of Simon Taghioff

So, without further ado here is 42 minutes of student radio from April, May and June 2003 - the good, the (often) bad and the (hopefully not) ugly, featuring game show scandals, student politics, Roses, a playlist rebellion, a surprising amount of Craig David and very bad karaoke. In what I think was a first, the previous term's schedule was used for week 1, rather than the station being largely off air until week 2 whilst the new schedule was arranged.   Due to the very late Easter that year, the term oddly began on Wednesday 23rd April, and so URY sprang back into life the day before.

00:05 The J Team take a "radio jog" around campus (22/04/03)
01:52 May Contain Nuts with Jonathan Bufton and a ever-so-slightly tongue in cheek tribute to S Club 7, who had announced they were splitting two days previously (23/04/03)
03:26 Stop Broadcasting Now with Simon Taghioff stops broadcasting (for now), with a nicely edited package that makes us sound quite funny at times (25/04/03)
05:15 Sunday Early Breakfast with yours truly, Michael Brothwell and Simon tackling the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire coughing scandal in our own inimitable way (which is basically embryonic Nation's Favourite material).  And yes, that is the Weakest Link bed, it was the closest I could get... (27/04/03)
07:17 and the transmitter is sounding even more fuzzy than usual leading to an on air apology.  Anyone know who the presenter is? (30/04/03)
07:56 Sourcenight with James Doughty and guest Iain Lindley look at the shortage of campus accommodation for final year students, featuring a slightly astonishing statement from the uni.  URY's own Adam Bell was one of those who missed out, and ended up taking the remaining room in our shared house as a result (02/05/03)
10:56 Weekend Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton - yes you read that correctly.  This term Michael and I conquered earlies between us, after we snapped up vacant slots so that I held weekends and Michael owned weekdays.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  But living on campus and it being summer meant the early starts weren't too painful, and we actually had a lot of fun with the vast amounts of airtime we had to play with, "Shame Academy" (with added Taghioff) being a case in point... (04/05/03)
13:07 Complain! This was on the adverts mini disc but I don't remember ever having to play it.  Maybe we were obliged to air it once a term?  Anyway, here are the defunct watchdogs that you could complain to if we stepped out of line.
13:59 Roses 2003 and a selection of output from the weekend when Lancaster came to York to, er, play sport.  Our output was also transmitted on 87.7 Bailrigg FM and we had special jingles, all of which was quite exciting even though I had zero interest in sport.  Here we have a preview of the weekend (what's Korfball?) and Owen Murphy and Simon Taghioff run through Friday's action (what's Korfball?) No actual sport, just talking about it, which was basically what you got most of the weekend.  Spoiler: York won. (08-09/05/03)
16:57 Roses Early Breakfast and Breakfast - for the simulcast a 24 hour schedule was organised which meant my early start became an hour earlier.  Features James Brookes complimenting this achievement and an SBN promo for the Student Radio Chart. (10-11/05/03)
20:19 A monologue on student ambivalence.  I have no clue who this is, but it's quite...something.  Any ideas? (11/05/03)
22:05 URY Breakfast with my good self standing in for Wickham and Alice.  My first proper try-out at the Breakfast Show which I was very excited about indeed.  It also meant I was on air for a total of ten hours that week, a record I (thankfully) never broke (16/05/03)
23:03 Soldiers of Hell with Spencer Vale, where it appears to be about 1995 (20/05/03)
23:55 URY Breakfast with Sam & Simon attempting to remove a track from the URY playlist by hiding the CD and crossing it out from the chart sheet, all of which sounds prehistoric now.  No idea who the caller was (21/05/03)
25:22 Sourcenight features Louise Wheeler on the apathy towards Union General Meetings.  Louise is currently producing Politics North for BBC Yorkshire (23/05/03)
27:44 Oxfam Week advert with Adam Bell and James Dickin.  Quite a unique effort compared to the usual ads we had to play out (24/05/03)
28:57 Weekend Early Breakfast/Breakfast handover where I finally confront the nicest man in radio about being called mad each week (24/05/03)
29:30 James Alexander really really wants us to pass the YUSU budget so he can go to Ikon, Toffs and Ziggys in quick succession again (02/06/03)
30:31 URY Breakfast with Jameses Wickham and Gallagher, and the debrief from the previous night's URY social (06/06/03)
31:30 Adam Leith (who appears to be presenting The Best of Pages from Ceefax) has trouble with the news not appearing.  Play-and-record jingle fans, it's the full News In (08/06/03).
32:24 URY Breakfast has a tricky start as Robbie Dale enters the studio moments before the three beeps.  He's particularly unlucky here as SBN elect not to put out stacks of ads and promos after the news bulletin.  Robbie would often arrive with seconds to spare and still be effortlessly better and cooler than I had been directly before him (08/06/03)
33:43 Epiclectic reminds me that this summer URY had someone in on work experience!  No doubt highly illegal these days, but somehow the station managed to keep Idris occupied for a fortnight (11/06/03)
34:09 Weekend Early Breakfast breaks the news that URY has new CD players (and my god we were ready for them) and airs a brain fade moment from when I covered Michael's show a few days previously (15/06/03)
34:54 URY Breakfast with...well.  Robbie overslept a couple of weeks running at the end of the term because he clearly had more exciting things to do the night before than I did, so Michael and I took control (and the piss).  If you listen carefully you'll note all the early mornings have paid off and we've been told we're on Breakfast from the Autumn (15/06/03)
36:07 The Hype Guide to What's On which for a while replaced the DJ-read guide during the breakfast show.  I love the jaunty samba music in the background as the Islamic Society's meeting in the Prayer Room and a Roman Polanski film is promoted (16/06/03)
37:48 James Scott and "Kevin Bowman" who after his op sounds surprisingly similar to Gill Rickson... (23/06/03)
38:56 Soldiers of Hell comes to an end after four years...until it came back the following term, that is (24/06/03)
41:00 URY Breakfast and who else but James Brookes gets the honour of switching the station off for the summer as the 2002/3 academic year comes to a close.  Listen carefully and you'll notice this is from the new webstream, as I'd been kicked out of my campus room and returned home the previous day (28/06/03)

Hardcore early noughties kit.  Photo courtesy of Simon Taghioff

Coming next: Autumn 2003.  Make sure you've updated your Real Player.

URY 1350AM: Spring 2003 - Life In The Funny Lane

This is my second compilation of University Radio York output, this time featuring highlights from Spring 2003 - my second term at uni, and my first on air on URY (cringe).



As with last time, it's all from cassettes that have been sat in my parents' loft for over a decade, all recorded from medium wave, so adjust your audio expectations accordingly.  Unless someone else was pressing play-and-record at the time it's unlikely this audio exists anywhere else, so hopefully it provides a unique window into student radio in the early noughties.

I originally had no intention of presenting on the radio station, instead thinking I would help out editing things behind the scenes.  However, after an utterly tedious two hour session helping make a thirty second McCoys crisps commercial, and encouragement from my housemates (more of them later), I decided to have a go.  At URY you had to have a training session - usually in the studio late at night in one of the on air slots the Student Broadcast Network insisted they have - followed by a "demo" to prove you had the minimal technical expertise required.  I can remember for my demo I bought all the tabloids from the student union shop to mine for stories to talk about (as if anyone would give a toss what I was saying), eventually settling on a bizarre story about a Countdown fan playing the show's theme at their funeral.  Towards the end of the term this clearly gripping recording gave me the green light, and I was allowed to go on air from January 2003.

On air in January 2003 (photo courtesy of Simon Taghioff)

The schedule was pretty crowded at this point so newbies were generally given an hour slot, so I was awarded 4-5pm on Wednesdays.  However a few of us - including my housemates - expressed an interest in upping URY's airtime by also filling some more "off peak" slots.  So I made my debut in the primetime slot of Sunday 7-9am, which of course on student radio was christened "Early Breakfast".  Between us that term, URY went on air at 7am, seven days a week, and at the weekend stayed on air until 3am.

Despite the early alarm, I absolutely loved it.  From putting the station on air in the morning to having hours and hours to muck about, make mistakes and talk nonsense, I was so excited about going on air each week.  It was also a big term for the station, as for the first time it could be heard around the world on the website.  For around a year previously it had been available on the campus network (so basically in computer rooms), but now it could be heard literally anywhere - and in stereo too, not fuzzy old medium wave.

Also in this compilation - the debate over differential rents, two very different special guests, the buildup to the second Iraq War, talk of Heslington East and a central venue (it'll never happen), more early morning and late night broadcasting, coverage of that year's Student Union elections, and Red Nose Day.  Happy memories of simpler times.  Enjoy.

00:06 The Ultimate Student Chart 2003 promo that was the call-to-arms towards the end of the Autumn 2002 term for...
00:49 The Ultimate Student Chart 2003: Top Ten Cheesy Tunes with Buzz and Lizzie starting with the definitive "technical difficulty" that we all had at least once, which was go on air before switching the on air output from SBN to Studio 1... (11/01/03)
02:06 The Ultimate Student Chart 2003 with James Brookes and Pam Wells.  As heard here James is in his second stint on URY "training as a maths teacher", which he's now been doing for real for many years, and of course he's still on URY in 2018... (11/01/03)
05:30 Sunday Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton.  That's me, and this is my first link, at 7.03am on a Sunday morning.  Could be better, could be worse, but at least I hit the bloody intro spot on! Not that I'd been practising... (12/01/03)
06:09 Soldiers of Hell with Spencer Vale, specifically Bargain C*nt with David Dickheadson.  2003 in a nutshell, there (14/01/03)
07:58 No idea who this is, but it's another new presenter clearly struggling as they try to hit the top of the hour.  He correctly identifies that as with Alan Partridge the last thing you want is an awkward gap whilst trying to hit the news at the top of the hour... (16/01/03)
09:07 The Source at Six with Verity Wilde and Nick da Costa.  This is all I have but shows how Iraq dominated the headlines that term (16/01/03)
09:52 Freshly Brewed at Early Breakfast with my housemate Michael Brothwell.  The new webstream meant we did (very occasionally) get exciting emails from around the world.  Notice also the slight tension towards SBN's output, which we all regarded as total shite (17/01/03)
11:28 Sourcenight reporting on differential rents between different accommodation, something that was still a hot topic for many at this point.  Of course, nothing changed (17/01/03)
13:30 Stop Broadcasting Now with my housemate Simon Taghioff.  Yes, the acronym was intentional.  This filled the late slot after 1am on Friday nights, and here Simon tackles the truly abominable York Star newspaper that we'd been receiving in Edens Court (24/01/03)
15:10 James Gallagher versus James Brookes on a Saturday afternoon (25/01/03)
16:39 York Hire Ware advert, voiced by Phil Stewart, which always used to annoy me when it referred to "scuff links".  Sadly York Hire Wear closed down in summer 2017 (Spring 2003)
17:01 Tim Bateson with special DJ guests Friday Night Posse and a debate on vinyl versus CD.  This discussion will be somewhat out of date within a few years... (26/02/03)
19:55 The Festering Skunk with Michael Brothwell and special guest Dr Maden Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute.  Quite a coup for Michael although I have to take the credit for the phone flashing so early in the show... (28/02/03)
21:14 SU Elections 2003 Question Night for the Student Union elections, which entirely by coincidence starts with the eventual president, Chris Jones, whose interview I've included in full (02/03/03)
27:30 Epiclectic with Simon Tagioff and yours truly, whose mobile embarrassingly goes off as soon as we go on air, immortalising my naff 2003 ringtone forever (05/03/03)
28:50 SU Elections 2003 Warmup with James Wickham and Owen Murphy as they build up the excitement for the big night (07/03/03)
29:44 SU Elections 2003 Results Night with James Doughty, James Gallagher and Simon Taghioff.  Here we have the intro, a technical cockup after Tatu that James G links out of superbly, the policies of the eventual president Chris Jones, highlights of the week's coverage and a nasty technical cockup.  Worth listening to for James G's comment on Doorsafe alone (07/03/03)
37:56 Freshly Brewed with Michael Brothwell and myself on Red Nose Day 2003 - and the last day of the Spring Term 2003 - reviewing the term's news to the sounds of that year's Comic Relief single (14/03/03).

Next up - Summer 2003.  I bet you can't wait.

URY 1350AM: Autumn 2002 - It's Gotta Be Toffs

This is my first compilation of University Radio York output, starting appropriately enough with half an hour of output from my first term in York in Autumn 2002.



What I didn't realise until I started combing through my cassettes (which, other than a date, are largely unlabelled) was quite how much of the campus radio station I'd recorded upon my arrival in October 2002.  I'm not really sure why either - I think I loved that not only did we have a student radio station, it could be received in our rooms on campus. I never quite understood the cynicism about student media from students - for me it was exciting to have this output made especially for us.  Not everyone on it was up to Chris Moyles or Scott Mills standard (and that's putting it mildly), but that's what you'd expect from a station where anyone with a minimum level of technical expertise was able to "have a go".  As you'll hear in this compilation there were plenty of rather good presenters, some of whom have made a career out of it.  I just thought it sounded like great fun and after encouragement from my housemates, decided to have a go myself: you can read about my years as a fair-to-middling DJ here.

It was after YSTV's 50th birthday bash recently that I realised that whilst YSTV has 13 years (and counting) of programming online, there is next to nothing available for URY.  In fact I'm guessing unless someone else pressed play and record, most of this compilation doesn't exist anywhere else.  Hopefully these recordings might be interesting to those who weren't there as a snapshot of student radio fifteen years ago, and to those who were - and particularly those actually in it - as a real trip down memory lane.  What's weird is how much I captured on tape of people I would later know quite well, and in some cases still do.

Autumn 2002 slightly dubious Freshers' Week publicity

As Radio 1 Vintage proved, nothing can quite take you back to a point in the past than hearing the live radio of the period, and there's plenty here to root the output to the last few months of 2002, with talk of Fame Academy and other TV of the period, the SU president on York's dull imagine, hopes of a central bar and new campus (both of which would finally arrive at the end of the decade) and the Conservative Party chair telling her MPs to stop infighting...whatever happened to Theresa May?  All that and the usual "music and chat" that the generic schedule billing listed.

A couple of disclaimers - every single clip is recorded in glorious mono on cassette, so adjust your sound quality expectations accordingly (although I quite like the nostalgic fuzzyness of AM).  The exceptions are the jingles and ads, which I sneakily made a copy of when I started presenting the following term. This also means there's none of me - well, almost...

And yes, the Toffs ad is in there.  Enjoy.

(If I've mis-remembered any of the names - it's been a while - or you've got any more info, let me know in the comments and I'll update it)

00:11 URY Top 20 with James Brookes: the first one of the term, and a plug for the URY welcome meeting for freshers a couple of days later that would persuade me to have a go myself (14/10/02)
02:51 The Source at 6 reports on Theresa May's attempts to change the image of "the nasty party".  An open goal for jokes so I won't even bother... (07/10/02)
03:58 James Gallagher and Kimball Johnson with quite a unique link that has to be heard to be believed (12/10/02)
05:26 The Nerve with Rob Berry - which I recall was an arts magazine at 1830 after the news.  Here we have the glamour of "Cinema Liaison Office" which I can't believe was an actual elected role, and the first appearance of many by James Wickham as he pretends to interview David Gray (07/10/02 and 23/10/02)
06:59 The Score - Saturday afternoon sports news, which was again anchored at this point by James Wickham, here slagging off IRN who'd been misbehaving (26/10/02)
08:47 The Lowther advert - voiced by Ed Mitson who doesn't seem to believe what he is saying.  I love how it tails off the end with "down by the river" - find it yourself
09:19 James Gallagher again who seemed to like playing this song at the time (November 2002)
09:49 The Source at 6 with Brendan Beaton and (eventually) Verity Wilde.  The opening theme of this show was great - as if The Day Today never happened.  The three beeps at the start were the opt-out signal from the sustaining feed after their news and ads, which of course meant it was more like The Source at 6.03 (05/11/02)
10:40 The Lush Show with James Dickin - an actually quite good dance music show, even if AM wasn't the best place to listen to it (08/11/02)
11:28 URY Breakfast with Kate Harries - this was Sunday's breakfast show, which the following term I'd have the dubious honour of warming up for with Early Breakfast.  Amazingly the Breakfast Show website of the period is still online (10/11/02)
12:30 Janos Bene - the closest thing URY had to a John Peel figure.  Every link would be much like this... (13/10/02)
13:36 URY Breakfast with Adam Bell - Monday's breakfast show.  A year later I'd not only co-present the programme but also live with the presenter (11/11/02)
14:48 Rook and Gaskill advert - it's that man Wickham again.  Nice pub, but it wasn't close to campus as the ad claims...
15:31 Soldiers of Hell with Spencer Vale and someone else dissecting Fame Academy, Pop Idol and other talent show guff of the period (13/11/02)
18:14 The Source at 6 - SU president Tom Connor on York's dull image, something much discussed that year I seem to recall.  Introduced by Verity Wilde again (22/11/02)
20:55 URY Breakfast with James Brookes - Saturday's breakfast show.  Despite joining in 1997 James is still on the station today, seemingly because he does a good job and is a very nice man (23/11/02)
21:52 URY Gold - apparently the first edition too.  James Wickham and Lee Beaumont launch a long-runner that would carry on even after I left York (25/11/02)
23:40 Kevin Bowman and James Scott talk through that night's TV.  Kevin was in charge of YSTV at this point and told me every single caller they mentioned on their show was fictional, which is not at all surprising (09/12/02)
25:35 The Big Cheese with Tom Hughes - and a memorable guest appearance by Michael Brothwell.  Michael and I lived in the same block on campus and he asked me to ring the studio to pose as a mad fan of his show, the results of which can be heard here.  The three of us would live in the same house for our second and third years and I'd later present with both Michael (doing more of this sort of nonsense) and Tom (on the breakfast show), none of which we'd have predicted at this point in 2002 (10/12/02)
29:23 The Toffs nightclub ad (voiced by James Dickin) which I think all of us can recall word for word 15 years on as it aired for so long.  Apparently this continued to run for a period after Toffs stopped paying URY to play it, as everyone was so used to putting it out.
29:57 The Source at 6 - the last edition of the year with the obligatory "and finally" story (13/12/02)

Coming soon....Spring 2003! (how did you guess?)

Edinburgh Fringe Blog 2016

2016 marked our fifth trip to the Fringe!  You can read about 2012 here, 2014 here and 2015 here.  I clearly couldn't be bothered to write anything in 2010.  This trip was a cheeky little last minute effort after previously deciding we would sit this year out, but then leafing through the programme and thinking "oh go on then".  As a late decision we went for the first time over a proper weekend (I'm not counting the first weekend of previews last year) and only went for three days, our shortest trip yet.  So, enough with the setup paragraph, I suspect you are saying, get on with the reviews!  The present Mrs Bufton, pictured below, is this year contributing some thoughts of her own - only when she can be bothered.

Saturday

Show 1: John Gordillo - Love Capitalism

Our first show and someone who I first came across as the young(ish) host of BBC Choice's nightly comedy show The RDA, a wonderful ramshackle series that was loved by about a dozen people and ignored by everyone else, thus ensuring its fate.  Despite an obvious lack of content and interest and investment by the channel, what really held the whole thing together was the likeable host.  Until now I hadn't managed to see his standup (despite performing many times at Downstairs at the Kings Head, the famous comedy club at the end of our road when we lived in Crouch End for 6 years), but he doesn't disappoint. Performing in "the hottest room at the Fringe" Gordillo deconstructs capitalism's attempts to be friendly with us, particularly Virgin Trains' increasingly weary chatty marketing on their trains (such as "hey there good looking" on the mirror above the toilet as you urinate) and asking via email "how likely are you to recommend us to your friends and family", rightly pointing out that when it comes to trains from London to Scotland, Virgin are certainly unrivaled. Towards the end the show took a much more confessional turn which was more successful with Kate than me, but overall a great hour. And our only visit this year to The Stand, which was nice as now matter how smug they are they are still miles away from virtually everyone else.

Kate's review: Considering the big criticism we had of last year's run of shows was that the subject matter always felt a bit flighty and lightweight, it was a joy to kick off this year's run with heavy stuff. Maybe it's also because of the job I'm in where Gordillo's dissection of brands trying to sell 'experiences' and 'feelings' rather than services that this resonated quite deeply.

Show 2: Jake Yapp is One in a Million

You may know Yapp from his "in 90 seconds" segments from Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe.  He starts his latest Fringe show in much the same way with a fantastic "The Fringe in Five Minutes" sequence, which accurately captured all the clichès you can spot during August in Edinburgh ("we're just these three crazy guys that leap about, shout a lot and do sketches! There're no jokes, but still..."). Sadly after this point it became a bit more pedestrian with a lengthy sequence on Yapp's veganism, which was about as interesting as it sounds, and then something about his kids. I think. As with Gordillo, a genuinely lovely guy who you are willing on to succeed, but he could do with making all sixty minutes as compulsive as the first five.

Kate's Review: A lot of Jake's set sagged in places but ultimately he came up with a character that said 'I LOVE Coco Chanel. I've got a Chanel bin' which for some reason was my favourite line of the Fringe.

Show 3: Set List - Standup Without a Net

One of the more successful "late night rotating lineup shows with a gimmick" (we'll certainly more than Comedy In The Dark, which remains one of my worst comedy experiences of all time), Set List has become something of a hit since we last saw it, even being made into a TV show that no one has seen.  Now residing in the "Nightclub" venue of Gilded Balloon - so called because it is usually home to drunk students dancing to S Club 7 - Kai Humphries hosted five acts seeing the themes of their set appear in front of them as the performed.  When it works, it works really well, although you do feel the terror of performers as they stand there hoping what they come up with is funny. After sitting in the Gilded Balloon bar for a couple of hours looking at the various shows starting as we waited I said to Kate "there is no way I am seeing the bloody Axis of Awesome, they're almost as ubiquitous as flaming Abandoman in doing the same act year in year out". So I only had myself to blame as a familiar-sounding "poet" act, later revealed to be an alter-ego of Abandoman, was one of the acts, and the big finale was, of course, Axis of Awesome.  And the embarrassing thing was that they were absolutely superb.

Sunday

Show 4: Radio Active

One of the Pleasance's headline shows this year is quite a coup - a reunion of the Radio Active cast, performing two episodes of their 1980s Radio 4 show which parodied the then new concept of local radio stations. Obviously I was too young to hear this the first time around but the idea (and the rare chance to see the cast back together) seemed too good to miss.  With the sense of occasion in mind it was a bit disappointing to see quite how safe and Home Service most of the material was, causing barely a ripple of laughter in the carvernous Pleasance One. The highlight was Status Quid performing "Boring Song", and you can probably guess what that entailed.  

It seems a little churlish to describe a Radio 4 programme as "very Radio 4", but it is the best description I can surmise. One can only guess you had to be there, and it just kind of worked in the background whilst doing the washing up in the way that it doesn't in a massive venue.  But we did get three things out of seeing Radio Active: 1) seeing how at 60 years old Angus Deayton is incredibly well preserved and hasn't aged a day, 2) an afternoon of Googling Michael Fenton Stevens to find out where the hell we recognised him from (answer: virtually everything), and finally 3) our Anecdote of the Fringe 2016, which you can find at the bottom of this blog.

Kate's Review: Gutted that we missed Mark Cooper-Jones' 'Geographically Speaking' to watch this. Mildly amusing, if I'm feeling generous.

Show 5: Lolly 2

Lolly Adefope is someone who we have sort of followed from the start, after a hysterical turn at the 1Xtra Comedy Night two years ago followed by her debut solo show in 2015. So Lolly 2 continues with more of the same character comedy, but this time with the recurring theme of her reviews from last year, many of which bafflingly remarked that she didn't mention her race at all (Adefope is black). This idea, fed into various skits including Lolly auditioning for "Black Hermione", accompanies plenty of other set pieces, none of which quite hit the heights of Lolly 1's talent show conceit, particularly one item about an American talk show host which went on for far too long.  But she remains one of the Fringe's most exciting talents, and it is to be hoped TV will manage to harness this in an appropriate format at some point.

Kate's Review: I LOVE YOU LOLLY. Although I agree that the talk show host bit went on too long. Her 'Diversity Inclusion' Officer character was inspired. She just does character comedy so much better than everyone else, with an attention to detail and mannerisms that leaves everyone else trailing in her wake. 

Show 6: James Acaster - Reset

Another outing for James "always nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award but never gets it" Acaster, this time graduating to Pleasance One, the second biggest venue at everyone's favourite yellow Fringe venue on a hill (the biggest being Pleasance Grand which even Adele would struggle to fill). The promotion didn't entirely suit his act, or indeed any standup, the room being very long and thin.  We didn't find this show quite as good as last year which was quite exceptional, but Acaster remains one of the stars of his generation.  Any show which refers back to his failed musical career as part of "The Wow Scenario" is going to be worth seeing.

Show 7: Princes of Main - Cool

IT'S ANOTHER MALE TRIO SKETCH GROUP! Following Pappy's, Wit Tank and Beasts we decided to see these guys on the basis of the show being directed by Lolly Adefope.  Residing in "the hottest room at the Fringe", Princes of Main made a pretty good stab at providing a variant on the now ubiquitous format this time loosely themed around how to be cool, the highlight of which being "badly translated French" sketch where someone was listening to "Jason of Rulo" whilst eating a "little boy" yoghurt. The hour didn't really sag at all and the room was pretty full for Sunday night, so they must be doing something right.

Kate's Review: A boy sat behind me laughed too loudly and for too long in my ear in order to impress his date. I liked Princes of Main but was largely preoccupied with thinking about what a massive tool he was. Plus, the 'crazy one' in all these male trio sketch groups is never as loose a cannon as Tom Parry from Pappy's, so they end up looking like a pale imitation.

Monday

Show 8: Five Go Off On One

When we were kids Kate and I loved the Famous Five books, and despite this have turned out to not be racist and sexist. Kate does however love ginger beer.  So when we were handed a flyer for this comedy play we were quite keen to see what they'd done with the subject matter.  After all, surely getting laughs out of the Famous Five is like shooting fish in a barrel? You'd think.  You can't really do the obvious jokes as the Comic Strip have kind of exhausted that one.  But still a lot to work with, you'd hope? 

Five Go Off On One failed on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.  It had no idea what it was trying to be - spoof, farce, surreal, or even straight comedy version of the Famous Five? All of those were thrown into the mix throughout the hour, almost as if to see which worked, but nothing stuck.  The most annoying element was trying to work out what was going on as so many plot threads were thrown into the mix, and at 55 minutes in there still wasn't a resolution, which rather gave the game away it was going to be a bit of a cop out.  Various bizarre set pieces were added, the oddest of which was an interlude where fictional news headlines were read out to the sound of the extended BBC News theme, culminating in terrible puns. The including something about Ed Miliband's hair resulting in the punchline "Ed Fringe". Yes, that's Ed Miliband off of 2010. 

Bits that could have worked well were flunked, such as a plotline that Timmy had gone missing. This could have worked into a terrific running joke with the audience who were well aware that a dog would never feature in the live play, but the resolution of Timmy being played by one of the cast with a sock on their hand when he was finally located was poor (surely pretend he's run off to continue the gag, or put a giant dog costume on or something?).  Bits that did work well, such as an interlude where Uncle Quentin looked menacing to the War of the World theme before starting to strip off when the music kicked in, was run into the ground when repeated a few minutes later.  Some intriguing plot possibilities were ignored when the suggestion that Uncle Quentin was just keeping the kids occupied by leaving crates around was brushed under the carpet.  By the end we had absolutely no idea what was going on.  The final line "Five Go Off On Two", yelled by the cast presumably to excite the audience in the idea of a sequel, instead had the effect of stunning everyone there into silence. I really really wanted to like this show but instead went away Googling to find out who was responsible.

Kate's review: The people involved in this show seemed absolutely lovely, and I genuinely believe that the best of intentions were behind the production. But my God, why did nobody in what was presumably quite a long road to get this to the Fringe stop and say 'Hang on everyone, this material isn't funny. It's really NOT FUNNY.' And we even paid for the privilege. My god.

There were numerous pointless scenes written to showcase the individual talents of the cast (for example, filling a cave with infinite crooks so one guy could show off his range of American accents) which added nothing. I was also pissed off that George the tomboy was a sap in pigtails. Ideally the show needs a talented script editor and a big red pen, otherwise they should stick it in the bin and use this year as a learning experience to write something better.

Show 8: Rhys James - Forgives

Second year running for us seeing Rhys, once again in the not-at-all-a-Portcabin surroundings of Pleasance Beside, apparently "the hottest room in the Fringe" (guys, enough, we're all sat down out of the glare of the lights drinking beer so don't get as hot as you).  James is another likeable guy with a very deft set of funny lines weaved around...well not very much, that's kind of the problem. James falls into the problem we all do at 25 in thinking we are now fully grown adults, rather than children who have only recently stumbled into the real world and still have a lot of learning to do. A bit harsh, but if you're going to fess up that you recently moved out of your parents' house, get used to it.  The highlight of the show was undoubtedly a letter he wrote to himself 15 years previously as part of a school project, apparently entirely true judging by the hysterical laughter coming from one of his friends in the audience. A decent hour but we'd probably go and see someone else next time.  He did however have the courtesy to finish 10 minutes early to allow us to dash across Edinburgh to our next show, beginning 15 minutes later...

Reading out the Chilcot Report, in full, in a bus, 24 hours a day. 

Show 9: Alistair McGowan - 12th Impressions

In the early noughties I thought Alistair McGowan was the bees knees.  Rory Bremner aside, impressions had largely gone out of fashion when The Big Impression launched on BBC1, and I loved it. So seeing that McGowan was back at the Fringe I jumped at the chance to see him live.  So it was we crammed into "the hottest room at the Fringe" - only this time it was, with the chairs in the Gilded Balloon's Debating Room pushed so far together everyone had a pair of knees crushed into their buttocks. The show didn't get off to the greatest start, with McGowan seemingly genuinely annoyed people were still sitting down when he came on (perhaps try playing a smaller room next time?), but as it progressed I was reminded of what used to frustrate me about The Big Impression - spot on impressions, and slightly ropey comic material, the exact opposite of Dead Ringers. (Why couldn't McGowan just join them? Oh, he did, for one Radio 4 series, and left. That answers that one then).  Some of the material was a little questionable - in particularly a tired run though Dad's Army characters, a rather pervy interlude where he imagined commentators at Rio 2016 admiring the bodies of female athletes, and a request that woman stop bothering to worry about what earrings they wear as we are looking elsewhere.  Al, 1996 is on the phone and wants its material back.  Put all that together with pausing for applause after every bloody joke and you've got a major disappointment.

Kate's Review: Alistair had a segment which was basically a long whinge against Twitter and the pointlessness of it, with the audience loudly agreeing. I think I last heard those kind of jokes around 2009.

Show 10: David O'Doherty - Big Time

After, quite frankly, a bloody awful day of shows, we really needed someone to pick things off the ground for our final show of the Fringe, and O'Doherty delivered in the way he always does because he's a genius.  In something like his 15th consecutive outing at the Fringe he mused on subjects including mundane promoted tweets, his Twitter hassle from Ed Sheeran fans and the realisation that, after being on the up for the last few years, he's only going to go down now in terms of success.  We also learnt about his efforts to have a "No Lilt February" and his hatred of brunch DJs.  Despite being in his words "the enviable third Monday of the Fringe" show we finished our fifth Fringe on a high, after which he promptly followed us into Pizza Express.  Man, know some boundaries.

Kate's Review: David O'Doherty tweeted me back when I called him out on his Pizza Express stalking, saying 'I can't help it. I just h8 all K8s' which absolutely made my week.

Finally, as is traditional, a few final Fringe thoughts...

The BBC

Due to the seemingly never ending redevelopment around Bristo Square that has already displaced the Udderbelly, the BBC's Fringe - sorry, Edinburgh Festivals - venue was relocated this year to the grounds of a school, quite out of the way.  I've written a few times on how despite pouring money into this venture each year they don't seem to have a clue what to do with it, and this year was no exception.  The three editions of The One Show live from Edinburgh included some festival content, but you do start banging your head against the wall when they open with an interview with someone from Casualty.  This year also saw the notable absences of Radio 1 and (by definition) BBC Three, which hasn't helped things.

Caldonian Sleeper

We got the sleeper train home!  In order to maximise our time at the Fringe (and only take one day off work), we checked out of hotel on Monday lunchtime and were still able to see a full day of shows before catching the train home late on Monday night.  This was our first trip on the sleeper since Serco took over from ScotRail as a standalone operator, which they have cunningly named "Caledonian Sleeper".  It doesn't need pointing out that the rolling stock is on its last legs but some improvements have been made, such as two pillows on each bunk, USB charging points in the cabins and more breakfast options.  We must have caught the various sleepers in the UK about half a dozen times now, and I think we've only had a decent night's sleep a couple of times.  But there is something undeniably special about going to sleep at one end of the country and waking up in another.  Long may it continue!

Anecdote of the Fringe 2016

OK, you've waited long enough.  Before we saw Radio Active Kate spotted Ian Hislop hanging around the Pleasance Courtyard.  Surely not here to see Angus Deayton, with whom it is quite well documented he doesn't see eye-to-eye with?  More like Paul Merton, also on that afternoon with his Impro Chums.  Anyway, after the show we again found ourselves behind Hislop as he negotiated the tiny staircase down to the toilets at the back of the Pleasance.  What are the chances that he should find himself facing Deayton coming up in the other direction?  #awkward.  Anyway, all that was a long time ago now wasn't?  Surely after 14 years they could at least acknowledge each other?  Nope.  They both looked in the other direction and pretended they hadn't seen each other.  And Kate was stuck in between them both.

And on that buttock-clenchingly embarrassing tale, we're done.  Will we make it four years in a row?  Unlikely.  This year was, as you've probably noticed from the reviews, a bit of a disappointment.  Partly due to our own choices: too many big rooms, as the people we follow have become more successful, and not enough small "will this work?" type shows.  Perhaps also an inevitable consequence of going at the weekend and only having 3 days to cram things into this time, there were plenty of shows we wanted to see but just couldn't due to clashes.  Or maybe it's time to take a break...