Radio Rumbled

I'm officially the worst daughter in the world.

Y'see, I didn't tell my mum I was going to be on the radio.

Well, I kind of did, but I told her about it before I really knew for sure I was going to be on the programme, and I figured that if I told her that much, I'd get away with it and if she asked, I could just tell her that I didn't get on.

Why, I hear you ask, did I do such a thing?

It's fairly simple - I don't really feel comfortable with my mum reading my blog. She read it for a while before, and enjoyed it (so much so that she left comments!) which was nice, but at the same time, it started to make me feel uncomfortable, and I stopped writing about certain things, because as sure as eggs is eggs, I'd get a phone call later about it, and it was all just getting a bit claustrophobic. Although we had a long conversation about her reading my blog, and she told me that she would never be upset or offended by anything I wrote, from past experience, I wasn't convinced, and so I moved the blog.

Twice.

Fast forward to tonight. I get home after the Dixie Chicks concert, and the answering machine display is flashing with the number 2 displayed. Two messages, and I didn't need to be Mystic Meg to know who they were from. I hit the button and sure enough, it was my mum.

How very typical that one of my mum's friends is a Woman's Hour listener, and was listening this morning, and phoned my mum to tell her she'd heard me on the radio.

This is particularly amusing for me in light of the conversation that Louise and I were having with the producer of the segment this morning, as we waited outside the studio, about how it can be easy to feel a sense of invisibility online, as if you're writing into the ether and nobody ever reads or pays attention to it - at least until the first time somebody you know in "real life" finds your blog and tells you about it.

Of course, it serves me right for being a bad daughter and not telling my mum in advance so she could bore the ears off anybody who would listen by telling them her daughter was going to be on the radio (in advance) and then boring the ears off anyone who would listen telling them her daughter was on the radio (afterwards). Also because I've been a big scaredy cat in not sitting down and telling my mum that I'm uncomfortable with her reading the blog and explaining why, and dealing with the inevitable fallout from that conversation.

So anyway, I'll stop babbling and get to actually talking about the experience.

First up, we have "things I didn't expect to say this side of 40, if at all" with:

"Good morning, I'm here to be a guest on Woman's Hour"

I will admit to having a little chuckle to myself as I made my way over to the waiting area, where Louise was already waiting, having got there not long before me.

I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes before someone came to collect us and lead us deep into the bowels of Broadcasting House, where the studios live.

We settled ourselves onto comfy couches, met the producer who we'd been speaking to last week, and had a bit of a chat about blogs and blogging while we waited our turn. As Louise says, we could have talked for far longer, and covered far more had we had the time, but the eight minutes we had just flew by and before we knew it, we were being ushered out of the studios to make way for the Brownies. Well not exactly, just an item about the Brownies.

General impressions:

- I saw lots of people wearing sandals. Both male and female. I have no idea what this means, it just stuck in my head.

- I love the idea of Jenni Murray starting up a blog, I really do. I also love the idea that the producer may look at starting up a blog for a charity project she's involved in.

- I really should know by now not to listen to myself speak. I wind up in severe cringe spasms every time.

- I say "ummm" and "y'know" far too much.

- I sound about twelve.

- For a team that had never heard of blogging before last Monday, I think the program that was produced managed to be sensible about it, and at no point did I feel like a freak wheeled out for public view.

All in all a pretty positive experience for my first major media outing.