A while back, I used to do a weekly newsletter.
It threw open the doors to the production meeting on my old talkRADIO show and let you in what we were thinking that week and how we decided what to talk about.
You can read them here. And if you hit subscribe, you might just get the odd surprise in your inbox from time to time.
As much as anything else, I remember the relentless buzz of news and police helicopters. The sky seemed to be busier than the city streets below. Every night, for what felt like weeks, the piercing sound of police sirens cut through any moment of peace. My apartment overlooked the Manchester
Read → May 21, 2021
You’re going to hear a lot about Bolton this week. And not just from me, banging on about Bolton Wanderers’ spectacular promotion last weekend. Although, while we’re on the subject, we were 20th in February and finished 3rd overall. Really, quite something. Anyway. The real reason is altogether more troubling.
Read → May 14, 2021
I’ll let you into a secret: the slog of hard news and politics isn’t always fun for a speech radio presenter. It becomes draining and repetitive. Occasionally, you just want to cover stories about cool new inventions, trips to space or human endeavour. I’d even settle for the Virgin Mary
Read → May 07, 2021
‘What a car crash,’ said my Mum of the European Super League, ‘a terrible idea and typical of the greed.’ And that is how you know a football story has found it’s cut through. As the world of football and politics – and my Mum – cried out in condemnation
Read → April 30, 2021
‘Is this a moment or a movement?’ I asked Donzaleigh Abernathy – the daughter of Rev. Ralph Abernathy and the God-daughter of Martin Luther King – as protests swept across the world in the wake of George Floyd’s death. George Floyd’s… murder. ‘Both,’ she said. She went on to put
Read → April 23, 2021
I remember it like it was yesterday. Can’t vote but still care. It was my first ever headline in a newspaper. I was fourteen and my submission to the Bolton Evening News’ letters page was a call to arms for people to step up and vote in the 2005 general
Read → April 16, 2021
Early April, 2020. The sun was beating down and the empty streets were filled with the smell of baked banana bread. Each breaking news alert came with a bolt of anxiety. The world held it’s breath as Prime Minister Boris Johnson fought for his life in a London hospital. The ping
Read → April 09, 2021
A slightly shortened version this week, owing to the Easter weekend, but a bumper three shows for you on talkRADIO. Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 5am. What crime have you committed in a previous life to deserve that, I wonder? We will, of course, try to wrap our head around
Read → April 02, 2021
We need to talk about porn. Specifically, revenge porn. Again. This week, a study showed that cases of revenge porn have doubled over the last twelve months, with lockdown and social restrictions playing no small part. It is a hideous crime. It is the very worst of us. And as
Read → March 26, 2021
It was one of those moments, like the moon landing, the death of Diana and when Coleen Rooney accused Rebekah Vardy of selling stories about her. We’ll be able to tell our grandchildren exactly where we were when – a year ago on Tuesday and with a viral infection sweeping
Read → March 19, 2021