Everybody’s doing the WoW yeah yeah yeah

So more fun and frolics down here in Cornwall recently. It started with presenting Live @ Five, then reporting on a belter of a rugby game and getting to interview Reel Big Fish.

I have to say that presenting was different to how I’d expected. It’s very stop start, with pre-records here, rehearsals there and then the main event. It’s one of those things where you can’t fully relax at any point during the day. Ironically enough I didn’t feel that nervous during the show, it was only beforehand that the butterflies started. 

I do wonder whether presenters and journalists still get those butterflys even if they’ve done a hundred bulletins. I like to think that having a few nerves is a good thing as it keeps you on your toes and so i wonder (if and when I get a job) if such feelings will remain!

Me and Rachel presenting Live @ 5

*I’ll add uploading footage of me presenting to my ever growing list of things I need to upload.

Being a presenter is also odd from the point of view that you put your fate, or more aptly words, into the hands of other people. Your exposure to your scripting team is dependant on whether they get it done in time or not . Thankfully this week we had an hour or so to look over and edit the script but even so 90% of the script is so rigid and set in stone that you can’t change it. It’s at times like this I’m glad I’m working/learning in an environment where I know and trust the people who will be putting those words in my mouth.

Wednesday saw another fun day of online journalism and I had a few stories  published on www.ucfjourno.org if anybody would like to check them out (even though by now they are out of date!) two stories on the Pirates were my main output of the day.

The rest of the week was dominated by preparations for our group blog presentation for Censor This. It’s amazing how going into the final week you fret and panic you won’t have enough material and yet by the time you get to do a run through you are frantically cutting away to make it fit. All in all the presentation went well on the Thursday and we felt as a group that we’d done ourselves justice.

Saturday saw a return to sporting form and this included a trip to Mounts Bay to see them take on Launceston aka the Cornish All Blacks. The game turned out to be a belter with the All Blacks nicking the win in the 8th minute of injury time, a result that left Mounts Bay facing relegation. Unfortunately Reading decided to lose to Bristol City which took the shine of an otherwise fun day.

 

 To Sunday, the day of the Fish! Reel Big Fish to be exact. Out of the Ska bands I like.. (which is about four) they are without doubt my favourites and having seen them at countless festivals I was looking forward to an hour and a half set at the Princess Pavilion.

An added bonus was that Mary had arranged an interview with them and I was asked along to help out, something I jumped at. It’s been about three years since I went to interview The Towers of London in Manchester and nearly two years since my interviews at Download so it felt awesome to get back into the music journalism scene again. Sadly our technology didn’t share our enthusiasm and promptly died when we got into the dressing room, depsite it working fine beforehand. Frustration aside it was still nice to conduct a good old fashioned written interview. What was even better was to discover that a bands dressing room isn’t sex drugs and rock and roll, it was bottles of water, calm and full of laptops playing World of Warcraft. Yes that’s right, Reel Big Fish are nerdcore… epic.

Since that Sunday we’ve had another week full of trials and tribulations but i’ll save it for later.

Until then I’ll leave you with a picture of me dressed as Optimus Prime this past week, proof that journalists can be creative! (credit must go to Mum aka Jules for help with the costume!)

~ by wimbles on March 3, 2009.