During my two weeks in i105-107 (I was there for a week of college work experience, but stayed longer out of choice), I was working on news – this involved writing copy, doing interviews (including Eddie Hobbes!) & editing down clips from them, doing vox-pops and putting packages together (including voicing them). They liked the packages well enough to actually air them during the main (12.45pm) iWitness news bulletin… which was nice

Here’s some of them:

“Brief History of Willie O’Dea” package for iWitness News by niallok

“Love is…” package for iWitness News by niallok

I spent the last week helping out down in i105-107 as part of my work experience for college. I didn’t really need to do it as I’ve had about 10 weeks experience working in radio stations since September (we’re only required to do 2 for the course) but I reckon the more I get – the better, and… well, I just plain like it there – t’is a great little station, so it is.

The highlights of the week for me included:

Singing and busking in the Big Busk-Off with the “iDrive with Nadia & Phil” team in the Bridge Centre, Tullamore. We were up against “Breakfast with Bernard & Keith”. I played the drums (a.k.a. the empty water cooler bottle). Highlights of our performance included Valerie, Fields of Athenry and Hit Me Baby One More Time. Yes. The crowd loved us. Got plenty of hugs and gave out “Hugs & Handshakes” vouchers while there. Bernard & Keith still won. Foul play was suspected. Great craic, all the same

I’ve gotten into a fairly unhealthy sleep pattern cycle that I really have to break – especially at the weekends, when I work in a bar and generally get home at around 2am. Once a week (Sundays, usually), I’ll stop off at the chipper and get a fresh cod and curry chips… probably a bad idea too, if I’m honest- health-wise certainly,- although I convinced myself recently that once a week is okay. I meant to make a new year’s resolution to cut down on it (or cut it out entirely) and get more healthy, but that’s easier said than done as I like it too bloody much for my own good!

Once home, I’m reluctant to go to sleep and usually watch a bit of TV with the dog for company. When I do eventually go up to the bedroom, I’m too awake to sleep and stay up reading, browsing, chatting, tweeting, facebooking, watching movies – and yes, occasionally, blogging.

Sometimes I have a few drinks while doing this… alone. Bad idea.. I know! – and this goes on until I finally start to feel properly tired – stupid o’clock usually (often after 4 or 5am) – a lot of the time actually in bed with the laptop on a tray on my knees, and I end up not getting up until 1 or 2pm the next day.

I’d been meaning to blog more recently… had plenty to say… plenty going on. It’s been suggested to me, however, that I don’t go talking online (facebook particularly… here too) specifically about the incident a week ago which led to me having a black eye over the time since then – and it’s been suggested for all the right reasons.

I am going to follow that advice to some degree and not go into any real detail about it. Of course, the minute details of the incident itself aren’t for public consumption as they’re quite personal and it’s not in anyone’s interest really that they be divulged publically. All that needs to be said is that I had a disagreement with someone, he expressed himself physically… and I didn’t get the chance to respond in kind.

Oh… and that I’m fine now!

… RCS Master Control crashed while I was producing a show.

But!… no! I’m not going to talk about that… I’m going to go back to February this year, to something I forgot to blog about back then – when I was doing work experience – helping out on Breakfast with Bernard & Keith on i105-107.

I was doing some office work, lining up phone calls for the lads, putting together the “best of bits” for ad breaks later in the day and contributing a little bit on-air – including this one time, when Keith – after remembering that he’d forgotten to pay for the €40 worth of diesel that he’d filled up on at the local petrol station – sent me down there with my mobile so that he could talk to the manager… live on air:

The phones were actually down in the station on the day, so we couldn’t ring the service station – but in the best tradition of “making the best of a bad situation”, I drove down to the service station and rang Bernard on his mobile – and he held his phone up to the mic. I reckon it came out quite well!