Thanks to all of those who listened last night to my show on PlayRadioUK. To those who couldn't listen at the time and have emailed asking about a Podcast version, I am told it will be available tomorrow.
I have to say I enjoyed myself tremendously. We had some great calls and the lines were flashing for the whole programme. It's quite disconcerting when you see all the lines flashing at once because your immediate reaction is to finish a call and move onto the next one so you can get everyone in. But I tried not to do that too much so everyone could have their say. Much of the programme was taken up with MP expenses, but we did cover other subjects too. It was great to receive calls from all over the country and beyond. We had calls from the US and Canada too.
Tom Harris phoned in, which was nice of him, and several blog regulars also joined in. Molesworth1 gets the accolade as caller of the night. John Hirst (Jailhouselawyer) called in too to talk about his pet issue of votes for prisoners. I hope he thought I gave him a fair crack.
I was supposed to play a quite a bit of music, but we had so many calls I only ended up playing one song, Apologise by Timberland, which I dedicated to the Prime Minister.
Did anything go wrong? Apart from me fluffing the name of the radio station at the top of the programme and Skype freezing at one stage due to the volume of calls, not too much went wrong. I got a bit mixed up with the faders from time to time but generally it all went very smoothly. I deliberately didn't have a script so I could move from subject to subject at will. What I found most difficult was keeping on top of all the different methods people were using to communicate with me in the studio. I think I concentrated too much on the phone calls and didn't use Skype enough, or read out enough emails - and I forgot about Twitter completely.
The producers told me afterwards that the audience had been several times what they were expecting and the level of phone calls was huge for a first show. Judging by the comments on a previous thread it would have been far higher but many of you couldn't access the live stream. It seems that there are issues with Macs. I remember we had these teething problems at 18 Doughty Street, but I will pass on your comments to the producers.
They seemed highly delighted by the programme, so it looks as if I will be doing it again. The plan is to do it as a regular Friday or Saturday night gig. I'm speaking in North Wales next Friday and debating with Hazel Blears in Salford the week after, so hopefully we can start it after that.
