Hey Mr DJ

As many of you know, I was on the radio the other day promoting Three Men On Tour. I've never been on the radio before. Well, that's not quite true. My cousin once interviewed me and my band on Brunel student radio, with such insightful questions as “why do you play the kind of music you do?” to which we replied, “because we like it?” and then realised maybe we should have a spent a little more time preparing.

Going on the BBC, I suspected, was going to be a little more professional. I was half right. My host, Tony Fisher, was the consummate professional. It was a joy to watch him switching between chatting amiably to the listeners, then throwing on a record and chatting amiably to me with the mike off. He seemed very relaxed. I, on the other hand, felt like I had turned up to an exam only to realise I hadn't studied. Chatting on air, it turns out, is hard. You don't realise how much of your normal speech is peppered with ums and ahs and false starts. Normally, it doesn't matter, but on the radio you're acutely aware of each stumbled phrase. I wanted to be Stephen Fry, and I felt more like the 'No, no, no, no, no, yes,' bloke from the Vicar of Dibley.

I was also discovering that, as highlighted recently in the wonderful Start/Stop, it's easier to be funnier in front of a laptop screen than in person. There is no delete key in real life. I found myself starting stories and quickly realising I couldn't think of a punchline, or that the payoff relied on a piece of information that I really should have mentioned at the start. You have no choice, at this point, except to plough on through. My thought process roughly followed these lines.

“Oh no. Why did you start this story? No one likes this story. Even my mate Brian doesn't laugh at this story and he laughs at everything.”

“Don't panic. We can make this work. Just make sure you don't mention the punchline too early and have nowhere to go afterwards.”

“You just mentioned the punchline didn't you.”

“Okay, we're now into uncharted territory. Just keep talking and everything will be alright.”

“The DJ looks like he really wants to put another record on. Would it sound odd if I just stop talking?”

“Okay, just throw in any old ending, but stress the final word so it sounds like that's where I meant it to finish.”

“Oh look, the DJ's laughing at my anecdote. I wonder if he's related to Brian.”

Suffice to say, I now have a new found respect for presenters of all varieties. Even when Caroline Flack and Olly Murs are up there, mixing up the cue cards and forgetting to announce the winner, it just highlights how slick the likes of Dermot O'Leary, or Ant and Dec, are.

So keep on talking, be you on local radio, national television or a charity podcast. Without the presenters, the records would go unplayed, the sports unreported and the news unannounced. To all you unsung heroes around the world whose job is to talk without deviation, hesitation, or repetition, keep on talking. We're listening.