The Sound of Sunday on HRB

As always, The Sound of Sunday Christmas Show was a lot of fun with so much going on and three happy winners at the end of it. 

This week, we’ll be playing out a compilation of the show as part of our last show before Christmas.  There’ll be the return of Superman 1940s Style and all the news from the football.

This Sunday att he slightly earlier time of 1pm.

It’s the show that takes the most time to put together and the longest Sound of Sunday of the year at 5 hours, but it’s also the one that’s the most fun to do as it involves staff, patients and the stars of the local pantos.

The Sound of Sunday Christmas Show has a format all of its own and has been running in one form or another since the mid 1990s.  It started in its current form in 2002.  The Christmas Cracker dash takes a team of HRB members up to the wards to pull crackers with the staff.  The staff get to enter a competition that could win them a trip to the local pantos and the stars of the local pantos come onto the show to talk about them.  Over the years these have included Keith Chegwin, Toyah Wilcox, Barney Harwood, Simon Davies, Chris Lillicrap and Guy Siner. 

So this weekend we’ll do it all again and at the same time start Christmas on HRB.

The Sound of Sunday Christmas Show 2010 Sunday 12.30 – 5.30pm on HRB

There are a few things that come round that show it’s getting close to Christmas – the lights being turned on, the Christmas music, the publication of the Christmas Radio Times, and the various Christmas events that go on around the area.  One of those events has been a regular part of HRB’s Christmas since 2006 – Alton’s Yuletide Festival.

The entire town centre and high street of Alton is turned into a festive event.  Street entertainers, stalls, a market, and of course Stan the Town Cryer amongst numerous other things going on have made this a great event.  It’s always a risk I guess that the weather will intervene, as it did in 2007, but apart from that one year, the organisers have been lucky with the weather.  It even looks as though the temperature may reach the dizzy heights of 5 degrees and stay dry for this Sunday’s event which is apparently going to be bigger and better than ever.

Yuletide in Alton 2009

I’ll be there along with Paul Le Feuvre and the results of what we find will be heard on HRB on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. 

The other reason it’s a special event for HRB is that in 2008, we won Gold at the National Hospital Radio Awards for our coverage of the 2006 event.   Maybe if this year lives up to its promise, it will see us win an award again. 

Since the August Bank Holiday weekend, we’ve had Noel Edmonds and Matt Allwright on the show and next week, Mitch Benn will be talking about his record “I’m Proud of the BBC“.   We’ve also given this section of the web site a bit of a facelift as part of a much needed update to the site. 

This Sunday there are 3 more Premier League games so we’ll be reflecting what’s going on at Arsenal V Newcastle, West Brom V Manchester City and Liverpool V Chelsea, and we’ll have all the regular SOS features as well.

LIve on HRB on Sunday at 1.30pm.

In the meantime enjoy Mitch Benn’s video…

The last Bank Holiday before Christams comes round this weekend and on Monday HRB will be featuring a brand new to radio comedy called Our Gaff for the very first time.  The show can be heard every Sunday thereafter as well as on a Friday morning and also features on other radio stations around the UK.  It’s writer,, Steven Munn will be joining me on the show this Sunday to talk more about it, what it’s all about and what makes a good comedy series in the first place. 

Whatever the answer to that last question is, Last of the Summer Wine has certainly had it for 37 years.  What has become a TV institution bows out with its final episode on Sunday evening on BBC One and no doubt we’ll be talking about it to Steven as well. 

All the regular features on the show too.  We’re live from 1.30pm.

Last Sunday, myself along with HRB’s Paul le Feuvre and Hospital Radio Reading’s Gerard Rocks travelled down to Brighton to meet up with members of othe hospital radio stations from around the south.  I had my other hat on as the Southern Regional Rep of the Hospital Broadcasting Association, but ut’s always good to see other stations and see how they do things. 

Coastway Hospital Radio is based in Abbey Road in Brighton in a building that is separate to the hospital.  In fact the whole hospital complex seems to be hidden away in the backstreets of Brighton with virtually no signs to it. 

Coastway HR itself has two fairly small studios and an office area.  They do what all hospital radio stations do, play requests for patients, and try and produce a range of shows for their audience.

It was an interesting afternoon and the weather was pretty good as well.

Back to business this weekend though with the second weekend of the new football season bringing us two Premier League matches.  We’ll have news of both plus a round up of all the other sport from the weekend including the cricket and the Youth Olympics in Singapore.  All the regular features are there as well.

Live from 1.30pm this Sunday.

A compact show this week, just 60 minutes from 3 – 4pm.  3 main features, The Quiet Quarter of an Hour as usual at 3, the current Superman 1940s Style story continues and also on the show talking about social networking and barbecues, Saturday mornign TV‘s Mr Show Andi Peters!

We’re back to normal next weekend and coming soon we’ll have the writer of the brand new radio sitcom that will be starting on HRB at the end of the month.

Less than a month after the World Cup became a memory, domestic football comes back with the start of the football league season this weekend and the traditional curtain raiser to the Premier League, The FA Charity Shield.

Somehow it never seems right playing football on a sunny afternoon in August.  I remember the days when it was August bank holidsay weekend that the football season started, but apparently more time is needed nowadays to fit in all the games. 

This year’s Charity Shield is between Manchester United and Chelsea, it’s a 3pm kick off from Wembley with bth managers and all the players hoping that the game will be all about the football and not the pitch, or worse still, injuries caused by the pitch!

We’ll be live from Wembley with reports on the match from 3 and reports ffrom the second half continue on Harry’s show after us.

It’s also Balloons Over Basingstoke weekend, somthing else that seems to come round alarmingly quickly but it really is a whole year since Harry and I were wondering round in the rain talking to the side shows and watching the arena events.  We’ll we live there this Sunday afternoon to find out what’s going on in 2010. 

Finally, we’ll be talking to some of those with an interest in the Youth Olympics which start next weekend.

Anbother packed show this week, live from 1.30pm.

The last post I wrote was all about how England would come good in the world cup and beat Germany and it would be all right in the end.   How long ago that all seems!  The only really positive thing to come out of a miserable World Cup for England was that FIFA will be looking again at using technology, but that’s overdue and it shouldn’t have taken a poor refereeing decision over a goal that wasn’t given for them to wake up. 

Back on The Sound of Sunday and the summer of sport continues.  It’s the German Grand Prix this weekend and the football season is believe it or not beginning again too.  Basingstoke warmed up last weekend with victories over Aston Villa and Southampton o they’re looking good and it is just two weeks until the Charity Shield heralds the start of the new season.

On the show this week, all the usual features including a new story from Superman 1940s Style.  Sunday at 1.30pm.

Be honest, you knew they’d come good in the end.  England always start slow and it’s always difficult to watch.  We seem to forget that, but a much improved performance has set up a last 16 clash with Germany in the World Cup on Sunday.

Many will remember 1990 in Italy, but we should also think back to September 2001, the World Cup 2002 qualifier in Mucich, a game the BBC paid £6 million for the rights to show live and BBC DG at the time Greg Dyke said it was worth every penny.  On that occasion of course, England came from behind to win 5-1 with Michael Owen scoring a hatrick.  Even Emile Hesky scored that night.   It was a result that helped Sven Goran Eriksson win Coach of the Year at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2001.

It’s the first time ever a World Cup finals match featuring England has been on during The Sound of Sunday.  We’ll have live updates from 3pm which will continue into Harry’s into afterwards as well as the usual SOS features.  SOS prediction… 2-0 to England.

Sunday, 1.30 HRB