Five FM

I must admit I can't often say this about radio interviews, being a little uncomfortable with the microphone, but I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Rowan Hand's studio this morning for his Weekend Supplement show, which goes out from 9am to 12pm on Five FM.

I like Rowan hand; he is one of nature's gentlemen and a most inspiring man to talk to. Over the course of an hour and a half, on and off, we covered quite a lot of ground, from island life to Rowan's charitable work in India (about which I intend to post more shortly), and we had a few laughs, notably from his tendency to misread my Post-it notes on the outside of CDs, and play tracks I didn't ask for - it's down to my awful handwriting, but the second time it happened, Rowan was gracious enough to cut Simon & Garfunkel off in mid 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inh..' and have them start again with 'Tom, get your plane right on time..' Just as well, because before pressing - sorry, sliding - Play, Rowan had said (off-mic) 'Tell me the story about this one', and I'm not sure I could have come up with a convincing anecdote, biblically challenged as I am.

Of course, even with an hour and a half to play with, we didn't get to all twelve of my carefully-chosen tracks, but at least the balance will live to fight another day. Radio presenters beware: if you invite me onto your show in the future and ask me to bring along some music, you and your listeners are going to have to sit through Melanie Safka's very Melanie performance of Save The Night - one of my all-time favourites (there, I've said it). I wasn't able to find Save The Night on YouTube, so here she is singing Carolina On My Mind:-