New Year Message

Good morning, and welcome to 2011.

I hope your Christmas and New Year was good.

I did another radio show this morning – my first of the year. Thank-you to those who listened. I’m not sure that many people get up and listen to the radio early on a Bank Holiday Monday morning! I will return next Monday (January 10th) from 15:00 GMT/16:00 CET/17:00 EET.

So… in 2010 I visited Crete, where I stayed with my family in a small village about 1 hour by car from Chania (Χανιά). Chania is a large city where they have bendy-busses, roundabouts, Greek drivers who go round the roundabouts the right way, Greek drivers who don’t go round the roundabouts the right way, and English drivers who panic because they don’t know which way to go round the roundabouts. So we avoided it.

Also in July was the 9th Corinium Radio broadcast. I hosted many programmes, including the Early Breakfast Show, which went out from 05:00 to 07:15 every morning. Basically, I played music and I talked in between the tracks, from the comfort of my own home – because I recorded it beforehand and then loaded it to a computer, so that it would play automatically. It meant that I was on the radio when my alarm went off at 5:55 in the morning, and at 6:45am as I made my way to the studio for the live Breakfast Show, for which I was the studio engineer.

This year (2011): I will do my A level exams in German and General Studies, and finish coursework for IT and BTEC Music Tech. With more than half of my work load for this year being 100% coursework, this year’ll be slightly easier than last year. After that, I’d like to go to uni, to study something like Journalism or Radio Production.

Also in 2011 my family are going to Corfu, and I’m going with them. The last time I went to Corfu was 13 years ago – when I was 5. We stayed in a fairly large but quiet town, I spoke English, and can’t remember it as it was too long ago. This time, we’ve got a small village, I can speak Greek, and as long as I’m still a non-Alcohol-drinker by then, I’ll be able to remember it in a few years.

Now… I must finish reading my book before the holidays end. I’m currently reading the Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis – its about the German occupation of Crete during WW11.

Afterwards, I’ve borrowed my Aunt’s copy of the Man Who Smiled by Henning Mankell – one of the Wallander books, because I’ve enjoyed watching the Swedish versions on BBC4 since I found them in the Summer.

Happy New Year!