…now that the two major distractions are attended to, I can now return to normal blogging activity. In case you haven’t worked it out, they were Morley FM and Harry potter 6!

Well, it started with the Olympic win, waves of indifference rippled over me when i heard London had won it. The photo of Red Ken looking bemused whilst all around him were a whoopin’ & a hollerin’ struck me as strangely sinister.

Then, on the train to London this morning. Departed from Peterborough, next stop Stevenage. The phones started ringing & the buzz grew in the carriage. Karen called and warned me that the Underground was closed due to a “power surge”. The announcement came on that the Tube was suspended but that Kings Cross was still open. From there it rapidly deteriorated & people started picking up messages from the Web & Blackberries about bombs on buses. This was no ordinary incident.

Today was meant to be the AGM for the CMA. I rang the office, who said they were still hoping it would go ahead. I advised them I had a hunch that this was something big.

The bloke in front of me had been talking to an MP who said there had been six serious incidents, it had all the hallmarks of terrorism. Meanwhile, I worked out how to use WAP on my new mobile and checked out the Blair Broadcorpsing Castration- still towing the party line about power surges. Arriving at Stevenage, the guard advised that the train would be returning north and by now, most of us didn’t want to go any further anyway.

The cracks were starting to appar on the WAP news, the story was the same but there were a lot of words in quote marks- the journalists were obviously getting restless.

The lady next to me turned white- she had missed her normal train due to the time on her mobile being wrong & she could have been in the thick of it.

It seems that the Mobile network may have been set to refuse calls for a while- the CMA office were unable to get hold of many people travelling to the meeting for hours and hours. Was this perhaps a concern about dial-up detonation?

Once the train started to move north again, there was a ragged cheer. There had been a definite comrades in adversity experience, although we didn’t go quite as far as singing White cliffs of Dover.

I thought I’d better ring Morley FM as they knew I was in London that day. Danny Mylo answered & it went straight over his head. However, they rang me back a couple of hours later and put me live on the air for a report (by the judicious technique of holding the mobile up to the microphone).

The buffet took a hammering, for the return journey it was beer, red bull, coffee and smarties. I wasn’t brave enough to risk a beer, the shelf the cans were on had a loose central bracket and had been bouncing up and down violently all the way. I wonder how many Stella Shampoos there had been that day?

Eventually, I arrived back at Wakefield again, exactly five hours after I had departed, 20′ further south. (i.e. on Platform 2 instead of platform 1). We can re-use the tickets on another occasion which was very decent of GNER, it wasn’t their fault in the slightest.

I had tried to read other sites via WAP but it was like watching paint dry. After a Coffee and a hug from Karen we watrched telly for a while in the Police Authority members’ lounge, although the stories were still rather sketchy.

Seeing reports of the carnage tonight made me feel a little sick. I didn’t feel personally threatened but I felt sorrow for the thousands touched by today’s events far more painfully than myself. I have only one word for the scum that perpetrated this appalling attack.

BASTARDS.

I’m sitting here at the computer, doing some audio editing, whilst listening to the silky smooth sounds of Morley FM. That is a phrase I jokingly used during our midnight switch-on 48 hours ago whilst the others were out in their cars and it seems to have stuck, especially when our very own “Handy Andy”, Jon says it, as it is true. He is on right now, with some entertainer bloke that he met today for the first time & they are doing a cracking show to rival anything on commercial radio. Jon is a PCSO (A “Blunkett’s Bobby”) and being able to communicate well with people is a key part of the job, although being a slick radio presenter is an unexpected asset.

I can recommend the Morley FM diet- simply organise a radio station from scratch with a constantly changing selection of already busy people, then find yourself on voluntary call for every hiccup, along with an addiction to hear that the transmitter is on, the levels are right and the content is to a high standard.

What a remarkable variety of programmes we have transmitted in 36 hours- from the opening hour (which I had the great pleasure of hosting) through local rock bands, guest presenters, out & about vox pops, talking books, local issue chat & punky stuff. Of particular interest is tomorrow’s “Punkumentary” at 5pm by Joey, one of our alternative presenters.

We also played a sneak preview of a 30 minute programme put together by members of the Priestley Society challenging the BBC about their choice of greatest living englishman. The quality of the voices is a bit ropey (one celebrated scientist used a cassette recorder with built in microphone so that needed a lot of work in Cool Edit Pro to lick it into shape) but the content is excellent and could easily form the basis of a professional broadcast.

I’ve spent the last week interviewing some school Heads about their life and music for a feature called “Six of the best” & that has been a fascinating experience, particularly visiting Head Teacher’s offices (without a feeling of dread associated with the experience some 30 years ago!)

More on the Community Radio experience over the next week (although with the buzz from this event there is the risk I won’t shut up about it for months!)

The logger bounced a couple of times again today. We now have a VHS recorder on standby (it will capture 6 hours on long play using a 3 hour tape) & I’ve checked all of the boards are reseated. It might be thermal related, Studo One should be called Sauna One and both times it has happened in the early afternoon.

Morley FM is well and truly on the air, with a grand opening of the Mayor cutting a blue ribbon, an inaugural “this is Morley FM” broadcast (hosted by Myself) & a selection of other presenters doing their thing.

We have reports of a listenable signal 17 miles away, but an unlistenable signal two miles away in a dip.

The star of the show has been Danny Mylo, who was found driving past our door with a loudhailer and fuzzlight. (When I say driving, I mean his Dad, he’s only 14!)

It wasn’t totally plain sailing however, when presenting we noticed that our output logger decided to reboot, it obviously didn’t like our output! It is now on a UPS with another base unit standing by. We have to maintain a logging system by law, with a data retention of 42 days (to give someone a chance to complain).

I’m feeling a bit gaga at the moment, elated at the switch-on of Morley FM. The official event is at noon, however, the hardened radioheads from the Morley Community Radio Society gathered in the studios for the application of power to the transmitter at one second past midnight. We then sent foraging parties out to check the signal- better than expected in some areas but rather scratchy in Churwell (where at least two of the team live).

We were so elated by the experience that we then had an inpromptu radio show. Our excuse was getting the levels right, however it is a great feeling seeing “MorleyFm” on the car radio and hearing the relatively inexperienced presenters get more slick and polished by the minute.

This community radio malarkey is a good thing, I’m delighted we have got this far. I have also recorded some great interviews with Head Teachers, now the time consuming part comes- the editing!

Fortunately, it will all be over Sunday week, & we intend to have a bit of a party a few days afterwards.