The thing about being an on-air personality is that you always want to be the one in charge. When it comes to doing interviews, you want to be the one in the hot seat asking the questions, picking the brains, investigating the stories. So, when you’re put in a position where you’re on the behind-the-scenes crew you can get a bit anxious to get off the sidelines and be put into the game.

First off I have to say a big thank you to the guys over at The Late Show with Ian Collins on TalkSPORT. They have been really great to me the past month, and I have been able to go in there, get my hands dirty (so to speak), produce some trails, help out where I could, and learn so much in the process.

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It is exciting and uncertain times in the UK at the moment. The general election was three days ago, but I am just now recooping from the whole thing. May 6th more people than ever showed up at the voting polls all across the country. The major players? Labour leader and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative Cool guy David Cameron, and the head of the Dream Liberal Democrat team Nick Clegg.

I’ve certainly had fun catching up on how the heck the political system is run here (still not 100% sure). I’ve covered a hustings of local MP (Member of Parliament) candidates, which I found out is a political debate and has nothing to do with corn at all.  I helped out at TalkSport during their overnight Election Special with Ian Collins and Adrian Goldberg. That, I have to say was a complete BLAST! Up all night running on coffee, sugar and adrenaline. Being there as all the latest counts were coming in all over the country.

Lots of controversial issues though, throughout the night. Students in Sheffield, Lewisham and some other places weren’t able to vote. Scandalous! Some big upsets of MP’s not getting re-elected. Not knowing whether there was going to be a Hung Parliament or not…but kinda knowing it was inevidable. And yes…I DID have to google what a hung parliament actually was. If you dont know, then I wont take away the thrill of you going and googling it yourself.

Fully exhausted on Friday I went out to the Mayoral election results for the borough that I live in (Lewisham), and got to meet and take the cutest darn picture of the re-elected Mayor, Steve Bullock. As of right now, the country is still in a Hung Parliament. It looks like the Conservatives are going to gobble up the Lib-Dems and spew out a coalition government. And me, not a UK resident, feels slighty giddy that in less than 2 months I get to go back to the wonderful land of Barack Obama. So, to celebrate my lack of emotional connection to this election I’ve had a little fun putting together a fun diddy to catch you up.

Feast your ears on this. Starring (in order of appearance) Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, with a small cameo by Ed Miliband at the end. Time guys for a little less conversation…a little more…well you know the rest….

Hung Parliament Montage

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Well, so much has happened since this site was last updated. I won’t bore you with the details but here is a summary:

• Flew from London back home to New Jersey and spent an amazing three weeks seeing friends and family.
• Got to visit some radio stations in New York and New Jersey and met some great radio people  at 92.3 NOW FM,  Z100, WOR 710 AM, Clear Channel Radio and WDHA.
• Flew back to London to scour about the city with my amazing boyfriend, Keith, for a couple of days. At this point we’re suppose to fly from London to Munich for a week’s vacation in Germany, but the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland has grounded all planes.
• With hours of working out plans on Keith’s part, a bit of luck and a whole lotta resolve we got a Eurostar train to Paris and had an impromtu road trip from Paris to Munich. What a blast!

Now, I’m back in London and busy as ever! This will round out my last 2 months in London before I head back to NJ/NY to continue on my path. I’m currently part of a team that is reporting and materializing all of the material for Eastlondonlines.co.uk, a news website for all of the borroughs along London’s East London Line Overground Rail Service. My first article was co-credited with Sophie Powling. Together we reported on the launch of the opening of the East London Line from New Cross to Dalston.

For anyone reading this that is outside of the UK, just to fill you in a bit: the country has its General Election this upcoming Thursday (May 6th), so all media outlets are focused on that. Although I am not a UK citizen I am finding it really interesting being part of such an exciting time in this country’s history. I am currently editing a piece for the website on a hustings (political debate) that was held at Goldsmiths College on Friday night with all of the constituencies from the various parties running for local election. Thursday night I’ll be helping out with election coverage at TalkSport, which should be a very long and interesting night.

Yesterday I attended a talk about The Rebirth of Radio: Crafting Audio in a Digital Age, part of the London International Documentary Festival. This year was the first year that LIDF has included radio and photography documentaries in the festival and last night I went to a radio listening of Chris Brookes’ Songs My Mother Taught Me put on by In The Dark. It is really great to see radio making it’s way into these types of events, but I disagree with Alan Hall from Falling Tree Productions when he makes the claim that radio is now becoming “hip.”

As for other projects, The Illumination Station will be starting up again on Wired Radio pretty soon, so keep an eye out for that. Wow, I think I still have the last episode of that from last month to post up. Nice! Maybe I’ll get that up and that’ll hold you guys over until I start up again. I’ll be in the process of Directing a radio drama and editing a radio feature on homesickness throughout the next couple of months, but I’ll always do another post once things are finished.

So, I’m not sure if you were at all interested in what was going on with me, but there you have it. Lots of exciting things. Wish me luck with the election coverage, and keep an eye on East London Lines.

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Last night were the annual Wired Radio Station Awards held here in London. I want to thank everyone who casted their vote for The Illumination Station. It was a very intense night (not really, it was actually pretty chilled out with some good live music). Things were touch and go there for a bit, and I thought all was lost when Hey! That’s My Octopus walked away with their third award. But, good thing I stuck it out because The Illumination Station walked away with the biggest award of the night. That’s right folks, The Illumination Station came away with Best Show on Wired Radio!!!!

And even doubly exciting, I won the runner up award for Best Producer for the Friday edition of Live Wired. I have to say, Izzy Minter really deserves half of that award because the Friday edition of Live Wired is equally her baby as much as it is mine.

I’ve posted up some pictures up on The Illumination Station page of me at the awards and the cutest itty bitty trophee that I received.  All around good times.

As my gift to you guys for all your continued support I’m posting up the special SXSW episode of The Illumination Station in its entirety. Thanks again everyone!! Hopefully this is just the start of something big. Keep tuning in.

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I have FINALLY been able to edit down and post up the audio from that episode of Crossing The Wire that me an Izzy did a few weeks back where we basically did nothing but laughed. The funny thing was we had no idea we were going to be hosting this episode so we were completely unprepared, which I think made for a very funny improv episode. We plugged our regularly scheduled show, Live Wired, which aired the next day, and the ironic thing is that we both came in completely drained and even though we were prepared I think the impromptu show turned out better. Just goes to show you never really know what will work (even though we’re meant to at least try and know what works for radio and what doesn’t).

So, here you go. If you are like me and are the type of person that when they hear other people laughing and acting silly it makes them hysterically laugh as well, then this episode of Crossing The Wire will be a bellybuster for you. Especially the part where I completely lose it when I call my boyfriend an “attachment.” Sorry Keith, I love you!

Click Here to listen

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K hole and X ray…that is what I’m calling this week’s installment of Live Wired. Well, actually at this point its last weeks edition, but by next week it won’t be relevant what week it was, it’ll just be another one for the ‘Awesome Archive.’

Izzy and I talk about how that guy from Oasis that no one cares about anymore is a complete jerk. We find out its not really that funny to laugh at disabled ducks. And Izzy gets ’schooled’ on whats floating in the Hackensack River. Always relevant (that’s a lie), always current (that’s the truth), and always funny (that can really go either way).

Head over to the Live Wired Page to listen

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I have finally gotten around to posting up some audio…which means I think I’ve finally gotten my head above the water with this website. Ya know..since this is supposed to be a website to feature all my audio…and its only NOW got audio on it. So go forth, and consume.

Just to get your chops watering…we’ll start off slow. My personal favorite that put a huge smile on my face today was listening to the Nikki Nova Theme Song (posted on The Illumination Station page). It really made me miss working at WPSC and moreover, miss my Stepdad Matt, who wrote, performed and recorded that theme song for me. Remember to leave comments on things you like…if you don’t like it…don’t bother, I won’t post it, and I’m very sensitive so that would just be mean.

New audio on these pages…check it out:

Voice Work

The Illumination Station

Creative Works

Journalistic Packages

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