My Love Has Gone To Glastonbury But I Make Up For It By Being a Radio Star

Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 3
Level of conviction in own genius:
Reading / Listening: ‘The Last English King’ by Julian Rathbone/ ME on the radio
Hair Day: short and blondish. BBC DJ Iyare compared me to Annie Lennox – I’m not sure that is a compliment...

Have been on the wireless a prestigious twice this week! Having visited the Dead and Alive boys (and Michael Nyman) a few weeks ago, we were back in the steamy Resonance FM studio last Wednesday for a rather more poppy show – The Other Woman with the lovely Ruth, a slot that plugs only girl-on-girl music, quite right too. We had the whole hour, playing some Camille and Zap Mama and discussing girly vocal stuff. Having rubbished the Puppini Sisters, we promptly sang two close-harmony covers – hhhm. Listen to the whole show here! www.myspace.com/theotherwomanmusic.

The second appearance was in listener mode: have been a recent discoverer of 6 Music, a station which includes Marc Riley (the Lard in ye olde Mark and Lard, my favourite radio show back in the day – the misty-edged era when Radio 1 were happy to transmit two hours of garrulous chat and arch music punctuated by poetry from the likes of John Hegley and Simon Armitage), Stuart Maconie, Tom Robinson and many more. I applied to go onthe Listener 6 Mix, a show on Sunday nights which hurls a listener into the limelight (well, lime-waves or something) to play some of their favourite tunes – and clearly my eclectic nominations on the entry form got me in! So yesterday night I was in the glossy BBC towers, bantering with stand-in DJ Iyare (the rather over-chirpy Queens of Noize being somewhere in Glasto), playing everything from Ozomatli to Tom Waits, Lord Kitchener to Joanna Newsom, and getting in a bit of Raffi, cult Canadian children’s singer-songwriter of my childhood, in there too over the space of two hours. Haven’t dared listen back yet but am crossing my fingers that I sound like Mariella Frostrup (I was trying to channel a throaty laugh) and not Barney from The Simpsons. It will be here until Sunday 6th July: www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/listener_6mix .

So, Andy and I being a jet-setting pair of creative whirlwinds, whilst I have been swanning around on various radio shows of note, he has been at Glastonbury, Step 13 being there to play shows in the Shangri-La area and somewhere else I’ve forgotten again. I couldn’t really go due to work so glued myself to the BBC’s coverage, even if the levels of irritation normally generated by Jo Whiley are now being surpassed by gabby young turks from Radio 1, shouting through their styled fringes and flaunting their designer wellies. But Mark Radcliffe’s loquaciously urbane witticisms make up for it all, plus the coverage from the comfort of the sofa, so I’m able to watch The Raconteurs and Black Kids without having to trudge around bumping into people dressed as pandas and robots, I’m guessing. I will be ready to greet my intrepid showbiz husband tonight with takeaway curry, ale and a nice billowy duvet, though not before throwing him into the shower, him not having showered for FIVE DAYS. The stinker.

Still, am sooo looking forward to Latitude with juice and entourage (husbands, boyfriends, brothers, babies, small dogs, birds, clowns etc) in less than three weeks.