JACK fm - Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire’s JACK fm  wins An Oscar!

At last night’s 2008 SONY RADIO ACADEMY AWARDS held at Grosvenor House in London Oxfordshire’s newest radio station JACK fm was recognized as one of the best sounding radio stations in the country.

At the evening, considered UK radio’s equivalent of the Academy awards, JACK fm was awarded the industry’s coveted Silver Station Imaging Award.  The judging panel praised JACK fm’s imaging (the bits between the songs) for displaying “Great writing, conveying a huge number of idea’s, always fresh yet always on-brief and highly talkable, just what you need when you’re new on the dial”. They also paid special tribute to the voice of Jack Fm, renowned Blake’s 7 star Paul Darrow, describing his casting as ‘inspired’. 

This is the first industry accolade for JACKfm which launched across Oxfordshire in October 2007. Programme Director Sue Carter says “The sheer amount of supportive emails and calls to JACK fm from our listeners tells us Oxfordshire already loves JACK fm, but it’s also nice to know our peers like what we are doing too.  It was especially nice to be paid compliments by celebrities Alex James, Al Murray, Clare Grogan, Jonathon Ross and Kelly Osborne too. Mind you, we suspect that may have had more to do with the free drinks than their love of JACK”.

JACK fm’s sister station FM107.9 was also nominated for the Speech Programming Award for Girls Talk, the only UK commercial radio station nominated as a finalist , up against BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC World Service & BBC Radio 4. Girl’s Talk was recognized internationally last year by picking up a prestigious New York Radio Award.

Ian Walker General Manager of JACKfm & Oxford’s FM 1079 says “This is an amazing win for JACKfm and FM1079. A radio revolution is occurring across Oxfordshire with JACK fm already establishing itself as a true, fresh alternative for discerning listeners. We have an excellent creative team and look forward to entertaining and providing Oxfordshire with the very best commercial radio can offer”.

Trev's had a baby..

Ok, so Trev from JACK's Morning Glory is now the proud daddy of little Emily..

We've had a little chat in his absence about how we see this will affect him...(and us!)...

The main thing we've noticed is the instant deduction in testosterone levels.. Not only has there been a sizable decrease in time spent with his 'mates' - at the - (insert a word here like football, basketball, pub, or any other blokey activity).... but there has already been a few quick and very noticable changes..

Such as .. rather than discussions of sport that we all used to just pretend to be interested in..Phone conversations with our new dad have changed to discussing what cottony paddy things he is buying at the shop... How he spent the evening rocking her to sleep with her first taste of music (Bryan Adams best of cd).... and how long it took them to put the pram together and get Emily sorted for the first walk...

Secretly we think this is rather lovely - but would never tell him this - and as he NEVER reads the blog - know he won't see  it written here either.

So alas gals, that continuing question hangs there - where have all the real men gone?

At JACK we've got Glynn, who to put into perspective, quickly and gleefully flicked straight to The Sex In The City Movie update in the paper today - only to find it was titled 'hello gals and gays'....  say no more..

and Greg, who spent yesterday shopping for new t-shirts in town, only to bump into Jeremy, Entertainments Editor at The Oxford Mail (who also does our movie reviews every Friday)..... The way Greg tells it, they were standing in town with Jeremy rustling through Greg's shopping bag critiquing his purchases.. Just like us gals would do..................................!

Again.. where are all those REAL men hiding?..  I fear the answer is, in dressing rooms trying on new t-shirts that their mates will hopefully like .

x

Sue @JACK

What is it about Ikea?

and more importantly, why is it I have not thought of a similar business to make myself a fortune?

Seriously... it's BASIC furniture and BASIC accessories. There is stuff in that store that we would walk right past if someone was selling it at a market stall for £1, mumbling under our breath ' cheap tat'... yet put it inside that giant blue and yellow building, and we all go 'OOOOOH. What a bargain.. let's get two!....

Don't get me wrong.. I have long participated in 'The Ikea family day out'... You may be familiar with it? You decide you need an extremely vital product only Ikea sells, e.g candles (!)... and convince yourself their cheap price makes it worth the hour drive (and petrol) to go there... To be fair though, this weekend they were doing 21% off everything instore on Saturday, thus those £2 candles were now about £1.60...

So there we were Saturday evening.. 6pm, we set out to visit Ikea, armed with a map from Oxford to Milton Keynes, kindly provided by Ikea.. (which we were able to print on our own paper, thus making us believe we had saved money in some way no doubt). Being somewhat suspicious of the route, the first thing we did was ring Trev, after all he was known as Mr Milton Keynes, having worked there for many years... he answers the phone, we ask ' is this the How To Direct Us from Headington to Ikea Helpline'? .. his response 'Certainly is, do you want me to talk you in, we are in the store right now' ! 

What a great feeling of relief (no not that we could get directions - more about not being the only saddos in Ikea on a Saturday night)... Subsequently we use the handy printed map from Ikea to turn over and scrawl down a couple of directions from Trev, and take a completely different route via Bicester...

An hour later, we are weaving our way through the store marvelling at the displays, opening drawers, oohing and aahing at the tidiness of these not actually used by real human beings displays...imaging how that perfect kitchen would look in our home... (the truth, which you do not want to accept instore is that kitchen would look perfect, we would just have to remove a bedroom and possibly the living room in order to fit it)..

We spend I guess it was a couple of hours wandering the store.. I feel a bit of a failure because all I pick up is a little bag of stones (you know the type - polished, sit candles in them).. and a pair of dish scrubbing brushes for 29p, which are for work anyway, as i'm sick of finding a smelly wet cloth sitting in water)... 

I notice that down in the area where you collect your flatpack furniture there is a strong smell of chipboard and extremely raw pine. Somehow I do not feel upset at not making any major purchases...

As we line up to pay for our purchases with several hundred other people (by now it's about 930pm) we are surrounded by bags and boxes dropped by people who obviously made the error of coming during normal hours and gave up on the queues. (Or perhaps died of exhaustion, and their bodies were dragged away to the flatpack coffin section out the back)...

My favourite memory of the night was the guy in the line behind us who had a flat trolley, piled high with boxes, on top of them was a red Ikea cushion.. and lying upon the cushion was the head of his 8yr old daughter, who was dead to the world, stretched the whole length of the boxes.    They even managed to scan the boxes without waking her.

How we both wanted to be her..

x Sue

Trev is officially a porker!

It's official, I am a lazy good for nothing layabout that will never have a six pack again...I had one once, honest,I have a photo somewhere, I will dig it out, thats of course if I can find it, because I am so lazy I can't be bothered to look for it!  I stated in a recent blog that after the last golf trip of my life (with the baby coming, according to every wannabe golfing Dad, the other beautiful game has very little chance of letting me have a hack for quite some time) that I would head down the pool, cut out beer during the week and leave the potatoes and pasta to Mrs Marshall...Well....That was a complete load of BS...I have eaten more in the last week than I have ever done, I don't know what is wrong with me, I look at food and something in my head says "EAT IT, GO ON, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO"....

I put this down to the latter stages of pregnancy and Mother Nature making sure that as a Father in waiting, that I will be healthy and have the strength to support my family! Pregnant women in the last trimester 'nest', they clean, clean, tidy, nag, clean, tidy and order other people around them to clean, tidy, clean some more, hoover, wipe, dust, throw things away that are not needed and definately not to nag back! Nesting is well known ahead of the big push, but for the men, as far as I can tell have their own word ending in ING, its FEASTING..It is obviously sympathy pregnancy, I too want the attention of strange women coming along to pat my belly and asking when its due, I love all that! We were out with some equally pregnant friends last weekend (both Women and Men!) and when we said that we were going to take a cast of the belly, one bright spark spoke up and said 'but won't that take the hairs off your belly when your pull it off'....I said that my wife was a little hairier now with all the hormones, but not too bad.

That was the night I found the spare room - thats only because our bed is no longer big enough for the two of us!

The Trip to Dublin...

And what a comedy errors the weekend was!

Here's how it went... Greg and I were supposed to be on Friday night's plane to Dub out of Heathrow.. 8:45pm.. You'd think that would be plenty of time... Alas the day got away from us, we left work at about 5:30pm, rushed to my house, I had 5 mins to pack a bag, we then were blessed by the big traffic god who gave us a great run down to the M25.... where ... it... all... stopped...... and when I say stopped, I mean stopped...  But that's ok, about 20 minutes later we were on the road into Heathrow... and .... again... moving about a foot every 5 mins....  Then there was the joy of Parking Express... Not sure where they got the word Express from, although, come to think of it, the buses in the carpark managed to pass all of us waiting no less than SIX times looking like they were some kind of Heathrow Express service on a mission to get their empty busload of nothingless to Heathrow ontime... (insert the word GRRRRR here)..

Greg and I were running up and down the carpark like some freaky mouse in a lab experiment which was having a piece of cheese dropped at one end, then removed moments before they get to it. Having all but given up on getting on the plane, we were pleased to hear the news that our plane was delayed from a lovely girl on the counter at Aer Lingus. Well, actually, when I say lovely girl, I mean sour faced rude cow who glared at us and treated us like we were two unruly teenagers because we DARED be late for a plane. You would have thought the sweat pouring off us, the look of desperation, or the fact we were running when we got to the counter may have given away the fact we were well aware of how late we were, and hadn't been just hanging around in the bar picking fluff out of our navels.. So of course we were disgustingly rude and self righteous in reply to her comments and glares. (in our minds).. To her face we smiled and were awfully humble and apologetic.

We then sat and waited another flipping hour for the plane.. Jesus - it hadn't even landed at Heathrow, let alone been disembarked or cleaned when we checked in. An uneventful flight across to Dublin until we were coming down to land.. at this point Greg was fast asleep with his flash git iphone in his ears, so missed the moment the engines kicked in again, and we started to climb again. As it turns out, the landing was aborted, because of ... wait for it.. wait for it.... A FOX ON THE RUNWAY! Mind you, the animal loving side of me felt for the fox... although I suspect it wasn't care that made them abort the runway.. more a worry about where the bits would fly if we hit the little feller...

Anyway.. enough of my ramblings.. It rained a lot.. we met a lot of nice people, the Guinness Storehouse were brilliant, Greg and Trev got a chance to meet my mates in Dublin ( I worked at a station from 2004-2006) and as Trev says - it's like your new person meeting your ex.. Fortunately they got on well, and got to see some of the none tourist sites as we hung out with the locals.

x Sue

Glynn's JACKtionary - words you never knew you needed, but need NOW

Who else but Glynn would be qualified to rewrite the dictionary?

Bashmatic

From the word ‘Basmati’ – a type of Indian rice and the word ‘asthma’ – a medical condition.  It describes the type of person who goes for a curry and always orders the hottest thing on the menu.  Then, when they eat it, they wheeze so hard it seems like they have asthma.  For example…

‘He likes the butter chicken, but he always orders the vindaloo, he was wheezing so hard I thought he was basmatic.

See also ‘Kormaeleon’ – from the curry dish ‘Korma’ and ‘Chameleon, the colour changing animal.  This describes a person who, by contrast, orders the tamest dish on the menu, but then insists on trying all the other curries on the table, some making them go red, and some making their face go pale. For example:

‘Did you see how many colours her face went, she’s a right Kormaeleon.’

Rebrownding

From the word ‘resounding’, meaning amplified or greater, and the surname of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  This word is used almost exclusively as a sarcastic term – suggesting a lack of success in a policy or action which should really have been a real crowd pleaser.  For example:

‘Oh, the trade deal you signed the week that Northern Rock collapsed was a rebrownding success, wasn’t it?’

See also ‘Cameronbelieveable’

From the word ‘unbelievable’ and Cameron, from the leader of the opposition.  This describes a policy that seems to be popular, but at the same time seems too good to be true.  For example:

‘So, the Conservatives are going to cut taxes and improve the NHS and education, that’s a little Cameronbelieveable, isn’t it?’

Chronillogical

From the word ‘chronology’ - meaning an ordered passage of time, and the word illogical meaning not logical.  This word describes when time goes much slower or quicker than you think it should.  For example:

‘Writing that letter has taken me three hours, then yesterday I made three deals on the phone in fifteen minutes – it’s chronillogical.

See also chronplimentray

Also from the word ‘chronology’ and the word ‘complimentary’.  When you whip up something very quickly that people think you’ve spent ages on.

‘Oh, no – don’t worry, it didn’t take me long at all - I just cooked it from frozen, I didn’t do much at all, but that’s very chronplimentray of you’.

Whoahbese

From the exclamation ‘whoah’ and the adjective describing the clinical condition of being too heavy, namely ‘obese’.  When you see somebody who is so fat that you’re surprised that their thigh bones don’t snap under the weight, and you suspect that they may wash themselves with a rag on a stick.

‘Now, I’ve seen some fat people in my time, but thjat guy is Whoahbese!’

See also Skinexplicable

From the word ‘skinny’ and the word ‘inexplicale’.  When you see somebody so thin you wonder how they actually managed to fit all of the organs necessary for functioning as a human in their body.  For example:

‘Did you see those catwalk models, somebody needs to invent a sandwich cannon to fire food in their mouths, they’re just skinexplicable!’

Another Trev Blog on a variety of interesting and not so interesting things

If Nigella Lawson's husband, Charles Saatchi, can lose four stone in weight over the last few months, then I can give that a go! Now, so you understand I don't need to lose four stone; At this point Greg would pipe up and say "more like 8 stone Marshall" - For clarification I am 5" 7 and weigh about 13 stone, so I need to shed about a stone and a half - And I will do it!

I did it a couple of years ago, over a period of  a month I lost about a stone and a half and through not looking after myself the timber has slowly piled back on! There are times in your life when you have to change your lifestyle and look after yourself and before Baby Marshall comes along at the end of April, this is the right time. We are preparing the house for the little one and I guess its a good time to make sure I am fit and healthy for the onslaught that is parenthood! I am in my mid to late 30's, (still hanging on to the mid bit) and that is the time when health issues are right in your face....

This week it is Prostate Cancer awareness week and I am going to get it checked out on air later this week. And after getting the news towards the end of last year that I have high blood pressure now is the time to sort things out and get back to body beautiful - Sue and Greg stop laughing.

I am off to buy some scales this afternoon and then bring them in to the studio and I can set myself some weight goals over the next few weeks. if you are of a similar age and are going through the same thing then drop me an email and let me know how you are getting on.

The way I am going to tackle this and lose the pounds is in a similar manner to what I did a couple of years ago....No bread, no potatoes and no booze during the week and the odd swim, thats what happened last time...but we will see, the older you get the harder it is to shift the weight!

Be back at you over the next couple of days with the first weigh in and then watch the weight fly off!!!!

Why do Men die first?

Poor old Trev is supposedly brow beaten and can do no right at home.. So he put the words he thinks every man feels into song.. (remember Baz Luhrman's Wear Sunscreen song from a few years back)...

This is how it went..

Why do men die first? This is a question that has gone unanswered for centuries, but, now we know. It requires a bit of explanation,

First: If you put a woman on a pedestal and try to protect her from the rat race ... you're a male chauvinist. If you stay home and do the housework ... you're a pansy. If you work too hard ... there's never any time for her. If you don't work enough ... you're a good-for-nothing bum. If she has a boring repetitive job with low pay ... this is exploitation. If you have a boring repetitive job with low pay ... you should get off your lazy behind and find something better. If you get a promotion ahead of her ... that’s favouritism.

If she gets a job ahead of you ... its equal opportunity. If you mention how nice she looks, it’s sexual harassment. If you keep quiet ... its male indifference. If you cry ... you're a wimp. If you don't ... you're an insensitive b@stard. If you make a decision without consulting her ... you're a chauvinist. If she makes a decision without consulting you, she's a liberated woman. If you ask her to do something she doesn't enjoy ... that's domination. If SHE asks you ... it's a favour.

If you appreciate the female form and frilly underwear ... you're a pervert. If you don't ... you're gay. If you like a woman to shave her legs and keep in shape ... you're sexist. If you don't ... you're unromantic. If you try to keep yourself in shape ... you're vain. If you don't ... you're a slob. If you buy her flowers .. you're after something. If you don't ... you're not thoughtful. If you're proud of your achievements ... you're full of yourself. If you don't ... you're not ambitious. If she has a headache ... she's tired. If you have a headache ... you don't love her anymore. If you want it too often ... you're oversexed. If you don't ... there must be someone else.

Why do men die first?

Because they want to.

X Trev @ JACKfm

Trev's learning it's hard to be a grownup

Trev’s Blog Update....

Thanks for all the emails with regards to the Top 10 things not to say to a pregnant woman...Listen out in the next couple of mornings and you will hear the results...And if producer Sue thinks they are worthy of our tasty bits then you can also catch them between 9 and 11 on Saturday morning. They will also be added to the blog next week – so one way or another you will see your handy work, there are some real gems in there!!

We have started ante-natal classes over the last week with the National Childbirth Trust...its not CHILDCARE, its Childbirth...This was the first question to the group of 10 of us and yes I stuck my hand up and said that the C in N.C.T. stands for the latter...WRONG and everyone got a handle on me very quickly!  Our first session was Enlightening, Frightening and Tiring (finishes at 10pm and then to bed for 4½ hours!!) – The tiring bit was the excuse I gave for getting the question wrong!

Like any first day at school, everyone was nervous at first and it was a quiet start as we checked each other out. I noticed that when we were asked to swap email addresses some couples had joint family email addresses smiths@hotmail bla blab la, the competitive gene in me was rearing its ugly head. It flared up again when I spotted one of the other couples had matching his and her trainers...Mrs Marshall later pointed out that we would never venture down that route...Just wait though until they are buy one get one free in George at Asda, then we will be walking round like twins – the force will be too great not to bow to the pressure of the bargain!

2 learning points from the session, (apart from the fact that we must get a family email address)...

1 – The female Pelvis is amazing..I am not suggesting that if you are dating someone new or if you have a friendly female work colleague that you bring this in to the conversation as quickly as you can, but the flexibility of that little device allows the wonder of childbirth...Mrs Marshall  now loves her Pelvis..Me too of course!

2 – The baby could arrive early, in fact it could be three weeks early!!! This has put in doubt my annual golf trip with the Chestnuts golf society where 30 of us all meet up and have a few ‘Man days’...I will get back to you on this one...still working through negotiations!!

There was loads about the actual anatomical workings of the female body, which again is amazing – Far better than us men, obviously we can reverse park, which goes some way in to alleviating the agony of us being the weaker sex when it comes to all things biological!!

Any way, drop me an email with either a yes I should go for my last ever golf trip or No I should stay and play the waiting game!! The email address is Trevor.marshall@jackfm.co.uk

Trev

A question from Sue

When did people become SO DAMN RUDE?

I was at the BP on Woodstock Rd the other day when I witnessed a guy yelling at the poor fellow behind the counter to .. and I quote 'GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME'!.. Have you ever felt like you are witnessing a bad scene from a 1970's movie, or worst still, you are stuck in one of those awkward moments that supposedly pass as comedy on The Office?.. That's what we all felt like!

Then I was in London on Sunday when a guy refused to pay... wait for it.... 90p for a bus ride.. Now he was making a point, because he had paid to go on a train which was not stopping at his stop that day.. But to spend 15 minutes abusing a driver who then shut down the bus, called in a code red, and left us all sitting there thinking  'Will we get off the bus.. or will we be stabbed if we walk by him'?.. Ok.. possible over reaction there.. but this is 2008.. it was London, not Oxford, a gal thinks about these things...

After trying to rally the rest of the stranded people on the bus to donate about 5p each to pay the guys fee so we could just get where we wanted to go, I then realised they were all bigger chickens than I.. (the moment the back door opened and they long jumped a jump an Olympian would be proud of, I knew my plot was doomed).....

Anyway.. my point is WOULD IT HURT US ALL TO SLOW DOWN, TAKE A CHILL PILL AND BE NICER TO EACH OTHER?

Siiiigh... at moments like this I realise I have grown old..

Right... off to watch some Ameriacan TV on an illegal website months ahead of it playing here..

(just joking.. no doubt I will watch something on that BBC iPLAYER thing.. horribly LEGAL.. and once again confirming I have become old.)

x Sue