The Water Charge
- 28 Nov 06, 03:14 PM
Many of you are getting letters through the door this week from the government explaining the latest on water charging.
This will not impress callers to the Stephen Nolan Show today - some of whom say they'll go to jail before paying up.
The debate prompted a huge number of callers - and a fierce debate which you can download.
Duke Special
- 28 Nov 06, 03:04 PM
For those of you who missed the early highlight of Radio Ulster's Scotland week you can listen again to the sold-out ATL special at the City Hall, in Belfast last night. It featured live music from ,, Kowalski, and The Pop Ups.
No mention of it on the Duke Special so far, but it is early days yet...
A Raleigh for Christmas
- 27 Nov 06, 02:24 PM
So how do you prepare for a radio show if you've never done one before?
That is a question Alan Simpson has been wrestling with while getting ready for his new afternoon slot - and he has been giving it a lot of thought.
"For a start I have been drinking a lot of tea... Anyway the one interesting thing we have been doing over the last week is our vinyl jukebox. We are going to bring back vinyl and we've got three thousand seven inch singles that we picked up from a DJ.
"We have also been working with a couple of people who are going to be our regular contributors, so for example, Andrea McVeigh will be doing our showbiz roundup and looking at gadgets and gizmos."
Alan has also had to contend with learning the technical side of broadcasting.
"Going into studio is like going onto Concorde," he joked, "people say to me 'all you do is talk' but there are so many things to keep and eye on.
"I said to somebody 'it is like having a Raleigh bike for Christmas - it is locked away until Christmas Day but all you want to do is to get on."
Days Like This
- 21 Nov 06, 09:24 AM
Just where do you get the idea for a new programme?
That is one of the questions that is most often asked of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ producers.
Well here is an example of how an idea can come together. Next year Radio Ulster is starting a new series called Days Like This which will be produced by a team led by producer Pauline Currie.
They have previously worked on the two daily series This Place and My Story and Days Like This will be their successor.
Pauline said: "This idea grew out of those two series. When we were doing This place people were sending us in scripts thinking it was writing which led on to My Story.
"So after that we came up with the idea of asking people to think of a moment that left its mark in some way.
"And once you have identified the moment you can identify the day - hence the title. And if you cannot remember the specific date then that does not matter. The month and the year will be enough."
The idea is that Days Like This will be a vehicle for personal stories and that the series will be owned by the listeners.
"People are dying to tell us their stories," says Pauline "I am amazed how ready people are to tell us personal stuff.
"What we are looking for is a moment that made an impact on you and changed the way you look at things."
So how to you go about finding people to tell you their stories?
"We are looking for as many people as we can from as wide a background as possible to take part. So we are contacting community groups, organisations and people who have shown an interest in other storytelling projects.
"Also we are talking to some people who contacted us after My Story went off the air.
"The essence is storytelling - something you saw, something someone said to you, that kind of thing.
"We do not want anything written down. It is all about talking. We want something that says a thing about a time - like a woman who remembers the day she went blind fifty years ago or a Polish man who was refused entry to a pub."
The programme will range back over the last century. So we have a 101 year old talking about the First World War in 1915 and we have someone else talking about an event that happened last year.
It will build into a social history that will range right up to the present - and there will eventually be a website where you can share your experiences and post pictures or films.
Pauline is still looking for contributors to the series which is scheduled to begin in January. If you are interested in taking part please call 90338427 or email her at Pauline.Currie@ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.CO.UK
(The only restriction on the subject matter is that the event should not centre on a birth, marriage or death.)
Web address
- 17 Nov 06, 09:51 AM
More information on the Life's Single Certainty series can be found here.
Life's Single Certainty
- 15 Nov 06, 04:16 PM
This weekend the first part of Radio Ulster's short series about death - Life's Single Certainty - will be broadcast. As well as people here talking about their own experiences it will also have a unique first hand account of the final months of a woman dying from cancer.
The diary was the idea of producer Helen Toland who explains how she came up with it and what it was like working with a woman facing up to her own death.
Helen said it all started when she heard about a nurse here called Bob Brown who was writing a thesis about the conversations which people have before they die.
"I thought this was amazing. When they are dying some people open up to strangers and tell them things they would not tell their own families, while others just shut down.
"My idea was to find someone who would speak openly about this. Because Bob had gone to the hospices for his book he went with me to put the idea to them. They all said they would think about it - but the hospice in Newry said they knew someone straight away."
And that was how Helen got in touch with Gloria. She had been suffering from ovarian cancer for more than seven years.
"She wanted to promote the idea of people talking about death," said Helen. "Sofor nine months from November 2005 until her death last July she kept an audio diary.
"During that time I rang her every couple of months to see how she was. Whenever she felt like it she recorded whatever she was feeling, day or night."
Gloria died on the 31st of July and kept recording entries for her audio diary until the 18th of that month.
"Gloria was amazing - not only was she prepared to talk about how she was feeling but she was also eloquent as well.
"And it was not just a written diary - you are able to hear the voice of the woman who is keeping it. Gloria was just the most perfect person to do the job - it was as if it was meant to be."
Helen says that although Gloria was keen to get involved in the programme it was a bit more difficult for her family. But despite that they understood why Gloria wanted to do it.
" Her family have just heard the tapes which is very difficult for them but they are hoping that in the long term they will be glad she did it
"She was preparing for her death all the time. This was another way of doing this and this was her legacy."
You can hear Life's Single Certainty of the 18th and the 25th of November. Extract's from Gloria's diary will be broadcast from Monday to Friday of that week.
And a website connected to the series will be online from Saturday
Wet tourists and wet rock
- 15 Nov 06, 02:02 PM
What would you do in Northern Ireland on a wet Wednesday afternoon? Would you look out the window and wish you were somewhere hot and sunny?
Or should you get a warm feeling inside from discovering you were living in a place shortlisted by the Rough Guide as one of the places to visit for tourists? The guide also included Belfast on its list of Ten Cities on the Rise.
Lonely Planet's information manager Tom Hall was on Good Morning Ulster today describing how they came to that decision - you can find him on the listen again facility at around 7.15am.
Later in the day commentator Kevin Myers gave a different viewpoint on the Stephen Nolan Show. When asked about what he thought of the as a world class attraction he replied: "Not that again, do you know how many times that its counted as Northern Ireland's main tourist attraction? It's just an ordinary piece of basalt rock, that's all.
"The last time I was there about four or five years ago I saw all those wet tourists staring at a piece of wet rock."
You can here Kevin take on Stephen on our podcast facility - he's on after the discussion about parking.
Welsh blogging
- 3 Nov 06, 11:46 AM
Always good to find a mention of Radio Ulster on another blog. David Jones on his appearance recently on Good Morning Ulster.
Dolly Parton forever
- 1 Nov 06, 12:43 PM
Last week we broadcast a rare interview with one of the first ladies of country music Dolly Parton.
We know - because you have told us - that for one reason or another many listeners missed this Ralph McLean special.
You can find it right here.
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