I made my first radio appearance in several years this morning, filling in for Graeme Tuckett on Nine to Noon for National Radio. Kathryn Ryan is away at the moment so Lynn Freeman from Arts on Sunday was filling in as host - two subs together.
In the segment I stumbled through brief reviews of Half Nelson and The Kingdom and then spoke about the current controversy over DVD screenings at Rialto in Auckland.
The hardest part of doing the slot that was estimating how long I could actually talk for coherently. The last thing I wanted was to run out of material with the clock still some way off midday and then find myself saying something like “and how about those All Blacks?” just to fill the silence. So, I told them 10 minutes would be fine and, of course, ran out of time and failed to fit everything in. If there’s a next time I’ll have a bit more confidence in my ability to come up with material but they seemed happy enough and didn’t have to cut me off or drag me out of the studio.
It’s very cool having one’s name on the RNZ web site, and even cooler seeing it show up in iTunes as a podcast. Masochists and fans can download my segment here (at least for the next few days).
So today marks the 41st day since I last had a drink and it is kind of reassuring to note that my capacity to do stupid things remains undiminished by sobriety. Like last night, for example, setting the alarm on my mobile phone so I wouldn’t miss Friends With Money at the Penthouse but forgetting to turn the ringer on so it would actually make a noise. I was saved by the vibrate function on the bedside table but there would have been hell to pay if I’d missed my film: in order to see everything that comes out each week, and still fulfill my obligations to Downstage and family, my diary has a military precision to it that brooks no interference.
