Caitlin Moran is a very, very, very, funny writer. A writer whose tweets take the medium as close to an art form as it is possible to get. That much we know.
The beauty of twitter is that very, very clever like-minded people tend to gravitate towards each other, and via an alarming revelation about The Snowman cartoon, Caitlin has introduced me to the twitterings and bloggings of James Ward.
I have no idea who this man is. He might be a veteran comedian with Radio 4 shows falling out of his bottom, or he might be a bedroom lunatic. He could, conceivably, be both.
But I think he's great. And for some reason, I want you to think he's great too.
Oh. The Snowman Conspiracy (in three of James' tweets):
"In the morning, when the Snowman has melted, there is still snow on the ground.
The thinly distributed ground snow would melt quicker than the more tightly packed snow of the Snowman.
In short, I put it to you that the Snowman did not melt. HE WAS MELTED."
It appears some people are already pointing the finger at David Bowie.
Happy New Year, everyone.x
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Monday, 21 December 2009
Contact and further information
My TV showreel is here. An example of my work on BBC radio 5live is here.
You can reach me via twitter, facebook, leaving a comment on an entry on this blog or by calling 07976 432174. Here are some testimonials.
My BBC page contains all the information you need about my BBC Surrey show, which you can listen to on the BBC iPlayer.
The latest entry in my personal blog is here, and my full biography follows:
After a successful stint as controller of his student station and Chair of the Student Radio Association, Nick was employed as a Broadcast Assistant at Xfm at its full-time launch in 1997.
In 1998 Nick started travel presenting, then moved to BBC Radio Oxford where he was trained up as a journalist, eventually becoming a reporter and newsreader.
In 2001 he moved to BBC Three (then called Choice) to help launch its news service and pick up his first TV presenting experience.
In 2004 Nick moved to Radio 1's Newsbeat to become a reporter, specialising in entertainment news. After going freelance he started presenting on BBC radio 5live, covering regularly for Richard Bacon and Stephen Nolan.
In 2008 he started reporting for ITN's London Tonight and Five News. In 2009 he started presenting Five News at the weekend.
In June 2009 he became the Breakfast Show Presenter at the newly relaunched BBC Surrey. Listen to his show on the BBC iPlayer. His presenter profile is here.
Nick blogs at www.nickwallis.com and used to enjoy football, music and beer. Now he has small children.
You can reach me via twitter, facebook, leaving a comment on an entry on this blog or by calling 07976 432174. Here are some testimonials.
My BBC page contains all the information you need about my BBC Surrey show, which you can listen to on the BBC iPlayer.
The latest entry in my personal blog is here, and my full biography follows:
After a successful stint as controller of his student station and Chair of the Student Radio Association, Nick was employed as a Broadcast Assistant at Xfm at its full-time launch in 1997.
In 1998 Nick started travel presenting, then moved to BBC Radio Oxford where he was trained up as a journalist, eventually becoming a reporter and newsreader.
In 2001 he moved to BBC Three (then called Choice) to help launch its news service and pick up his first TV presenting experience.
In 2004 Nick moved to Radio 1's Newsbeat to become a reporter, specialising in entertainment news. After going freelance he started presenting on BBC radio 5live, covering regularly for Richard Bacon and Stephen Nolan.
In 2008 he started reporting for ITN's London Tonight and Five News. In 2009 he started presenting Five News at the weekend.
In June 2009 he became the Breakfast Show Presenter at the newly relaunched BBC Surrey. Listen to his show on the BBC iPlayer. His presenter profile is here.
Nick blogs at www.nickwallis.com and used to enjoy football, music and beer. Now he has small children.
F*** you, Cowell
Far greater minds will hold forth much more effectively on the same subject, but that's never stopped me piping up before, so here goes...
When did you first hear about the attempt to make Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" Christmas Number 1? I remember smiling at the thought.
As if. As if a poxy internet campaign to get a relatively obscure, ancient and sweary song to the top of the charts would beat the X Factor juggernaut.
Well, good luck to them, I shrugged, and thought no more about it.
The next thing that caught my attention was a pompous little blog post by one of my broadcasting heroes Andrew Collins. Missing the point quite spectactularly, he notes the RATM song is old, and downloading it, far from harming Simon Cowell, enriches the company he works for. Finally, he objects to being told how he should protest about things, concluding "Fuck you, I won't buy what you tell me."
So what if the song is old? So what if RATM aren't exactly armed insurrectionists? So what if a music journalist sniffily chooses to affect a lofty disdain for what used to be the biggest pop event of the year? I'm an indie stone-kicking snob at the best of times, and much as I can't stand the unremitting silage that Simon Cowell has inflicted on the charts, I'm no fan of RATM.
But NONE of that matters. What matters is that someone thought to themselves:
"Wouldn't it be great if there were a way of breaking the smug X Factor hegemony? Wouldn't it be great if a really sweary, shouty song was number one at Christmas instead of all those horrendous MOR power ballads? What's a really good sweary, shouty song? Hmmm.... I know, I'll set up a Facebook page dedicated to getting Killing in the Name to number one."
And that was it. The whole process probably took less than 5 minutes. And, thanks to the power of social networking, the idea took off. With nothing in the way of resources, against the phenomenal might of ITV and X Factor, Killing in the Name got to number 1.
Watching the campaign gather momentum over the space of a few days was interesting. Shortly after various types I follow on twitter had 1) dismissed it 2) stopped talking about it, I noticed a number of people outside the self-regarding snidey London media circle were enthusiastically promulgating the campaign with a view to doing one thing, and one thing only - giving Simon Cowell a bloody nose.
The game was on.
And as it played out, the RATM campaign developed something Joe and the X Factor machine simply did not have - a narrative. Oh the irony.
X Factor's brilliance lies in the brutal emotional excavation of its participants. The show relentlessly drills into the humanity of each hopeful contestant and reduces them to excoriated, blubbering husks. All in order to satiate our vicarious cravings for mawkish (and preferably visibly raw) trauma.
And yet, when the challenge came, X Factor's ability to manipulate a story was found wanting. Joe's a nice bloke, singing a terribly average song. He won the X Factor. He's going to be Christmas Number 1. He could be as big as Shane Ward or Alexandra Burke for a bit, then we can get excited about Britain's Got Talent. Yawn.
Whereas with RATM, every day brought a new, shiny, sparkly development. Amazon's selling it for 29p and it's still chart eligible! Simon Cowell has dismissed it as "stupid"! RATM swore on the BBC! RATM are ahead in the official midweek charts, but most X Factor singles are bought by kids and grannies on a Saturday, so Joe's going to have a late surge! Will the snowy weather affect the kids and grannies shopping trips?! RATM have endorsed the campaign and will make a donation to a homeless charity on the back of the number of downloads sold! The underdog has a genuine chance of pulling off a shock victory! Everyone is talking about it!
The sheer exhilaration of watching this campaign go from nothing, with what seemed like absolutely no chance, to one of the most life-affirming showbiz stories this decade is gently gratifying. It is confirmation of the excellent Caitlin Moran's maxim that pop music is simultaneously "the most important yet most ridiculous thing in the world".
Of course, unlike the twitter campaigns to protect our parliamentary democracy or challenge dinner-party bigots, getting RATM to No 1 doesn't really mean anything. But to be caught up in it, to buy that single for whatever excuse or reason you gave yourself was to briefly, ephemerally (and almost certainly conveniently) do the Right Thing, and you knew it.
It also proves that, thanks to social media, someone who comes along at exactly the right time with exactly the right idea, even if they have no money at all, can mobilise more than half a million people against cynical, anodyne, corporatised dross.
A book I'm reading at the moment quotes the American author Willa Cather as saying the purpose of art is to "imprison for a moment, the shining, elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose."
I wouldn't pretend for a second that downloading a shouty, sweary pop song as part of a mass protest against the grindingly boring prospect of yet another X Factor Christmas Number 1 is in any way art. But the sentiment within Cather's statement, the delight in being able to witness an elegant, spontaneous and prescient idea turn into an odds-defying success through the sheer enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of people must be worth celebrating. Well, that's what I think, anyway.
Happy Christmas, y'all.
When did you first hear about the attempt to make Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" Christmas Number 1? I remember smiling at the thought.
As if. As if a poxy internet campaign to get a relatively obscure, ancient and sweary song to the top of the charts would beat the X Factor juggernaut.
Well, good luck to them, I shrugged, and thought no more about it.
The next thing that caught my attention was a pompous little blog post by one of my broadcasting heroes Andrew Collins. Missing the point quite spectactularly, he notes the RATM song is old, and downloading it, far from harming Simon Cowell, enriches the company he works for. Finally, he objects to being told how he should protest about things, concluding "Fuck you, I won't buy what you tell me."
So what if the song is old? So what if RATM aren't exactly armed insurrectionists? So what if a music journalist sniffily chooses to affect a lofty disdain for what used to be the biggest pop event of the year? I'm an indie stone-kicking snob at the best of times, and much as I can't stand the unremitting silage that Simon Cowell has inflicted on the charts, I'm no fan of RATM.
But NONE of that matters. What matters is that someone thought to themselves:
"Wouldn't it be great if there were a way of breaking the smug X Factor hegemony? Wouldn't it be great if a really sweary, shouty song was number one at Christmas instead of all those horrendous MOR power ballads? What's a really good sweary, shouty song? Hmmm.... I know, I'll set up a Facebook page dedicated to getting Killing in the Name to number one."
And that was it. The whole process probably took less than 5 minutes. And, thanks to the power of social networking, the idea took off. With nothing in the way of resources, against the phenomenal might of ITV and X Factor, Killing in the Name got to number 1.
Watching the campaign gather momentum over the space of a few days was interesting. Shortly after various types I follow on twitter had 1) dismissed it 2) stopped talking about it, I noticed a number of people outside the self-regarding snidey London media circle were enthusiastically promulgating the campaign with a view to doing one thing, and one thing only - giving Simon Cowell a bloody nose.
The game was on.
And as it played out, the RATM campaign developed something Joe and the X Factor machine simply did not have - a narrative. Oh the irony.
X Factor's brilliance lies in the brutal emotional excavation of its participants. The show relentlessly drills into the humanity of each hopeful contestant and reduces them to excoriated, blubbering husks. All in order to satiate our vicarious cravings for mawkish (and preferably visibly raw) trauma.
And yet, when the challenge came, X Factor's ability to manipulate a story was found wanting. Joe's a nice bloke, singing a terribly average song. He won the X Factor. He's going to be Christmas Number 1. He could be as big as Shane Ward or Alexandra Burke for a bit, then we can get excited about Britain's Got Talent. Yawn.
Whereas with RATM, every day brought a new, shiny, sparkly development. Amazon's selling it for 29p and it's still chart eligible! Simon Cowell has dismissed it as "stupid"! RATM swore on the BBC! RATM are ahead in the official midweek charts, but most X Factor singles are bought by kids and grannies on a Saturday, so Joe's going to have a late surge! Will the snowy weather affect the kids and grannies shopping trips?! RATM have endorsed the campaign and will make a donation to a homeless charity on the back of the number of downloads sold! The underdog has a genuine chance of pulling off a shock victory! Everyone is talking about it!
The sheer exhilaration of watching this campaign go from nothing, with what seemed like absolutely no chance, to one of the most life-affirming showbiz stories this decade is gently gratifying. It is confirmation of the excellent Caitlin Moran's maxim that pop music is simultaneously "the most important yet most ridiculous thing in the world".
Of course, unlike the twitter campaigns to protect our parliamentary democracy or challenge dinner-party bigots, getting RATM to No 1 doesn't really mean anything. But to be caught up in it, to buy that single for whatever excuse or reason you gave yourself was to briefly, ephemerally (and almost certainly conveniently) do the Right Thing, and you knew it.
It also proves that, thanks to social media, someone who comes along at exactly the right time with exactly the right idea, even if they have no money at all, can mobilise more than half a million people against cynical, anodyne, corporatised dross.
A book I'm reading at the moment quotes the American author Willa Cather as saying the purpose of art is to "imprison for a moment, the shining, elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose."
I wouldn't pretend for a second that downloading a shouty, sweary pop song as part of a mass protest against the grindingly boring prospect of yet another X Factor Christmas Number 1 is in any way art. But the sentiment within Cather's statement, the delight in being able to witness an elegant, spontaneous and prescient idea turn into an odds-defying success through the sheer enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of people must be worth celebrating. Well, that's what I think, anyway.
Happy Christmas, y'all.
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Live in the snow in Guildford
Well, we did it. And here's the proof...
Okay to be honest, whilst we did set up outside in the dark, I did have a desk to broadcast from inside St Saviour's Church in Guildford.
Every Friday the good people at St Saviour's provide a bacon roll for homeless people. This morning, as a Christmas treat, that was upgraded to a full English...
Around 30 people turned up to eat, drink tea and coffee, and have a smoke on the steps of the church. The atmosphere was great, and the people we spoke to were very open about their situation.
Craig, on the left in the photo above, is living in a shed at the bottom of the garden of an abandoned house with his girlfriend Dianne.
Tinky, in the foreground of the photo above, lives at Vaughan House, a hostel on Chertsey Street in Guildford. I visited there earlier this week and heard the stories of people desperately trying to free themselves from the grip of alcohol addiction. We broadcast the results on the show this morning, along with other recordings I made at the YMCA and with the Street Angels.
My thanks to the likes of Revd Andy Wheeler and Sally (below) from St Saviour's who made us all feel so very welcome.
and my final, but heartfelt thanks to the idiot standing next to me below, Producer Karl, who worked tirelessly to get the show to air and, as you can see, keep me appraised of the time, all the time.
If you want to listen again to what happened (I'd ignore the first half hour if I were you, ahem) you can find it on the BBC iPlayer.
I'm off now until 28 Dec, so this blog will be quiet for a bit. Have a great Christmas and be good!
Okay to be honest, whilst we did set up outside in the dark, I did have a desk to broadcast from inside St Saviour's Church in Guildford.
Every Friday the good people at St Saviour's provide a bacon roll for homeless people. This morning, as a Christmas treat, that was upgraded to a full English...
Around 30 people turned up to eat, drink tea and coffee, and have a smoke on the steps of the church. The atmosphere was great, and the people we spoke to were very open about their situation.
Craig, on the left in the photo above, is living in a shed at the bottom of the garden of an abandoned house with his girlfriend Dianne.
Tinky, in the foreground of the photo above, lives at Vaughan House, a hostel on Chertsey Street in Guildford. I visited there earlier this week and heard the stories of people desperately trying to free themselves from the grip of alcohol addiction. We broadcast the results on the show this morning, along with other recordings I made at the YMCA and with the Street Angels.
My thanks to the likes of Revd Andy Wheeler and Sally (below) from St Saviour's who made us all feel so very welcome.
and my final, but heartfelt thanks to the idiot standing next to me below, Producer Karl, who worked tirelessly to get the show to air and, as you can see, keep me appraised of the time, all the time.
If you want to listen again to what happened (I'd ignore the first half hour if I were you, ahem) you can find it on the BBC iPlayer.
I'm off now until 28 Dec, so this blog will be quiet for a bit. Have a great Christmas and be good!
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Exciting news - they're letting me out of the studio
Barring unforseen circumstance (and in the world of broadcasting, I have discovered pretty much anything can happen), the BBC Surrey Breakfast Show will be coming to you live from St Saviour's Church on Woodbridge Road in Guildford town centre this Friday.
St Saviour's allow a group called Guildford Action to provide tea and coffee for homeless people every weekday morning, inside the church, with a bacon roll on offer on a Friday.
This Friday, they're providing a full, cooked breakfast and we will be on hand to talk to some of the people who take advantage of the service and those who run it. Producer Karl and I have just been down there for a site recce, and had a good chat with the team we'll meet again on Friday. I can also report the BBC Surrey engineer John told us the signal from the radio car back to base was "Perfect."
What can possibly go wrong?
In advance of Friday's programme, I have also spoken to some of the people who volunteer for Guildford's Street Angels programme - a gang of community-minded sorts who patrol Guildford's streets on a Friday and Saturday night,
providing help, information, flip-flops and lollipops to the towns clubbers and those who may need more serious help.
I joined the team for an hour last Friday and had a whale of a time - the photos in this blog entry are Angels Julian and Anne who often find themselves dealing with very drunk people in a friendly, patient and helpful way.
I have also been speaking to some of the residents of the YMCA hostel on Bridge Street in Guildford (pictured below). It is another wonderful resource, genuinely helping all sorts of people - refugees, homeless people and even students.
I'm really looking forward to Friday - we'll be on air from the same time with all the usual features - news, weather, travel, sport, stranger than fiction, film and papers reviews, but broadcasting from the heart of Guildford town centre with some people who have a range of very different, and at times, very moving stories to tell. I really do hope you can join me on 104 or 104.6FM or online at the BBC iPlayer.
St Saviour's allow a group called Guildford Action to provide tea and coffee for homeless people every weekday morning, inside the church, with a bacon roll on offer on a Friday.
This Friday, they're providing a full, cooked breakfast and we will be on hand to talk to some of the people who take advantage of the service and those who run it. Producer Karl and I have just been down there for a site recce, and had a good chat with the team we'll meet again on Friday. I can also report the BBC Surrey engineer John told us the signal from the radio car back to base was "Perfect."
What can possibly go wrong?
In advance of Friday's programme, I have also spoken to some of the people who volunteer for Guildford's Street Angels programme - a gang of community-minded sorts who patrol Guildford's streets on a Friday and Saturday night,
providing help, information, flip-flops and lollipops to the towns clubbers and those who may need more serious help.
I joined the team for an hour last Friday and had a whale of a time - the photos in this blog entry are Angels Julian and Anne who often find themselves dealing with very drunk people in a friendly, patient and helpful way.
I have also been speaking to some of the residents of the YMCA hostel on Bridge Street in Guildford (pictured below). It is another wonderful resource, genuinely helping all sorts of people - refugees, homeless people and even students.
I'm really looking forward to Friday - we'll be on air from the same time with all the usual features - news, weather, travel, sport, stranger than fiction, film and papers reviews, but broadcasting from the heart of Guildford town centre with some people who have a range of very different, and at times, very moving stories to tell. I really do hope you can join me on 104 or 104.6FM or online at the BBC iPlayer.
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