Moroccan Handjob

A picture of my room that I sent to a potential renter.
Notice how I've used a low angle to hide the irremovable
 stains on the wall and ceiling.

Once again it looks like I'll be moving. It's no real surprise to anybody I know, as I've built up a bit of a reputation. Like an exceptionally poor nude model at a life drawing class who refuses to stop waving his willy about, or a certain football anthem by New Order, I'm constantly in motion. My belongings are spread out over five locations throughout Scotland.


Maybe more considering the occasional t-shirt/sock/pint of blood that seems to go missing during my sofa surfing adventures. But I've got just over a week to move my shit out for some French chap that wants this horrible room. There are still dead flies on the wall that the previous owner left for me, as well as a very big Starbucks mug that more or less made up for that. And instead of cleaning out the room and sorting out my belongings for easy moving, I'm sitting here giving you this nutritious blog entry. Apart from the employment front which has been shite for the past few months, everything is going pretty well. At the moment me and a group from my course have to produce a magazine for our coursework. I'm the features editor, and I feel as if I've done a good job so far. So well, in fact, that I've allowed myself to get drunk and aggressively delete chunks of people's articles through a hazy cloud of pot smoke and seventies electronica. It's not going to end well, but life is pretty groovy at the moment.


Do you ever have a rehearsed speech for anything? You know. The sort of thing you have to explain to people around fifty times a day after getting smacked in the eye with a fucking shinty stick. I sort of have one ready if someone says

Shinty - providing psychotic Scotsmen with weapons
and calling it 'sport' for centuries

"You do hospital radio?" The problem is, I have a particularly bad memory. So I forget the rehearsed speech and I have to come up with a different explanation every time for 'why I do it', and 'what I do'. So in the future, I'll point them to this blog and take a shit in their favourite hat if they ask me again. Because today, I will be explaining the goings on in the Grampian Hospital Radio request show every Sunday night between 8.30pm and 10pm (sometimes Fridays as well).


I first joined hospital radio sometime in October last year. I desperately needed some sort of experience to do with radio/magazines/newspapers, and after seeing an advert in my local record shop I decided to phone them up and volunteer. I started off taking requests in the hospital wards with Nick. Nick is a pretty cool guy. Together, we are a fantastic team - we know our shit. Many volunteers come and go, but a lot aren't up to going through the wards. I'm not being an arrogant dick - it's the truth. Many people have volunteered for the radio as a request collector and left the next week. Although some clearly can't be bothered committing, most people just seem to shit their pants at the idea of approaching people by themselves and asking what they'd like to hear on the hospital radio. But after going around a few times, you quickly realise that everyone is lovely. It's a sad fact that a lot of the patients don't get visitors, and they really appreciate it when you have a chat with them. It can be particularly interesting if they are tripping balls on morphine. For people that are dying, most seem awfully optimistic, which can be incredibly inspiring.


I got offered to be an actual DJ after about 3 weeks of request collecting. It took me by surprise, but I thought 'fuck it'. My first show wasn't that great.

The studio I present in. The man on the calendar is Irish
country singer Daniel O' Donnell who makes sure that I don't
bring food into the studio.

Some of the requests had bumpy starts and I stuttered a fair bit. But by now, my confidence has sky-rocketed. I kick start with a song of my own choice, dig straight into the requests, and play a few of my own things if there is time at the end. And of course, I spout a little drivel between the songs. Sometimes it's just the name and the artist, maybe the position it hit in the charts. Sometimes I talk about Bryan Ferry and his escapades (he recently married his son's ex), and more often than not I end up stupidly dancing around the studio and singing along to a song, which leaves me out of breath for when the song finishes. 90% of the time I have the studio to myself, and turning up a little bit drunk or high hasn't really made a difference (well, I didn't think it did). I don't get paid anything, and I'm probably not that great at it either. But it's incredibly fun and I can't see myself stopping any time soon.


Oh look, the internet is down. Looks like I'm going to have to post this at somebody else's place. One of the fridges doesn't work, the cooker doesn't work, the internet often goes down for no reason, my flatmates are constantly changing and I get lucky if any of them can speak English competently. There are always contact lens cases and nasal hairs filling the sink, not matter how many times I hoover the floor, it never cleans properly, I can't dry my clothes, the gas meter goes down far too quickly and it smells. Why do I miss you already. Goodbye flat, you were a shithole, but we had fun.


What I'm currently listening to > \Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News/


Thanks for reading!


P.S - The internet fixed itself before I finished. Clever girl.
P.P.S - To come up with inspiration for a title I searched my music library for 'DJ'. For whatever reason, a song called 'Moroccan Handjob' was one of the results.