Monday 23 March 2009

The perils of podcasting

Last week I was interviewed for my friend Richard’s podcast. It was my first experience of podcasting and I was very excited, although a bit nervous that I might turn into a gibbering goon when confronted with a microphone. History had warned me that this might be the case. I’ve always found recording music to be a tricky business and my brain invariably turns to mush the second that the record button is pressed…

So I had done my research, I was dressed smartly (yes, I know it’s not a visual medium, but it does influence my state of mind!) and I had spent the morning fine tuning my ‘academic self’ (she’s like me only a bit anal when it comes to dates and statistics).

What could go wrong?

Unfortunately, what I hadn’t quite counted on was ‘the giggles’. I thought that ‘the giggles’ was an affliction limited to quiet school assemblies and when being told off by your parents for attempting to drown your brother, but apparently it’s a latent sleeper in adults, just waiting to burst out at the most inappropriate time. Luckily it was Richard, the podcast host, who kicked it off, dissolving into hysterical laughter whenever he pressed the record button. This inevitably sparked off my fit of the giggles and we sat sniggering like two naughty schoolchildren for ten minutes or so before our first good take.

Then after ‘the giggles’ came ‘the erms’ (I didn’t realise that I say ‘erm’ so much in one sentence!) and eventually a general cacophony of noise descended upon us. Squeaky chairs, coughing, rumbling stomachs; everything and anything that could possibly either embarrass me or trigger off the giggles once again.

An hour or so later and we were finished. Apparently I sound quite posh which is a shocker, so I’m hoping that Richard can edit in an accent. Glaswegian maybe, or Welsh. South African would be amusing. God forbid that anyone might be listening to the content…

2 comments:

  1. GIGGLES???? One or two manly guffaws maybe(and those only to put you at ease). And I'm sorry but that was certainly not my chair...

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  2. Oh come off it, you giggle like a schoolgirl ;)

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