Hoist The Skull And Crossbones
Things were getting just a little too predictable around here, so I've decided we should relaunch a pirate radio station. Radio Scotland was, in fact, the name of one of the original pirate stations. It was shut down in 1967 but this Thursday morning, at eleven o'clock, its spirit will live again. Aye, aye, me hearties, and so on and so forth.
I put this idea into play last week after seeing a trailer for the new Richard Curtis movie and after listening to Pirate Johnny Walker on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 2. I was aware that Scotland had its own pirate radio folklore and that we should resurrect those memories.
But here's how an idea can get out of hand. I phoned Stephen Hollywood, the man in charge of the MacAulay & Co programme, and suggested we split frequencies for half an hour on Thursday morning and transmit the "pirate" station on Medium Wave. I mentioned that Tony Currie was a bit of an expert on these matters and that he could present the station from a different studio. At that point Stephen mentioned he was experimenting with a new bit of technology and wondered if we might actually transmit Pirate Radio Scotland from a boat on the Clyde.
The next morning Tony approached me at my desk and said that we might as well go the whole hog and transmit the station from outside the three mile limit, just like they had to do back in the 'sixties.
"You mean from the actual ocean? ", I asked.
"Yes. Why not?"
Well of course the way things work at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is that lots of people like talking about ideas, but eventually some hapless producer has to put it all into action. That producer is Lesley Kay and on Thursday morning you'll be able to hear what she has come up with.
I'm sure it will all be ship shape.
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