Today was a baptism of fire of sorts. Fridays, I normally read articles from the Newcastle Herald at 2RPH with the shift presenter Peter, from 10am until 11.30. It's a fairly straight forward two-hander, easier for me since my job is just reading - live to air - sure, but not difficult once you get some experience. But today Peter was called away on an emergency so I was in the presenter's chair. That is no panic either since I have done enough shifts in this role to feel reasonably confident of not throwing the show under the bus.

Only, there was no other reader today, no replacement for myself, that is, so I was left with doing both jobs. Ordinarily this would probably have meant that the program would not go to air, but I did it anyway. To give you some idea of the challenge you need to understand that the presenter is also the producer, setting up the whole program from start to finish, running both the computer and the board, troubleshooting any problems and keeping to the schedule. On top of that, of course, is all the announcing work that makes a program into a cohesive narrative.

However, when the presenter has to do this job and also read all the news articles and the program is live-to-air, well, that is a tall order. Aside from brief sponsor messages, program promos and music stabs, there is no room to even take a breath. While you are reading one article you are planning what is coming next and watching the time. As you come to the end of a story, you are reaching for another imminent story, whilst loading something else on the computer monitor to break up the talking and give listeners a small vacation from your voice. Do you get my drift?

On the way home in the train I listened to the recorded podcast of the broadcast and was surprised by how calm and in control I sounded. Some of the readings were too fast and I stumbled now and then over a word, but hey, I had one eye on the page and the other on another task. Sometimes it is good to push yourself. If it comes off you have something to be proud of. It not, it is practice for the next time around.