Blogging Killed the Radio Star: a.k.a That One Time I Was On The Vanessa Feltz Show

Actually, a better title for this entry would probably be something like, “Being so nervous she almost threw up on her dressing gown killed the radio star” but that doesn’t sound so good, and is way harder to sing, so let’s just stick with this one. Also, “radio star” is just a little bit of an overstatement, but let’s let that one slide too, because yesterday? Before I’d even had my first coffee of the day, checked my email or, indeed, got dressed? I appeared on the Vanessa Feltz show on BBC Radio London.

To be honest, the “no clothes” bit isn’t quite right, because at some point between the phone call from the researcher asking me if I’d do it, and being live on air, I managed to find the time to shrug off my ratty old dressing gown and throw on some clothes. I dunno, it’s just felt important that I be clothed for the occasion, somehow. It was only as I got ready for bed last night that I realised I’d been wearing my underwear inside out all day. Ah well, at least it wasn’t TV…

So anyway, I was asked onto the show to speak about shoes. Well, obviously. I mean, what the hell else would I talk about? Apparently women spend over £33,000 on shoes in their lifetime, you see, and they were looking for a shoe expert to talk about this. Yes, a “shoe expert”. Because I am TOTALLY one of those. GOD, I knew all those shoes would come in handy some day. (Obviously, the radio people were actually looking to speak to Gemma about this subject, but she was on holiday, so they got stuck with me. Sucks to be them, no? ) People may mock me and my obsession with footwear, but LOOK WHERE IT HAS GOT ME, people. (She says sitting in her spare bedroom in her ratty old dressing gown.)

Vanessa herself was on holiday yesterday, so I was interviewed by Lesley Joseph, which was kind of surreal for me, because I used to watch her on TV years ago, and then suddenly there I was, babbling nonsense to her about shoes. About halfway through, they brought on another guest and the producer came back onto my line and told me I was done, so all the listeners heard me going “OK then, bye!” and then everyone else going “Ooh! Looks like we’ve lost Amber!”, but that was totally NOT MY FAULT and they hadn’t lost me at all, although by that point they probably wished they had. I mean, this is the girl who doesn’t even like talking to people on the phone because of that whole “inability to speak and think at the same time” thing, so getting me to speak on the radio was just asking for trouble, really.

I haven’t been able to listen to it. Well, OK, I listened back to the first ten seconds when Terry played it back to me, then I had to stick my fingers in my ears and go “Lalalalala!” really loudly to block it out, because the sound of my voice is excruciating to me. I am comforting myself, though, with the knowledge that this was just BBC London, not the whole country. I mean, there’s hardly anyone lives in London, right?