My Ear Candy #37 Alison Ellis

I pen this week’s missive with trepidation since my guest on Friday was Alison Ellis, boasting copywriting skills amongst many of her talents. Botch this and I’ll have enough egg on my face to make an omelette. I’m already wondering if I shouldn’t have split that first sentence into two and as for the use of emojis, I assume these are an industry standard ‘no-no’ but I can't help myself 🙄😬😎.

Alison owns Aberdeen based public relations company Korero, assisting businesses with their internal and external connections. PR is as much about communicating with your own workforce as it is positioning yourself to the wider world and that’s where Korero come in. Have a gander here to get a fuller flavour or better still, choose Stoney Baloney from this Listen Again link and you’ll hear Alison describe her business firsthand. Just fast forward for the bit when she plays ‘Rhythm Is A Dancer’.

So, onto the music and the merits, or otherwise, thereof. At the eleventh hour, Alison was forced to revise her selections since one of them was discovered to be so expletive ridden that we’d have been dragged off air within thirty seconds. Jurassic 5 are fine rappers but their mothers’ ought to wash their potty mouths out with soap. Iggy Pop replaced them with his ‘Lust For Life’, a fine choice in stark contrast to the lamentable ‘Rhythm Is A Dancer’ which had been played earlier, I’ll never forgive myself for the absentminded head bobbing during its airing, boo to studio webcams, I’m now bang to rights. It’s high time I set firmer ground rules regards guests’ choices, there’s just not enough jangly guitared indie, synth driven electro or Bob Dylan to my liking. Such oversights will drive my audience figures southwards and given I’m not into Chris Evans territory quite yet, it needs addressing pronto.

Speaking of audiences, it was a pleasure to have Alison’s four year old daughters, Bella, listening in, although 9.30pm is surely beyond bedtime even if it isn’t a school night. My kids are the same mind you, eking every last waking hour out until their eyelids can take no more. How different, however, when you reach forty something status and the reverse becomes true, I’d kill for an 8pm finish.

The show fair barrelled along as we addressed the merits of male dancing (to my mind there are none), the ‘English, Scottish or British’ argument (both of us claiming to be all three), backpacking, journalism, radio, this and indeed that. Alison is dead to the concept of football chat and for once this was a good thing, I’ve got the hump since Villa lost out on automatic promotion and have no desire to talk about pig bladders right now.

Thank you Alison for a splendid evening, do come back soon (minus the foul mouthed Jurassic 5) and apologies for the lame writing style herewith, consider it an equaliser against your calamitous Snap selection.

Alison’s selections
Malcolm Mclaren – Double Dutch
The Chemical Bothers - Hey Girl, Hey Boy
Snap - Rhythm Is A Dancer
Iggy Pop – Lust For Life
The Supernaturals – Smile
Otis Reading – Sitting On The Dock Of a The Bay.