Slides That Follow Your Voice: Cockney Accent Radio Show

Slide 1: The Night Desk

0:17It's twenty past midnight, you're listening to The Night Desk, and if you're awake, you're either working, worrying, or feeding somebody very small. Whichever it is, you're in the right place. I'm Danny, I'll be here till five, and the kettle's on, uh... metaphorically, because the studio kettle went to the great kitchen in the sky in March and the budget hasn't recovered. [chuckles]

0:39Tonight, as every night, the show's yours. The texts are open on the usual number, and the first one in, at twelve oh four, is from Marcia, who's a night porter at a hospital I won't name, who says the vending machine on floor three has swallowed her money for the fourth night running, and would I say something. Marcia, I've said something. I've said it on air. If the machine's listening, and I believe it is, return the two pounds forty, two pounds forty. [laughs]

Slide 2: 2 pounds 40

1:11Coming up before one we've got the shipping forecast, which I know a lot of you listen to without ever having seen a ship, and I won't ask why, because I do the same. After that, the long hour, one to two, which is for the drivers. If you're out there tonight on the ring road, the roadworks at junction six, no, seven are still there, they've been there since the spring, and I've started to think of them as a landmark rather than a delay.

Slide 3: The running order

1:38At two we've got the book, which this month is a detective story set on a canal boat, read by a woman with a voice like a warm bath, and at three I'll do the quiz, which nobody has won since October, and I'm starting to take it personally. Four months. Four months of rivers and capital cities and nobody's got the full five. I've made them easier. I made them so easy the producer refused to read one of them, on principle. Still nothing. I've got a prize that's going out of date. It's biscuits. Lovely biscuits. Anyway. I've not read the book yet, I'm told it's good.

2:18Right. Last night, about half two, a man called Ron rang in. Ron drives a taxi, Ron has driven a taxi for thirty-four years, and Ron rang to tell me he'd just dropped a fare at the station who turned out to be the girl he took to a dance in nineteen seventy-nine, and that she recognised him before he recognised her, and that she hadn't paid, because he wouldn't let her. He was parked up at the rank when he rang, with the engine off, which for Ron is a statement.

Slide 5: He just wanted to tell somebody

2:49He didn't want advice. He just wanted to tell somebody, at half two in the morning, and I was the somebody. That's what this show is. It's the somebody.

Slide 6: It is the somebody: 4:15

3:03We had two hundred and twelve texts in the next hour, and about forty of them were people asking if Ron had got her number, and I'm uh, pleased to say Ron texted in at four fifteen to confirm that he had, and that she'd texted him first, and that he'd needed his daughter to show him where the message was. [laughs] Hang on, texts coming in. Someone says they were on that bus in seventy-nine. The bus? There wasn't a bus. The dance. Right. Someone else says, is Ron single, and, no, that's the point of the story, mate. Keep up.

3:41So that, that's the... So that's the standard. That's what you're up against tonight. If you've got a Ron story, I want it.

Slide 7: So that is the standard

3:49Weather, quickly. Six degrees, dry, fog on the low ground from three, so go steady through the marshes, and if you're on foot, wear something bright.

4:00I say bright. My mum made me wear a yellow coat you could see from space. I hated it. I was never run over. Mum, if you're up, which you are, I was going to say something about the coat, and I've forgotten what. You were right, probably. You usually were. [sighs]

4:19Here's a song. It's an old one, it's a slow one, and it's for Ron, and for the woman who texted first. Ron, if you're driving, pull over for this one. Just the first verse. Stay with me. The Night Desk, till five.