Voices Off

Tuesday afternoon and I've taken a temporary absence from the airwaves. Can't shake off this sore throat and cold. Going into its fifth week. Me and the rest of you. If you haven't got the stomach bug that's now doing the rounds you're probably blowing your nose and coughing up yuck.

Usually having a cold is great if you're a female broadcaster. It lowers the voice, gives us a more bassy sound and is generally considered more attractive. So they say! The alternative is smoking 20 Woodbine a day. Which I am not recommending. 

Except last Sunday night, Sounds Classical, I went on air at eight with a certain catch in my voice, and thought of Dervla Kirwan's voice wooing us in those ads for M&S food. I could do for classical music what she has done for high street ready meals! 

The bubble burst nearly two hours later, five-to-ten, halfway through an interview with Brian Irvine when I had the biggest coughing fit ever. Ironic seeing as Brian is the Ulster Orchestra's Associate Composer and on all their concert programmes there's the warning to stifle your coughs while the music is playing. 

All I can remember is feeling the tickle start and then watching Brian's mouth open and close as the Herculean effort involved in stifling the cough made tears pour down my face. So now I'm coughing very loudly and crying at the same time. The more I tried to stifle it, at one point I was under the desk, the worse it got. 

I knew I was in serious diffs so I handed Brian his own flyer and croaked a strangled sounding "you" followed by *cough* "read " another strangled "it" *cough* "out".

So can I apologise now to Brian and say that his new project "Rain Falling Up" sounds great, the bits I heard, and that it's on in the Waterfront Hall Belfast on the 20th March at 7pm. The Ulster Orchestra with 400 school children and nearly 100 elderly people singing the story of a boy called Jake who builds a gravity defying switch and floats off into outerspace.

Where I wished I could have gone at 21.55 on Sunday night past.

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