The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

---

Doesn't look as though we'll be seeing much of Ashley Blake for a few weeks at least (depending on the outcome of the trial), following him being charged for affray, wounding and possession of an offensive weapon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/7851616.stm

Tut tut.

This is the 3rd time to my/our knowledge that 'The Place 2B' has caused our Ash a bit of grief.

If you search out an earlier post of mine refering to Ashley's off screen escapades, which was reported in the Sunday Mercury at least a couple of years ago, it refered to financial troubles plus Ash getting into trouble for sending invites via the BBC internal mail system.

Maybe it's time to cut your losses Mr Blake?

Any idea who's doing 'Inside Out' in his absence?

Is it affecting this week's show too, in other words, are the links being refilmed with A N Other, or not?

Quick plug for Jo Malin out & about on Friday this week, collecting your old mobiles for WM Kidney Kids!

I've heard someone who listens to WM with a almost psycotic passion, that Mailn said on air that apparently its in her contract that allows her to present Midlands Today one day per week, and Inside Out as well.

I guess then she will get the Inside Out gig, whilst Mr Blake spends more time with his legal team...

I think that's very unlikely.

Sounds good to me. Inside Out would be perfect show for Jo if things do not go well for 'Ash' . What a turn around that would turn out to be with Jo on in the west and Marie Ashby in the East for the BBC. ITV local news will spinning in it's grave.

Suzanne Virdee will be doing Inside Out

She didn't do too bad either considering it was probably a rush to record the links.

Any idea whether they were recorded Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday?

Back to Jo Malin, & an interview in today's Birmingham Post has the comment along the lines of 'They had to get new headphones for me as the others were too big!'

So who at WM has the biggest head then?

A quick reminder of how the new schedule shapes up on Monday to Fridays from next week :

500am Mollie
630am Flupton
930am Flupton & Jo
1000am Jo
1200pm Doolan
200pm Les Ross(However Danny Scouser is covering the first few weeks while Les is on hols!)
400pm Franksy, then as current schedule.

david lowe of bbc news music fame was on the janice long show this morning on bbc wm. i switched on at around 10.45 to hear mr lowe explaining the inspiration behind the bbc news music. he went on to do some live mixes to air and even played the first attempt at the brief, which was undeniably average.

well worth a listen on the bbc wm website (which will appear some time after the show finishes at 12.00)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_wm/

Thanks for pointing this out. I've extracted the interview as an MP3, and deleted the bits in between for anyone interested. Sorry about the quality - the online stream is only 44kbps. Download from Here.

I love their reaction to the people on newswatch who moan on