Only after two hours of sleep Bam Bam woke me up at 5.22am in the morning. I had to be ready to go in ten minutes. I took a shower and got downstairs, jumped into his Land Cruiser and with breaking all the laws (drive over 90m/h, ignoring traffic lights), we got at the studio at 5.59. Hello Bam Bam Breakfast Show on KissFM!
While Bam Bam was into his rush as every deejay on air is, I met his producer Moley and his sidekick Streetboy. The producer of the show does really everything, he even parks the cars of Bam Bam and Streetboy at the garage nearby.
After some good hot coffee a big box with about 20 donuts in it got delivered at the studio. I love radio!
Just experiencing Bam Bam presenting this whole show on the most popular radio station in the UK was really breathtaking; he is sooo fast! And everything goes so up-tempo. You would wonder what’s in the donuts!
Around 8 o’clock he took me in his show and we had a great time talking and laughing about a lot of things. You should have heard it.
And after I put the phone number of the studio on this website [removed within a few hours of course], phone calls came in from other parts in England, but also from this lady from Niagara Falls in New York state, who listened to the show through the internet!
DJ Bam Bam came up with the idea to give me away on air, to my next host.
So whoever called to the studio could invite me to stay-for-a-day at their place, live! And to see that phone terminal in the studio blinking, that was incredible. Finally it was the 27-year-old Heidi from Isleworth (‘Hello I am blond and single’) who got assigned to be my next hostess. It was a little embarrassing, but also pretty funny.
After his show, at 10 am, Bam Bam got in different important meetings, so I settled myself behind one of the computers in the building and started to go through all my emails and write some updates. I had stories to tell!
With only two hours of sleep, it was very difficult to see those other people working hard and very alive!
Around 3pm Bam Bam and I got back to his home. In the car he came with his idea around his gift.
He gave me two crates of alcoholic fizzy drinks and a big sign saying letmestayforaday.com, which of course were too heavy to carry with me on my way to my next hostess.
That was just part of the game. Because Robin Banks, the afternoon drive time show deejay at KissFM, would follow me on air as he told his listeners where I was standing. Everybody listening could give me a ride, but no longer than 10 minutes. Then they had to drop me off again…
Bam Bam dropped me off at the M25, the 118km ring road surrounding the greater London area, and of course with a big smile at the side of the road – the wrong direction! “Bye Ramon, good luck!”
Then Robin would call me every 10 minutes to find out if I had a hitch and followed my whereabouts until I would arrive at Heidi’s home in Isleworth.
Image me standing at the side of the road – in the middle of a traffic jam! – and everybody is smiling and waving at me! Some were even blowing the horn, because they heard me speaking on the radio at the same time. Did everybody listen to KissFM in their car?!
Percey was the first to pick me up. He was driving this small Ford station car and with all the crates, my backpack and me, his dad had to find a place in the back of the car. After ten minutes they had to drop me off again and I thanked them.
Within a few minutes another car stopped, this time Lalji gave me a ride. After he spoke with Robin Banks on the radio, he got a lot of phone calls from his friends and family who heard him live. ‘Yes, indeed, I have him in my car right now!’.
Slowly, I was getting closer to Isleworth. Bazz was my next driver to load the crates of alcohol into his car to the next stop 10 minutes later. And everybody nicely got themselves a bottle from these crates.
Here I got the last ride from a group of young guys driving around town just to find me! They were really happy to have found me and got their few seconds of fame on the radio too. When we arrived at Heidi’s street, she had just come home herself too. ‘Hi, I am Ramon, your guest for tonight’.
She was really surprised to have me come over to her place with this complete radio-show-hype-thing around it. The guys from my last ride all got a drink at Heidi’s house and there I finally relaxed on her couch…
But this relaxing could not take long. She took me to a local pub with her car, where I also met her two great lady friends. I cannot remember if it was Lesley or Heidi who can talk sooo tooo much. It was even hard to keep up with sometimes.
I had to tell my great story of life (about the last 31 days mostly) a couple of times to other friends of Heidi, who are regular costumers in that pub. They had a great laugh about everything. I was happy to be Heidi’s trophy for a day!
We had a nice dinner at this pub (steak with blue cabbage!) and after dinner we said goodbye and Heidi and me got back to her apartment in Isleworth.
Finally I could recover from my minimum sleeping and around 10pm Heidi placed a big mattress in the living room, because we had to wake up at 4.45am again, for something totally different…
Goodnight Isleworth, London!
