Global VAT professional, elected Labour councillor, maker of focus music for Neurodivergent brains, and writer about whatever's currently occupying the hyperfocus slot. AuDHD. Based in Burntwood.
Parish Newsletter - theaardvark live tonight! 9pm, 17th May 2026
Parish Notices — theaardvark live, 18th May 2026
The May 2026 edition of the parish newsletter has been pinned to the notice board at Burntwood Memorial Institute. As is traditional.
Parish news includes a Sea Monkeys update, table tennis tables, and, of course, theaardvark live!
You can tune in tonight (Sunday 17th at 9pm) - live.theaardvark.co.uk.
On the matter of the name.
Today's show is being promoted as theaardvark live rather than theaardvark's radio show. This isn't a rebrand. Well, maybe it is a little one. Nobody is pivoting, though. There are no new strategic pillars.
The Tuesday afternoon slot on Lichfield Radio is now theaardvark's radio show. It runs 3–4pm, it's curated for broadcast, and it is — by the standards of a show that plays whatever I feel like — relatively considered. The Sunday night livestream is different. Longer, looser, less watershed-conscious, and streamed directly to my own server, where there’s no algorithm and no login is required to watch and/or chat. Calling both of them "theaardvark's radio show" was starting to cause confusion, mostly in my own head. So the Sunday show is now theaardvark live. Simple as that.
And there's a new, posh microphone.
This week's show will also be the first run for a new microphone. It's a RØDE NT1 5th Generation Black, a large diaphragm studio condenser that is, by any sensible standard, far more professional than I am.
The Blue Yeti was OK. It got me up and running doing a radio/livestream show, and it has been perfectly fine. But 'perfectly fine' is not 'actually good,' and the mics at the Lichfield Radio studios have shown me what a decent microphone can do. The NT1 is a decent microphone. It sits in a shock mount. It has a pop filter. In the photos, it looks like it belongs to someone who knows what they're doing.
I'm hoping it will make me sound about 5% sexier. We'll see on tonight.
And there are pork scratchings. Chocolate pork scratchings.
This Sunday's broadcast may feature a live tasting of chocolate-covered pork scratchings.
I picked them up at a Jonny Cole gig. He's the world's premiere Black Country Comedian. Or the premiere black, country comedian. Depending on whether you know the context when you read the by-line.
Three varieties, from a Black Country outfit called Pork Chocs: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and chilli milk chocolate. The packaging describes the dark chocolate variety as "dark? they've taken out the milk" and rates it six stars with an asterisk. The chilli ones ask "Hot Aye They?" The milk chocolate ones are described as "O-R-them bangin aye they."
This is, by any measure, a very Black Country product. I won't pretend otherwise. I'm more than a little apprehensive and hoping the ciders will dull the fear.
The Committee takes no responsibility for outcomes.
Tonight's playlist
MrsVark and I are off to Bearded Theory festival on Wednesday. This will almost certainly spill into Sunday's playlist. If an act is on the bill this year, there's a fair chance they'll appear in the set. No promises, no setlist, but if you want a preview of what you might hear in a field in Derbyshire next week, you could do worse.
What's coming up — and what isn't
Tuesday 3–4pm, Lichfield Radio: theaardvark's radio show this week is a prerecord. I'll be running the Burntwood Afternoon Cinema on Tuesday afternoon, which takes precedence over being live on air. The show will still go out. It'll still be worth your time. lichfieldradio.org.
Sunday 24th May: no theaardvark live. I'll be in a field at Bearded Theory, and the parish will be unstaffed. Normal service resumes the following Sunday.
This Sunday — the details
theaardvark live. Sunday 18th May. 9pm BST.
Streamed to my own server at live.theaardvark.co.uk. No account needed, chat included, and none of the corporate dystopia of Twitch. Also on Slipmat, Mixcloud Live, and, reluctantly, Twitch.
All the links are at shows.theaardvark.co.uk.
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