It’s been a momentous week for the World. History has been made and a monumental barrier has been crossed. All around the globe, people have been chanting together in unison ‘A change is coming‘.

Indeed the change has come. Jo Russell has become the first female Breakfast Presenter on Absolute Radio. Admirably assisted by her Vice Presi-enter (see what I did there) Ben Jones, she took the air on Monday like a seal launching itself off an ice flow. Graceful, purposeful and slick. No quiet slots for her at 2am to let her get quietly settled in. She was thrown right into the deep end doing the full Breakfast Show.

I’d like to be the first person to congratulate her. Whether it be strongarming her 10 year old niece to appear on the show for a lyrics based, cheesy competition or purposely inviting the wrath of the listeners for declaring that cats are stupid, she has put a hell of a lot of effort in and has done a brilliant job. She has, might I add been a joy to work with. Mind you, I work with Christian usually, so barring Absolute Radio signing up Robert Mugabe for holiday cover, anyone’s going to seem nice.

There have been some bumps though. For instance when I suggested a Q&A session with the listeners on Wednesday’s show I thought it would be a good way for all of the Absolute Radio extended family to get to know our newest DJ. It was going well until we opened it up to phones and texts. I must say a big thank to all those budding Oscar Wilde’s out there who all got in touch with the hilarious ‘How big are your Knockers?’ lines or variations on the theme. Still though, she managed what numerous people have tried and failed at. Getting Ben Jones to take his hat off. I don’t know how she did it. It was with a mixture of charm, flattery and outright bullying that she managed to get him to unveil his bonce on Tuesday. I would like to go on record as saying ‘Ben… it suits you’. There’ll be more to come from her as she’ll be warming the crowd up for us on early Breakfast from Wednesday to Friday and more importantly will be doing Breakfast at the weekends.

Enjoy the fireworks this weekend everybody and remember when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament 408 years ago he was trying to kill King James to bring about a Catholic monarchy NOT fighting for the right to give you freedom to muck about with cheap imported fireworks from Shanghai.

So kids be careful and remember, fireworks were designed to be used in conjunction with milk bottles not milky botties…

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KgMTmXcMS1E (NSFW).

Brian