Newsroom Blog

Thoughts from the wandering minds of Mathew and Sarah; Bedford's news team...

Welcome to the Newsroom Blog.

You won't find a huge amount of journalism here - it's mainly Math and Sarah going on about random stuff that's happened to them.  Hope you enjoy and feel free to drop us an email. bedfordnews@heart.co.uk

Monday 14th June

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothIt's finally here then.  The World Cup started on Friday afternoon, and so far I've managed to watch practically every minute - including yesterday's terrible match between Algeria and Slovenia!

This is the first time I've been in England for a World Cup; I was in a pub with a few mates for the game against the USA on Saturday evening.  It was like being in Cardiff to watch a Welsh rugby match.  The expectation is always so high, and when Gerrard scored everyone was obviously ecstatic!  But then Rob Green made his howler and by full-time everyone was really depressed - what a difference 90 minutes can make.

I'm used to taking flack about Wales' sporting success (or lack of it), but I'm not one of those in the 'Anyone But England' camp.  Honestly, I'm completely neutral about it all!  If I'm supporting anyone it'll be Holland because I got them in the office sweepstake.  Oh, and Honduras.  But the least said about that the better!

Monday 10th May

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothThings are returning to some sort of normality this week, after a month of election madness!  Thursday and Friday in particular were very busy days for me.  I went home at 1pm on Thursday and got straight into bed, hoping to get about 7 or 8 hours sleep so I'd be nice and awake for the election count at the Bunyan Centre in Bedford that night.

Unfortunately at 6pm, the people living below me decided that it was the right day to start drilling and building something.  So I was woken up with nowhere near the amount of sleep I'd wanted!  So off I went to the count with lots of Lucozade and Haribo's to keep me going.  We got the result at about 3.30am and I came straight into work.  It was a really long shift, but really exciting too!  Who knows, maybe we'll have to do it all again soon depending on what Messers Cameron, Clegg and Brown decide on over the next few days...

I hope our election coverage kept you filled in on what was going on.  I'm quite pleased that we were the only local news team to be able to offer interviews with the candidates in Bedford, Mid Beds and North East Beds.  Hopefully, it may have helped some of you to decide who to vote for!

Away from the election, there's some big news here at Heart!  Next Monday, Sarah Morris will be joining me on the news team!  I'll make sure she blogs and says hi!

Thursday 25th March

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothI've suffered my first experience of car troubles this week.  My little Clio, which has served me so well for the past two years decided it didn't want to play on Tuesday morning and wouldn't start.  Turns out the battery had completely died - but what fun I had trying to replace it!

After jump-starting the car yesterday, I managed to make it within 200 yards of Halfords in Bedford before it lost power.  Luckily I managed to roll into the service road for the retail park, rather than causing traffic chaos on Cardington Road!  We tried to jump start it again, but it was having none of it.  Not particularly wanting to push it along Rope Walk amongst some pretty heavy traffic, we started pushing it around the back of the shops instead; but there was a lorry unloading carpets blocking the way.  We tried to squeeze it between a couple of bollards into the car park, but it was too tight to get through...

In the end I had to call the AA and join there and then - 200 yards away from the shop that would have fitted the new battery for me!  When the AA man arrived, he even said he was baffled and couldn't understand why it wouldn't start!  One new battery later and all seems to be well.  But if anybody sees a black Renault Clio stranded on the side of a road somewhere in Bedford anytime soon, please stop and help!

Friday 12th March

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothFor once, this blog has actually got something to do with journalism and news!  Sorry.  I'd love to know what you think about the video report I made about the Embankment being resurfaced.  Here's the link to the story...

Embankment To Be Resurfaced

I did some TV work when I was in Uni in Cardiff so it was nice to go out with the camera for once and get some shots.  I'm pretty pleased with the finished package - thanks to Mr Dibbin for editting it together!  Let me know what you think about the video - if you all like it enough then I may well try and do a few more of them in the future.  You can get in touch with the newsteam here: Contact, Meet & Follow The News Team  And whilst you're there, you can start following us on Twitter!

Thursday 25th February

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothIt's payday!  Hurrah!  But I'll be skint again soon because I have to pay to go to Glastonbury.  Oh well - roll on next payday!

Yesterday, I got to visit the Mayor's Chambers in Bedford for the first time.  It's very fancy!  Lots of fancy ornaments and paintings and things, and also a very well stocked bar...  If Mr Hodgson ever finds that things are getting too much for him, he's well catered for if he needs a drink!

Now whoever the Mayor of Bedford is, they have someone who always makes sure that they have everything they need - and that person is a guy by the name of Barry Tappenden.  Last year Barry and dozens of others ran hundreds of miles from Dorset to Pegasus Bridge in Normandy to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.  And at this year's River Festival, he's organised an assault course with the help of the Royal Marines no less... and he's roped me into taking part!

Wednesday 17th February

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothYesterday was one of those days.  You know when you wake up and everything seems to go wrong?  That was yesterday. 

There are electronic gates to get out of our resident's car park - they wouldn't open.  I had to reverse and go back to them four times before they decided they wanted to let me through!  Then when I got into work, I must have done something to upset the technology Gods, because everything I touched seemed to stop working!  The desk in the studio wouldn't move up, my computer was soooo slow and kept freezing, and then the machine we use to record interviews died on me halfway through one in St Neots!  Not a good day.

It was a much better weekend though!  I've got to the age where my friends are starting to settle down and get married, and this weekend four of my best friends announced they're engaged!  Cue celebrations!  The hangover the next day wasn't so much fun though...

Tuesday 2nd February - Mathew

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothI'm back in work today after a long weekend for my 24th birthday, and getting up at 4.30am is always a shock to the system when you've just about got used to normal sleeping patterns again!  It's coming up to 8am now, and I'm just about starting to wake up a bit.

Back to my weekend - it was brilliant!  If you saw me in the early hours in Harveys on Saturday night then you'll already know I had a good one...  A few of my friends from Wales came over, as did loads of my mates from MK and quite a few people from work.  It all made me feel a little humble the next day to be honest that so many people came out to party.  I guess I'm lucky I've got so many great friends!

However, since I've been in work both Emma and Technical Rich have commented on "apparently" how drunk I was on Saturday night.  Even though they weren't there...  Now I admit I had a few, but I was fine, honest!  Methinks Dibbin has been over-exaggerating...

Thursday 28th January - Mathew

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothSo I'm on my own!  Yesterday was a big day here in the Heart office.  It was Andrew Commons' last day after almost 4 years of working here firstly as a reporter, and then as a fully fledged broadcast journalist.  It's a bit of a tradition when someone leaves the station for us to put together a leaving tape filled with messages and so on.  And seeing as we'd worked together for over a year it was my job to put it together for Andy.

I think he appreciated it - we've definitely got some funny people who work here at Heart!  Unfortunately I can't share with you what everyone said... this is a family station after all!

It'll be weird without Commons here - he's been here since I arrived, and now I'm the only full time journalist in Bedford.  I wonder who I'll get as a replacement...

Monday 25th January - Mathew

Mathew Williams in Bedford news boothHi everyone!  Welcome to our new blog on our brand new, shiny website!  Doesn't it look nice?  It should do - I've created half of the articles! 

Anyway, this is just a quick update (mainly so this page doesn't look really empty!).  So have fun browsing around all our new pages, and I'll update this properly later in the week.