Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Hi everyone. It’s great to be back ‘home’ here in Bahrain after my holidays.
On my return I had to hit the ground running, as the day after arriving back I was booked to DJ and compere down at the Ritz Carlton in the beautiful Al Khayama Tent for Riffa Golf Club’s ‘closing down’ of their front nine golf course holes. This is in preparation for creating the upcoming brand new course which has designed by the top golf professional, Colin Montgomerie.
Riffa’s very own Phil Jones (affectionately known to me as Phyllis) picked me up in the afternoon to go and checkout the set up, and WOW! I could really tell that I’d been away; as I got out of the car the mugginess and heat hit me like a ton of soggy bricks. I won’t complain about rain ever again, or for a while at least or, at least until it next rains anyway.
The night’s proceedings got under way with General Manager of Riffa Golf Club; Mike Braidwood. In his speech Mike did his best to explain why his score on one of the holes was the highest by far of any golf professional in the history of the golf course – a huge 15 shots! Of course, he blamed it on his partner that fateful day.
The highlight of the night for me was when we hooked up an international link to the famous St Andrews golf course to speak with the legendary Colin Ferguson (in golfing circles also known as the Bear).
We had a good chat and Colin was his usual shy self. Not! He wished all our members good luck and said he would see everybody later in the year.
During the night I gave away a couple of golf bags that were displayed on the stage, and you should have seen some of the pained looks I got from Mike and Phil. Well, I mean a Scotsman and a Yorkshireman giving something away for nothing. Wonders will never cease. Ha!
A great night was had by all and I eventually got into my bed by about 2am to be woken by my alarm at 5.05am to get ready for my first day back on the radio. That Sunday morning was really tough. I tell you I was really flagging from 8.30 onwards. It was only all the lovely calls from the listeners that kept me going.
The rest of the week seemed to just fall back into my old routine until Tuesday morning, when during the show I had a big surprise … in trooped 23 pupils from St Christopher’s School, along with two teachers; Phil Hunter (assistant head teacher and a Geordie) and Jacqui Clarke (the Year 6 English teacher and a Scot).
They were all on a field trip for a Year 6 school project. In the project, the kids were working in groups on a media assignment which involves writing a script for their own TV show, including planning locations and props etc.
They were also required to film and edit their show. The grand finale will involve screening the programme to the rest of the pupils in Year 6 and possibly even the whole school.
I never got to do great stuff like that in school, and I dare say that if I did I’d have probably tried a bit harder.
Anyway, our very own Nadia Swan (one of Radio Bahrain’s news readers and my very own expert Cocoa maker) arranged the excursion and also got the kids in to look around the TV studios and the news department.
Three of the kids got their make up done (including one boy) and they all got to watch a live broadcast and see themselves on TV.
A big thank you from all the kids to Sami Hijris (the head of TV) for all his help. There were so many youngsters that I can’t mention all their names, but a special well done goes out to Mariah and Raif who did a great job of assisting Nadia with the programme preview, despite my many interruptions.
On Thursday I was privileged to work at the Migrant Workers Protection Society Annual Gala Charity Dinner Dance which was held at the Diplomat Radisson SAS Hotel.
It was a very special and rewarding event and commenced with some very good speeches from Mona Al Moayeed, Shaikh Abdulaziz bin Mubarek Al Khalifa, Balkrishna Shetty and William Monroe (the famous tennis player).
After the speeches Joyce Boswell, the fund-raising committee head, said those words I love so much… “the food is now ready” so I introduced the band for the night and tucked into my grub.
The band ‘Aryan Fame’, got people’s feet tapping with their great variety of songs., although it has to be said, they didn’t play any line dancing numbers for Karen and Ashley Kingstone. They thought that was a terrible shame, though I’m not sure anyone-else did.
There was an auction for a return air ticket to Amsterdam and also a round of golf at Riffa which brought generous donations.
After all the formalities, it was down to me to get the party started. I got the dance floor full of people, all in the mood to party and then, it was raffle time … which being a DJ I just hate because I have to stop the fun and clear the floor!
Anyway, the raffle raised a lot of money. I then got back up and played more tunes till the band came back on.
At the end of the evening nearly 30,000 dinars was raised for this amazing cause which helps migrant workers that find themselves in all kinds of dire situations whilst living and working in the kingdom.
Congratulations to all the winners of the last few week’s quizzes. Next week I will announce all the names of the lucky people who have got some great prizes coming their way.
All my love,
Krazy Kevin
