From the massive welcome posters during Michaelmas, to the ongoing (and often entertaining) Facebook activity, CamFM has upped its visibility this year, and I’ve been tuning in quite regularly. I think it’s worth checking out some of the shows on offer, so I thought I’d share the wisdom on Monday’s dose.

An hour with Daniel Edward at 10-11am was the start to my day, and will be so for the entirety of term. This is a new daily show and a great one for exam season. My morning doesn’t quite start on time for the breakfast show, so this is perfectly placed. Tuning in from the comfort of my bed, it is fair to say that by the time the ever so catchy and upbeat opening number (‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’) comes booming from my laptop, I am very much awake. Cue an hour full of feel-good tunes to kick-start the morning. With old pop hits from the likes of B*witched and Busted, prepare to be dancing around your room before 11am – quite a feat. The show also features a quirky ‘10 AT 10 PAST 10’ feature, with some entertaining three-word musings from listeners on their day ahead.

After this fine start to the morning there’s enough feel good energy buoying me up to work steadily through the day. Admittedly by five-ish - that excruciating hour before dinner - I am beginning to wane. Nicely-timed from 5:30 – 7pm, ‘Freshly Squeezed’ comes to the rescue and lifts me through the hour ahead. The sign of good radio for me is that I can leave it on in the background and work, read or chat over, and this is exactly what Freshly Squeezed delivers. If I’m being really pernickety, my one niggle was having to Google the lyrics of songs I liked in order to find out what they were. Thankfully this was sorted after the first half hour. Overall, good tunes and fun chatter – definitely one to have on in the background. 

To round off the evening I returned to the online player at 9pm, just in time for this week’s Not Only Indie. I hadn’t tuned into this one before, but since I was entertaining, some music was required. This week was a ‘golden oldies’ special complete with the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra, an unexpected though rather pleasant surprise from student radio! This one didn’t feel as smooth as some of the other shows, but the off-the-cuff feel is part of its charm. The chat is mostly music-related and, while a degree of this is fine, I found myself missing some of the lighter chatter and features on offer from the other shows. That said, it was an hour of good music, and a fix of both The Cure and The Smiths certainly raised this one in my esteem…

On that note, I can only conclude that Monday was a good day to listen in. These three provided a well-timed backdrop to the day, with great variety and great music.