It was kind of Nicholas, pictured above in the Chanters Lodge restaurant with Chanters Girls Monica and Susan, to appear this week on our radio show – The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George Soulchild. Why? Because the show goes out on Livingstone’s Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm at 20.30 hrs every Sunday night, and that just happened to be the time the World Cup Final was on TV! We offered a prize for anyone to tell us by text if there was a score before we went off air and by whom. Half time it was 0-0. Lol, as they say!

“Why?” Milli Jam asked me, a bit mournfully, as the show started, didn’t you cancel the programme because of the football?” I told him our reasons – we believed quite a few people watch football on TV and listen to our show on their phones at the same time. There are plenty of people, especially ladies, who don’t like football and prefer our show. Then, what about people without access to a TV? And, Oh! I added, “we’re under contract!” Enough said.

Nicholas Muscara our Guest for the show is an interesting young man, studying for a BA at the University of Rice in Texas, he’s currently on a short assignment in Zambia researching the history of restaurants in Livingstone. I came across him, his professor and a couple of other students having lunch at Chanters. Nicholas asked me if he could interview me on his subject some time. I agreed on the understanding that he’d appear as our Guest on this week’s show. And so the deal was done.

I gave Nicholas an extended interview off air, and answered a few questions on the show about where I thought tourism was heading in Livingstone in general. “Why?” George Soulchild “have you invited someone as a Guest on the show who’s not staying at the Lodge?” We laughed. Jolly Boys, where Nicholas is staying, the famous backpackers in Livingstone, have always been good supporters of Chanters Lodge so that’s not an issue.

Music wise it was a mixed bag. There were three Zambian tracks and this week I’m hoping George’s supplementary blog will tell us what was played, who played the tracks and in what language they were recorded etc. He’s promised ‘tomorrow’. Milli Jam chose ‘Lost’ recorded by BoB ft IT – a favourite track of Milimo’s at the moment, Fire by Stone ft Judy – didn’t do much for me. We closed with Usher’s – Daddy’s Home. I chose some mundane stuff – Snow Patrol – ‘Chasing Cars’ and ‘Human’ by The Killers. Brandy’s ‘Right Here Departed’ for the England team.

Nicholas told us he has a girlfriend Molly in High School in North Carolina. Serious? It seems so. Nicholas seemed a rather serious young man anyway. As part of his research he’d been down to the main local market to cook nsima with the market ladies. Now that I’d like to have seen! Had he enjoyed the experience? Yes! And I hope the help we gave him with some of our knowledge of Livingstone Restaurants over the years has helped his research, and that he enjoyed coming on the show too!

Next week’s programme will feature the winners of our World Cup Competition for the Chanters Girls! We will guest Man On Sport – Patrick Kasoka, finding out more about him and having him present the girls their winnings!