In closing we expressed our gratitude to the Norwegians for their continued outstanding support of Chanters Lodge.
FEB
In closing we expressed our gratitude to the Norwegians for their continued outstanding support of Chanters Lodge.
The guest on our latest show was Sigrid Lofaldi, pictured above, a maths and science teacher from Trondheim in Norway, staying at Chanters Lodge and spending some time in Livingstone checking on the progress of a group of student teachers from University College, Trondheim, currently doing practical teachers training at Linda West Basic School. She told listeners that her students were happy, doing very well and that she was pleased with their progress. Milli Jam wondered whether this was Sigrid’s first visit to Zambia and in replying “no”, she explained to listeners that she herself had been a student teacher in Livingstone back in 2007, and had also taken a holiday in Zambia in 2009, so this was in fact her third visit.
The music on the show was excellent as usual. We opened with Kelly Clarkson’s number one hit in the USA ‘Stronger’ back to back with a new offering from Nicki Minaj titled ‘Young Forever’. George chose Danny’s ‘Ku na Kwa’ coupled with B-Flow and JK with ‘Chitemene System’. Both excellent tracks, Danny’s focusing on electricity outages suffered in Zambia and JK’s on an agricultural system applied to love life!! Milli Jam chose Ne-Yo’s ‘In Love With You’ coupled with ‘Mysterious Girl’ from Peter Andre featuring Shaggy. My ‘oldie of the week’ was ‘We Are The Champions’ from Queen (for the Zambian national team). We give a weekly prize to the first person to text us telling us who’s singing our oldie of the week – if they can – and eventually we had a winner. For a moment I thought I’d won the weekly contest! Our ‘pick of the week’ was DJ Fresh and Rita Ora’s ‘Hot Right Now’, closing with Emile Sande’s ‘Next To Me’ – informing listeners that Emile has a Zambian dad! Our show is always informative about the local and international pop scene.
Milli Jam wondered what the differences were between schools in Norway and those in Zambia and Sigrid replied that the major difference was that classes in Zambia were much larger – in fact almost twice as many students per class as in Norway. Milli Jam also wanted to know how the Norwegian weather compared to that of Zambia and our guest told listeners that when she’d left Norway earlier in the week it was -10C, windy, cold and blowing a snow storm! She loved Zambia’s sunny warmth – which did not surprise us! She also told listeners she was single, that she enjoyed cross country skiing and that her favourite music genre was Indie. She was enjoying the peaceful relaxed atmosphere at Chanters Lodge and thought the staff (Chanters Girls) were very nice. She told listeners that the following week she would be visiting Mongu in Western Province where there were also some of her students doing their practicals.
In ten years’ time Sigrid hoped she would still be teaching as she loved her job, wherever in the world she happened to be! “Great”! We said.
Meet old friends of mine Dave and Hazel Roberts (above), lively guests on the most recent edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient, featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela. For the uninitiated ‘The Experience’ is our popular Sunday night radio show airing between 20.30 and 21.30 hrs on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station, and streaming live on the internet. Zambezi 107.7 fm studios are situated on the 6th floor of Mosi-o-Tunya House, the large office block in downtown Livingstone opposite Livingstone Museum, and that’s where we go to broadcast our live show every Sunday evening!
We wished them well and ‘bon voyage’, thanked them for taking the time to appear on our show, and hoped we’d see them back in Livingstone again one of these fine days!
“Just a day before CEO Steve Kaufer fronted TripAdvisor’s first public listing on the NASDAQ, Expedia started telling a number of its global markets about the launch of its new hotel review system. Known now as Expedia Verified Reviews, only guests that stayed at a property can submit a review, by way of a form emailed to the customer after a trip. Expedia says the Verified Reviews platform has yet to be officially launched in the US and most of its other large markets, but consumers in Australia and New Zealand are already using a new feedback system and site visitors are being reassured about the authenticity of the reviews.
The review form is said to have been streamlined but allows guests to submit information which, when included in new filters on the site, will let visitors browse reviews based on proximity to amenities and attractions. Users will also be able to submit photos of the property. Expedia’s tie-in with TripAdvisor isn’t completely over – each hotel page on Expedia has an icon displaying the aggregated score on TripAdvisor of a property. A user will still be able to click on the TripAdvisor logo and be directed to the corresponding hotel page on TripAdvisor.
The relationship between Expedia and TripAdvisor at this level has often been slightly curious given that the former was once the parent company of the user review giant. TripAdvisor waited for many years in the UK, for example, before seeing its reviews appear on the Expedia site, whereas visitors to the Australia and Canadian versions saw content appear very early on in the review site’s rapid expansion around the global.
While the idea of having verified reviews is nothing new elsewhere, or indeed on Expedia, some will note the remarkable timing of the announcement and relaunch of the guest feedback platform, especially as TripAdvisor is currently embroiled in one of the regular periods when it appears to take a beating from many in the industry.”
So we’ll see what we see with guest reviews on the internet.
The music on the show was great! After the opening Olly Murs track mentioned above, we dropped ‘Born To Be Wild’ – the latest from Sean Kingston and Nicki Minaj, back to back with Alex Day’s UK Christmas hit ‘Forever Yours’. George da Soulchild, about whom there was a big feature in Zambia’s most popular national daily The Post the previous Friday showcasing his undoubted DJ and musical talents, chooses our local tracks each week on the show. This week his selections were Danny’s ‘Ifya Kon Ka on Ka’ and Chika’s ‘Chimibaba’. Milli Jam chose LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock Anthem’ which he told us is one of the most popular western tracks in the Livingstone clubs right now. He coupled this smash with Rihanna’s beautiful ‘Watch N’Learn’. After our oldie of the week, my ‘Pick Of The Week’ (another new feature for our show in 2012) was ‘Cross My Mind’ by Ludacris ft Damian Marley and Kevin Cossom. We spun the Military Wives and their lovely Christmas number one ‘Wherever You Are’ at the end of the show to say ‘bye’ to the holiday!
Bernhard and Gerda told listeners that they’d lived in Zambia in 2002-2003 when Bernhard was the civil engineer in charge of the construction of the bridge across the Zambezi between Sesheke and Katima Mulilo in Namibia – a beautiful bridge it is too! We demanded he now builds a bridge at Kazangula between Zambia and Botswana and we were treated to a lecture in why it was proving so difficult politically to get the project started, but Bernhard remained confident that the bridge would be built before long. The family had formed a consultancy company – Senex – in Zambia and were looking forward to settling in Livingstone in due course. We wanted to know if Robert had a girlfriend pining for him back in Germany, he said he had not. He told us he loves clubbing in Munich. Although he had not done the bungee jump in Livingstone he’d done the gorge swing and had also been white water rafting. Bernhard and Gerda had not!
Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing in ten years’ time, Bernhard and Gerda said they hoped they would still be around and enjoying life in Zambia, Robert said he hoped he would be following his chosen career as a marine biologist, living an exciting and interesting life. “Married with children?” I asked. The answer wasn’t “yes!”
Aimee told listeners about her two years working in broadcasting in New Zealand. We wanted to know how she and Scott had met and they told us it had been in a bar in Dublin where they’d both been with friends. Was it love at first sight? “Pretty much so!” They seemed to agree. They also told our listeners they were very much looking forward to having tea on Livingstone Island the following day and swimming in Devil’s Pool. They hoped it would be the highlight of their stay.
Asked where they’d like to be and what they’d like to be doing 10 years from now, this great looking, happy couple said they’d like to be back in New Zealand, running their own business and married. “Children?” We wondered. “Yeah! Why not?” Was their eventual reply!
The music on the show was great, once we’d sorted out one or two technical issues (it was one of those nights I’d say!) The guys opened with ‘World In Our Hands’ a great new track from Taio Cruz back to back with Drake’s smash single ‘Take Care’ recorded with Rihanna. George chose Naeto C’s ‘5 & 6’ – topical as the star is due to perform in Lusaka this Friday night. He coupled this track with Pompi ft Exile and their ‘Chipolopolo Remix’. Milli Jam featured Kelly Rowland’s ‘Work It More’ back to back with Ace Hood featuring Chris Brown with ‘Body To Body’. James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’ was the ‘oldie of the week’ from which we moved on to Trey Songz hit ‘Top Of The World’ closing with ‘Do Ya Thing’ by Rihanna.
The guys asked me about my ‘history in broadcasting’ and I explained to listeners that my first experience of the media was in Nigeria where I occasionally appeared on state television in interview programmes. During my time in Lusaka we had organized Christmas and Easter entertainment specials featuring the Cool Knights, Lubumbashi Stars, Akim Simukonda etc in conjunction with Field Ruwe, Errol Hickey and late Timmy Mvula. I’d become well known on radio through the Ridgeway Radio Request Show, a very popular Sunday night music show on national radio in 1984/5, which I hosted. We had started the Chanters Lodge Experience on 107.7 fm in 2007.
Asked where I would like to be and what I would like to be doing in 2021 (!), I said I hoped I was still in Livingstone but working rather less, and that my children were all doing well.
The tables were turned indeed!
JL told listeners he’d been retired for quite a long time and had just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with his dear wife Lorene. Evan is a nurse working in ER at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “What did your parents think about you coming to Africa”? I asked Evan. “They told me not to get engaged no matter the number of cows on offer”! She replied, laughing. It was Evan’s first visit to Zambia but JL told listeners he’d been to this country 6 times before. He’d originally heard about Chanters Lodge from a friend at Namwianga Mission in Kalomo.
The music on the show was great! We opened with The Wanted’s smash ‘Lightning’ back to back with ‘Mr Wrong’ by Mary J Blige ft Drake. Milimo chose Kay’s ‘Phone’ (‘when your phone’s switched off your heart’s switched off’) as the first of his local track selection and coupled this with Dandy Crazy’s ‘Bed Sheet’. Dandy’s a hot property these days in Zambia following his pre-election smash ‘Donchi Kubeba’. Next up was Bruno Mars with ‘It Will Rain’ coupled with Charley Pride’s ‘Bottom Line’ from his new 2011 album ‘Choices’. (“Isn’t he the one that sang Kwa Liga”? JL asked me in an aside “indeed he is” I replied).
JL told listeners that his favourite type of music was country and western and his favourite artist Willie Nelson, Evan said she loved lots of different kinds of music but her favourite band was Coldplay – she couldn’t wait to get back to the States to buy their latest album. Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing 10 years from now. JL replied predictably “alive, anywhere”! Whilst Evan said she would like to be married with children, living in Africa, and working in health care education. We hope their wishes come true!
“The Consumer Diaries is a Zambian consumer’s mouthpiece written strictly by consumers for other consumers. It contains a compilation of reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from consumers themselves. This is done in order to help people have an opportunity to rate product/service experiences that they have had, and also to investigate new products or services in order to make informed decisions.”
Wish them the best of luck!
The picture? A bottle of Zambia’s great Mosi beer – currently unavailable from distributors in Livingstone, Zambia.
Milli Jam asked Andrew and Marion which of the many countries they’d visited they loved the most. Marion said Bermuda, Andrew replied USA, explaining that he and Marion both loved rollercoasters and in their opionion the USA had the best in the world. Asked what they’d like to be doing and where they’d like to be in 10 years’ time – Andrew said he thought he’d still be working, Marion wanted to be retired and they both wanted to still be together and travelling. Nice couple! Nice show!