Following last week’s chat with Malcolm Burgess from the Brentwood Fairtrade Campaign Group, today saw the culmination of Fairtrade Fortnight, with the group hosting a Festival in the High Street to raise awareness of Fairtrade and in particular their campaign to make Brentwood an official Fairtrade town. Phoenix FM’s Helen Bealey, Scott Ross and Ed Wellman kept us updated with all the action in the High Street, including chats with the organisers and Brentwood’s Mayor, Councillor David Tee; as well as from the Library, whose Book Rest Café was serving free samples of Fairtrade cookies. Phoenix FM is pleased to be a supporter of Fairtrade, and we were delighted to be presented with a certificate by coordinator of the Brentwood group, Caryl Kwei.

I was hoping to be joined by the brilliant Chelmsford-based band Amoriste, who’d also been scheduled to perform at the Fairtrade Festival, but unfortunately due to illness they weren’t able to appear. However, I did play a couple of their songs, including their debut single, the Mascot, which will be available for download later this month. The Mascot features the voice of the legendry football results broadcaster James Alexander Gordon, which gave me the chance to mention my claim to fame that when I once phoned to speak to his son, who’s a friend of mine, a member of his family mistook me for JAG – something I’ve never quite understood, but was nonetheless flattered by! Amoriste are currently touring the south east in a red Routemaster bus. To find out more visit www.amoriste.com.

My cryptic Where am I? clue to a location somewhere in our area was “A good spot to catch some rays.”*

Track listing:

Black Eyed Peas – Where is the love?
Duffy – My boy
Cornershop – Brimful of asha
Shapeshifters – Lola’s theme
REM – Überlin
Elvis Costello – Every day I write the book
Amoriste – Saturday am
Mama’s Gun – Wishing
Aqua – Back to the 80s
Stereophonics – Traffic
Watergate – Heart of Asia
Black Box – Ride on time
Amoriste – The mascot
Hue and Cry – Labour of love
Corrs – Radio
Patrick Wolf – The city
Sunshine Underground – I ain’t losing any sleep
Living In A Box – Living in a box
Madonna – Vogue

* Where am I? was Sun Corner in Billericay.