I interviewed Aled from Kids in Glass Houses and Ant from Tonight is Goodbye this afternoon. It was a lot of fun. We sat around and played Connect 4 and discussed Haley from Paramore, OCD, music(!!)and some other stuff, too. You'll be able to read it all soon over on Bandidge.


While I was sat in their dressing room at the Barfly singing along to Cornershop and debating the merits of Tangfastic Haribo's, something dawned on me: in my two-and-a-bit years now at university...


...not once have we been taught proper interview etiquette.


Now, I'm not an idiot. I know to say thank-you when someone does something for me. I know to say please when I'm demanding something. And I also know that every interviewee is different, and therefore every interview is different. But still.


I'm in my final year of the degree that is going to 'make' me a journalist, and today was the first time I've interviewed someone face-to-face that I hadn't met in some capacity before. I've done phoners, I've done emails and even hand-written interviews. But never have I been left in a room before and been expected to run the show.


So, as I said. I did what I do best. I whipped out Connect 4 and challenged them to war.


It worked a charm. But why do I get the feeling that if I write that in my Specialist Feature Development log, I'll get punished for it... 


Basic predicaments: I was told to get in touch with their tour manager at 6pm. Do I ring bang on six and risk there being a problem? Do I ring early, and risk annoying a busy busy man? Do I ring a few minutes late to give him time to finish what he's doing, but risk looking lazy, late and unprofessional?


And once I'm in there... when is it polite to whip out the dictaphone? What do I do if they're bored but I'm still looking for a good quote...? What if it's the other way around, I'm bored senseless but they're loving every minute of it? 


I'm all for independent learning. I'm all for first hand experience. But they say they're teaching a journalism degree. Sometimes it feels like we're teaching ourselves...