Sian Welby is a television presenter and radio host, who currently wakes up 3 million weekly listeners on Capital FM’s Breakfast Show with Roman Kemp and Sonny Jay. Welby has worked as a weather presenter on Channel 5 (where her creative comedy forecasts often went viral) as well as with ITV and Channel 4. In addition to her radio show, she often presents sporting shows for SKY, is a social media producer for the BBC and previously hosted her own national radio show on Heart FM.
These are a few of Sian Welby’s favourite things…
Walking around TK Maxx
I’m obsessed with TK Maxx because I’m addicted to candles and plant pots and plants. If I see a plant pot I don’t need, I’ll just get another plant to fill it. At the moment, I’ve got about seven or eight plants in my room. My favourite TK Maxx store is back up north where I’m from in a town called Newark. When I get off the train from London, I sometimes have to wait for my mum to come and pick me up. So I walk to TK Maxx and end up buying all these cushions and garden sets. Then I end up with a folding chair in my lap on the train back with me to London.
Slippers
I love slippers. It has got to the point where I now take them to other people’s houses because I hate having cold feet. I think it is strange when you get to someone’s house and have to take your shoes off with no slippers to change into because your socks are getting dirty and your feet are cold. We all need to embrace the slipper and start taking them with us on holidays and to hotels too. I always have a pair of fluffy slippers and my favourites Ugg ones. I don’t need this many pairs of slippers but I probably have about six pairs. We all need to embrace the slipper, and I think lads need to embrace the fluffy slipper too.
Murder documentaries
My persona on the radio is very happy-go-lucky and in general, I’m a very upbeat person. So it is a bit of a contradiction that I love watching murderer documentaries and serial killer exposes. My friend Yinka has just done a programme on hitmen and apparently, there’s a hit list in real life and your name could be on it. The show is called How to Hire a Hitman and it’s on Channel 4. It’s fascinating because mums, wives and neighbours are just ordering hits on people in their towns and you would never expect it. Yinka goes on a mission to find the people on the list. It’s amazing.
Chinese takeaways
My Chinese takeaway order is almost everything on the menu. I’ve got to have the prawn toast, the prawn crackers, the spare ribs, the crispy duck, the chow mein and the salt and pepper chicken. It is something that I don’t have very often but I associate it with being back home with my mum, dad and sister — very much a family thing. We always order one dish too many, but I see it as total comfort food. In London, you go for sushi or dim sum. Everything is very trendy. Chinese, for me, is a guilty pleasure that doesn’t need to be fancy. You want it from a small little local takeaway shop.
Labelling things
I don’t know where this started. I’m not sure if it was Netflix’s Marie Kondo phase or maybe it was Khloe Kardashian, but I’ve got one of those labellers from Costco and I literally print out labels for everything. Even if the jar is see-through and the point of it is that you can see it has tea bags in it, I will print the label and write tea bags on it. I label everything in my fridge and I even have a specifically labelled dairy aisle, fruit and veg area and a meat section; it’s all got little tags on it. I’m quite a clumsy, messy person — me wearing a white top is lethal — but I like cleaning and being tidy.
Enjoyed Sian Welby’s favourites? Explore last week’s Favourite Things here.
