Pop Shield

Back in the day on the Nations Favourite breakfast show, food was hero-worshipped. Every day Jerry Wobegon always had all manner of food sent in by listeners which was whisked up to the studio, still warm, whereupon the skeleton staff working on the show did their best to consume it all.  Hungry early morning scavengers (other engineers, newsreaders) would circle the studio in the hope of a titbit.  Trembling London Control personnel would survey the studio via the studio cams and to their horror see a full roast turkey will all the trimmings being carved up within spitting distance of the DJ mixing desk.  During the records, they could witness all and sundry cramming as much as they could into their mouths before the next link.  It was never too early for any food stuff, not even an Indian takeaway washed down with flat beer. 

A few years ago on Shrove Tuesday, I happened to be working on the breakfast show on the Nations Favourite.  A catering company had sent in a basket of cooking ingredients to make pancakes: eggs; flour; milk; lemons; sugar and – thoughtfully – a fish slice.  This of course frustrated the hell out of Jerry. “What are we to do here without a range?  Starve!” he proclaimed to the listeners.  ”It’s the engineer’s job to do this, and Pop here hasn’t even offered to get out a skillet or a pan and cook them for us!”.

With this, I was goaded into taking the kit home with me at the end of the day, whereupon I dutifully cooked some delicious pancakes for my nearest and dearest.  This went down very well, as you might imagine.  It took no time at all for the new fish slice to be christened “Wobegon’s Wand”.  

And so, we photographed a snack of steaming pancakes and emailed them to Glasgow Boy.  The following day, Jerry updated the nation on the whole saga.

Since that very day, Wobegon’s Wand has been the best-loved member of our utensil drawer.  It is amazing how much fun you can have in the kitchen, flipping and tossing things while you make up little jokes in your head about it.