Pop Shield

One of those days today. One of which days? Well, you’ll see…

The day starts with my nearest and dearest missing their wake-up call. That never happens. The weather is dreadful, and the traffic isn’t good. That often happens. I catch my train and upon exiting the station I realise I have missed a message saying my start time has moved earlier and I’m due to start, well, now. I am officially late. That never happens. I call the studio, ask if they are ok to start without me, divert my walk to the nearest tube and arrive at Dave Wrong’s studio to find that they haven’t started yet, so I’ve missed nothing. I put on some of the house DT100s and get cracking on editing the Chatties and Fictoids. Once that’s done, I set about editing five short telephone interviews about various pantos going on around the country. Oh no I don’t…

After that I edit an interview with fake northerner Clive Orange. It’s full of unbroadcastable material. I’m supposed to be de-umming but while I’m at it I de-chauvinise it too. Take that, Orange! ‘Thanks’ says Dave afterwards ‘nice job on the editing’. Contrary to what you might think, that often happens.

What happens next? Well, I give Ian a toilet break and then set about joining our team meeting to catch up with Mate. They are in the club. I arrive and to my amazement I find Guy holding court. That never happens 🙂 Then I head off to the mech workshop on important business which I’ll tell you about soon. Then I go back to Nations Favourite and put a whole load of Christmas CDs in staff pigeonholes for a man from Fatal Refraction. That never happens. Then Jack Daniel comes and asks me about my new piece of portable technology. That always happens.

Before I know it it’s time to go and do Arthur Tartar. There’s a broken lamp and a broken producer that need fixing, plus a text from my window cleaner (‘too stormy to risk going up the ladder’) and a warning about the Auto Robot from Jon, a note left from Jill and a phone call from the office to deal with. The trains are broken, Gareth’s son is sick, his wife’s stuck at Victoria, can you do a double shift from Dinnertime straight into Jane Smiley’s show? Well, no choice but to say yes. It’s going to be a long night.

If truth be told, my major concern through all of this is what about my stomach. How am I to get through the sumptuous smells of the on-air cooking feature? I am thankfully given a sample of said food but alas with no fork it’s a bit of a non-starter.

At the end of Dinnertime, the Auto Robot fails so we miss the first second of the news before I crossfade like the clappers to the reserve line. I have no time to recover from any of this as I’m back on air within an hour and have a band to rig and soundcheck for in the meantime. I run about collecting mics and chairs and cables and stands. Plugger Joe takes pity on me (no one likes a hungry engineer) and very kindly pops out to get me some food. But again, no utensils. This time it’s serious. Finger food it is then.

Luckily, I have a reasonably good idea about what the session will entail as I was down to do it before Beef came off his bike and my shifts all changed around. However, no amount of emails prepare me for the haphazard energy around these musicians this evening. They’re very unfocused and we are short on time. Oh, this is all over the place. Because of all this I haven’t finished laying out the desk nor had time for a sensible preview of any material before show time. Unfortunately, I have to unpick some historical processing on Jane’s play out sources as we go along. She always changes her fader order, but it stays the same layout on the control room desk. Without a desk reset, this can have dangerous implications. Nobody likes the sound of that Lazor Right record at the best of times and not least if it is played through the extreme EQ of Shouty Man’s mic channel.

Anyroad. All of this pales into insignificance when we realise from the newsreader that they are getting reports that Nissan Maindealer may have died. That never happens. We have been preparing for this moment in broadcasting for so long it feels just plain odd that it is happening now. The protocols are all there. It’s just a case of following them – if anyone can quite remember what they are. No time to dig out that email, luckily the duty exec is on the end of a mobile phone to assist Ellie in a refresher crash course.

We carry on with the normal show pretty much before the news breaks. At some point the next song scheduled to be played is a track called ‘Holding On To Life’. Eek. We drop it. And so, we tone down the show, and when the newsreader is ready and armed, we fade to a ‘news flash’. Jane is the model broadcaster in this situation. Her delivery tasteful and respectful. The newsreader is really on it too. At times like this you see the professionalism in people shine through.

Years ago, I was working on Dave Wrong when DJ Reel died. I was younger and more naïve then. I found it really hard that day to just become part of the broadcasting machine and I felt shocked by my colleagues appearing to be so detached from it all. Now I see it’s a protection mechanism. I am more that way inclined too these days. That said, as the newsreader opens the bulletin with the words ‘Nissan Maindealer has died’ we all are shaken out of our broadcasting bubble into a moment of true sadness.

Then into a planning whirl again. How to get out of the news and back into the longer news bulletin? We play two more low key songs. I decide against fading up the flaky Auto Robot and take the news studio in direct. It’s a good job as the line fails again. I’ve been crossing all my fader fingers that the newsreader will read to time. Otherwise, the next pre-recorded show has to be played out manually and it will be another two long hours until I can leave the building. Luckily, he does, despite ‘other news’ starting with about 20 seconds to go. The next show starts. I hand over network control to the Reserve Robot, derig the studio and walk to the station, pondering to myself. What did just happen?

You see, that sort of day.