Pop Shield

“Been writing lately, Pop?” Mate asks me over chicken in the Maid Of Orleans canteen last week. “Nope”, I say, “but there’s definitely been some stuff brewing. Plus, I want to write about the hilarious Molly Carlton Mudstock Mimegate scandal, but I need to gather some more information first. “What do you want to know?” say The Mixmaster General and Roger Andrews. I start grilling them about sax packs. In the mists of time this tale may or may not come to light.

But in the meantime, a nod to the past few weeks, which have been a blur of sessions, desk faults, pilot shows, long planning emails interspersed with inefficient sleep and peppered with random conversations with the rich and famous about my impending parenthood.

“It’s going to be a girl. Trust Mystic Suzy The Trucker’s Floozie” says Suzy Travel. “Actually, no I’ve changed my mind. A boy.”

“One thing is for sure, Suze.” I reply. “It will be one of the two.”

Dave Wrong is full of questions and ideas relating to hospitals, cheap pushchairs and eating coal. “Tell you what, Pop,” he says, “once the baby has arrived, bring it into work and I’ll show you how to hold it properly.” Now there’s an offer.

Jane Smiley discusses the merits and downfalls of different forms of pain relief, whilst Pop Pickering offers his services for the birth itself. “I think I better be present at the delivery. That way when the baby arrives, I can be standing there ready to say “Greetings, Pop Picker!” Given the practicalities of him fitting this into his numerous local radio commitments, we settle for a notional pre-record played out via mobile phone.

Speaking of pre-records, there has been some very bad technical karma in The Wrong Studio lately. As I am setting up for the usual Fictoids etc. plus an interview with a tall boffin from Timewatch, several issues come to light. The state of the computers and blank KVM switchers make it immediately clear there had been some kind of overnight power outage. The desk has not come back in a healthy state – there is no audio from the studio sources and nothing on the studio monitoring either. After a crate reboot fails, we have no option but to relocate. Guy and I hurriedly replicate the setup next door once Zen Hoots is off air, whilst I try and juggle maintenance engineers and work out contingency plans with the Broadcast Manager and the office. “This is quite fun!” says Dave, who is being very patient and nice about it all. “A few years ago, I would have gone bananas about it but, y’know. What’s the point?” “Precisely” I say.

After the pre-record, the desk is fixed (DSP card reseated) so we move everything back into the studio for the transmission.

The next day I’m back on Dave Wrong for the fifth time in a week, on the de-umm and tighten. I’m flitting between fielding installation questions from Herbert Floppenwanger and editing an eccentric Ali Nuthatch interview when the audio playout screen reverts to desktop with three minutes to go to show time. I’ve not worked so fast to get something up and running since the morning Deepak told me to take his mic control back off him during the one minute 0730 news bulletin. Get it all sorted in the nick of time. After the adrenaline subsides, I head off to go and have a nice relaxing vaccination. As I get into my car and turn the engine key, the radio fires up the Nations Favourite just in time for the material I’ve just edited to be played out. Argh. Turn off radio. Arrive in the doctors waiting room and – hurrah! – it’s Nations Favourite being piped there too. Pick up a magazine to distract me from the radio and the first page I turn to features a holistic lifestyle interview with Dave’s sidekick Laney Bee Face. Help!

More faults in the Wrong studio continue the following week. Fortunately, the desk holds it together for Wonathan’s highly scrutinised return to the network after seven years bad luck, which I am booked on. Unfortunately, the audio back end of our playout system doesn’t – due to a major network failing. Following a collective scramble, we are unable to schedule the closing song of the show which has been specially selected by the audience. Somewhat embarrassing and stressful. Other than that, my main worry is Wonathan repeatedly forgetting to close his microphone. I watch him like a hawk, over controlling the fader and repeatedly flashing a green cue light at him each time until he remembers. He is somewhat nervous, and nice about it all. He doesn’t mention the fateful Rusty Claypole show, nor do I. To be honest, I doubt he actually remembers who his engineer was that day. But I haven’t forgotten.

Poor Nick cops it in there too, whilst working with Wonathan two days later. Mid-broadcast the desk logic goes mental on the first four cart channels, causing random lights to come on and audio to play out of the wrong channels. Nice.

The next day I am back in there again, for a pre-recorded show with Laney before Wonathan arrives. Just as we start, the mic red light intermittently flashes on and off every few seconds while the fader is closed, causing the studio loudspeakers to cut each time it goes on. We push on through. Laney has to do the entire show on headphones. There is no way I’m going to put up with this during a live show with big-mouth Wonathan, so I spend my break cracking the whip on two very mañana ex-Branch technicians. They eventually stop telling old Branch anecdotes and clear out all the crumbs and coffee from the faders until the fault clears just minutes before the producer’s arrival.

No further gremlins, until a further two days later when Frankie Funk’s presenter mic randomly loses 15-20 dB of gain mid-interview, causing me unpredicted major consternation immediately prior to a four-hour network-hopping marathon with him. After grappling with an unpleasant signal-noise ratio I sort a workaround. We have a very lovely time on air, despite all the confusing multiple network switches to handle. Much hilarity ensues when at the top of his toned-down Nations Favourite broadcast, Frankie accidentally refers to the online presence of Little Sister as ‘the webshite’. Oops.

Other than that, my recent memory is a muddle of: resolving confused comms lines to Edinburgh right up to the wire; planning and networking meetings; testing video tie-lines with a sweet project engineer who is high on intelligence but low on eye contact; Mark Albike complaining about his crisps; stroking a jazz singer’s fluffy dog Alan in the lift whilst Doreen Zipman talks to me about her grandchildren; peering through the window of Waylon Wine’s studio to see a man laying bricks with a Schroder KM84 pointing at them; mixing some lovely vocal harmonies, and some iffy ones too. A dream job in all senses.

Meanwhile a million baby-related things at home to sort out. “Are you winding down at work before the big day?” emails my aunt. My reply: “Um, no. In live broadcasting there is no such thing as winding down. It’s basically on or off.”