Pop Shield

So, it’s my last Top Cat Show on Nations Favourite before he retunes himself to Cherry FM. It’s my second in a row. Every day this pre-Christmas week is a Friday format which is another way of saying a celebrity pile-in. Yesterday we had so many choristers inside the studio, backs pressed against the glass like sardines in a tin that it was impossible for the production team to physically see what we were trying to produce. Today I set my alarm for 2.30am in order to get everything rigged in time, including a little sub-mixer for the 7-piece acapella group Streptochorus. The only way to stop my brain exploding with all the things to do whilst in forced awake state – when it is supposed to be fast asleep consolidating the madness of yesterday – is by carrying out a 20-point action plan I’ve written down. Amazingly it works and I manage to get through the soundcheck and transmission with no stress or upset whatsoever. Fast forward to the last five minutes of the show. The studio is humming again. Unbeknownst to me, as I can’t see, the travel reader has not been able to get to her microphone for her bulletin. Nor the mic I’ve put out in case she can’t get to her mic. “And now the travel!” Says Top Cat “From the red mic!” Off-mic I hear the travel reader adding “If that’s alright”. Forgetting the control room is packed too, I pronounce rudely “NO ITS NOT ALRIGHT!!! £&@?#%€$!!!!” before flinging open all the Streptochorus faders on the sub mixer and then take out all the ones she’s not on. It’s a respectable reaction time given the circumstances. There is some laughter. What I don’t notice is one person who has snuck in behind me for the last few minutes of the show. It’s the General Director of The Corporation. Oops. We come off air and he turns to me and says, ‘fantastic job’.