Pop Shield

It’s Wednesday afternoon at the Nations Favourite. It’s been an eccentric environment today, as ever it is. I enjoy my first ice cream of the season, bought by Suzy Travel who has just been ‘wadded up big time’ by Dave Wrong. Next door Bette Wilde has just won five thousand on the lottery.

At the end of my show, I catch the lift from the top floor. Halfway down the lift doors are held open by a tall man I don’t recognise but he seems pretty friendly. ”You in or out?” I quip. ”In!” he replies, “but I got a few more for you! You’re not in a hurry, are you?”

“Of course not” I reply.

“Say, are you Little Sister or Nates Fave?” He asks, stalling for time. ”Actually both” I reply, “I’m an engineer, so I get around.”

“Oh great!” he says. Whereupon a hoard (perhaps ‘a flight case’ is the collective term?) of ageing US country musicians plus their entourage pile into the lift. I suspect it’s The Falcons. From the look of them, they’ve seen a bottle of whiskey or two in their lifetimes.

The doors close. “Hey everyone!” says the tall guy. ”We’re riding here today with a bona fide corporation engineer!” By their expressions, they, quite understandably, don’t look overly impressed. But there’s possibly plastic surgery involved here, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. In any case, they offer to me their hands of friendship. Unfortunately, there really isn’t enough elbow room in here for me to be shaking hands with everyone but hey, this is happening. I do my best in view of the fact that I’m being introduced to some potentially reluctant Falcons in a small packed moving box which is short on cat-swinging space.

The tall guy is unstoppable. “Meet The Falcons! This is Tommy T. Engine! And here’s Jeff James!”

A very short man in the party stares straight ahead of him. This happens to be at my chest. It’s not helping matters. I probably haven’t felt quite this awkward at work since the day that I inadvertently embroiled Martin Larsen in small-talk about my dad’s toilet-reading habits. Or the time I had to carry The Jones’ Brothers guitar out onto the street right behind them into a sea of fans and paps then someone let off a stink bomb. Or when I was quietly trying to calibrate some audio kit in a communal area and – the next thing you know – I’m inexplicably having to escort the brat child of glamour model Syria to the fifth-floor men’s toilets. Whereupon he audibly starts kicking off in there on his own and I’m not entirely sure whether to go in…oh dear, the list is endless…

Anyway. Back to the story. We’ve reached the ground floor and The Falcons gesture to me to step out first even though I’m at the back of the lift. And I’m out. I manage to disentangle myself from the party and bid them all good evening.

The Nations Favourite elevator. You can check out, but you can never leave…

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.

As I approach the top floor studio today, I walk past a few people emerging from the newsreader’s booth. I instinctively flash a smile and say hello. Then I realise it’s actually Rusty Claypole who has just recorded a quick drop in for Top Cat prior to doing an interview with Dave Wrong. He’s less of a Victorian Scarecrow and more of a Californian hippy these days, but still very charming.  He stops dead in his tracks and looks straight at me with a quizzical face. ”HEY…I KNOW YOU!!?!” he says (which is exactly what he did last time he saw me under similar circumstances). ”Yes, hello Rusty! Nice to see you. I’m Pop Shield. I was one of your engineers when you had a show here on Nations Favourite. I was on The Fateful Show, in fact.” I remind him. “Ah yes, “The Fateful Show”, repeats Rusty. ”How ARE you?” he says.” ”Great!” I say. ”How are you?” “Good, thanks. GIVE ME A HUG!” he replies. So, I hug him. Luckily, it’s a Hollywood kind of hug, all aloof. If a bit awkward. I accidentally get some hair in my mouth. Thankfully Rusty now has clean Hollywood hair to match. I would not wish Rusty’s pre-Hollywood hairstyle in anyone’s mouth, even if I did not like them very much. Anyway, I digress. I move on from the Hollywood hug. “And what are you working on today?” he asks. ”Waylon Wine”, I say with a smile in my eyes. I remember that Rusty used to try and wind-up Waylon when they shared a studio by leaving chaos and silly notes and live goldfish in his wake. ”Ah yes, Waylon!” he replies ”Well nice to see you.” ”Nice to see you too, Rusty” I reply, wandering off, a little bemused by the exchange.

A camera crew for Sea Babies has been filming me for a few weeks now to capture my job role for behind the scenes programme about Top Cat’s Breakfast Show. Today I turned up for my TV green-screen moment wearing a turquoise top. What a total numpty!

Wake up at 4am. Travel 40 miles in the dark. Arrive at work.  Move some faders.  Drink a lot of tea. Top Cat arrives 30 seconds before TX.  Demonstrate to Vanilla Salt the talkback button. Sign News Shmu’s birthday card.  Shake hands with the lovely actress Sally Jensen.  Air kiss Top Cat’s unshaved beard. Harmonise on singing ‘happy birthday’ to News Shmu.  Set up a vegetable spot FX mic for Waylon Wine. Rade up some ranting callers. Fade up some vegetables.  Leave work.

On the way home, buy a newspaper for an old lady at the station.  Watch old lady promptly blow the savings she has made on chocolate.  Get my 4am-start-face stared at all the way home on the train by a strange woman, who seems fascinated by me for some reason.  Get off train.  Squint in the sunlight.  Say hi to the cows.  Wonder where this late summer suddenly came from.  Get home.  Get shouted at by the cat.  Watch a movie. Is my life in any way normal?