Pop Shield

It’s an important day at the Corporation: the day of the long-awaited announcement about who will take over as the next General Director. I receive an urgent phone call from the office asking if I can do a favour and nip down to Studio 4Z at 1300 to cover for Mad Dog who is stuck at The Maid Of Orleans. It’s a high-profile ISDN booking involving Lord Bigwig which we absolutely have to cover and for all further details I should contact Leona on the given contact number.

So, naturally I agree to help and get straight on to Leona. She doesn’t pick up, so I leave a message asking for her to call me back about the interview. At fifteen minutes before the booking starts, I head down to the studio. I have not heard from Leona, so I try her number again, but she does not pick up. So, I patiently wait for a producer to appear and meanwhile set about getting the studio ready for what I am expecting to be some kind of two-way interview between a local interviewer and Lord Bigwig down the line. I set up a presenter mic and headphones in the studio, test they are working, set up the computer ready to record. As there’s still no contact from anywhere, I check with Control to see if they have a record of any incoming lines booked through to Studio 4Z, but they have no information either. By this time, it’s now about 1315. Hmm, this feels odd. Perhaps there’s been a change of plan. I know there is no point phoning the office to check since they divert the line to voicemail between 1300 and 1400. So, with nothing else to do I log in to my desktop in case anyone tries to contact me by email, then I sit and wait.

Suddenly the control room door flies open and an abrupt stressed-looking man with glasses runs in. Without any word of any introduction, he barks at me “WHAT’S GOING ON?” I look up and through the glass I see a grey-haired man has walked straight into the studio from the corridor and sat down in front of one of the mics. Right so that man must be Lord Bigwig come to talk about the new General Director appointment. “Hello” I say cheerfully to the rude man. “I’m Pop Shield, your engineer. I’ve been asked to cover this booking late notice, but I’m afraid I haven’t been given any specific details. I’ve not been able to make contact with Leona. Are you the producer?”. “NO, I AM NOT THE PRODUCER! I CAN’T GET HOLD OF THEM! CAN’T YOU GET ON TO THEM?” he says and without offering up who he is exactly, he runs out of the control room and into the studio and sits in front of the guest mic.” OK, so maybe this guy’s a contributor. I try Leona’s line again without success, then run through to the studio and arrange the mics in front of the two men and show them their headphone level controls. ”I CAN’T HEAR THE PROGRAMME, WE’RE ON ANY MINUTE!” panics the abrupt man. “Oh, okay.” I say, “On air to which station? ABC1?” “YES”. “Okay, let me patch you through.” Right, so it’s clearly a live outgoing ISDN so I better get some destination clean feed into the headphones and on to a check speaker double quick. Easier said than done in this studio but luckily I know it well enough that it presents no problems. At least somebody somewhere has us picked up. Sounds like ABC1 to me.

“Are you hearing the programme now?” I ask Lord Bigwig. “YES”. “And could I have a few words for level please Lord Bigwig?” It is indeed a ‘few’ words that return. “That’s lovely, thank you. And if I could just have a few words from the other gentleman, we’ll be good to go”. This request sends the still unnamed man – let’s call him Rudy – into another spin. He starts hurrumphing and saying NO I CAN NOT HAVE A FEW WORDS FOR LEVEL and OF COURSE HE’S NOT GOING TO BE SAYING ANYTHING ON AIR and then Lord Bigwig starts guffawing and muttering about CAN THE HEAD OF COMMUNCATIONS SAY A FEW WORDS HAW HAW HAW.

Right, ok, so it’s just the grey-haired dude. Rudy’s some kind of silent aide. Without any further time to deliberate, the destination cue springs into life, and shortly thereafter a little voice says, “Hello Lord Bigwig, thanks for joining us, we’ll be coming to you in just under a minute”.  Followed by a bigger voice: “And now we can go over Lord Bigwig to talk to him concerning the special announcement about the new General Director.” And off we go. Have to pull back on the fader a bit now I’ve got some representative level, but otherwise it all goes fine to air. The moment the item wraps, the two men stand up and gallop straight out of the studio door without thanking me or saying goodbye.

Disbelieving, I make a point of running out of the control room and calling goodbye after them down the corridor, thanking them for coming and apologising that I had not had more information about the booking in advance. They disappear. Nice to meet you too!

As I log off the recording machine, I start reflecting on how lucky I am to work in music radio. No matter how important people are, everyone is friendly and courteous. It is at this moment that I stop feeling outraged and start to see the funny side of it all. These people are only the top communication experts at the top of one of the world’s top communication companies. Of course they are!

In a cupboard in my house there is a big crate full of small musical instruments: harmonicas, ocarinas, wooden flutes, tambourines, bicycle horns, train whistles and so on. You never know when you might be in need of a vibraslap.

In this crate there is also a brass wooden handled school dinner bell that I bought for my wedding. Proper bells are expensive, this one was as cheap a brass bell as I could get.

After an endlessly tedious and drawn-out build-up, it’s finally time for the 2012 Epic Games to start. To mark the occasion, a famous artist has decreed that all the bells in a country should be rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes at 8.12am on the morning of the Games.

A couple of days before the event an email goes around from a member of Top Cat’s production team asking if anyone has any bells at home that they can borrow.

Naturally, I offer them several items including the school bell, a bicycle bell, some Indian ankle bells, a reception bell, an Indian tambourine, a collection of chocolate bunny and reindeer collar bells. My cat kindly donates four of his bell cage toys to the proceedings.

I wrap everything up in paper and put them in a cloth bag to prevent me clanging all the way in to work. I hand them over to Helen who seems pretty pleased, and she promises to return them safely.

It is 8.10am on the opening day on Nations Favourite. Retired gold medallist Dame Kerry Jones is a guest on the morning show. Top Cat asks her to try out her bell. I hear the pretty sound of my school bell over the airwaves. He then invites foxy-voiced News Schmu to ring hers, whereupon I hear the characteristic tinkle of my Indian dancing anklets.

It’s coming up to 8.12am and there’s an on-air countdown followed by Big London Clock. A cacophony of cowbells and bicycle bells and sleigh bells erupts, which segues into a pop song about a telephone ring. Personally, I would have gone for the ding-aling song, but hey.

At the end of the song Top Cat asks Dame Kerry “Did you enjoy that?”. “Yes”, she replies “But I must be stronger than I think – because the bell came apart!”. Oops, I think, my equipment is clearly not up the job. ”The bell is clapper-less!!” decrees Top Cat. He uses the incident to comment on Dame Kerry’s fine buff form and is soon asking about her current fitness regime.

“So, how was it?” I ask Helen after the show. “Great.” she replies. “Your bells were the star of the show. I’ll return them to you as soon as they arrive back from The Park. And if Dame Kerry really broke your bell, I’m going to break her!” she says.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that!” I reply. “It’s a cheap bell and easily fixed” I say. “On the other hand, judging by those arm muscles, I suspect Dame Kerry is pretty indestructible.”

Later all my bells are all safely handed back to me, clappers intact. As far as I know Dame Kerry is still intact also.

Well, I nearly lost grip of my faders during a phone call from a posh lady called Baronness Boddum-Windham about her great grandfather, a dentist in Ethiopia during the reign of George V.  Reputedly, he “took Lady Featherstonehaugh up the Arsi Mountains” and “gradually stripped off her clothes and put them on himself” in the hope of bringing her temperature down. Astonishing.

It’s been an odd day to polish off a whirlwind week.  OK, so my work week is ending on a Wednesday, but that’s radio.

I’m very proud of Little Sister Radio, who had a mighty axe hovering over her head last year and she not only dodged it, but also ran off with the biggest award in radio last night. Everyone in the building was fired up about it today.  It felt like the day after an office party, everything louche and open and skew-whiff.

Awards ceremonies remind me of school prize evenings.  Take a glass of richly deserved recognition and lace it with a trace of embarrassment, a pinch of paranoia and a smattering of sour grapes.  On the whole, technical staff are not much involved in these things.  Having DJ’ed at several departmental parties I can vouch that a room full of engineers is not the most happening of places.  Imagine, if you will, of a room full of (mostly) men standing by the bar and swapping wild stories about their latest home computer network solutions.  As a group, we don’t do ‘emotional’ very well.  For this reason, I’ve spent years watching colleagues getting excitedly dressed up for the ball and then carried on with the hoovering. All very Cinderella.

The upside of this predicament is that when the stuff hits the fan it’s a mighty safe place to be.  No more so, than when I was trapped inside the eye of the media hurricane that was the crazy public outrage following a certain Rusty Claypole show I worked on.  Welcome to life in the blind spot, so close to it all, but totally invisible. Truth is, I’m very comfortable in my invisibility cloak.

Today I rise at 4am, get in my taxicab and immediately recognise the driver: it’s Paul: reliable, portly, not too chatty. But he usually drives an MPV not this Prius. I get in behind the passenger seat.  “New car?“ I ask.  “Yep, hate it, too many bells and whistles” he says.  And sure enough, around South Mimms service station he bounces off the side of a textiles lorry whilst overtaking it.  I gasp, but it’s immediately apparent that there’s nothing to worry about. A flurry of pulling over, hazard lights and two men shouting ‘mate’ at each other.  I phone to alert the Broadcast Manager, but I’ve got a buffer time in hand and we’re soon sailing through the photographer’s dream of sunrise over London.  I contemplate the so-called best part of the day and the pros and cons of being up for it.

So, I get to work.  Top Cat was not only the presenter of last night’s prestigious radio awards but winner of a top award, so I am prepared for this.  The producers on this show are very disciplined people and left the awards early to be on form for all the challenges the show presents.  Even Top Cat, who usually cuts it fine, is fifteen minutes early, although he’s looking rather crumpled.  As I come out of the big disabled toilet, he is standing outside waiting to come in to camp out and read the papers, jump on the spot, tweet, and all his other normal rituals before addressing the nation.  I receive the usual namecheck for being on “the bells, whistles, levels and faders”.  Unlike Paul the cabbie, I quite like bells and whistles.

After the show an unusually stirred but still goy-gious News Schmu comes in to apologise for the ‘Japanese’ she levelled at production during what was just an off-morning for her.  We chat about whether the awful lady in the news should go to prison or not, then I go out for an egg butty and coffee.  On my way back in, I spot the wonderful Bob The Balancing Cat sitting on his owner James’s shoulders in our very own doorway.  Always a good omen.  Meanwhile, an emotional-looking Maso Mercury has just come off air and is leaving the building.  After last night’s victory, he seems to be precisely the type of person who would appreciate being shown a performing street cat, so I point him out.

My next little job is to edit up the little pieces of ‘smoke and mirror’ belonging to the crazy imaginary radio world of host Dave Wrong.  Ron Wobbleboard comes in for an interview and plays his wobbleboard.  The interview wraps and the turns stand around discussing the various incarnations of said wobbleboard.  Next, a somewhat cheesy American singer comes in.  He has had way too much plastic surgery.  The pressure of looking at his face for fifteen minutes clearly gets to Dave.  After the singer has departed, he vents: “Creepy doesn’t cover it!”

Through the window into the next-door studio, I can see that Waylon Wine has missed his live two-way slot with Zen Hoots, confirmed by the rare sight of a member of the Wine production team sitting at the guest mic to trail the show on national radio.  At the end of this, Waylon arrives wearing a leather jacket and not his usual smart suit jacket.  Hmm, definitely a wonky day.

Finally, on the way out I bump into Adam, and we have a little debrief from Ta-Dah! which was a massively stressful but fun exercise in trumpet-blowing which I worked on last week. It already feels quite some ago.  On my way home hailstones bounce off the roof of the train as I listen back to a live show I worked on last month about the sinking of a famous boat.  It already feels like a hundred years ago, such is the variety of events that have been taking place in my radio life recently.  I think it’s time for me to switch off now.

If there’s one radio guest that you don’t want to have to try to engage in a lengthy technical discussion from the other end of an ISDN circuit five thousand miles away it’s probably the diminutive top-heavy country song writing legend Molly Carton.  But that’s another story.

And if there’s a man on this planet who you would least rather have an “is your radio turned off / is your phone fully charged / how many bars of signal do you have / are you off hands-free / are you parked in a safe place with the windows wound up?” kind of conversation with its chirpy Liverpudlian Sir Pete McCarthy from 60’s pop phenomenon The Bugs who’s in the middle of the school run and a bit stressed as he’s about to go and catch an aeroplane.

It’s the morning show on Nations Favourite Radio and Sir Pete is expected to break normal protocol (a right reserved by the extra famous) by calling in on one of the control room telephones. Unbeknownst to the host of the show, it will be a surprise interview to promote his new record.  There are two minutes to go until Sir Pete is due on air and the watched phone sits there all silently.  Tom’s on tenterhooks, we are collectively willing time to slow down. Oh, and as if that’s not enough pressure, the Deputy Head of The Corporation is sat watching. Mr Tickle has scheduled an extra-long seventies track to eke out the time but still no sign of McCar.  There’s a standby guest ready to go.  Tick tick.  Record ends.  Long chat with the sports guy, good, good, and then…here comes the interview, oh damn, fade the backup girl up.

Soon after the replacement interview gets on air the telephone in question shrilly bursts into life.  Tom answers, has a brief chat and then says, “Sir Pete on TBU2”. I divert the call to the mixing desk, hit the pre-fade to check the line.  And what do you know, it’s a bad one!  Ffzz Ffzz Zpp.  Och. Here goes. “Hello, Pete, it’s the engineer here.” “Oh Hi. Ab dib bup hep sczscz.”  Pants.  “Pete, your line appears to be a little noisy.  Are you hearing the program ok?“. This time the reply comes back audible. “Yes, thank you, all sounding good to me”. Hallelujah. “And you’re sounding loud and clear to us now too, please stay on the line we’ll be with you any moment”. Cue Top Cat. “Now guess who’s just phoned in!  It’s Sir Pete McCarthy!  Hello Pete, are you there?”

No choice but fade it up and hold my breath.  It’s not so easy to try and operate machinery whilst crossing your fingers. Thankfully it sounds fine, and it’s getting better all the time.

Absolutely loved the juxtaposition today of a slightly testy atmosphere of a room full of grown men with cameras navigating the logistics of filming a bunch of blokes wearing cuddly classic Wimbles outfits miming their new single live on the radio, and everyone taking it all a bit seriously. A discussion breaks out about whether or not it would be acceptable for The Wimbles to muck about in shot behind a business news report. Meanwhile, forearmed with the knowledge that “The Wimbles require foldback” one question I am not expecting is:- “Can you put even more backing track in the monitors please?  The Wimbles are finding it hard to hear anything through their costumes.“ Sorry, maxed out, my furry friends.  Good luck studio.