Jumping out of a lifeboat into the Thames

So on Friday I get up and put on my jeans and trainers, because I am going to jump into the Thames in January and I don't want to do it wearing one of my suits. I am jumping into the Thames to illustrate the dangers of its currents, and the story that led to the piece being commissioned is the average 30% hike in emergency calls to the RNLI's 4 Thames stations in the last 12 months. A car picks me up at 9.30am and at 10.15am I am chatting to Alan, the manager of Chiswick boathouse, just behind Chiswick pier. If you've never been there it's just off Corney Reach, which is just off Corney Road, which is just off the A316 at the Hogarth Roundabout, supposedly the busiest road junction in Europe. Despite this Corney Reach is a haven of residential tranquility with the only noise coming from the boats on the river and the planes (still at a decent height) heading towards heathrow. The cameraman, the Legendary Bill Jones, is running a bit late so I bag the last remaining parking space with a reserved sign that Alan gave me and wait for someone from the RNLI to turn up. The first person to do so is Paul who has just finished a night shift, gone home and returned to help out at the RNLI station. He is a professional lifeboatman and I probably want his job when I get older. He makes me a cup of tea and we shoot the breeze for a bit. Although ideally we'd be filming, this is a rare chance to find stuff out that will be very useful when writing the piece's script. Things that occur to you in the course of an unpressured conversation, and things that you're told can lead to unearthing that great factoid which can become a top line or telling statistic. I'm feeling so professional, I even take notes. I get a call from the RNLI PR, Tim. Fri 30 Jan is a big day for the RNLI as they focus a lot of their community fundraising activity around it. The theme this year is SOS, and the conceit is that the various lifeboat teams around the country can use the initials to stand for any event they might be doing, so one team is holding a BBQ called Sizzle Our Sausages, one team have put their building's security team in stocks and invited the public to throw sponges at them, calling it Soak Our Security. The Chiswick lifeboat team are having a Saunter Or Scamper from Teddington lock to Tower Bridge in full gear. They too are running late, as is the manager of the Chiswick lifeboat who is on his way in the car. Eventually Bill turns up and Paul makes him a cup of tea. Then one of the crews of one of the boats (an E-class rib especially designed for use on the Thames) come in looking suitably weatherbeaten and soon there is a deluge of tea being brewed and drunk. Everyone seems to be in a good mood. It's a cold but stunning day, Chiswick looks absolutely beautiful and these guys get paid to save people's lives on the river. It's therefore perhaps not surprising everyone is in a good mood. Only one person I meet is a volunteer lifeboatman - the rest are paid, but the manager later tells me there are 51 volunteers attacked to the Chiswick boathouse and 11 full time staff - running 2 ribs. I've been asked to do an as live for the 1.50pm bulletin which will be biked back to Gray's Inn Road (aka GIR, the ITN HQ) by a Despatch Rider (DR). As soon as the manager arrives we get down on one of the moored boats and do the as live. I am too cold to speak properly and keep f***ing it up. That's the annoying thing about an as live, especially one where there's no time pressure, because you can start again you often find you keep mucking it up. We get through it eventually and Bill suggests we also do the Bong now so it can go back to base. The Bong always needs to be in early as it is graphicised and goes at the top of the programme as a way of selling the story to the viewer. I nearly always forget to do one, and any cameraman that reminds me earns my undying gratitude. There's a fine line between being demoralised and smug. When you charge into the office at 4pm with a head full of thoughts about the package the first thing you get asked is "Did you do a Bong?". If the answer is no then you are a failure and a loser. If you have done one, you saunter off to the edit knowing that yes, indeedy, you really are the man. The team walking from Teddington arrive. It is a cold day, but they look hot and bothered. There is much moaning about blisters and the boathouse kettle gets a further bashing. It deserves a medal of its own. It's nearly always on the go. I am starting to get jumpy at this stage as we haven't filmed anything (other than some "downtime" shots in the boathouse) for the piece and now the men are having a serious pitstop. A photographer arrives and starts coralling them into a pose (see photo above). I wait, looking at my watch. Eventually they get going and I do a walking interview with one of the crew, and get lots of nice shots of men in full RNLI gear walking down a picturesque part of the Thames path. We leave them to it and head back to the boathouse to get on with our filming. The DR, an old, seriously Glaswegian feller with an unnacountably trendy scooter, is lost. Corney Reach is a new development and doesn't exist on his A-Z, he doesn't have Sat Nav (I gave the desk the postcode) and whenever he calls me his accent is so thick I can only pick up the gist of what he's saying. Eventually I guide him in and put the tape in his hand. The boathouse manager, Wayne, is Canadian and seems a bit aloof, but he puts two boats at our disposal and we go out onto the river. I am wearing a drysuit (see below) which has rubber seals at the wrists and neck and should keep any water out. Underneath I'm wearing me keks, a t-shirt, sweatshirt and what the crew call a Noddy Suit - a full body fleece. I am Just About Warm Enough and slightly alarmed that they will not guarantee that the drysuit will keep me dry. They sometimes spring leaks. Great. We do some river shots, boat to boat and all that, and a Piece to Camera (PTC). We interview Wayne and film some check calls to the Coastguard, engine revs etc. Then, at the end, I film a PTC where I get into the river. My boots, which are attached to the drysuit, are a size too big, and therefore contain lots of air, so they float up to the surface and tip me back. I lie, bobbing in the river, without springing a leak. My hands, which have neoprene divers gloves on, start to get very cold. I do another PTC in the river. I get hauled out of the river after about 3 minutes. Because I lowered myself into the water off the back of the boat, my hair isn't even wet. We moor up and say goodbye to Wayne who has some duties to attend to elsewhere, and have a chat about the last sequence. Me lowering myself into the river isn't great telly. Not having wet hair looks half-arsed. We're going to have to do it again, and this time I'm going to have to jump, and get fully submerged. We do it again. I jump in - the camera gets the reaction it wants, which is that gasp of shock you get from being submurged in a river with a temperature just a few degrees above freezing. I swallow a little bit of water. The boat goes back to the pontoon to drop off the cameraman, who is going to film me coming in, so I am totally abandoned, floating upstream (tide coming in) looking up at the clear blue sky and trying not to think about what I've just swallowed. I look around at the river and the houses and consider that this is a very strange situation to be in. In the last few months I've hovered above London in a helicopter, gone into some of its unopened deep Underground tunnels, and now here I am, lying on my back, on my own, floating up the middle of the Thames in a drysuit and RNLI lifejacket. The boat eventually returns and the crew drag me aboard. There are many "well dones" from the cameraman and crew, as if I have achieved something. I am slightly concerned when one grizzled crew member comments he was rather it was me than him. I am even more concerned when another crew member suggests I get back into the boathouse sharpish and wash my hands and face. Back in the boathouse there is even more tea on the go and I am very grateful for it. I find some antiseptic washing-up liquid and give my hands and face a good wash. Bill and I put a few quid in the RNLI collection box, and we head off, having made good time with the filming. Almost everyone we met could not have been more friendly or helpful and you really got the sense they knew how lucky they were to have they jobs they do. Unfortunately the drive back to GIR was a nightmare. It should have taken half an hour and actually took an hour due to bad traffic. Then I let my reporting colleague Marcus Powell use my editor for 15 minutes, when really I should have been in there. I didn't mind, but I knew it was going to be tight. And it was too tight. We had to have our piece ready to hot roll (played out directly from the edit suite rather than off the server) at 6.05pm - unfortunately the top live failed and the presenters went into the cue for our piece at 6.02pm when it wasn't ready, so it looked like that had failed to make too. They then went into the newsbelt, everything calmed down and we buzzed through to the the director telling them we were ready to roll. I went into the gallery to call the Supers or Astons (the live graphics which appear on the screen to tell you the name of the person speaking) live (usually the timings are put in technical information in the script). There was no blame attached to us for the messy start to the programme - we were told we were second story to be ready at 6.05pm and we had agreed a hot roll at 5.50pm. It obviously would have been better if we did have the package saved into the system and ready to go - after all, lives can fail at any time, but then Marcus said his piece wouldn't have made if I hadn't given him the extra time with my editor, and we were ready when we were told to be. The public doesn't know that, though, they just saw two false starts to the programme. Thankfully the piece itself was well received and it did look really good, thanks to the excellent camerawork and being blessed with the wonderful light that comes from that blue sky and hazy winter sun being reflected off the water. For my next assignment I am hopefully going out into the snow. I'll find out more tomorrow.

Harry Potter and the seriously injured stuntman

According to the front page of the Mirror, Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double was seriously hurt during The Deathly Hallows pre-production testing at Leavesden studios, which is 4 miles north of Watford. I was initially down to do a live from outside the studios, which meant I had some time (ie most of the day) to kill, so I was sent to the GLA to interview the Deputy mayor of London - Richard Barnes - because another reporter who was doing that story was running late. I went with Gemma the PJ or RJ - a sort of hybrid camerawoman/journalist, who I think prefers the camera side of things - filmed the interview then got a lift to Waterloo where she was meeting the late-running reporter. I got a bus back to Gray's Inn Road and started digitising the tape. On the way back I thought my story deserved a package as well as a live. We had plenty of Daniel Radcliffe b-roll, the Half Blood Prince trailer and a couple of other elements and I was sure we could find a stuntman. So I went to see the Prog Ed and News Ed and put my case to them. They thought it might just work. We found a stuntman in Essex - Steve Truglia - and so cooked up a scheme to write my script whilst driving to his gym in Repton Park, (Woodford Green) film the interview and set up there, meet Joe the Sat Truck at Repton Park to file track and interview, then head on to Watford to film a Piece to Camera (PTC) outside Watford General before heading to the live point outside Leavesden Studios. My producer would assemble the package back at base. Amazingly, all went according to plan. Got the script written whilst navigating Kate the camerawoman (she refuses to use sat nav), arrived at the Esporta gym at Repton Park, knocked off interview, during which Joe arrived in his Sat Truck (that's him below). We left our interviewee and ran round the back of the gym, filed the track and interview, said goodbye to Joe and struck out for the M25. I navigated into Watford, filmed a bong (for the top of the programme) and PTC outside Watford General, grabbed a seriously nice chicken filet burger and chips from Zaks Grill n Go Piri Piri opposite the hospital and started navigating out of Watford towards the live point. When I told Kate it was the first time I'd ever been to Watford in my life she laughed at me. On arriving at Leavesden studios I was unsurprised to see two Sat Trucks outside the entrance and correctly guessed the other belonged to Five News. Their chief correspondent Jonathan Samuels and the Head of the Camera Unit Adam Cottam were on this. Jonathan was editing somewhere and Adam was busy wiping dog crap off his shoe and our Sat Truck engineer, Dave, was busy helping their Sat Truck engineer find the "bird" as they call it. Kate left me to it as she was going off shift and my next cameraman, the legendary Bill Jones, arrived within five minutes. There is nothing that is not nice about Bill, a Welsh ex-copper who appears to be able to get on with everyone instantly. Given we were factoid-lite on this story I asked Adam what he knew. He said they had a name and a photo (more than us) and quite correctly said he wasn't sure he should tell me any more. I said I hoped he didn't mind me asking (he didn't) and we agreed I would wait for Jonathan Samuels to return as he would be a better judge of what information he might be able to pass on. When Jonathan returned we discussed the story. Journalists often do this. When I was an entertainment reporter I would often have lengthy discussions with my rivals as to what lines were important about a given celebrity and where we wanted our interviews to go. You could often judiciously withhold information if you had something particularly juicy up your sleeve, but 9 times out of 10, you help each other out. Given a) our engineer had just spent some time helping Five News get a satellite signal to get their package on air and b) they were on broadcasting their story exactly an hour before us and so any information they were holding onto would be in the public domain, I don't think our discussion betrayed each others' competitive advantage. It's always a potentially delicate situation, though. I once interviewed an old man about his classic 1939 Hillman car in Wiltshire. I'd driven down from London and got there at 10am. We filmed the car and did an interview with him outisde the car's garage. At 11am we were just leaving to do some filming of the car on the Wiltshire downs when a man from local TV arrived saying he'd got an appointment to film the old man too. The old man had probably double-booked us, but as we were just leaving I said we'd be back by 12.15pm and we headed off. Filming proved to be a very lengthy process. We returned at 2pm to find local TV man jumping up and down with steam coming out of his ears. We'd shafted him and he had every right to be furious. In mitigation, we didn't shaft him on purpose - we were in a hurry and nothing would have made me happier than driving back to London with the rushes in the can at 12.30pm rather than 2pm, but there were certain shots that were necessary to make the piece we wanted to make and I wasn't going to compromise them in order to get back for the man from local telly. He should have taken my number. Anyway I called base, told them to watch Five News - Jonathan did his live at 5pm - and I watched as he did so. Jonathan is very very good at what he does. I then called base and we discussed what he'd said in his piece and if there was anything that needed changing in mine. Jonathan packed up and the Five News crew left, leaving Bill the same spot in which to set up for my live. As we were there in good time and my brain, unusually, appeared to be in good working order, I had a very clear idea of what I was going to say and almost memorised it very easily. I stayed in the warm car until 5.50pm, then got out, got rigged up and stood in position. The live top and tail was reasonably smooth. We de-rigged in the dark (see below) and Bill gave me a lift to Watford Junction. During this journey the planning desk called and asked if I'd mind jumping into the Thames on Friday. I said I would if I could get a train straight home and a taxi to the river in the morning, which would save me having to go via Gray's Inn Road that evening to pick up my scooter. They agreed. The train from Watford Junction to Euston takes 19 minutes and a single to Walton-on-Thames costs £14.10. I was home by 8pm.

Nick Wallis audio demo

Have a listen, especially if you happen to run a radio station. This is taken from the Richard Bacon show I did on BBC Radio 5 live on Christmas Eve '08. Comments welcome.

Blood and tears

Well, alright neither. But the headbanging required to get 2m35s of telly to air today was just one of those occasions where mostly none of it was fun. 

The story: London's top theatres post their highest ever revenues and numbers of tickets sold in 2008. How/why are they bucking the recession? 

Theories: 

1) People want more escapism during a recession. 

2) Weak pound, more foreign visitors. 

3) Consistently high quality product, now better than ever. 

4) New audiences drawn in by reality TV shows - I'd do anything - etc 

Nearly 14 million West End theatre tickets were sold last year - making around half a billion quid. That really is quite impressive. This is how we did the story:

Walked in at 9am, given verbal brief. Told to vox punters in half price ticket booth queue and film a few hundred theatre fronts. 

Suggested good interviewee would be Graham Norton, currently starring in La Cage Aux Folles at Playhouse Theatre. Newsdesk concurred and agreed to chase. 

Also request chapter head graphics to help explainer. Prog ed agrees and we agree on what they will say.  

Asked to do an "as live" with first interviewee for the 11.10am and 1.50pm bulletins. I have idea for a piece to camera. 

Call my friend Tim Key aiming to get his brother's number. Chris Key is an actor currently appearing at Noel Coward theatre in St Martins Lane in Avenue Q. 

Print off factoid brief, get in car with cameraman, park at St Martins Lane hotel in a cellar which has been converted into a car park replete with sewer pipes, sprinkler systems and unfriendly bits of jagged metal and concrete. 

Meet Chief Exec of Society of London Theatre on St Martins Lane at 10am. I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, but he looks a bit like Gunther von Haagens off of Bodyworlds. 

Did surprisingly competent as live. 

Met PR lady who was aware of newsdesk request for Graham Norton. Said it might be possible. Not hopeful. 

Ran off towards Trafalgar Square to get interview tape to Sat Truck, which I was originally told was parked in Spring Gardens on south side of Square. Call base. Truck now elsewhere trying to find signal. Buy tea whilst waiting for call. Truck now moved to Adelaide Street. Run back across Trafalgar Square holding tea. 

Meet Alan the engineer. Cue up as live and note cameraman got my shiny shoes in shot at start. That was 15 minutes of Sunday evening polishing all suddenly worthwhile. 

Ask Alan to feed interview after as live. "nothing else?" he asks. "No.", I say. Bad move. 

Call desk with interviewee's name and job title correctly spelled. Desk happy. Camerman notes I have tea all down my coat. I go and buy him a coffee in the hope he will spill his. 

It is 10.30am. The day is young, holding so much promise. What follows is a long, tedious slog to the finish. 

We film about 10 theatre frontages. Humping heavy kit around the West End in the cold is very essence of glamourous TV reporting. During this I call the management at the half price ticket booth and get permission to get inside and film a teller at work. They are happy for this to happen and the people inside the booth are very helpful. Better still, the booth is warm. 

The locked-off, speeded up sequence inside the booth becomes the second element to the piece. Film piece to camera (PTC) outside the booth where I take tickets from the teller and point out that although there might have been queues in 2008 before Christmas, Jan 2009 looks very different. Realise it is a good way to end piece. 

Meet BBC London crew. Say hello. Meet Richard Foster from 5 live who was chatting to BBC London crew. Say hello to Richard. He was off to have lunch with Jonathan Richards from LBC. I asked Richard to remember me to Jonathan. 

See Phill Jupitus for the second time in 2 shoots (last week he was filming someone in a Sinclair C5 near the Mall). Nearly asked him for his opinion on the success of West End theatre for the sake of it, but he'd gone by the time I decided I wanted to. 

Kept filming voxes with half price ticket booth ticket buyers. Eventually got something we could use. 

Chris Key comes good on getting into Noel Coward theatre to film PTC. Bless him twice and thrice. My request has gone via him in the Midlands to central office, up again and then back down. I am assured all I have to do is turn up at stage door and they'll be expecting us. 

It's about 1.30 by and the cameraman and I are already knackered and starving, but despite being surrounded by food and drink outlets we have to keep going or we'll lose precious time. 

Call base - amazing news - Graham Norton has agreed to do interview at 3.15pm. Whilst this will make the piece, it's too late for me if I'm going to do a self-edit for 6pm tx. I request an editor. No chance. Right - someone else will have to meet the great man. They say they'll see what they can do as no cameras are available. I might have to get a taxi back to start editing and someone else will come out to interview Graham Norton using my crew. 

We get to the Noel Coward theatre Stage Door. Never heard of us. We have to go round the front. We lug the kit round the front. Manager appears. Never heard of us. No one told him nothing. We convince him. He takes us down to a dressing room. Perfect! 

We're getting behind. Cameraman suggests we get Despatch Rider (DR) to collect first tape containing theatre frontages and locked-off ticket booth shot so it can be digitised whilst we're still out. 

I run out of theatre to Covent Garden Tesco to buy flowers and champagne for PTC whilst calling base to book DR. Decide to buy sandwiches for half dead (but uncomplaining) cameraman. Can't see them anywhere (in a Tesco Metro?!) so just buy props and head back. 

Get back to theatre and give tape to bemused Stage Door man with instructions to hand it over to ITN DR. Spend half an hour getting the piece to camera just so - it's a comedy triumph. It joins the opening frontages sequence and speeded up ticket booth shot with the chapter heads. 

During filming we are in a theatre basement with no mobile reception. Leave Noel Coward theatre at 2pm and head to car park. It takes half an hour to extricate car from car park. 

Cameraman, after giving me many many warnings on the nightmare that is this car park (and it is a f***ing nightmare), bangs head on car boot which was not fully extended because a water sprinkler stopped if from reaching its full height. Much swearing. 

Surface from car park in blind panic as we have two theatre frontages to shoot and still no word on Graham Norton. Concoct plan to shoot Norton with my crew, and pick up the Oliver! and Sound of Music frontages from archive. Call base. 

"Oh, didn't anyone tell you? Chrissie Reidy and Mike Field are on their way to do Graham". Brilliant. Call producer. She's got and digitised our first tape and is building opening sequence. Brilliant. She also digs up Sound of Music frontage from archive so we don't have to go up to Oxford Circus to shoot that. 

We head back to base via Drury Lane to shoot Oliver! frontages. On the way producer calls to say "oh - didn't anyone tell you - the graphics artist is ill and there's no cover. You haven't got any chapter heads." I make nice, but I am a bit pissed off no one told me as I could have done my own chapter heads outside the various theatres, or used ticket buyers to say them to camera and changed the piece to camera so that it didn't look as if I was setting them up so much. Too late now. Grr. Sit down, log on to edit suite computer at 3.15pm. 

Chrissy runs in with news Graham Norton interview is on the server. She had a good cameraman who did lovely shots - externals, lovely set ups and of course, Graham gives the perfect answers. I have 3 hours to script and edit the piece. I know what it will look like in my head. All should be well. Slow, slow, painful hell. 

I hate editing. Everyone has been brilliant in getting all the material I need, but one or two things only become apparent in the edit, by which time it's too late to do anything. My bad move - telling the sat truck engineer at 10.30am that he didn't need to feed any of the shots on tape before my as live for the piece - has an effect. They were all the externals of the Avenue Q theatre, which would have set up my first piece to camera perfectly, and they're sitting in a sat truck miles away from me without the time to trace and upload them. Arse. 

Apart from that, it was alright, although, as usual, it took a shedload of back-breaking camera-yomping (I get to carry the tripod), phone-bashing, cajoling, persuading and delegating going into making it happen. 

The piece wasn't slagged off in the debrief, which is always nice, and the showbiz producer Max actually made a point of coming over and saying he thought it was a goodie. He had noted some of the shots and knew they didn't just happen. I was reasonably happy with my contribution - the ticket booth stuff, the dressing room PTC, getting people on the Norton case, getting the logistics sorted so that there was never a danger it wasn't going to make etc. 

Unsung heroine was, of course, Hannah the producer who put the top sequence together, sourced the music, and took over the edit when I was in the throwing-my-hands-in-the-air (in frustration, not in an impromptu ravey way) phase. 

I know I've been doing this a while now but I'm still amazed a 2m35s piece can take all day to put together. And how many people it can involve. And how much stress it can cause

I reckon apart from all my ITN colleagues (and there were many), there was Tim and Chris Key, David from the Cameron Macintosh Group, Richard Pulford (Society of London Theatre), Richard Pulford's PR, Theatre Manager at the Noel Coward, Theatre Stage Door dude at the Noel Coward Theatre, the Ticket Booth's commercial manager at Head Office, the Ticket Booth dudes, dozens of ticket buyers, Graham Norton, Graham Norton's people, and the stage door and theatre manager dudes at the Playhouse theatre. They all either made calls, gave up their time or represented interested parties in order to make it all happen. My thanks to all.

Telly, eh?

.

Quantative Easing

Got home on Thursday night to discover what looked a bit like pretend money sitting by the pile of loose change I keep near the kitchen radio. I thought this might be a noble gesture by Amy to help ease our way through the credit cruch. But on enquiring, Mrs Wallis told me Amy had finished the chocolate money she had in the fridge and was worried that I hadn't had any, so she decided to make me some pretend chocolate money. She put it by for me when I got in, asking "Do you think he will get it mixed up with his real money?". Today we took the pretend chocolate money to the shops with a view to seeing if we could pretend to buy anything, but while we were out we forgot about it. She might not make it as a forger, but her heart's in the right place.

News Show #13 is live

Experimental format, out of date news and very probably over-long. But worth a listen. Comments welcome.

Things To Do

The first trick of a Things To Do list is to put at least one task on it that you've already done. Then, when you have completed writing your list, you can immediately strike out the thing you've already done - and life already looks much better. Or you can leave your already-completed task until you've done some of the things you need to do, and then, just when you are getting a little bit ground down by how much you've still got on your plate, you'll spot it (and possibly even forgotten about by now) and can cross it off with a big fat grin on your face. Next time someone disagrees with the idea that procrastination is an art form, point them in this direction. So, where were we... oh yes, Things To Do. I've got to put up the next News Show - recorded live in Norwich on Friday with the award-winning (one day) Tom Beard. Then I've got to finish my audio demo, and having completed my showreel, I've got to send it to some people. And then I've got to put up both my showreel and audio demo on the right hand side of this blog, but I've already realised that will be relatively simple. There. Done it. That can be my one crossed-off thing. Other things on the To Do list include writing up my visit to Norwich on the excellent Will's Pub Guide, a blog founded and stewarded by Will Jackson. The reason the blog post will appear there is because in the course of Friday evening's jollies (and before recording the News Show, inadvisedly) we visited The Fat Cat, widely regarded as one of Norwich's best pubs, and certainly an interesting experience, given it sells 24 different beers on draught, and what looks like a further 80 more in bottles. Then we went to the panto, which was also very good. I had an interesting meeting yesterday (Monday 19th) with someone who told me they'd found my showreel via my blog. This unnerved me somewhat, despite the fact it is the very point of having a showreel, and indeed, a blog. Although I seem to remember this started out as a writing exercise. Anyway... When the person who I met told me what she told me, I got that horrible sinking feeling and immediately started mentally searching through my posts in case I might have said anything indiscreet or indefensible. Then I thought, well... even if you have, you've done it now. The lady in question then said that she thought my blog, and blogging in general, was a Good Thing. I hope she wasn't just being polite. I'll let you know if anything comes of the meeting, but this had better be my last mention of the process until anything is actually decided. Incidentally, on Monday evening I was treated to dinner by a schoolfriend who now works at RBS. The reason for the dinner was that on the 19/1/1991 we held a joint 18th birthday party, so we thought we ought to mark the anniversary 18 years on. It was an interesting night as I got an insider's take on a fairly dramatic year. The headlines: everything is probably going to be alright. I hope so because I think RBS have got my mortgage, and thanks to another restructuring deal, several thousand pounds of my tax. Tonight, whilst the eyes of the world are focussed on Washington DC, I'm going to be doing a live for London Tonight at the Brits nominations in Camden. Hmm. Still, my Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt will make its television debut, and this has made me inexplicably happy. There is also the likelihood that there will be a whole bunch of showbiz journalists there who I know from my time as an entertainment reporter at Radio 1, and it will be good to have a chinwag and a gossip with them. Fingers crossed, everything will go according to plan. I'll try and put some photos up tomorrow, but I'm here all week so things will be a bit busy.

Bong!

This is the news. Got a call last night, whilst in the pub, to ask if was around today. Nobly I stopped drinking (well, after one for the road), and got home in time for a decent bit of shuteye before this morning's early start. I had to go to Westminster underground to see a demo of the new police radios that actually do work underground, only 20 years after a report said, er, wouldn't it be a good idea if that happened. I did my piece to camera (or peessty as camera-people seem to call them) on a moving underground train in order to demonstrate how well the system works, and by jingo it went like a dream. loads of other telly crews were there but I think we were the only ones that did that, so I would be feeling quite smug, were it not for the fact it was my cameraman's idea. We were all done by midday, so to pass the time I started to annoy people in the newsroom. Here is a fascinating shot of one of London's leading weather presenters, Chrissie Reidy, in the office trying to have a quiet cup of tea without me taking a photo of her. And here's an even more gripping shot of Ben Scotchbrook, presenter extraordinaire, preparing for his late shift. Amazing. I am going to Norwich this week to try and record an unscripted News Show with Tom Beard, who is currently wowing East Anglia in panto. No really - read his glowing notices in The Stage (luvvie paper) and something called EDP24 - The site where Norfolk Really Matters I hope to return with my liver intact and some audio gold to upload on Saturday. Until then.

Nick Wallis Showreel

London Tonight and Five News stuff from 2008. For those of you reading this in facebookivision, the embedded link probably hasn't made it through from blogger, so here's the youtube link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JiZOOTUmnRE Abuse/job offers welcome.

Phone rings, world saved

It was actually an email. Which must have dropped into my inbox in the course of writing my last blog post. What someone who hasn't quite grasped the meaning of ironic might call ironic. So I will have something to do this year, and the children won't starve. Still, it felt like it was touch and go for a moment. Thanks for your comments, two of which are attached to the original post, many more via facebook, text and email and one which took the form of a very strange phone call. Bredren (and sistas), I salute you. Now, who's up for a laugh? Good. Showreel to follow.

Interesting times

I haven't worked in the last week. I've got no work booked for this week, or indeed, at all for the rest of the year. This is my fifth January as a freelance, and whilst February and November have traditionally been sticky for me (short months and no one really goes on holiday), I have never had a problem finding work in January. Usually, my cup runneth over. This year, nada. There are a number of potential reasons for this, and it may be that all of them play a part. Here's the story as I see it. After taking the decision to concentrate on reporting and presenting in June last year, I effectively chose to pursue a higher-risk strategy of dismissing less well-paid, bread-and-butter production work, in order to make myself available for higher-paid, short-notice stuff. For the last 6 months of last year, this worked. I had 3 revenue streams - 5 live, Five News and London Tonight, and I'm in the middle of developing a (potentially problematic, but that's another story) fourth. However, Five News hasn't called since November, ITN (who used me more often that they didn't in the last 3 months of last year) has gone quiet, and 5 live has suddenly got a bit patchy (or has it? I'm just wondering whether or not I've become more dependent on it, and therefore noticed it more when it isn't there). Either way, the phone has yet to ring, and there's nothing in the diary. It may just be that January is going to be a write-off, and that's the luck of the draw. Last January I had three weeks of presenting Richard Bacon's show whist he was off getting spliced and honeymooned. I haven't checked who else is engaged at 5 live. It's not a good idea to base a career on hoping key presenting talent will regualarly go and get married at odd times of the year. Even accepting last Jan was an anomaly, by the end of this week I would hope to get a few availability checks for February. Now if those aren't forthcoming, it's time to worry. Why are things so dead? I have spent most of last week asking myself this question and there are several answers: 1) Times are tough. There isn't much money around, people are drawing their horns in and a freelance ban, or drastic reduction in freelance bookings is an obvious way to save cash. This applies equally to the BBC as it does the commercial sector - before Christmas BBC DG Mark Thompson said rising costs and the credit crunch will have an adverse effect BBC finances. 2) Maybe I'm just not good enough. It may be that after giving it a good crack I had better face up to the idea that it's a tough, competitive and often arbitrary business and although I've had a fair amount of luck, I just don't have the natural-born talent to be successful. Obviously I think I'm the best goddam thing to ever happen to this industry, but I can only spend so long waiting for the people who make the hiring decisions to see this. 3) Face/voice doesn't fit, people are bored, time to move on. Alright, I don't think I'm the world's best presenter or reporter, but I don't think I am the worst. I believe I do have several skills that make the overall package a generally positive one, but whilst news reporting/presenting is at the more serious end of showbiz, it's still showbiz, and it doesn't matter how good you are, if you don't have what a channel controller/programme editor is looking for within the portfolio of voices or faces they are trying to put together, then sorry darling, that's the way it goes. I've always accepted that a) this does happen and you have to be prepared for it and b) it's a rubbish excuse for failure, because if you are talented enough, it doesn't matter what you sound or look like, you will get work somewhere. 4) I've been too busy/lazy. I think (or at least I'm bloody hoping, as this is the only one I can control) this might be the most likely reason. On deciding to go freelance, nearly five years ago, I bought a very expensive laptop. It was expensive because it had a DVD burner in it, which was a reasonably new development for laptops at the time. I bought a laptop with a DVD burner in it with the idea that when I went freelance I could burn copies of my showreel to send to loads and loads of people who would run to my door with offers of lucrative presenting work in their hands. Showreels burned five years later: nil. Unfortunately I was too busy working as a freelance to spend the time putting together much of a coherent self-promotion strategy. All my work has come about through targeting specific organisations, and as a result, the number of people who know I exist is rather small. Thinking about it, the last time I approached an organisation out of the blue (albeit with some advice from a friend who worked there) was 3 years ago. So... I'm going to use my downtime to put together a showreel (which I will post on youtube so everyone can have a laugh) and burn it onto DVD. I have bought the cheap, confusing, but ultimately functioning Nero suite, and taught myself how to use it. I've even worked out how to use the cd printer in my printer - check out this dummy: And I'll go and remind my agent I exist, and start applying for jobs, and hawk the News Show around a few more people and set up some meetings and generally try and use this time to shake things up a bit. I will report back soon. Until then, possums, sleep well, and if any of you do happen to own/run a radio/tv station with room for one more, feel free to contact Sue Ayton at Knight Ayton Management. I am a very busy man (still haven't put up the bathroom shelves), but I'm sure we can do lunch.

News Show #12 is live

6 minutes 30seconds of rib-tickling amusement. And swearing: Boing. Comments welcome.

6am eternal

Hello I am typing using my slow and dim netbook on a train from Manchester to Birmingham. Not the train I had originally intended to get. Not the train I was assured that woold be leaving Manchester Piccadilly at 6.10am prompt when I called National Rail Enquiries at 1.20am this morning. No. That train was cancelled. When I realised this at 5.58am this morning I fearlessly hopped on the 6am train to Bristol (despite having a via London only ticket) hoping to pick up a Virgin Cross Country train to Basingstoke, then struggle back to Wlaton on Thames via there. This time the cancellation wasn’t due to the air crash at Stafford, but a massive power failure around the Watford/Milton Keynes area which stopped all services out of Euston for all of Sunday. After a long discussion with the very helpful ticket inspector (or Customer Service Enforcer or whatever her job title is) Gail we decided this would be fine and the trump card in any discussion with any Virgin or South West Trains person who thinks my ticket is invalid because I’m not travelling the stated route is that I am actually travelling a cheaper route by going through Reading and therefore if there’s any excess to pay, they should be paying me. And anyway Gail wrote on the back of my ticket (see below) requesting my free passage through Berkshire and Hampshire in special official Virgin Trains felt tip, so I can hold this aloft as I pass through their ticket barriers and all will fall back in wonder. Thankfully I‘m not up and at 'em at this time in the morning for work reasons - I have been known to get the early train from Manchester after a Nolan to then do a day’s telly reporting shift (total sleep time 3 hours plus whatever I can get on the train) - this time I am sacrificing sleep to get home to spend the day with my daughter Abi who is 1 today. Happy Birthday Abi. Peace and good wishes to you all.

Gaza

In trying to stop this blog being a constant moan I am tempted to cast about for something happy joy joy to wax about but I've just done a 3 hour programme on the Israeli ground offensive into Gaza.

Frankly I'm not qualified to offer a personal opinion about this, and given how much it inflames and polarises opinion, I'm not sure I want to, but in the course of the programme I interviewed a man in Gaza, who was talking quietly to me from his house whilst his wife and 3 children slept nearby.

He told me how scared he was and how he'd tried to explain what was going on to his kids - why they had to sleep with their clothes and shoes near the bed, what might happen to them if the troops reached his house, and he told me how he'd prepared for the worst, the possibility that he or a member of his family might be killed.

It put my facile concerns into perspective.

**************************

Plane crashes plane ride

So up to Manchester for a weekend of Nolan on BBC Radio 5 live. I booked an early train (Friday 1331 from Euston) as I thought there might be some travel problems. All was going well until I got to Euston and there was no platform number assigned to my train. Half an hour later there was still no platform number assigned to my train and the words "possible cancellation" appeared under the train details. Then we were told "due to overhead line problems at Stafford" there would be "delays" to the service, but passengers were advised to remain on the station concourse. Had I been the trusting sort, I might have stayed, but I called work and we agreed on an instant plan B. They booked me on the 5pm BA flight to Manchester from Heathrow. They also told me a small plane had crashed into the overhead lines at Stafford and the occupants were probably dead. Now, I don't know too much about what happens after a fatal air accident, but the investigators do tend to put the area on lockdown and go over the crash site very carefully. And, of course, there is the grim business of removing the corpses, which has to be done carefully and with due dignity. The crash happened just before midday. The emergency services would have informed Virgin Trains within minutes to avert a further tragedy, so why was it that at 1330 the station board said "possible cancellation" and the station announcer was advising people to "stay on the concourse"? To avert panic? To waste peoples' time? The policy of deliberately feeding large groups of people miniscule amounts of information when things go wrong is well-established, but not necessarily helpful. I recently did a piece from the Highways Agency Motorway Control centre at Godstone (M25 J6), where they have an entire wall of screens which can switch to any camera on the M25. They can use the information they get from their screens and from their computer tracking systems (which use pads under the tarmac to count and report the number of vehicles joining and leaving the M25 in real time) to decide which messages to put up on the motorway matrix gantries. Nowadays one of the screens is permanently switched to a news channel. Why? Because, according to a senior person who works there, on the day of the 7/7 bombings in 2005, GCHQ (Government Communications HQ - West Country Spooks) in Gloucestershire overrode the matrix screens to put up a message that said something like "Danger! Do not enter London". Cue head-scratching at Godstone, and a certain amount of confusion as they scrambled to find out what is going on. Now at least, they know the existence of the override, and who to call next time it happens... Anyway. I left Euston, walked to Euston Square, got the tube to Paddington, got the Heathrow Express to Terminal 5 (I was last there to report it on opening day and have yet to change my opinion that it is a horrible soulless shed, albeit now one that actually works), and sat and waited for my flight. One of the things I really can't stand about airports is those self-congratulatory corporate ads aimed at international business types, all about market share, success, capital, share options, mergers and acquisitions, wealth creation etc etc and seem to have about 3 different modes. Mode 1: 37 year old white alpha male (dark hair) stands, surrounded by one or two white beta males, simpering business-skirted white female, and possibly, in the background, out of focus, a black (but not too black) male. Alpha male is smiling and shaking hands with leader of group of 4 asian men, who are wearing identical charcoal grey suits and smiling with heads slightly bowed. Slogan: "Where business opportunities meets your expectations" Mode 2: A close shot of a beautiful non-white woman, who gazes benignly at the camera. Slogan: xxxxx (insert country), a land of welcoming opportunity Mode 3: A wide shot of some goddawful corporate edifice. Slogan: Endless Horizons. Make Them Yours. Here is one example: It shows an empty hotel bar, with wipe down, uncomfortable leather pods, and an arrow pointing to one of them, as if written on a postcard, which says "We drank in the news of our market leadership here." Let's just pause for a minute and accept that market leadership, for anyone, is something to celebrate. After all if I have a radio show, that one day becomes the most listened to radio show in the country, I would probably be happy about it. But a) how would you feel about your life if you were forced to celebrate your world dominance from an empty, atmosphere-free hotel bar, and b) have so little creative imagination going on in your brain, you would choose to send a postcard (to whom - your mum? your poor, miserable spouse?) pointing this fact out, and illustrating it with a picture of an empty chair? This, incidentally, is where I discovered Verne Troyer was a dead cert for the CBB house. Being harrassed and stupid, I'd forgot that the glamour of flying nowadays requires you to get undressed, in a hurry, in public. Having smugly congratulated myself on not carrying any liquids as I went through security, I was then ordered to put my spare change into my coat, put my coat in a box, put my bag in the same box, take my shoes off, take my coat back out of the box, put my shoes under my coat, put my coat back on top of them, take my belt off, walk through a frame and then put it all back on, hopping alongside a conveyor belt whilst trying to keep up with my belongings as they were pushed along. I arrived in Manchester 10 minutes before I usually do, and thanks to the air-conditioned and pressurized atmosphere I'd been sitting around in I nearly lost my voice in the second hour of the show. No bad thing, you may think... Balls. This blog is just one long extended moan isn't it? It's a kind of therapy which means I can spend every other waking moment a beacon of sweetness and light, but I appreciate that doesn't make it any easier to read. I'll work on this...