Goodbye Five News

It isn't going anywhere, I am. It was my last shift yesterday so I thought I'd take some grainy, blurry shots of the place. Not everyone is aware that Five News is made at Sky News (above). The Sky compound is on a bleak industrial estate near Osterley, just off the A4. The Sky News building, whilst unlikely to be in the running for any architectural awards, is a thing of wonder. The Sky News studio takes up the bulk of the two floor building, and it is vast. There in the distance (above), is the tiny form of Chris Skudder, doing his weekend sports round up. Like many things you build up a familiarity with, it's easy to take such a work environment for granted, but really it is spectacularly odd, and grand, and Newsy. The Five News office is on the first floor and the Five News studio is much smaller than the almost operatic Sky set. The Five News weekend bulletins come from the mezzanine level within the Sky studio. And this (below) is what it looks like from the presenter's chair (the camera is just to the left of the shot - the big light above it was burning everything else out so I just took a pic of the monitors). I always wanted to work at Sky, just to see what it was like. Unfortunately living in North West London made it almost impossible to consider by public transport and pushbike.

When I moved to Walton on Thames and bought a scooter, Sky was just 11 miles up the road and suddenly nearer than my usual places of work - Newsbeat (W1) and 5 Live (TVC). When I got the opportunity to work for Five, I jumped at it.

I was granted a meeting with the then assistant editor on the recommendation of a colleague. What I thought would be a chat about the possibility of a few freelance shifts turned into quite an aggressive job interview. "Oh." I remember thinking. "That's that, then." But they called me up and offered me some production shifts and things slowly went from there.

I loved working at Five - the team were/are great, the sensibility fitted, the work ethic was incredible and the coffee bar does the best coffee I have ever tasted at a work canteen anywhere. And it was half an hour up the road. What's not to like?

I also learned an awful lot about television from the two editors I served under - Mark Calvert, who now appears to be running a television channel in Australia - and the current editor David Kermode, who has a very distinctive and coherent vision for what a news programme should do and say.

David is also famous for banning noddies - and if you want to see him sending this up in a leaving tape for an ex-colleague of his (who now happens to be my big boss at BBC South East) - it's here on youtube.

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Oasis at Wembley Stadium - the interview

The gentleman above, with a soon-to-be-filled Wembley stadium as his backdrop, is Noel Gallagher, derivative rock star, genius behind the third biggest-selling uk album of all time, raconteur, wit and working class hero.

Briefly, my relationship with Oasis is this: Definitely Maybe comes out when I am 21 years old and a student in Liverpool. It soundtracks virtually everything I do for a good 12 months.

My first ever radio show - "The Weekend Spam"* on LJMU's student radio station Shout FM, had the long intro to "Rock n' Roll Star" as its opening music, because at the time, I didn't believe there was anything more likely to make anyone feel more alive in existence, anywhere.

What's the Story (Morning Glory) comes out and I'm an ex-fan. The music's lost its edge, Noel's not saying anything new, it's slipping comfortably towards the dadrock which reaches its nadir with The Verve's dinner party staple Urban Hymns (not that either of these are bad records - just that I would rather be listening to the Pixies, Jane's Addiction and Nick Cave).

At the point everyone seems destined to lose interest in Oasis, Wonderwall comes out as a single. It's picked up by commercial radio, and Just. Goes. Massive. From then on, Oasis aren't just a band, they're a phenomenon, and everyone knows what the story is...

The first time I saw them live was at Glastonbury in 2004 and they were mediocre. The next time was early 2005 at the Hammersmith Apollo and they were mediocre. The best part of the evening was after the concert when I saw Michael Eavis under the Hammersmith flyover.

I said to my friends: "That man standing on his own looking confused is almost certainly Michael Eavis. Let's try and found out who this year's Glastonbury headliners are." - or words to that effect.

Michael was sporting that unmistakeable beard, a lumberjack shirt, jeans and a pair of battered desert boots which had their laces undone. He looked unkempt and startled to be suddenly confronted with five people, all of whom started asking him questions about his evening: Michael - what on earth are you doing here? "I just wanted to see Oasis again - I thought they were very disappointing at Glastonbury and thought I'd give them another go." What did you think? "Nah, no, not very good. Not my thing." and so who is going to headline Glastonbury this year? "Now, you're not journalists are you?"

After a good chat (in which he didn't divulge who was headlining) he said: "Now, does anyone know the best way to get to Paddington - I've got to catch a train back to Castle Cary."

We stared at him as if he were joking - surely he was... but no, the (multi-millionaire?) founder of the Glastonbury festival, who had seemingly taken it upon himself to travel to London alone to see Oasis, in his 70th year, with no record company people to look after him - wanted directions to Paddington station. "Get a cab!" we said, almost in unison, and he started looking round for a cab, as if one might suddenly parachute off the flyover and land next to him with its light on, door open and driver saying through the window "Paddington, is it?".

A member of our group walked him to the nearest rank.

So, hop forward 4 years to last week when I got five days worth of showbiz shifts at London Tonight.

On Tuesday Max Velody, top producer, casually said "oh it's Noel Gallagher on Thursday at Wembley Stadium".

At that moment I was reminded why I got into showbiz reporting. Because it's fun. Noel Gallagher is the real deal. Whatever you think of him and his music, he has led a band which has lasted the distance over the past 16 years, and will, during the course of this short stadium tour, have easily surpassed the number of people they played to over three days at Knebworth, in 1996.

They are, live at least, more popular than ever. He is also very funny. Very few people can hold their own with Russell Brand - Noel does so with ease. If you ever heard the two of them together (Noel had a weekly guest slot on Russell's 6Music show and continued to appear on his Radio 2 show), you'll know what I mean.

A recent comment on an issue du jour from the stage in Coventry: "This Michael Jackson thing is dragging on a bit, isn't it? Who do they think he is, Jade Goody?"

I think that just about sums it up. Noel is also a willing pro. At every relevant gig on this tour he did the local TV media - outlets many stadium acts are far too quick to ignore - and because I was representing ITV London on the night the Oasis machine rolled into London, I got a few minutes of the great man's time.

We parked up in the bowels of Wembley stadium and were taken by a PR to Noel's dressing room. "Perfect" said the cameraman, eyeing the designer lamps, low-lighting and pretty orchids.

"No - let's do it in the stadium seats." I said. Why film an interview with a band at wembley stadium about a band playing wembley stadium in a room that could be anywhere?

The PR wanted us to do it in the dressing-room, as that's what she'd arranged, but I was adamant I wanted it in the stadium. It didn't help that my cameraman was loudly agreeing with the PR.

Eventually another PR came along and said she was sure Noel wouldn't mind walking up two floors.

On hearing this, and as the person with ultimate responsibility for the shoot, I overruled the cameraman, which left it 2 to 1 against the PR still holding out for the dressing room, with 1 abstention (thanks, mate).

The PR who thought the stadium would be a good idea led us to a lift and walked us out into the Royal Box. Perfect! Rock royalty in the royal box.

We were early, so we got to watch the band soundcheck for 45 minutes. No Liam. Liam doesn't soundcheck. Then the cameraman redeemed himself spectacularly. The crew after us were from BBC London and I knew the reporter, Jane Witherspoon, quite well. After we'd said hello, the cameraman suggested we pool resources and do a two camera shoot - allowing us to dispense with reverses and noddies - the two most humiliating and excruciating things about being a TV reporter.

I leapt at the idea and put it to Jane. She was cool and we set about working on how we were going to do it. In the end we decided my camera would shoot the principle and the BBC cameraman would be shooting the secondary (me/jane) and wides. After each interview we would start new tapes so we could both walk away with our own footage. The only problem was the BBC cameraman only had one tape, which was going to mean me dropping by BBC LDN reception to pick it up, until my cameraman, who had not only redeemed himself, but was now showing everyone up with his resourcefulness, explained the situation to the MTV crew who were interviewing Noel third, and sponged a tape off them.

The only stipulation I put down was that as we had arrived first, I got to be the one being filmed meeting Noel for real as he walked into the Royal Box.

Jane had to film their "meeting" shot after their interview. The interview itself was not earth-shattering. Noel can deliver some phenomenal copy, but most of it comes into a print reporter's tape recorder after a few drinks, or in a more relaxed chatty interview which has time to breathe, conducted by people he's met before. Getting good soundbites from Noel on radio is hard.

Hats duly tipped to: 1) Colin Paterson at 5 Live - whose interview with Noel on Jay-Z playing Glastonbury became big news and was played out to the crowd at Glastonbury at the beginning of Jay-Z's set - inadvertently becoming the highlight thereof.

2) Chris Moyles, who always gets the very best out of him. Getting good quotes in the incredibly sober, sterile, artificial environment of a pre-recorded 4-minute TV news interview is nigh on impossible, unless he is in the mood to say something. And on Thursday, he wasn't. Why would he want to give his best lines to me?

That's not to say he didn't give droll and interesting answers to my questions, just nothing earth-shattering. I called base and told them that we had taken a unilateral decision to bring forward the start date of Michael Grade's memorandum of understanding with regard to the sharing of newsgathering resources between ITN and the BBC at a local level.

I explained it would mean that the interview edit would be a million times better, but that the shot of Noel on ITN and BBC would be almost identical. I asked if that was likely to be a problem.

"No." said the editor. "Because we're on first."

Before we left, one of the PR ladies who we'd got increasingly chatty with during the soundcheck, asked if I'd like to go to the gig that evening. Hell, yes. The other PR then asked if Saturday were preferable.

Er, whatever, either... er... Saturday please. Blimey. You don't turn down a free ticket to see Oasis at Wembley Stadium. Not after having seen the inside of the new Wembley stadium for the first time. Not after interviewing the man who is about to fill it 3 times over. And so that was Thursday. Next entry, I would like to relate to you: Oasis at Wembley Stadium - Up There With One Of The Best Gigs Ever, with a full scientific explanation as to why.

* I would like to think that this was an early, prescient nod to the junk email phenomenon that has become the scourge of the internet, but I seem to remember we used it in its original sense as an unappetising, nutritionally-bereft, canned piece of stodge. Titterific.

Florence and the Machine, Harry Potter premiere, Fourth Plinth and a new job

It's all been a bit busy recently. On Monday the press release about me getting a new job went out, after the staff at BBC Surrey were told by the station manager. I'll blog about how exactly that came about in a few days, as it deserves its own entry, but dealing with the release seemed to be a whole world of fun in itself.

Obviously, I'm thrilled about getting the gig, and considerably taken aback by the number of people who have got in touch on Facebook and Twitter (and one old-fashioned but very welcome call on the phone!) to offer variations on a congratulations theme.

I've been sitting on the news for some time and had to take the decision in something of an advice vacuum, as there weren't many people I could tell. Anyway - that was Monday - same day as I was reporting on the launch of Antony Gormley's fourth plinth project in Trafalgar Square. I've been meaning to blog for some time that I've got a place on the plinth myself, at the behest of London Tonight.

A few months back the planning desk asked the organisers if it would be possible to get a reporter up there. The organisers said "no, but you are more than welcome to enter the ballot". So an email went round to all the ITV regions from the London desk asking all reporters to apply, because the number of places available on the plinth are divvied up equally, geographically.

So if you live in Cumbria, statistically you've got a much better chance in the ballot that anyone who applies in the London region. I applied, and because I appear to be quite spawny at the moment, I got a place (and a good slot too - 5pm on Thu 30th July). This was very well receieved by the planning desk, and I was pleased that it was mission accomplished, but, to be honest with you, it's not really my thing.

This meant I wasn't really ready for the reaction, with everyone who knew about it excitedly asking "what are you going to do?", to which my answer was "a news report, probably".

This reached a culmination of ridiculousness on Monday when I mentioned my own slot on the plinth to Antony Gormley Himself (whose concept this whole thing is) just before I interviewed him. He suddenly became animated and said: "Really?! Congratulations! What are you going to do?" 

"Well, a news report, probably." I replied.

"Ah, of course." he said, like this would be something that would never occur to him.

The 30th July is my last day at London Tonight, and so it makes sense to have a drink with my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues afterwards, but for some reason my family want to come to London to witness me standing around like a lemon in Trafalgar Square.

I have managed to dissuade my father and wife from coming, but my mother is made of sterner stuff and remains determined to see her son mooching about on a piece of stone for an hour. I have tried to tell her it will be dull, and I will be working all day on making a TV piece leading up to it, and probably doing a live for London Tonight immediately afterwards, but she thinks this is worth travelling up to London for.

And now apparently my sister and her family are coming down from Oxfordshire too. Don't get me wrong, it's a phenomenal achievement to be chosen at random by a computer, but, as I said, not my sort of thing.

Still, I was very happy with the piece that went out on Monday, filmed inbetween dealing with the BBC press office on the final draft of the presser, and edited whilst trying to tell my bosses at ITV I was leaving.

Yesterday I met Florence off of Florence and the Machine for a second time before covering the Harry Potter premiere. It's exactly a day like this you don't need after deciding to leave the world of television.

I basically got paid to watch the new Harry Potter movie, go to the beautiful old Rivoli ballroom in Lewisham to hang out with a pop star and then straight to Leicester Square to meet Daniel Radcliffe for a red carpet live into the programme.

I have moaned about premieres in the past, and been picked up on it by the PRs, who are rightfully protective of their event, but this one was amazing.

The whole of Leicester Square had been taken over by more camera crews I've seen since the launch of Live 8, and the fans who gathered were just unbelievably loud. It was all set for an all-singing, all-dancing spectacular when the most extraordinary cloudburst threw everything it had at London.

We had thunder, lightening, hail and torrential, torrential rain. Despite all this, the PRs ferried all the stars around the sodden red carpet, sticking to the myriad live and pre-recorded commitments and delivering Daniel Radcliffe to me bang on time as we went live on the programme.

Concentration-wise these premieres are difficult enough for us to deal with, but for the stars it must be total madness, blinded by flashbulbs, deafened by screaming, tugged this way and that by PRs and then plonked in front of different crews from all over the world, all asking varying qualities of question for totally different audiences and expecting suave, witty, confident, urbanity from the poor actor they're pointing a camera at. Add the imminent threat of a lightening strike, and you're getting close to what happened yesterday.

I got Daniel as the cue was being read in the studio and so had 10 seconds to shake his hand, tell him I'd do a brief introduction then introduce him into shot. He took the time out to ask which outlet I represented and then took it on himself to be enthusiastic, articulate, thoughtful and friendly throughout the interview - namechecking London Tonight in one of his answers and making light of the appalling conditions.

Daniel Radcliffe is 19 years old. Frightening, isnt' it?

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Honey bees and child abuse

Today's filming began on a 14th century country estate and ended on a 1970s council estate.

Phil and I drove from our hotel to Tregothnan near Truro, where the country's most expensive honey is produced. It's the first manuka honey to be made outside New Zealand and it costs £55 for a little jar.

The people at Tregothnan are very nice. Whilst we were waiting for our chaperone, we were allowed to take over part of the estate office and set up our edit "suite". Eventually we were led to the manuka bushes and hives. The manuka blossom was out (a stroke of luck as it only flowers for 6 weeks a year) and the bees were being transferred into a new 6 foot tall designer hive (below).

Unfortunately there was only one spare protective suit. Phil got it whilst he went in close on the hives. I kept a safe distance until it was my turn to interview the bee-keeper, a young, knowledgeable lad called Will. Having started getting what we needed the phone went.

"Finish filming and get to Plymouth now. A nursery teacher has been arrested for distributing indecent images of children" said the boss.

"Fine," I said, "but we haven't finished here - there's not enough in the can for a package."

"Okay, call you back in two." he said. Two minutes later: "You've got an hour, then get to Plymouth." said the boss.

An hour later we were charging towards Plymouth, liaising with Sky's Bristol-based reporter Katie Stallard. She was up on all the phone calls - demanding interviews from the police, council and chasing up a contact who might be one of the mums with children at the nursery.

She was also on to Ofsted, finding out if they were satisfied the staff at the nursery we went to had been properly CRB checked. When we arrived Phil leapt out and started filming. Crews and satellite trucks were starting to arrive. I was down for a live, but it soon became apparent we had enough for a package.

Parents of toddlers were hanging round the nursery (and the school attached to it) demanding to know what was going on, and they were very angry.

Katie arrived and we found ourselves with a sat truck, a live camera and 2 ENG (roving) crews. I was told to film a piece to camera, write a script and send track and rushes to base at 4pm whilst Katie did some newsgathering.

Then she would hog the transmission path for lives whilst I went and found out what I could. It all worked very smoothly. The strength of feeling from the parents made their voxes very powerful, the piece to camera was visually and verbally informative and had a line that I had got out of the police about exactly where they suspected the alleged crimes may have been committed which I think had eluded the other outlets.

I filed the script on a live line to base in one take. Whilst Katie was doing her live I used the truck's P2 flash drive recorder to view and choose the two best voxes and called my producer Laura as she sat in the edit suite putting the piece together in London.

As Five News was going out I got in a Sky cameraman's car as Katie was attached to more lives. We had been given the name and address of the suspect by a snapper, and we were also looking for the location of a community meeting which was supposedly going to be held by police to give worried parents more information.

Katie had heard it might start around 7pm and one parent had told me it might be at a church hall, but she hadn't heard which one, so I googled nearby church halls and we drove off in search of the right one. We drove round for a bit and then I got out of the van to have a chat with a young woman who told me she didn't know anything about a meeting but the police often held community briefings at a nearby church. We drove straight round and saw the vicar getting out of his car. I asked if he was holding the community meeting at his church.

"We might well be but you'll have to ask the police about it." he said.

I asked him what time it would start. He said he didn't know. I ran back to the van and said we had the venue. Just then the police turned up and we got a shot of the police and the vicar opening up the church.

The police, who'd refused to give us the venue location all day realised the game was up and I asked the most senior-looking copper if the meeting started at 7pm - he confirmed that it did. I called the Sky newsdesk immediately as this gave us a new line (confirmation of the residents' meeting, its time and location) for their 6pm live and a new location for both our 7pm lives.

The sky cameraman drove the pictures back to the sat truck and we then went off in search of the suspect's house, which was pretty easy with a road name, although one of the local newspaper journalists annoyed me by refusing to confirm to me the exact address of the suspect's house when we were virtually on her doorstep.

Oh how happy I was when she came running up to me 5 minutes later asking if I knew anything about a public meeting which her newsdesk had heard about after watching Sky. I said she had better contact the police.

We got some shots of the suspect's house, drove back to the church and started preparing for the live. Because the police had asked parents to bring photo id with them to the meeting, when the doors opened at 7pm it took them ages to get into the church.

As a result we had a great backdrop of a queue of angry and very concerned parents waiting to find out exactly what had happened to their children - much better than the other outlets who were still stuck down the hill outside the nursery.

I'm sorry if any of the above sounds glib or flippant - I am aware that any story about child abuse will be sickening and appalling for those caught up in it. I made it my business to respectfully approach all the parents - and was treated equally politely.

My live was at 7.10pm. Katie Stallard was top story on the sky.com the 7pm prog which tends to go for shorter lives. As we were sharing a satellite path, it meant as soon as she finished I had to grab her mike and audio comms whilst Sky switched us over to the Five gallery.

I had to give them audio level, then audio level on camera to check sync. By this time my piece was going out so I had about 30s to get the position right and double check whether or not I was picking up straight off my piece or being asked a question. It all worked fine.

As soon as we were done I got in Phil's car and he drove me to the station, before we parted he gave me his precious P2 card with the bees rushes on it. I bought a ticket, got a horrible sausage sandwich from the Spar and sat in a daze all the way back to Reading.

Working at the Sony Radio Academy Awards

Look! It's me and DCI Gene Hunt! It doesn't get better than that. That was the only time I abused my position last night. I was reporting from the floor of the Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel for the Sony webcast and as such got to tap the top talent on the shoulder and talk to them. Post-interview, Philip Glenister very graciously agreed to my idiot request for a photo too. The webcast is an effectively an OB and run as such. Radio 2's Richard Allinson and Capital's Margherita Taylor co-present it, Xfm's Marsha Shandur womans the messageboard and I leg it around downstairs. It's produced by the brilliant Alison Rusted and Fiona Cotterill who form Alfi Media and it's kept on air by a small army of technicians. Essentially it's an av feed of the ceremony itself (this year hosted for the first time by Chris Evans) with Eurovision-style commentary over the top by Richard and Margherita. Around this we build a good two hours worth of interviews, comment and messageboard reaction and, having dotted the eyes and crossed the tees, we head to the bar to be astounded by the insanely expensive drinks. This is the fourth year I've done it, and it is one of the best gigs of the night because you get a ringside seat to the action, you can get a flavour of what its like on the floor and thanks to the fact you're holding a microphone you can pretty much decide who the most interesting person in the room is and go and talk to them. This year I interviewed Chris Evans, Alex James, Philip Glenister, Radio 2 Controller Bob Shennan, Radio 3 Sony Gold winner Stephen Johnson, the Chief Executive of the Prison Radio Association, whose station Electric Radio Brixton won two golds, Simon Mayo, Mark Radcliffe, Olly and Helen (the presenters of the very funny nominated podcast Answer Me This), and, wearing his BBC World Service hat (not literally, though a BBC World Service hat would be be a good idea), the superb broadcast journalist Alan Little. Everyone was more than happy to do a turn for us. Alex James even stood up and hugged me when I interrupted his dinner, which was a surprise, as I was wondering if he'd even remember me. For me the highlight was meeting Mark Radcliffe. The guy is a legend and his late night Radio 1 show was so much a part of my youth. He gave a brilliant interview and to win two Sony golds, one as a producer of the Count Arthur Strong comedy show on Radio 4, and one as Music Broadcaster of the Year on Radio 2 emphasizes just how bloody good he is. The paps wanted to photograph Philip Glenister and Chris Evans (who as well as hosting also won two sonys) posing together, the hacks were taken by the story of Electric Radio Brixton winning two sonys, but for me (as a fanboy and radio anorak) Mark Radcliffe winning two golds in two completely different disciplines on the same evening (is this beginning to sound like a sports report?) was something very special. The other extraordinary and quite brilliant thing that happened was that my contemporary (actually the swine is much younger than me), fellow blogger and web hoster of the News Show (which will be revived the moment I can find a spare day) Matt Deegan won a Sony Gold for his radio station Fun Kids. I've blogged before about the gargantuan effort that goes into winning a top award (and a sony gold is unarguably the top accolade in the radio industry), but it bears repeating. First of all it, whatever it is, has to be just about the best thing in the industry and worth of winning an award. Then you have to go through the process of making your entry reflect "it", by being as good as it can be. This takes time, money and, often, days of research. Then you have to hope you've got the right judges in place. To get through this process and emerge with a gold in your hands is a brilliant achievement and it couldn't happen to a more deserving person. Well done Matt, you did yourself proud.

Sonys

For anyone wishing to keep a check on my movements, I will be at the Sony Radio Academy Awards on Monday, reporting for the live webcast. My fourth time, I think. If you're going to be there, do come and say hello. On Tuesday I'll be at Leicester Square on the red carpet for a live with Ricky Gervais and possibly Ben Stiller for London Tonight. It's the premiere of Night At The Museum 2, which I am going to see tomorrow with the legendary Marsha Shandur off of Xfm, who will also be doing lots of texty twittery things on the above Sony Webcast.

Radio 1's Big Weekend. With kids.

Not "the" kids, who were there in their thousands, worshipping at the Radio 1 altar, but our kids, who don't yet know Radio 1 exists.

My wife Nic works at Radio 1, and therefore qualified for a pair of guest tickets, so we chose Saturday and brought our little ones, aged 4 (Amy) and 1 (Abi).

We aimed to take them last year for the Madonna one in Maidstone, but I was asked to do Nolan for 5 live that weekend, and Nic didn't feel she could take them both on her own. Wise.

We had limited ambition for the day. Get there at 12 noon, leave around 8pm-ish, see a few colleagues and ex-colleagues, and maybe, just maybe, catch a few bands. Hmm.

Getting there was fine. By the time we arrived at 12.45pm (having thoroughly enjoyed Vernon Kay's childish excitement at the possibilities the site webcams provided) the park-and-ride car park was full and we were into the overspill. This entailed a yomp with the buggy, buggy board, rucksack and shoulder-mounted-baby-carrier-cum-backpack (is there a proper name for these?) most of which we had brought out of retirement for the day.

The nice men and lady stewards and the nice men running the park-and-ride buses could not have been nicer, and all the other ticket-holders were suitably indulgent of and possibly amused at our family outing.

As Vernon pointed out (via the various texts he was getting from listeners looking at the webcams) the odd thing about the crowd at this event is that everyone is paired up, because that's how the tickets are given away. So people really do start the event wandering around in couples.

When the park-and-ride bus reached its drop off point there was another half hour walk to the site. We got there, got our wristbands and got in just in time for Daniel Merriweather. I took Amy in to the big tent and watching her taking it all in was moving. I pointed a few things out and she stayed very quiet, overwhelmed by the scale of things.

We left mid-way through Daniel's first song to get into the guest area and say hello to a few people. Abi was off as soon as her feet touched the floor and Amy started to get eggy, but there were plenty of parents and kids around. I had a brief chat with Nihal's wife whose little one is a month older than Abi, and then had to entertain Amy by taking her to the Live Lounge bar in the guest area where JLS were soundchecking.

This was more on a scale she could cope with and she was happy to watch JLS soundcheck Stand By Me (twice) and then perform it for real. I was happy she was happy.

At various stages of the afternoon I had brief chats with the legend that is Dylan White from Anglo plugging, my old boss Shabs, my old boss Rod McKenzie and a multitude of other people from Newsbeat, but it was not a time for sitting down with a flimsy cup of weak lager and catching up.

When we finally got everything together, dumped the buggy and headed out into the main arena for a look round, I was very impressed by the scale of the event and the sheer effort that goes into making sure every base is covered for every sort of listener.

The BBC and Radio 1 branding is omnipresent, but subtle, and the cross-BBC sub-brands (In New Music We Trust, Introducing, Switch, Three etc) were all there doing their thing and doing it very well.

Away from the 4 main stages (main, outdoor, In New Music We Trust, Introducing) there were tents and an open top bus for Switch (signed "No Olds!"), as well as all the usual concessions. There was also a local council arts initiative which had a load of juggling sticks, unicycles and hula hoops for people to pick up and try. Amy loved having a go at plate balancing. Then she went into the Switch area (which I thought was aimed at teenagers, but not just so) where she got to make her own sticker.

It was great to give the girls their first experience of dealing with the sensory assault of a festival. The echoey, loud music, the lights and screen and the mass of people. Abi thought the man dressed as a chicken was great and Amy took delight in the various inflatables she spotted (banana, dolphin etc).

The signing tent was popular, just as much for the DJs as the artists, and you really get a sense of the connection the listeners have with the DJs as much as the bands at this event.

By mid-afternoon Amy was getting listless and when she refused to eat some of her favourite food, we realised something was up. She had a temperature and we decided we were going to have to go home early.

Nic went to say some goodbyes and I stayed out in the main area on our picnic rug looking after Abi whilst Amy went to sleep.

Total "live" music experienced: Half a Daniel Merriweather song One JLS song, three times 2 halves of two Chris Moyles songs, plus Dom and Dave's effort. Zane Lowe doing his thing on the outdoor stage.

Then the fun started. We put Amy in the buggy and Abi on my shoulders to walk out of the venue at around 6pm. Having trekked the half hour back to the bus point (with a surprisingly large number of punters who had clearly decided they wanted to get home for tea), we were told the buses to the park-and-ride were departing from a different point "ten minutes walk" away.

The route of this "ten minute walk" was clearly signposted and stewarded, so we followed it. On the way we had started questioning the stewards who had assured us we were heading in the right direction, but also that there were no buses running to the park and ride at all at the moment because variously "the drivers are having a break", "the buses need refuelling", "we don't know, we just got told to send you this way".

One of them also said when we got to where we were meant to be going there were no direct buses to the park-and-ride. We'd have to get a bus into the town centre and then one out to the park-and-ride.

Senses of humour were beginning to fail at this point. Eventually we arrived at the back of a shopping centre and were directed to a bus stop by some more stewards. But there were no buses. A scheduled town bus turned up and began trying to charge people for tickets. People refused and started "politely explaining" the line they'd been spun whilst hacking their way through Swindon's suburbs for the past 40 minutes.

Driver knew nothing about it, and evidently didn't care. He radioed back to base. Base told him we'd been sent to the wrong spot by the stewards, despite the fact the last of the stewards was in sight of where we were.

The driver told us that he'd been told there were never going to be any buses to the park and ride from where we were, but if we went 5 minutes walk up the road to a specific underpass, they'd all be waiting for us there. No one knew where he was trying to send us and people were not happy. Amy was asleep throughout all this, thank goodness, but Abi had gone from gurgly and happy to weepy and screamy, which wasn't so nice.

Eventually someone from Swindon spoke to the driver and said that indeed the underpass in question was 5 minutes away and he would lead us there. I thought this could well be a wild goose chase, but nothing was going to happen were we were, so we set off in a group of about a hundred. After 10 more minutes of walking, having crossed two dangerous roads and lifted the buggy up a load of steps I was knackered and fuming.

Nic caught sight of a hotel and I noted the phone number on the side of a passing minicab. I called them minicab firm and got them to pick us up at the hotel. The taxi back to our car cost a tenner. We got the kids into their pyjamas in Membury services disabled toilet, bought some Calpol for Amy and listened to Dizzee Rascal's set on Trevor's show on the way home. It sounded brilliant. He also managed to specifically thank Radio 1's Big Weekend, which was impressively on-message, especially given Vernon managed to call it One Big Weekend twice on his show in the morning.

Radio 1 switched the event name from One Big Weekend to Radio 1's Big Weekend a few years back for obvious reasons, but One Big Weekend is such a resonant brand it's been hard to shift it in peoples' minds.

Dizzee's ability to rock a very large tent very very well was confirmed when we got back, put the kids to bed, poured a couple of drinks and settled down in front of the telly to listen to his set again with the added bonus of pictures. Apart from the unexpected endurance training, I enjoyed myself. Nic less so.

She had arranged during the week to see a few of her colleagues and whilst we managed to see one or two, most of them were working in various parts of the site. Co-ordinating a simple meet up with 2 kids in tow was tough. I hadn't arranged to meet anyone, so when I did bump into people it was a Brucey bonus, and spending some time with tha nippas is always time well spent, even though Amy was ill.

Amy was still under the weather today and didn't mention the event at all, but just before bed she was lying on her duvet looking at the plastic Hawaiian flower garland in her dressing up basket.

"Daddy...?" she said. "Yes?" "If we go to the Radio 1 Big Weekend again, next time I think I will take my flower necklace."