On the mic - Surrey Life - May 2012

Here is my column for the May edition of Surrey Life. Regular readers will note this is not the first time I have used the angry imp metaphor. It doesn't improve with age.

Links to previous Surrey Life columns are at the bottom of this post. If you want to subscribe to Surrey Life and read my latest column, I'm sure that would make my editor very, very happy.

 

Radio is about stories. Whether you are listening to the narrative development of a song, or the heartbreaking personal testimony of a parent who has lost a child, radio excels at enriching the world we live in with the lives of others.

 

At its best, the medium can be so compelling we find ourselves reaching into somebody else’s world, connecting with their stories, and intertwining them with our own emotions and experiences.

 

Every radio professional should be working tirelessly to create those moments of connection with the listener. A facility with the written and spoken word, accuracy, ideas, empathy and a sense of theatre are all important, but nothing beats individual, human stories. 

 

Finding those stories and the people to tell them takes no little skill. On a breakfast show, those tales need to fit in around all the things you would expect from breakfast radio - news bulletins, weather reports, travel updates - the complete delivery of all the information you need about the world around you.

 

The secret is in what we call the “clock hour”. Every minute of every hour in the breakfast show has a designated purpose. A radio programme should sound like nothing more technical than a series of smooth, easy, purposeful conversations, but the reality is very different.

 

Each guest, each story, each information segment should appear at a specific time and serve a specific need. Not just because we have a lot to fit in, and not just because every breakfast show needs light and shade, but because people set their morning routines by what they hear on their kitchen wireless.

 

If you switch on your radio at eight o’clock in the morning, you expect to hear the news. If you know you need to be in the shower by the time I get to the paper review, how infuriating would it be if an interview overran, and you found you were late for work? 

 

Plotting the clock hour starts a day in advance - there is a set amount of “furniture” we have to negotiate - the travel, the sport, the weather, the news. Then there are the minutes allotted to stories - different sorts of stories for different parts of the clock hour. If you are listening at 7.10am, you will hear a different sort of story to one you hear at 7.25am, and again at 7.50am. The idea is to create a rhythm to the programme that you can subconsciously use to inform your morning routine.

 

Of course, this all goes out live, which means it does so in an atmosphere of controlled unpredictability. I have a hopeless recipe-based metaphor about this which I will inflict on you now:

 

Get an angry imp, some good ingredients, ten talented chefs and a boiling cooking pot on a portable stove. 

 

Ask your talented chefs to stand in a circle at least 20 yards from the portable stove and chuck some prepared ingredients towards the boiling cooking pot, whilst the imp (has to be an imp, or a hobbit), pushes the stove around the room, swearing loudly at everyone.

 

To make a live radio show work, you need the quality ingredients, you need the talented chefs, and then you need to accept that whatever you're trying to make may be completely different from what you set out to make, or rather wonderful in spite of the circumstances.

To read April's column click here. To read my first column, in March 2012, click here.

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

On the Mic - Surrey Life - April 2012

This column first appeared in the April edition of Surrey Life. I have tinkered with it since and posted it below. To read all my columns as they were published, click here (£). To read my first column for Surrey Life for free in my blog, click here. To read my latest column. Go buy the magazine or subscribe to the digital version. It's great, particularly if you are rich.

*coughs*

I have a theory about radio. Ninety per cent of it is turning up. This probably holds true of many jobs, but if you can nail reliability in radio, you are well on the way to making a decent career.

Almost all radio is made by small teams of people with specialist skills at very odd times of the day, every day, and usually live. If you are a creative person who can turn up ready to work at 6am every Sunday morning, eschewing parties, weddings and weekends away without complaint, you will get on.

Which is why being ill is not a good thing. Especially if you present a breakfast show. If tens of thousands of listeners are going to let you innervate their waking thoughts on a daily basis, you need to turn up on a daily basis, and sound happy about it.

You may have a favourite radio presenter. If, one day, they aren’t there, you feel disappointed. If you are let down regularly, there’s a good chance you won’t come back. Why should you bother, if they’re not going to?

So if you work in radio, try not to have a complicated private life that makes you prone to emotional and overwrought states of mind. Try not to have a drink or drugs habit. Try to make sure you have at least two alarms. And try not to be ill.

I was ill recently. Not the sort of ill which would stop me from writing an email or minding the kids for a bit, but ill in a way which found me running a temperature, feeling dazed and producing a startling amount of liquid from my nose.

I went home early after my first show of the week and emailed my boss at 2.30pm saying I felt a little grim. “A little grim” isn’t ill enough not to present a breakfast show, but I wanted to flag up my less-than-bushy-tailed condition. My boss was understandably keen for me to indicate whether or not this meant I was going to make it the next day, as the number of people who are a) able to do my job and b) available to do my job is somewhat limited at the best of times.

So I emailed again at 4.30pm saying I felt better (I did. I’d just mainlined a maximum-strength lemsip) and promised to be present and correct for my show at 6am the next morning. 

Bad mistake. I woke up at 3.45am sweating and delirious. I got dressed and staggered to my car. I was hallucinating as I drove down the A3 towards our Guildford studios and arrived a dripping, incoherent mess. The three hours I completed on air were not my finest.

My boss, bless her, came in the moment the show finished and sent me home with instructions not to return until I was better. I took two days to stop coughing, sneezing, and … leaking. Apart from the dreadful broadcast (which I’m told at least had some comedy value) I felt very stupid for making the wrong call.

I wasn’t trying to be a martyr - I’m as lazy as the next person. If I had the remotest inkling I was going to be anywhere near as ill as I was I would have cried off the day beforehand. It’s just… I have this theory that ninety per cent of radio is turning up. 

Lord's, the unusual home of chips and gravy

Matt, a friend of mine, tweeted me at 9.45am yesterday:

"Don't suppose you can get to lords for this afternoon? Just got a couple of extra tickets?????"

Hell yes. I requested a slightly earlier departure than usual from the office and set about trying to get hold of my wife.

Permission granted, favours owed. By way of car, cab, train and tube, I made it to the Grace gate at Lord's just in time for lunch. How terribly civilised, my dear old thing.

Our seats in the Allen stand gave us the view you can see in the photo above. Matt is a member at Lord's and had brought a works party along, two of whom had to drop out at the last moment, hence the spare tickets.

I have been to Lord's two or three times before, but only in the cheap seats on the fifth day of a test match. This was slightly different.

The members and friends areas (of which the Allen stand is one) positively vibrate with respectful bonhomie, and the people-watching provides as much fun as the cricket.

Lord's takes a relaxed view of spectators importing reasonable quantities of food and drink into the ground, so many bring a day's supply of nibbles (grapes and olives are very popular) and booze.

We were impressed by the gentleman sitting in the front row of our stand with a wine box perched in front of him on a piece of brickwork.

"I think he's been here before." said one of Matt's colleagues.

The atmosphere was almost tangibly courteous. Everyone was being as polite as possible to everyone around them. The stewards seemed to know the members by name.  The bar staff were chatty, service was swift and the beer was cheaper than a pint in my local in Walton on Thames. And the dress code, thank goodness, was relaxed - there were plenty of suits, but just as many jeans and fleeces.

The overall impression (and I don't want this to sound remotely perjorative) was that of a genteel private members club, which just happened to have an international sporting event ticking along on the lawn.

Why not? It was the first day of a five day game, the pace of play was steady ("old-fashioned" according to TMS) and for many of the people around me, this was not a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity. If you're a member at Lord's you can pop in to watch any game you want, any day, for free.

We watched Stuart Broad take six wickets, Matt explained to me the genius behind Chanderpaul's batting action and I spent five hours in the company of a dear friend I rarely get to see.

The first day of the first test of the summer at Lord's isn't just about what happens in the middle. It's an opportunity to greet old friends, make new ones and quietly celebrate the passing of the years, getting older and having fun.

Oh, and it's the first place in London I've found that does chips and gravy. So there.

.

On the Mic - Surrey Life - March 2012

As promised, here is my first column for Surrey Life magazine, slightly re-written, because I can't leave things alone:

"3.45am. I present the Breakfast Show, six days a week, on BBC Surrey – and in order to be sufficiently present in both mind and body, I have to get up at 3.45am. It’s all anyone ever wants to know.

For the record, it’s okay. I’m used to it. I’m used to the rush of adrenaline that courses round the body from 6am to 9am, followed by the inevitable post-show catatonic trough.

I’m used to stumbling around Walton-on-Thames at three in the afternoon looking like a bag of spanners in the closest approximation to pyjamas I can get away with, assailing unsuspecting shop assistants with a series of half-formed yawns until I realise I’ve forgotten what I was there for in the first place.

But when I was offered the job of Breakfast Show presenter at BBC Surrey, I didn’t hesitate. Who wouldn’t want to present the biggest show on a newly-created BBC radio station in God’s Own County? People who don’t want to get up at 3.45am, I guess. Which is fine. We have a motto at work – sleeping is cheating.

The job itself is a doddle. A wise sage once told me the knack of being a radio presenter is saying something engaging, informative, intelligent and pithy, using vibrant, accessible language that will instantly strike a chord with thousands of people from wildly differing demographic groups and age ranges, every time you open your mouth. As I said, a doddle.

I have had the privilege of sitting in the presenter’s chair at BBC Surrey for going on three years, and the people I end up chatting with never fail to impress, astonish or move. I have also got to know more of the county than I ever thought possible. It’s sometimes very easy just to flit about in your own little bubble, but this job has taken me to all parts, from the urbanised commuter zones of the north, to the wilds of the east and south. For the last five years, I have been happily settled in Walton-on-Thames, with a patient wife and three delightful young children. 

I love this county dearly, so when Surrey Life’s fearsome editor suggested I hop on board, I was both thrilled and honoured. I hope you will find something in this column each month that makes you smile, reach for a stiff drink or possibly weep with pity.

And I do hope I might eventually tempt you towards tuning your radio to BBC Surrey of a morning. We’d love to count you as a friend."

You can read it on the Surrey Life website, too, of course.


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

I have a column in Surrey Life magazine

And look! I made the front page of the March edition. Nic and I once looked at Clandon Park as a potential wedding venue. We couldn't afford it.

To be honest, I can't afford many of the things advertised, or "featured" in Surrey Life, but I'm blimmin' delighted about becoming a regular columnist.

There was some debate about the column title. I came up with Radio Daze, but refused to countenance it, because it seemed too cheesy and obvious. I've just done a quick Google - it seems no one has a magazine column called Radio Daze. Maybe everyone thinks it's too cheesy or obvious. Hey - it's yours if you want it.

I liked White Noise, but my (fearsome) editor Caroline Harrap didn't. So it came down to a toss up between Sounding Off and On the Mic.

We went for On the Mic. You can find out more about Surrey Life here. A few of the older columns get posted up for free via that link. If that happens with mine, I'll also re-post it here.

Your comments on my glossy magazine prose style, and how it compares to the stuff on this blog, more than welcome.

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

Nick Wallis Inside Out West

A few weeks ago I got a call from Inside Out West asking if I'd work on a report with them. They'd seen some of the stuff I'd done with Inside Out South and thought I might be suitable.

Unfortunately one of the days filming involved a Monday morning police raid on a scrap metal yard in Wiltshire. As I present a breakfast show on the radio in Surrey, the Inside Out producer thought this might present a problem.

I took the problem to my boss at BBC Surrey, who very kindly agreed to spring me for one day. Thank you boss. One BBC and all that.

The above film is the result of two and a half days filming and a half a day in a voice booth/edit suite. It went out in the West region on BBC1 on 30 Jan 2012 and again in the South region on BBC1 on 6 Feb 2012.

It's always a little daunting working with a completely new team, but I was made to feel very welcome by everyone at BBC Bristol. I hope we can work together again.

If, for any reason, you can't see the embedded youtube video at the top of this post, you can see the report here.


***********

Lee Castleton - bankrupt and bitter

In the light of the recent article in Private Eye, I got an email from Lee Castleton, whose situation was highlighted back in 2009, by Computer Weekly.


Lee has given me permission to publish his email which has been edited slightly for clarity.

"Hi Nick,

"My name is Lee Castleton. I am a former subpostmaster. I am writing to give you my sorrowful experience of dealings with Post Office Ltd. I believe I am the only person to have defended a civil case (and lost) for losses in my branch - Marine Drive Bridlington. Case number HQ05X02706 in the High Court London. I was taken there in Dec 2006 by Post Office Ltd.

"In Jan 2004 My Post Office branch started to accrue losses. The first of which was £1103.68. This I paid. But I telephoned helpline and explained that I lost £1103.68. They told me to pay it and it would no doubt turn up the following week as a mistake on my part. The following week we again misbalanced. I was £4300 short. Again I made the phone call to helpline but I was given no help. 

"I explained I had paid in a large amount the week prior and I could not afford to pay. I was told they would look in to it. Over the following 10 weeks we misbalanced every week. Sometimes we had too much money but more often we had too little. I was frantic. I received no help and even though I never hid any misbalances, no answers we given. 

"After repeatedly voicing my concerns and begged for help (over 91 phone calls in the 12 week period) I asked for an audit. I knew this would stop the never helping attitude and force some action. I am naive. On the 23rd March 2004 I was audited. I was found to be exactly where I had told Post Office I was with respect to the misbalances (-£25000). 

"I did not expect what happened next. I was suspended. I was told the deficit was against my contract and that I needed to pay the money there and then. I explained that I had told Post Office repeatedly and that I felt the Horizon system was at fault. 

"I was taken through a procedure where my suspension became a termination yet still despite my pointing out faults in paperwork there was no investigation. Post Office now were not paying me and they then started proceedings to recover the supposed missing money. I was able to get representation through a legal insurance. 

"Post Office delayed and delayed with letters back and forth. All the time eating up the insurance money. 

"Finally we went to court in Dec 06. The Post office offered little evidence other than my signed accounts. I lost. From Jan 07 to this day my family and I have suffered far beyond anything I could explain. 

"I had to declare myself bankrupt because the Judge order costs against me to the value of £321000. The Judge told the Post Office that it was unlikely I would be able to pay prior to the case being heard but Post Office wanted to continue. So Post office Ltd paid £321000 to try to recover £25000. Even though they knew I could not pay.

"What is still painful is even more so when new revelations are revealed by others on a daily basis. I always asked for help and explained and reported any losses. It is not reasonable to think that an average working man can just pay ever more money into a system that clearly is flawed. 

"I have documents that prove the system does not work. One of which is the one Shoosmiths refer to - the Horizon records transactions whilst the person whom the Horizon says is operating the system is not even logged on to the system. This is one of the faults from my office.

"Post Office's case against me was argued on the basis that an account stated is an account owned. They argued that I signed of the accounts as a true reflection of the the accounts. Firstly over the 12 week period I made 91 phone calls asking why the system was showing shortages or gains. 

"Secondly I have now found out that Horizon has 3rd party access. Which Post Office deny. How can I own an account that a third party can change?

"Lee Castleton"

Since emailing this letter, Lee has asked Humberside Police to investigate his situation. He is alleging the Post Office:


"withheld the fact that the system has had and continues to have balance problems where transactions are lost. They withheld information during disclosure and still deny that the system has serious flaws with balancing. 


"They have financially gained from the non-disclosure and continue to deny they have a problem with the system. They have sought to criminalise people where possible whilst withholding this information. 


"They have profited from withholding this information. Because they are able to prosecute people without any form of checks with the CPS they have been able to continue to withhold this information to their own benefit in such cases."


Lee tells me the investigating officer at Humberside Police:


"has confirmed to me that he will be investigating the Post Office. He explained that he felt there is clearly a problem that needs to be looked into. 


"Whilst he also felt that it will be particularly difficult to do so he feels that it is certainly something that needs to be investigated."


I ought to point out, just in case any of the Post Office's lawyers are reading this, that the Post Office believes its Horizon interface to be "robust", and no one has ever offered any testable proof that the Horizon system has any faults whatsoever.