Derring do on the high seas

I challenge you to listen to this interview without thinking of the Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips. Climbing up the side of container ships is very Hollywood these days and, it seems, a necessary part of surviving a mid-Atlantic rescue.

Nick Ress (right) and Ed Curtis 

In December last year Nick Rees and his friend Ed Curtis attempted to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat. This sort of lunacy is now such a run-of-the-mill idea, it takes the form of an annual race.

During the race, just before Christmas, Nick and Ed got unlucky and decided to throw in the towel. When Nick dropped by the BBC Surrey studios to tell me about his adventure I was so gripped I thought it was worth stretching the interview beyond the allotted slot.

If you have 20 minutes and fancy listening to a good story well told, click on the button below. If you can't see the widget, try this link. It's well worth it.



Nick took on the challenge to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer after his wife was diagnosed at the age of 33 (thankfully she has made a full recovery). Nick and Ed have so far raised £170,000. Not bad for two years' work. Their own website breakthroughatlantic.com has a lot more supporting information.

Thanks to Nick for being such a patient guest and compelling storyteller.

Saturday breakfast

When you're on air and it's going well, everything feels right. You've done the prep, and the technicals/procedurals have almost been subsumed into your unconscious, so you're not wasting any effort thinking about them.

You probably have a producer who knows how you function best, and the communication between you - verbal and visual - is down to a highly efficient bare minimum.

You're not trying to push things or sound like you're working too hard. Things happen when they should and everything is in the moment.

That what it was like at times this morning. You may disagree - the evidence is up on the BBC iPlayer for the next few days. When things occasionally click, it's one of the best feelings you can get.

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Other stuff: I'm working at Inside Out for BBC South, putting together a few investigations which I hope will see the light of day before the end of this series. I've also started reporting again for ITV London, which is great. And we'll hopefully see the return of Caught on Camera for Channel 5, though nothing is confirmed yet.

Waterland

I went down to Cowey Sale next to Walton Bridge this weekend to take some photos. The Thames looks like the Broad Majestic Shannon at the moment and the flooding is far worse than I've seen it before.

The Thames Path along the Desborough Channel is completely submerged, and the Thames Meadow, the central patch of green in the picture below is now a lake.

The new Walton Bridge is holding firm, despite getting its ankles wet.

And if you're not directly affected by the raised water levels, watching such a huge volume of water swelling through the river is an awe-inspiring sight.

Nick is not drinking

Happy New Year. I have decided not to drink for January, or indeed 2014.

Find out how you can make money out of this here.

Or, if the link doesn't work, paste this into your browser: http://nickisnotdrinking.blogspot.co.uk

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Mobs and Yobs: Caught on Camera - preview

At 9pm on Thu 19 Dec, the last episode of this series of Caught on Camera will go out on Channel 5.

It's called "Mobs and Yobs: Caught on Camera" and features footage of a political protest in London which didn't seem to get much coverage on the news at the time.

The above image of Westminster is taken by the heat-sensitive camera on the police helicopter. 

One of our crews was filming in Met Police control on 5 Nov this year when two events, the Anonymous march and the Bonfire of Austerity protest was taking place in central London. 

We also had a crew on the ground to capture the actions of a breakaway group from the Anonymous march who lit a fire and set off fireworks outside Buckingham Palace (hitting it, quite spectacularly, in the process). 

We also have an amazing sequence from the 2011 riots, again in London, featuring a shopkeeper who thought he was going to get killed a the height of the violence.

And finally, as it's Christmas, who doesn't want to see some drunken Santas?

Tonight's episode is the last in the series. Hopefully we'll be back in 2014. 

Happy Christmas!

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A big week for BBC Surrey

Every Saturday morning I present a breakfast show on BBC Surrey, my local station. I've made good friends among colleagues and the station's contributors and audience, who use BBC Surrey as the community resource it should be.

Last night many of those friends were in one room at the South Lodge Hotel near Horsham to celebrate some of the outstanding people who dedicate themselves to making the world a better place.

I hosted a table with two nominees, one of whom was a 17 year old called Zoe Giles. Zoe spent two years tackling council bureaucrats who were trying to close her local youth centre down. Thanks to her efforts the centre was eventually given a guaranteed future.

PC Gaynor Grout

The other nominee was PC Gaynor Grout, a woman who has given her entire working life to community policing and appears to be, in the eyes of her colleagues and the people she serves, a very effective police officer.

It was a good evening - catching up with colleagues and hearing some wonderful stories of courage, bravery, kindness and generosity of human spirit.

Some of the same people who were working late into the night last night were up early this morning to attend the formal switch-on of BBC Surrey's first DAB digital transmitter at Epsom Downs racecourse.

l-r Mark Carter, Sara David, Sir Paul Beresford MP

This has been a long time coming. Digital roll-out was hit by the financial crisis, and a significant amount of reorganising was required before it could get going again. For someone who lives in North Surrey, where the FM signal can be very ropey, I am confident DAB will bring many thousands more listeners to BBC Surrey, and it finally means I can get a decent signal in my house!

If you live in Surrey or North East Hampshire, give BBC Surrey a try. The presenting team are particularly strong at the moment and the station seems to have more journalistic ambition than ever.

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Copyright for all photos: BBC Surrey

Thieves and Thugs - preview

Thought these might whet your appetite for tonight. Don't forget, Thieves and Thugs: Caught on Camera is on air at 9pm, Channel 5. It usually goes up during the programme on Demand 5. And then of course it's repeated again at 10pm on C5+1. Let me know what you think of it.

A drug deal, from a CCTV operator's perspective.

 The shot below shows what happened when two people took exception to a CCTV camera being erected in their neighbourhood. They're using an angle grinder to cut it down.

The final moments of a CCTV camera

 The still below is the endgame of a long police motorway chase involving a drug courier. The man jettisoned his cocaine en route, but the camera on the police helicopter picked it up and the drugs were recovered.

The mugging below was a particularly nasty one, but thanks to the quality of the CCTV image, two of the muggers were convicted.

And the man below was arrested after a CCTV operator noticed he was walking along holding a knife. The operator tracked the man on camera whilst staying on the radio to guide the police towards him.

There are some really good stories in tonight's episode. I hope you enjoy it.

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