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."

Memorable career-related incidents so far

In no particular order:

1) Presenting a paper on media outreach to a conference of rocket scientists at the 2nd Appleton Space Conference at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory alongside (and at the behest of) Alex James from Blur.

2) Being asked to cover for Richard Bacon whilst he was off on honeymoon. Three weeks straight presenting on 5 live - everything I had been working towards for 10 years of my career. Shame it didn't lead to anything more regular.

3) Interviewing Nick Cave at the premiere of The Proposition. You should never meet your heroes, but he was everything I wanted him to be - self-possessed, wary, polite, funny and swaying in a charmingly deranged way.

4) Working as a runner on Ricky Gervais' show on Xfm before The Office was even thought of. Nine months of telling people the man was a comedy genius and then 3 years later, everyone suddenly agreeing.

5) Being paid to watch Radiohead and Morrissey at the V Festival in Chelmsford in 2006. Also blagging tickets to see the Pixies in Chelmsford in 2004. Still probably my favourite ever gig.

6) Being asked if I wanted to start reporting for London Tonight and subsequently, Five News, in the space of 4 months.

7) Being elected Chair of the Student Radio Association and persuading Matthew Bannister to launch the Radio 1 Student Radio Awards.

8) Being invited by The Queen to a "reception for the media and arts" at Windsor Castle in 1999 (presumably because I was Chair of the SRA, but I never found out how or why). I arrived on the train with George Martin and walked up to the castle two yards behind him too tongue-tied to speak.

This theme continued as I found myself in close proximity to Dawn French, Michael Caine, Joanna Lumley, Joan Collins, Shirley Bassey, Wendy Richards and Kenneth Branagh, among others.

Eventually rescued from staring at the wall by Thomas Prag - a radio industry exec who introduced me to other radio execs Trevor Dann and Richard Park. As they were being polite to me, we were interrupted by a nice middle-aged lady who chatted to us for bit about Radio 4 and then disappeared. Turns out it was Princess Alexandra.

As I was leaving I walked through the newly-restored St George's Chapel and turned around for one last look. Booker Prize winner Ben Okri clapped me on the shoulder and said "That's right - take it all in. What a night." before wandering off, chuckling to himself.

8) Being asked if I wanted a job in London by PR and music mogul Shabs Jobanputra. My first real, and best ever boss (except, of course, for my current ones) and an absolute visionary.

9) Hanging around with a Radio 1 microphone "backstage" at a North London venue whilst waiting for a Pete Doherty interview. After watching various people fiddling with small wraps of silver paper, Mr Doherty staggered out of the toilet and I was granted an audience. He told me he was leaving The Libertines for good, which was news to The Libertines. Hard to believe now that this was a big story at the time.

10) Watching Harry Hill and Al Murray's Pub Internationale gig at the Neptune theatre in Liverpool, interviewing them backstage for my student radio station and then taking them to meet their friends at the Casablancas night club, as I was the only person present who knew where it was. I interviewed Al Murray at the This Morning studios several years later and he still remembered how dodgy Casablancas was.

11) Pitching and producing a well-received London Tonight piece by Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre on the MMR vaccine.

12) In the first few days of working at Television Centre in 2001 Paul Weller politely held a door open for me. Never more in my life have I more felt like Wayne and Garth backstage at an Aerosmith gig.

13) Staging a guerilla gig with Mercury-nominated ace violinist Seth Lakeman at Glastonbury. We actually pulled together a decent-sized crowd and it seemed to generally enhance the Glastonbury experience for everyone present. And we got a decent TV news package out of it.

14) Approaching John Barnes at the height of his godlike powers (alright they were slightly on the wane) in a bar in Liverpool and persuading him to promise to drop by our student radio station and do an interview on an anti-racism campaign he was fronting. 2 days later, bless him, he turned up.

15) Watching a band called Coldplay perform second on the bill to 200 people above a pub in Oxford. To be fair the secret was already out by that stage, but it still felt like we were witnessing the start of something big.

16) Writing a sitcom called "Touched" with Bex Palmer. It took weeks. Feedback from BBC broadly supportive, changes suggested, none made. Sitcom now in attic.

Civilians and Muggles

It was apparently Liz Hurley who let the cat out of the bag when she revealed the contempt celebrities have for "ordinary" people by calling them "civilians". I couldn't find the direct quote on google, which suggests it might be like the apocryphal Peter Mandelson "avocado mousse" line. Nonetheless, she's never denied it.

The term is in current usage. Matt Damon dropped it into an MSNBC interview, and the veteran DJ and remixer Arthur Baker used it when I interviewed him at Creamfields in 2004 when talking about a hotel for DJs and performers he was hoping to open in Brixton that "wouldn't be for civilians".

There is now a better one doing the rounds on the panto/musical theatre/holiday park entertainment troupe circuit. The new term for civilian is Muggle.

Lifted, of course, straight from Harry Potter, it describes someone who isn't touched by the magic of showbiz, an ordinary person, a Muggle.

I found this out yesterday, in conversation with a comedian friend.

Me: "Are you still seeing that girl you really liked, the legal secretary?"
Him: "No, she dumped me."
Me: "You're kidding."
Him: "I know, dumped by a f****** Muggle."

That's what they call us, you, the paying public. I asked where he heard the term "Muggle" first.

Him: "The Aussie actress I did panto with. She'd finished with her boyfriend, so I asked her who she had her eye on next. She said 'No one, really. I might just go and f*** some random Muggle.'"

Magic.

.

Ben Goldacre on ITV1's London Tonight

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfheO9H8CD4

Broadcast on 9 Mar 2009 Written and presented by Dr Ben Goldacre Produced by Nick Wallis

Nick Wallis's blog on The Making Of this piece here. Comments welcome.