On the Mic - Surrey Life - January 2013

A slightly re-written version of my Jan 2013 Surrey Life column. How the black majesty of winter’s bleakest month became just another cog in the never-ending retail cycle.

I’m not going to pretend I like January. It’s horrible.

The feasting and bonhomie of Christmas and New Year has gone. The weather is grim and wet, and the county’s poor, huddled commuters gather once more to board virus-filled trains, silent and miserable in the morning darkness.

You don’t enjoy January. You get through it. Or at least, you used to.

In recent years it's changed. Instead of retreating into the warmth of our homes, venturing out only to work and buy necessities, we are being encouraged to treat the entire month as a giant weight-loss opportunity.

The fitness DVD adverts start on Boxing Day. The newspapers start using the d-words - detox and diet - in the run up to New Year.

Why do we do it to ourselves? Why massively over-indulge through the Christmas period and then pretend we’re going to live like ascetic monks from the first Monday of the New Year? 

Because we’re told to, by people who stand to make lots of money from it. Fatten up, little piggies, now join a gym and get on the treadmill.

Last year my producer Emma ran away from the BBC to work as a PR for the charity Alcohol Concern. Emma is brilliant and surpassed even herself when she told me during her interview she asked if the staff ever went for a drink. That could have gone badly for her, but she got the job.

Emma’s big project for 2013 is a campaign aimed at encouraging us to dry out for the whole of January. The idea being you try not to drink any booze for a month, whilst people essentially bet you do, by way of sponsorship. Any money raised goes towards helping people with alcohol problems.

I’m not going to do it. 

It’s taken me a long time to realise moderation is a laudable aim. In the run up to Christmas that means giving mince pies a hard stare, rather than a cheeky, conspiratorial wink. In January, it hopefully means I don’t have to join the temporary teetotallers, forever boiling strange lumps of vegetable matter in the office microwave whilst pretending to enjoy their herbal tea. I’ve been there, and I never want to do it again.

My New Year’s wish for the readers of Surrey Life is that together we stop doing what we’re told to and remember the true meaning of January - headaches, mild depression and whisky. 

Cheers.

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February's edition of Surrey Life is on sale now for £3.25. 

Previous columns:

December 2012 - on doing more stand up comedy

November 2012 - on stopping doing weekday breakfast

October 2012 - on trying to engage brain and mouth on air

September 2012 - on my BBC microphone

August 2012 - on the Olympics

July 2012 - on being on holiday with three small children

June 2012 - on joining a gym

May 2012 - on making live radio

April 2012 - on being ill

How I got to write a column for Surrey Life magazine

Nick Clegg on LBC

Nick Clegg's phone in on LBC was was a masterclass in making the most of an excellent opportunity.

Securing the Deputy Prime Minister's time for a weekly phone-in was a coup in itself, and the station rightly went to town when it was announced on Monday. No other serving cabinet minister has signed up to present a weekly phone-in radio show before. LBC described this as "historic". It is.

I am a big fan of what LBC does, and did a number of production shifts for them before and after Christmas. As a result I'm listening to as much as I can (whilst also staying loyal to BBC Surrey, of course, where I present a weekly show).

Throughout this week on LBC, every presenter I heard flagged up the deputy PM's debut, and the schedule was liberally sprinkled with pre-recorded trails so regular listeners knew to tune in on Thursday at 9am.

On the morning of the broadcast the entire station was geared towards turning "Call Clegg" into Event Radio. The news bulletins and the breakfast show presenter Nick Ferrari primed us, as did tweets from the main LBC account and the staff working in the building. The live video feed started rolling, the live blog kicked in ("8:45: Nick Clegg is almost ready.") and the deputy PM's name began trending, as did the hashtag #callclegg.

The broadcast itself passed off smoothly. The listeners were polite and respectful, even the one who told Nick Clegg he'd ripped up his Lib Dem membership card because the party had betrayed everything it said it stood for. That confrontation gave the bulletin and print journalists eg (Mirror, Daily Mail) their news line.

Nick Ferrari did a faultless job in pushing the DPM when his answers avoided the question, yet still backed off and gave the listeners space to make their points and have their say.

You got a sense, as the broadcast was progressing, that LBC's audience felt this was their opportunity to hold a powerful politician to account.

For me, the real masterstroke was the debrief. Rather than just leave it to the bulletins desk to pull out the strongest audio, and trail ahead to next week's appearance, in the final half hour of the breakfast show, Nick Ferrari got the station's political correspondent Tom Cheal in to talk us through the "historic" broadcast.

Tom gave some relaxed and authoritative analysis on the serious side of what the DPM and the listeners had said, mentioned that #callclegg was trending worldwide ("above Justin Timberlake at one stage") and rightly pointed out Nick had a scoop when a listener prompted Nick Clegg to reveal he owned a onesie. This, said Tom, was something that was very likely to inspire the next day's newspaper cartoonists. It did.

Onesiegate is a political sketchwriter's dream. The BBC, Guardian, Telegraph and Spectator all used it to to get into their pieces and even The Independent's fashion blogger got on the case. Each article was suffused with a tone of grudging respect for LBC, which is about the highest praise you're going to get from competitors.

©hmatthews92

Back at the ranch, James O'Brien devoted the first hour of his mid-morning show to a debate on whether the listeners were prepared to see Nick Clegg in a new light as a result of his decision to do a regular phone-in on LBC.

I didn't hear all of it as I had to do something for Radio 2, but there were the beginnings of a fascinating discussion on the deputy PM's poll ratings and the direction he'd taken his party.

As I was driving the girls back from their swimming lesson yesterday evening, I tuned to LBC, heard Nick Clegg's voice and assumed I was listening to the 7pm news bulletin. No, they had taken a chunk out of Iain Dale's programme to repeat the entire half hour phone-in from 7pm. Iain (who I like a lot) has written a good blog post on Clegg's performance and what it means for the station.

In summary, the activity around a simple piece of phone-in radio was a lesson for all of us in ambition, execution and promotion. LBC is going places. Nick Clegg will be back next week.

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I have not asked for permission to use the images in this post, although I have used a credit and/or linked back. If you are the copyright owner and want your image removed please let me know and I'll take it down immediately.

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Harris and Hoole and Me

I seem to have become something of an expert on the Harris and Hoole story.

I first came across them when shop-fitters boards went up outside the old Clinton Cards on our High Street. It announced that Harris and Hoole was coming soon, but didn't say much else beyond a series of hieroglyphic clues. I deciphered one as Pan+Knee+Knee and realised we were looking at the arrival of yet another coffee shop. 

I assumed it was a chain, as no independent would have gone for a teaser marketing campaign like that. Turns out they are, and they're 49% owned by Tesco.

This is a problem for some, who don't like buying fake authenticity because it makes them feel like stooges. Others don't like it because they think it's putting independent coffee shops out of business. The Guardian newspaper has written extensively about this. The CEO of Tesco has blogged about it.

I suggested it as a subject when I was producing Andrew Gilligan's show on LBC last week and the phones lit up. We had café owners who claimed to have been put out of business by corporates muscling in on their trade, and plenty more who felt they'd been sold a pup by Harris and Hoole, but would still be going back.

Two days ago I wrote about the coffee shop invasion for Surrey Life magazine, whilst sitting in Harris and Hoole. Today I was there again, adding some colour to a debate with the brand's owner on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2.

Not a cup of coffee, or an Americano. In Harris and Hoole, it's a Long Black.

People who use coffee houses tend to be an articulate, middle-class bunch, and I quickly gathered a range of opinions from people exiting the shop. Some were surprised and felt a little cheated when I told them about Tesco's stake.

Others knew and weren't happy about it (but still liked the product). Two business people I spoke to had just found out about Tesco's investment and decided to boycott Harris and Hoole, telling me they had made a decision to hold future meetings in Walton's remaining independent cafés.

Harris and Hoole will live without them. In fact, they will thrive. The Walton H+H has some of the most helpful and willing staff I've met in any retail outlet ever, it has free (and very easy to get into) wifi, and the USP is the sheer amount of space. 

Take a buggy into the Costa in Walton and you spend your entire time apologising and re-arranging the furniture as you fight to get to your seat. H+H could've doubled the number of tables in the space they have available, but they choose not to. Even those enormous side-by-side buggies can get to any table with ease. In a town like Walton, this matters.

It's a shame the coffee tastes so grim. Other far more sophisticated palates disagree, but having had quite a few Harris and Hoole "Long Blacks" now, I just can't get on with it. Too sweet. 

My favourite brew in Walton is made by Le Petit Café, a more cheap and cheerful independent set-up which was here long before the Neros and Costas of this world. The fella in there knows what he's doing, and he's friendly too. 

But if I have a buggy, or I am going to be using my laptop, or I want to sink into an armchair for a bit, H+H will get my custom. Next time I'll just order a nice cup of tea.

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On the Mic - Surrey Life - December 2012

Surrey Life column Dec 2012:

"I have a problem. Last year my boss at BBC Surrey asked if I would like to learn, and then perform, a short stand-up routine for Comic Relief. Listeners would be asked to "sponsor" me, and the set would be recorded and broadcast by the BBC.
 
We raised hundreds of pounds, and I ended up on stage in front of two hundred people in Brighton, having the time of my life. With lots of professional performance coaching and assistance, I succeeded in making the audience laugh.
 
"You've got the bug now, haven't you?" said one of my fellow turns that night, backstage. "Are you ready to spend your days travelling the country, eating service station pasties at two in the morning?"
 
I wasn't, and I'm not, but he was right. I have got the bug. That's my problem.
 
A few months after the Brighton gig, I contacted a stand up I know called Sajeela Kershi. As well as being terrifyingly funny, Sajeela hosts a monthly comedy night called The Comedy Cottage in her home town of Redhill.
 
Earlier that year Sajeela risked catastrophe by allowing me to do a warm-up for my Brighton gig at a Cottage night. It went okay.
 
So I went back to Sajeela, and wondered, coyly, if she might be prepared to consider allowing me have another go.
 
Sajeela graciously booked me in. This time it didn't go okay.
 
The reason? Simples. My Comic Relief performances had been mentored and honed by another Redhill (what is it about that town?) stand up comedian of some genius, Nathaniel Tapley. Natt helped me with my script, performance skills and confidence. He was basically the architect of everything that was good about what the audience saw in Redhill and Brighton.
 
On my return to the Cottage, I was stupid enough to think I'd be okay if I went it alone. I was wrong. I bombed. And after that, I walked away.
 
But I've still got the bug.
 
So I've written a script. I've learned my set. I've tried it out on a couple of people who know what they're talkiing about. And I'm getting ready to do this all over again in front of a paying audience.
 
I'm as nervous as hell.
 
I'll let you know how it goes."

I've already done the gig - read about it here.

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January's edition of Surrey Life is on sale now for £3.15. 

You can find some of my previous columns below:

November 2012 - on stopping doing weekday breakfast

October 2012 - on trying to engage brain and mouth on air

September 2012 - on my BBC microphone

August 2012 - on the Olympics

July 2012 - on being on holiday with three small children

June 2012 - on joining a gym

May 2012 - on making live radio

April 2012 - on being ill

How I got to write a column for Surrey Life magazine

The ghosts of Yalding

On Friday 7 Dec 2012, the last Newsbeat programme to come from Yalding House was broadcast. This photo shows most of the people in the office on that last day.

Back row l-r Jon Jackson, Chris Smith, Dan, Nell Jordan-Gent, Julian Marshall, Jack Fiehn, Ant Baxter, Declan Harvey, Sophie Miller, Matt Wareham.
Front row l-r Nick Wallis, Simon Mundie, Nesta McGregor, Chi Chi Izundu, Natalie O, Jonathan Richards.

It was also my last day at Newsbeat, after an eight week stint backfilling for the output editors and summaries editors as they ran dummy programmes and trained themselves up on the new kit in the eighth floor of New Broadcasting House.

I worked at Newsbeat for three years between 2004 and 2007, so I know the office and the building well, and it was great coming back to see some old faces and meet new people.

In my old stint I was a reporter, mainly an entertainment reporter. This time round, older and uglier, I got to sit in the output editor's chair...

Amazing view from the output editor's chair

... and have a good chunk of responsibility for the overall sound, shape and editorial direction of the programme.

There is a recurring character trope among the people who work at Newsbeat. Everyone there is intelligent, committed, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, creative, friendly and hard-working. These are some of the best young radio journalists in the country at the top of their game. It was, as you can imagine, a joy to be working with them, even for a very brief time.

The Newsbeat presenter's studio chair

There was a strange atmosphere on the final day. Radio is perhaps the most ephemeral medium, and so the buildings where radio stations are located take on a distinct resonance. Despite having the architectural charm of a basement car park, magic happened at Yalding.

Chris Evans, at the height of his notoriety, broadcast from Yalding. John Peel (once considered one of the greatest Britons who ever lived, let's not forget) spent the last chapter of his career based at Yalding. If you ever geared up for a night out with Pete Tong in your kitchen or car - that was coming from Yalding... you get the picture.

Like many of the people in the group photograph above, I grew up with dreams of working at Radio 1. I managed it for a brief time, but on Friday there were people around me who were closing the door on an office they had worked in for ten years or more.

Don't get me wrong, no one was getting too sentimental, and the eighth floor of Broadcasting House is a palace by comparison, but there wasn't a single day I didn't walk into Yalding thinking "Blimey! I'm working at Radio 1! Look! I have a pass that lets me into Radio 1! How the hell did that happen?!"

Now that little chapter is over, I'm off to do other things. Thanks to everyone at Newsbeat who made me feel so welcome (and for the older lags, welcome back). Thanks particularly to Rod McKenzie for giving me the contract, and Jonathan Richards, who gave me the benefit of his expert and clear guidance when I was finding my feet in the first couple of weeks of editing the programme.

And thanks very much to Yalding House. There are a lot of old radio ghosts racketing about in that building. It was nice to be there at the end.

On the Mic - Surrey Life - November 2012

Surrey Life's December issue is out, which means I can put my column for November's issue (below) up here.

"I’ve been presenting the breakfast show on BBC Surrey for the last three years. It’s been great, but I’ve decided to move on.

Thankfully the lovely people who look after BBC Surrey have very kindly agreed to let me continue presenting my Saturday show, but my part in hosting the weekday breakfast programme will come to an end. It’s time to give someone else a go.

Presenting BBC Surrey breakfast has been a gas. It really has. The best job I’ve ever had, bar none. In the last three years I have met hundreds of extraordinary people and learned a vast amount about our stunningly beautiful county. I have had the opportunity to visit some wonderful places and record some fascinating stories. 

Here are a few highlights...

- Meeting Dame Judi Dench, the wildlife artist David Shepherd and Springwatch’s Chris Packham at the British Wildlife Centre in Lingfield. Dame Judi has been described as the world’s greatest living actress. She also has a thing for red squirrels, she told us, as she officially opened the centre’s new enclosure. 

- Trudging through a eighteen inches of snow to our Guildford studios at five in the morning during the winter of 2009/10. At times like this people rely on BBC local radio, and making sure we were able to get to our own buildings was a major logistical operation. The breakfast team had been gathered from all corners and we were holed up in a nearby hotel. When we awoke and saw the amount of snow which had fallen overnight we realised using our cars to make the half mile trip to the station was out of the question. We got on air on time, and as the morning progressed, it became apparent we were playing a critical part in sharing vital information about the state of our snowbound county.

- Presenting BBC Surrey breakfast live in the morning sunshine from the 2011 Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Our open-air studio consisted of two computers and a picnic table, five floors up, next to the breakfast bar on the turfed roof of the media centre which overlooks the grounds of the All England Club. It was as glorious as it sounds.

- Having a testicle examination live on air. It would be the sort of thing that would make anyone nervous at the best of times. Providing a running commentary into a microphone whilst a doctor had an important part of my body in his hands certainly made for an interesting experience. 

- Interviewing a gentleman in my studio about an amateur dramatic production he was directing. I was convinced I had met him before. I had. He was my old headmaster from when I attended West Byfleet Middle School in 1983. I hadn’t seen him for 29 years. I love the way that radio can bring you into contact with the most unlikely people at the most unexpected times. 

- Providing a live commentary on the Olympic torch relay as it made its way through Surrey for the final time. Our position on the media bus gave us a grandstand view of everything as it happened. It was surreal, moving, inspiring, emotionally draining and the most fun I think I’ve ever had with a microphone.

There have been many more memorable moments, and though part of me is loath to say goodbye, I think it’s the right time. I’ve got a few more things I want to do with my career which just aren’t compatible with getting up at 3.45am six days a week.

I will remember my time doing the biggest show on BBC Surrey with considerable fondness. It’s been a privilege doing this job, and I would recommend it to anyone. If you fancy it… there’s a vacancy. Give the boss a call!"

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December's edition of Surrey Life is on sale now for £3.15. 

You can find some of my previous columns below:

October 2012 - on trying to engage brain and mouth in harmony

September 2012 - on my BBC microphone

August 2012 - on the Olympics

July 2012 - on being on holiday with three small children

June 2012 - on joining a gym

May 2012 - on making live radio

April 2012 - on being ill

How I got to write a column for Surrey Life magazine

Boring 2012

Steward at Boring 2012 "I made the badge myself"

I first came across James Ward (who is not the gentleman above) via a couple of tweets from Caitlin Moran.

Caitlin is successful, brilliant and famous (my younger daughter Abi's middle name is Caitlin, as a tribute to her).

However, not that many people know about James Ward. My son is called James, but this has nothing to do with James Ward. He will be relieved by this, and disappointed.

I read James' excellent blog and got in touch with him.

We tweeted a bit. One night it became apparent we were drinking in pubs a stone's throw from each other.

I decided then we should never meet.

But we stayed in touch. I enjoyed one of James' early projects, London Twirls, and I watched as Boring Conference  became the thing it did.

James is endearing, cussed, shambolic and unapologetically amateur. In spite/because of this, the first Boring conference made it on to the front cover of the Wall Street Journal.

Given I hadn't attended the first two, I was very touched when James asked if I'd like to come along to this year's Boring.

Boring Conference 2012, York Hall, Bethnal Green, London

Thankfully he invited me early.

I will go to most things if a) I know about it far enough in advance (two months minimum) and b) it won't cost me anything. The former is more important than the latter, but the latter usually seals it.

I don't even have to want to go. Last weekend I opened a church bazaar in Limpsfield Chart, purely because I was asked in March (and also because I had turned it down twice in previous years and run out of excuses).

I knew Boring 2012 would be good, because James was organising it, and he has a way of lowering your expectations, but I still wasn't sure I could go. I have three children, and someone has to look after them. Any time I'm having fun away from the family is more childcare for my wife.

It's alright if it's a work thing, or a schoolfriend's 40th, but when the event in question sells itself with the strapline...

"Nothing interesting, worthwhile or important is ever discussed at Boring"

... justifying your attendance becomes an issue of trust.

Still, I got a pass, and having mentally committed myself to going in the week leading up to the event, I asked Matt Deegan to be my plus one. 

Matt is such an early adopter his twittername is @matt, he runs his own conference and seems to spend a lot of time talking at other people's conferences, so I thought he might enjoy going to Boring. 

He also doesn't have any children, so there was a good chance if I asked him on a Thursday whether he'd be free on Sunday, he might say yes. He did.

As we stood in the long queue (all 500 tickets had sold) outside York Hall in Bethnal Green...

... I asked if he knew James or anything about him.

"Not really." said Matt.

When we reached the front of the queue, after about 45 minutes, I said we were on the comp list. The lady handing out the white wristbands said "oh you could have come straight to the front, and I would have waved you through", which by that stage was superfluous information.

The wristband had writing on it which said:

"Boring 2012. If you don't enjoy yourself, at least you have a wristband", or words to that effect, and the legend on the screen at the front of the hall warned us the event wasn't going to be as good as last year.

The buffet was quite plain...

but I fancied a cup of water, so I tucked in.

There was an envelope on our chairs which had an incomprehensible photocopied sheet in it, a couple of badges, some Refreshers, a lolly, a few dull postcards and a raffle ticket.

I am doing some work with one of Matt's colleagues who just happened to send me an email as I was looking at my phone, so I sent him an email back with a "Guess who I am sitting next to?! Yes! One of your colleagues! What are the chances of that?" photo attached.

He said we looked quite bored.

Then things got underway. There was no published running order, so there was no indication of who was doing what or what to expect from them. Here is a very quick review:

James Ward on supermarket self service tills. Encouraged us to think of receipts as being more like certificates of achievement.

Peter Fletcher on letter boxes. As an ex-seasonal postie, he had some good knowledge. His diary entries from the time were poignant.

Ben Target - an untitled and unannounced piece of performance art which involved him rollerblading round the room in Rupert the Bear trousers whilst a recording of someone reading out tabulated metal weights was played to the room. It was boring.

Leila Johnston on IBM tills. Leila is doing something similar to James' London Twirls and at first it did seem, as the Guardian says, "stagey" and contrived. Then the presentation took an unexpected turn as Leila revealed she grew up in a town where IBM was the main employer, and how her childhood was enlivened by regular visits to arms fairs.

Ed Ross on toast. Some good research here, and I particularly liked the line "depending on the aspect ratio of your bread..."

Rose George on poo. Or "shit", as she prefers to call it. A brilliant talk. Rose has visited prisons in Africa where the effluent produced by those incarcerated therein is converted into free power for the nation. 14% of banknotes in Britain are contaminated with faecal matter. Now wash your hands.

Neil Denny on five random American breakfasts. Pleasantly untaxing.

Most of the above sessions were punctuated by problematic technicals, which necessitated James ad-libbing as MC whilst the audience sat there. We were encouraged to use the hashtag #boring2012 to tell twitter what an amazing time we were having. As a result twitter got quite confused.

For lunch we went to the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood (full of children, but not the sort you hear being shouted at in supermarkets, cafe staff lovely, impressive space) and Matt bought me lunch. Thank you, Matt.

We came back and the technical beasts appeared to have been tamed. Also the sessions threw off even the pretence of being boring, and became absorbing. Entertaining, even.

The highlights were Roo Reynolds (who got a short, coherent and informative review of Boring 2012 up hours ago. It also has links to all the speakers, so please go there and follow them on twitter, they're all very clever people).

Roo spoke about his collections, many of them cultivated online, and could well be my new hero. He's a former BBC-er and I think now works for the government. His hobbies include "Things Riding on Things", photos of the insides of peoples' fridges, jokes based on the punchline "No she went of her own accord", "Fuck Yeah Internet Fridge" and plotting the frequency of Out of Office replies to his weekly newsletter.

Andrew Male did a talk on double yellow lines, which started off as a conceptual joke, and became a painstakingly researched discourse on 50s counterculture and his own personal loss.

James Brown, the former editor of Loaded, spoke of his joy at discovering Antiques Road Trip and its format soup, which was made all the better by not including any clips from the programme at all.

The best talk I saw in terms of sticking to the brief came from Rhodri Marsden (the Independent columnist). Rhodri stumbled across this thing called Auto Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR (youtube it, but not alone), which is compelling and terrifying in equal measure.

ASMR is, superficially, stultifyingly boring, but is actually a quasi-fetishistic subculture which to me was like pulling up a tear in the earth and finding an entirely undiscovered world going about its business (think the Doozers, or even the Fraggles themselves, but with added, and rather intense, anxiety).

I say Rhodri's was the best talk I saw - I had to leave before the third and final group of sessions so I could look after the children, as my wife had to go to a confirmation service.

It meant I missed some wonderful-sounding talks, including Cathy Clugston, shipping forecast reader, on the shipping forecast (see Roo's list for more on that and the others), but such is life.

James had indicated on twitter a few weeks back that it would be nice to finally meet me at Boring, and I thought perhaps it was a good idea. But today he looked busy and quite stressed most of the time, and besides, I wouldn't really know what to say, so I didn't go up and introduce myself.

I would, however, like to thank him for the invite, and indeed all the speakers for a very different and inspiring afternoon, and I suspect this is the best way of doing so.


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