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10:27
31 Oct 2006
A Stern Embargo
What to do when the incompetence of press officers has left you with no story to report?
Report your inability to report, of course, as the BBC's environment correspondent Sarah Mukherjee has done.
She attended a press briefing on the Stern report into climate change - a briefing supposedly intended to be the first, and only, place where journalists could learn what news the report contained. It was to be held behind closed doors with no mobile phones allowed.
But when Nicholas Stern himself went on the Today programme- before the briefing - to reveal many of the report's secrets, the journalists locked inside the briefing room went a little berserk:
By now mutinous journalists left their contemplation of the Mendelsohn model (page 147 of the Stern report) to engage in a vigorous argument with the Stern review team about the nature of the word "embargo".
We began to feel, (ironically, given the subject matter) like airline passengers - parked for hours in a large room with no information and only a boring book for entertainment.
At nine-thirty-five, we were allowed to go to the loo - in a "controlled fashion" (that referred, I hope, to the numbers allowed out at any one time).
Too late. Journalists slipped away from their minders and started hunting, increasingly frantically (and with a lot more shouting), for the lady with the phones.
Sometimes I wonder why we bother watching television.
Last night's Mysterious Creatures, on ITV, was a case in point. Billed as a 'tale of family tragedy', it was more a tale of sheer, relentless, unremitting woe for 90 minutes. Had a bad day, have you? Want to settle down in front of the box, do you? Well here. Have this, and see what these people had to suffer. You ungrateful shite.
It's a true story, just to tip you off the bridge of despair and into oblivion, of how two parents try (and fail) to deal with their daughter's many and varied addictions. Ostensibly these include spending money on shoes and cuddly toys, but they are more demonstrably seen to include throwing violent wobblers in the middle of packed high streets, and escorting parents to failed suicide bids.
My stepmum, bless her, stuck with the whole hour and a half of this. I don't know how she did it. I only properly caught the last half an hour and, by the end of it, I'd have gladly gunned down every character to have appeared in it.
But tonight I pop into the living room and what do I find - more woe! This time it's Tripping Over on Five, described as a "series in which five young travellers meet in Bangkok where a tragic incident changes the direction of their lives."
There's that tragedy bit again, as if our daily lives didn't have enough for us to be working on emotionally and psychologically. I saw five minutes, during which a man was told he had a disease which would have rendered him infertile since the day he was born. Given he has a son in his 20s, this clearly presents a dilemma. Unable to watch the numbingly inevitable agony with which this would play out, I left.
It doesn't all have to be like that, you know. Last night, when I could have been watching the first hour of Mysterious Creatures, I retired elsewhere and watched the hour-long Royle Family special. What a treat. If that hour of television doesn't win every award for which it is nominated, I will be violently sick with anger.
It is six years since the Royles were last on our televisions (no, really! I couldn't believe it either), and this episode shows us where they're up to. Then, as Nana becomes increasingly ill, we're given some incredibly moving and real insights into the human beings behind the comedy figures Royle Family fans love.
For example, the show starts with a row - as ever- between Jim and Nana. But as things change and her condition slowly worsens, we see beautiful scenes of Jim helping her up the stairs, all the while making her laugh by being silly, proving himself the true gentleman when the situation demands. And all this set to hauntingly dainty, carefree music reminiscent of radio gems from the 30s and 40s.
As the end draws near, we see each of the many characters from the show finding their way to the hospital from the walks of life they have each carved out - wearing the clothes specific to their profession, each approaching this most worrying of situations in their own little ways. There are so many wonderful fine touches to every scene that I can't possible document them. It's as though I'm watching myself in all these people. How fascinating to watch the writers of the show thrust their characters into a serious, emotionally charged situation, and let the actors thrive in developing that side to roles they've already had five years to develop. Brilliant television.
The one scene which will live in my memory always is portrayed through the eyes of Nana as she lies in her hospital bed. It is not made clear whether she can actually see, or whether she is asleep and we simply view the scene from her sleeping position.
Jim Royle walks into the shot. The camera then holds for 10 to 15 seconds as Jim, utterly overcome by grief and trying with all his convulsive might to fight away floods of uncontrollable tears, stands over the bed. Those are some of the most powerful seconds of television I have ever seen, and at that point I started crying too - I didn't stop until the credits.
I didn't cry because I was depressed. I didn't cry because somebody had thrown tragedy after tragedy, each removed from my own experience and a little far fetched, at my television set. I cried because the writers took an event all of us have to face sooner or later - death. They showed us how some of our favourite characters, people we identify with, people we see laugh and joke all the time, dealt with death. And when Jim Royle started crying, they showed us it was okay to be a human being. Even for Jim.
Nana died quietly at the hospital in the full knowledge it was coming. No addictions, no screaming, no violence, no concocted tragedy, no gratuitous exploitation of emoton. Nana's was the simplest of deaths, portrayed in the simplest of ways, and it made me feel better about myself. That's a reason to watch television.
My apologies for neglecting you a little over the past week. The great God Wogan often jokes that the British public thinks there's only one man on the radio, and this week in Berkshire, they could be forgiven. By the time I've finished anchoring Sunday's coverage of London Irish versus Toulouse, I'll have spent 29 hours on-air in just eight days - which is roughly the same amount of time I've spent in bed during that period.
While all this has been going on, Britain's railway network has unceremoniously bid farewell to the final vestiges of one of its greatest ever branding initiatives - indeed, to my knowledge, the last trace of the nationalised British Rail era.
Granted, Network SouthEast - the 1980s brainchild of BR executive Chris Green (these days, Chief Exec. of Virgin Trains, Ollie...) - has now been defunct for the best part of thirteen years. But, tenacious to the last, its face has lived on through station furniture, faded signage and even, until recently, through liveried rolling stock.
The coming of NSE certainly brought about some much needed excitement on the railways. I vividly remember being bundled into a car with the greatest of haste to go and see "a surprise". It turned out to be a thirty-year old Diesel Multiple Unit, newly outshopped in NSE livery, which had finally brought the brand to our local station. At the time, it was the most radical change I'd witnessed on the railways in my area. With its toothpaste stripes and garish colours, it all seemed so modern.
In essence, it was an ailing railway dressed in new clothing. It had some real benefits for the passenger, but the priority was in regaining the trust and respect of rail commuters whose faith in the railways had died with any prestige of the British Rail brand, by now a universal punchline. Brilliantly, an army of painters was dispatched to paint red every one of the thousands of lamp-posts on the network, a cheap and simple measure with real visual impact. Things looked fresher, brighter, and the effect was good.
Ironically, red turned out to be a mistake. Just as it symbolised the rise of Network SouthEast, it was a colour that faded all too quickly, and ended up looking as shabby as what had been before. Only within a few years of rail privatisation and the disbanding of Network SouthEast, could most customers (as the private sector would have them) claim to be seeing any real improvement in the quality of their journeys - a genuine depth of colour in the railways which came through much needed investment in the things that actually matter.
But not everywhere. In some parts, investment has remained minimal, which is why thirteen years on, commuters between London Victoria, Crystal Palace and Croydon are still enduring daily sights like this:
Or, at least, were.
To its credit, Southern (itself a brand reborn from the ashes of the old pre-1960s company which served its territory) has at long last commissioned the refurbishment of the Class 456, the final Network SouthEast liveried trains, the first of which reappeared this week.
A miraculous transformation, which for the South East, completes the coming of the latest new age of the train. When my friend Matthew sent me the photograph this week, I was struck by how modern the trains look. It was 1986 all over again, though this time against a very different railway backdrop, where new rolling stock far outnumbers the old, and much of what 1986 set out to achieve has now been done.
So it's a tribute to the initiative of 1986 that, although the 456s had become less than proud ambassadors of a bygone age, I'm also slightly saddened that never again shall we see the colour of Network SouthEast on our metals. Far away on the Island of Soda, the Fat Controller once rewarded the good behaviour of his engines with a nice new coat of paint. Let's hope he paints one grey, red and blue, for all the little boys like me.
In and out as I am, I have little to report, other than - having read Ollie's post below - to point people to this article in Slate where the author tries to determine whether Rush Limbaugh is dumb, or just playing...
In the above US political campaign advertisement, actor and Parkinson's disease sufferer Michael J. Fox is seen struggling with his affliction while delivering a message in support of the Democrats' pro-stem cell research stance.
Famously controversial US broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, on seeing that video, had this to contribute on air:
"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking, and it's purely an act. This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox."
I wonder what would happen to his RAJARs if he'd said that over here. Radio stations have been in the news a lot today, certainly from the perspective of someone who works at one, for this very reason. Today's the day our RAJAR figures - the audience measurement statistics all British radio stations use - were released for the last three months.
Our radio station has suffered a little in some areas and gained a little in others, so overall I think it's fair to say there's no crisis but no champagne either
The way RAJAR works is people are selected at random across the country and given little booklets to fill out, detailing all the radio they listen to, all the time. Then they return these and, from that sample, RAJAR decides how many people are listening to your radio station, when they're doing it, and for how long.
It is fair to say an element of doubt exists among the radio community over the accuracy of this system. In general, about 1 in 10 people actively listen to BBC local radio. We reckon there are about 400 RAJAR diaries being distributed in our county. That means the listening figures on which our shows rise and fall could well rest on the whim of the 40 or so people who both have a RAJAR diary and listen to us. It has been speculated that one diary-owning family going on holiday for two weeks could, in the figures, be responsible for the apparent loss of many hundreds of listeners!
What I really want to know is, have you ever seen one of these diaries? I've yet to meet anybody who has been issued with one, or knows someone else who has. Goodness knows how RAJAR select their guinea pigs. If you've been a RAJAR listener then let me know! What was it like? Did you get bored to death filling out the book? Did you even bother with it all the time? If they gave me one I'd probably leave it lying around somewhere and then have to make it all up at the last minute.
More to the point, how would you feel if the system were changed so that your radio had a little implant which told RAJAR what you listened to? Big Brother, or relatively sensible and unintrusive? After all, websites can tell exactly how many hits their live streaming of radio gets, and where they came from. Why not the same with listeners?
I was told off at work by a fellow trainee today: you don't post on Dayorama anymore. He then told me off for leaving early (10.15pm) and not being committed enough to the firm. Tch. I have, however, just had to phone him to say, "would you mind checking if my suit jacket is in my Office" - I need to wear a suit tomorrow and I didn't collect the jacket from the dry cleaners this evening, nor is it in my flat. So, if it isn't in my Office, then I'm in trouble. As the said person pointed out, "well, it's probably in some random man's house somewhere in London". Not true. It really must be in the Office! So what else? Observations of Dayorama (from the same, rather vocal, person): OJ never posts and David, "the new guy", has taken over. The former is a bad thing, the latter is a good thing.
What else? I don't know any news. I now subscribe to the FT. I know that a pelican ate a pigeon in St James Park today. Highly entertaining. I have a party on Saturday evening and I'm being useless about organising anything. Oh and I'm very much acquainted with late night TV. Oh, my Barclaycard was declined last night. That was useful. But it's OK, it was due to the fact I can't add up. Finances are just about treading water. Roll on the Xmas bonus (fingers crossed...)
Families and tourists in a London park were left shocked when a pelican picked up and swallowed a pigeon.
The unusual wildlife spectacle in St James's Park was caught on camera by photographer Cathal McNaughton.
Mr McNaughton, from the Press Association, said: "There was a bit of a struggle for about 20 minutes, with all these people watching. The pelican only opened its mouth a couple of times.
"Then it managed to get the pigeon to go head first down its throat. It was kicking and flapping the whole way down."
About a month ago, Manchester City fans hung their heads collectively in shame. That's something Manchester City fans are used to doing, and they've been doing plenty of it recently, not least having lost 4-0 away at Wigan last weekend. But when lowly Chesterfield knocked City out of the Carling Cup, it was quite a pathetic display.
Tonight, then, is a happy occasion for City fans, who are no longer the only ones. Earlier this evening fellow Premiership also-rans West Ham United suffered the same fate, going down 2-1 to the Spireites (so called for the town's wonky spire, above) in the same competition. Chesterfield are now through to the 4th round of the Cup with two Premiership scalps to their name.
This is always the great story for the football media - the little side who come good in the Cup. It happens every season, and this time it is the turn of Chesterfield to taste the limelight when the 4th round draw is made (a draw in which they could face the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester United).
But that's the Carling Cup, or the League Cup as it used to be known. It's always been the lesser of our two domestic Cup competitions, where Premiership teams often field weakened sides (neither City nor West Ham did, they're both just crap).
The FA Cup, with all its tradition, is where it really matters. It is from that competition that we get the time-honoured expression, "the magic of the Cup", whenever FA Cup 3rd round day comes to pass. That's when all the Premiership clubs go in to face the smaller sides who've battled through previous rounds for the privilege.
Two of those smaller sides are Maidenhead United and Merthyr Tydfil, who meet in the FA Cup at Maidenhead on Saturday. It's the 4th qualifying round - after this you go into the 1st round proper, so whoever wins this weekend's game will be two matches away from that magical 3rd round moment.
It promises to be a great game and I'm going to be there covering it for local radio. Both teams are in the Southern Premier Division, the seventh rung of English league football, one below the Nationwide Conference South (which is in turn two rungs below the main Football League), so you have to be quite a hardcore football fan to turn up to all Maidenhead United's matches. But some people indeed do, and I'll be meeting fans for a preview piece before the game on Friday.
Some of those fans have followed Maidenhead for so long that they remember the last time Maidenhead and Merthyr met in the FA Cup 4th qualifying round (this being football, there is always a precedent, always a staggering slice of history to accompany any game). That was 27 years ago, back in 1979, when the game was held at Merthyr. Maidenhead lost 2-1 and their fans vividly recall a less than pleasant welcome from their Welsh counterparts, who, it is alleged, bricked the away supporters' coach as it tried to leave the ground!
I'm hoping the atmosphere on Saturday will be a little more pleasant, but the stakes really are high. Win this, and you're in with the chance of facing a league club. Win the next game and you're a step away from Premiership opposition and a television special. To a club like Maidenhead the financial implications are as tantalising as the prestige associated with Cup success. 90 minutes of football will decide if they can make that happen. It's a beautiful game.
It's the done thing for many movies to paint a bleak future for humanity. After all, you only have to look at the news on any given day to realise it's not difficult to envisage things going horribly wrong.
Minority Report, which I watched for the second time on BBC3 a couple of nights ago, portrays a society so rigidly defined by identity that more problems are caused than solved. Every eye is scanned in every location - there is nowhere to hide. When you're innocent, that's a very bad thing.
Children Of Men, the film of the PD James novel, depicts a world where everyone is infertile, the last generation of humanity is dying, and Great Britain is the only nation still in existence - governed as a police state with democracy in tatters. The message: we're just one event short of eternal global catastrophe.
I've been thinking about this, and it is apparent to me that all this freedom of choice we now have could well be our undoing. Take television as the prime example: with a Sky+ box you can already record any programme you like, then watch it back at your leisure. Gone - or at least, going - are the days of appointment-to-view TV, when you can now make your appointment the moment you feel like it. The BBC's currently testing its iPlayer service, which will let you download hours and hours of TV to your computer in high definition, should you please. Already, the Beeb's 'Listen Again' service is operating almost at capacity, such is its popularity. You call the shots in the world of broadcasting.
Now apply this to the concept of 'Top 100' shows, with a liberal sprinkling of Minority Report theory. There are far too many Top 100 shows on TV but we tolerate them because they're always controversial in their own little way, and we like to enjoy watching them in order to catch snippets of our favourite shows. Above all we like to be reassured that other people like the same stuff we do. If Tom & Jerry isn't in the nation's 'Top 100 Cartoons', we want to know why. It's a nostalgic device, a safety blanket and a conversation topic - that's why these shows continue to endure.
What if a box on the top of your TV - the same box which lets you play a 'Top 100' at any time of your choosing - scanned your retina before the show began? What if it used your ID to call up a record of your most-viewed television since your birth and, from that, determined your 'Top 100 Cartoons'? When you sat down you'd be presented with your very own customised programme showcasing the 100 cartoons you've most enjoyed watching throughout your lifetime to date. That, in the eyes (literally in this example) of many broadcasting executives, must exist as some kind of holy grail. You cannot get more personal than that, and today the demand is always for the tailor-made viewing experience.
But how much fun would that really be? Imagine tuning in to be presented with your top 100 shows. There would be no surprises! No room for argument, because how can you argue with yourself? No anxious wait for the number one show because you know damn well your favourite cartoon is The Simpsons! Slowly but surely your idyllic world of on-demand, personalised television becomes a hell-hole where you're encased in your own bubble, away from anyone else's experiences. That's what we're doing - extending the user-generated environment to the point where there's no other input - and that's not just dangerous, it's boring.
The scary thing is just how close all this is. Watch Doctor Who when you like, follow it with Torchwood, download a customised news bulletin with the stories you choose from specialist criteria. How are you ever going to be exposed to anything you didn't know about, or didn't think you'd care to know about? I worry that technology isn't broadening our horizons any more - it's starting to close them. As Children Of Men we may not yet be infertile, but the fertile mind is very much an endangered species.
I am so excited that words can scarcely do justice, despite the BBC journalist's use of the word 'rockers', in the title of the news article, in a fashion that suggests 'rocking chair' as opposed to 'rocking out'.
I only ever got to see Genesis - the proper Genesis, with Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel singing - on their early 90s 'Way We Walk' tour. I'd have been about 9 years old but I remember so much of it as though it were yesterday. I would have given anything to see them in concert again and now my wish has come true.
My favourite song of all time, and I'm listening to it now, is 'Domino' by Genesis, played live at Earls Court. Genesis were always at the forefront of advances in lighting and stage devices - they pioneered the kind of stage show you'd associate with the likes of Muse today (and indeed, Muse at Earls Court a couple of years ago were just like Genesis visually, full of tricks). For 'Domino' they had massive screens onto which were projected neon green dominoes, collapsing one after the other - not bad for early 90s technology. At 9 years old my jaw hit the floor watching my heroes playing that song with that in the background.
Now I'm listening to it again in the forlorn hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll revisit it on their forthcoming tour. I'm fairly sure they won't - it probably doesn't feature on many people's top ten lists, it's very much my own acquired taste (plus I can drum to it!) - but really I don't care. Whatever they play, I'll be in heaven - and you'll hear about the gig first on Dayorama.
(Note that earlier today I entitled a post 'Seconds Out'. It has only just dawned on me that this is also the title of a Genesis live album. I've clearly been in the mood all day.)
As "Adam Reuters", Pasick uses his experience as a technology journalist for the news agency to report from Second Life - a world hosted on the internet where users create their own character, then go around doing almost everything you can do in your, well, First Life. You can shop, go to university, talk to others, the works.
Reuters has always had a strong reputation for financial reporting, so it's no surprise that their (inspired) coverage of Second Life is driven by similar motives.
The charts you can see on the left are displayed prominently on Reuters' Second Life homepage. They chart the exchange rate between Linden dollars - Second Life's currency - and the US dollar (top), and the level of US dollar expenditure in Second Life in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing $1 will get you L$271.6, and a truly staggering $458,000 has been spent acquiring L$.
This financial coverage extends to the interviews Pasick conducts inside the game. His latest interviewee is the man in charge of Ginko, one of Second Life's banks - that is, a bank set up inside Second Life and designed to run entirely within Second Life, with little or no real world presence.
As is quickly apparent, Second Life has a working, very real economy to maintain. If Reuters are now monitoring and evaluating this economy, not to mention reporting it (that's why they're bothering - it's all about the money), then it's time to sit up and take notice. In 10 years' time are online currency exchange rates going to get the same billing as £/$?
It's a scary thought, even for somebody whose life is already conducted online much of the time. For companies with no real web presence the concept of entire, grasping, virtual economies - generating millions of pounds - being born under their noses might just be terrifying.
On my show this afternoon, I paid the briefest of tributes to one of the formative figures in my life, Paul Walters, who died this morning. It was a bizarre experience for so many reasons, not least because I was broadcasting to a small local radio audience who may never have knowingly encountered Pauly or his work (chances are, they have); but it was something I wanted to do, just to say a small thanks to a great man who's inspired me enormously over the years.
Radio 2's website is today awash with tributes from hundreds of the many millions of listeners whose lives he touched, each of them writing about somebody they consider to be a dear friend. I'm with them on that.
As a young listener of 15 or 16, I would write to Pauly with contributions for Wake Up to Wogan scarcely expecting them to be read, let alone read out; yet, then and for the next eight years, my best work always made it to air. Often a reply would arrive, answering a question I'd asked about the intimate workings of the show, or a pose for the studio webcam would be arranged to acknowledge that they'd got the joke.
Here's the good Dr Wally getting ready for surgery...
Under Pauly, the show became the ultimate circle of friends ribbing one another, with just one line sparking hilarity for all. Pauly, Dr Wallington P. De Wynters Walters, was every bit as ingrained on the character of the show as Wogan himself. He found himself at the centre of the recurring gags: the party at which he accidentally launched a cocktail sausage at Lord Reith's portrait; the teasing about living at home with his mother (which, of course, he didn't!); the many 'nieces'; the infamous "accident", just as Wogan opened the microphone; and the mimes on the radio, like walking into the wind.
Of course, if you're not a listener, all this will mean very little; but if you are, it will mean the world.
On the occasions I met him, I couldn't help but be in awe of his style. At the helm of the country's most popular breakfast show, he ambled back and forth between Wogan's studio and the cubicle next door, performing his many and varied roles with the utmost control and calm, still with time enough to speak to you like you were the most important visitor in the world. That's production at its highest and most elegant level. So many could learn from him.
He once arranged for me to interview Wogan for my student radio show (my gently probing request was met with the kind of welcoming response that made me question why I hadn't asked sooner). Pauly explained that he wouldn't be there on the day, or indeed on Wake up to Wogan that morning, as he was off to the golf. For the purposes of the show, his silence was to be explained by a gumboil which rendered him unable to speak. Nobody would really believe it, of course, but it was the perfect analogy for how the show felt that morning; the listeners might not have heard Pauly's voice, but they could still quite believe he was there, busying himself in the background.
Now, we'll have to learn to believe it all over again. It's been eleven months since he last worked on the show, and yet still you hear his influence breaking through. The ultimate legacy. As one well meaning but slightly confused tribute on the Radio 2 website reads, "never a day went by when I thought of Pauly".
Did you know you can now renew your tax disc online or by telephone? Well, you can. I received my notice from DVLA earlier this week stating that my car tax was due. With reminder came a helpful little leaflet telling me that I didn't need to root around (well, not that I have to root since everything is nicely filed) to find my insurance certificate, MOT certificate and then find a Post Office. Instead I could simply ring a number (or go online), enter my reference and then my credit card details and all would be done. I was slightly puzzled as to how I would then print out my tax disk, bearing in mind I don't think my printer can cope with perforating circles. It seems my fear was misplaced: they will send my tax disc within 5 working days. So there we are. Just one easy phone call, a few details, a few number punches and all done. Fantastic. At the same time, I don't suppose this does much for supporting the local Post Office. I was actually in Kent with my parents this morning and so had planned to go to our local Post Office. Instead, I rang the DVLA from the comfort of my bed!
Last night I went for a drink with a new friend of mine. Neither of us fancied a big night, just a chance to chat and quietly mull things over with a pint of something well brewed.
And so to the Hobgoblin in Reading, a favourite haunt of each of us it turned out, where real ale doth flow and wooden panelled booths and nooks reign supreme. Here's the view from my favourite two-and-a-half seater booth...
In the heart of town, this little place is a gem - what, if you weren't struck by the fact that it completely defies the need for pretentious categorisations, you might venture to say is the ultimate 'character pub'. Certainly, it's got more than a full measure of character. And characters aplenty, too...
We managed to bag the favoured booth, and when the time came to refuel, I was sure to guard our spot. After a few, quiet moments, the head of a lady appeared at the opening.
"Are you alone?", she asked, eyeing the recently vacated seat. I apologised, and told her I wasn't.
She ventured further. "Oh... Are you with... a woman?", she whispered, now eyeing the empty half-seat next to me. "Only, I'd really wanted to sit quietly in a booth and drink my beer - but I wouldn't want to intrude on anything... intimate."
One of life's wonderful situations that ought to be easier to explain than it actually turns out to be, I confirmed that no, I was not with a woman but that...
"Would you mind if I shared you?" she pleaded. "I'd be no trouble - I'll just read my book, and maybe eavesdrop on your laddish chat."
Utterly charmed, I couldn't resist.
And so when my friend returned from the bar, our evening had gained a middle-aged woman from Durham, half a pint of mild, and her book. I fumbled an introduction, and we continued to make "laddish chat".
Soon, the woman joined in, and proved to be terrific company. It turned out to be her Birthday (that old line, but it actually was!), and she'd called in at the pub on her way back from seeing her son. She'd wanted some company and, let's face it, if the Hobgoblin can't provide that, then where can?
Highlights included the moment she pulled a brand new DVD copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being from her bag, complete with erotic cover, and explained how she couldn't wait to watch it. We were assured that, like the young vendor who'd surreptitiously passed it to her under the counter, we had probably got completely the wrong idea about what sort of film it was. (Looking at a summary, it turns out we probably had.)
An hour or so later, after much mirth, she was on her way, and we were both genuinely pleased that she'd touched our evening. This is exactly why we should love our real community pubs, and go to them as often as we possibly can. It's certainly one of the reasons why I do.
Next week, Simon's coming over to mine for a drink. I'll be setting a third place at the table, just in case.
Watch the following video closely. You will see people at the bottom of the giant slides at the Tate Modern gallery in London. Then you'll see what happens to small children flung from the slide apparatus...
Not really, of course. Fun slides though! Here's a selection of pics starting with my favourite, combining a word from the slide instructions on the glass viewing platform with a slider in motion. Who says we can't try to create art out of art?
Don't get me wrong: the slides are good fun, they attract youngsters to art, and they're so popular that clearly the British public have been craving this kind of interactivity with their galleries. But it feels like not over-much actual artistic effort went in. The slides are bare, grey structures with no life to them. I had expected them to be decorated or surrounded by other works of art suspended from above, so people sliding would have plenty of exciting things flying through their field of vision as they descended the exhibit. But there was nothing like that.
One word of advice if you're planning on going. Get there very early (it opens at 10am most days), get in line to book your free tickets for the higher slides, and come back at the appointed time. We got there at 2pm and they had already almost sold out of tickets for the whole of the rest of the day. It's very easy to end up disappointed - given the gallery doesn't shut til 10pm on a Friday, you simply don't expect all eight hours of remaining sliding to be booked up!
If I'm honest the rest of the Tate Modern left me cold. There was some photography on display which did little to inspire me, and plenty of modern art about which I could bleat on forever, but suffice to say it's just not clever enough. If I reckon I could reproduce it given enough time and resources, it's not art. I can lump a load of clay into silly shapes and leave it in a corner of a room as per one exhibit - I couldn't paint the Mona Lisa. Therein lies the difference, for me.
It's nice of Virgin to provide a sign welcoming us to Coventry. It's just a shame they sent us to Coventry in the first place.
Here we all are, at 11pm on a Wednesday night, stood helpless on the platform with our broken-down train licking its wounds opposite.
Earlier in the evening I was mildly uptight when I accused Virgin of being "idiots" and intimated I would be demanding my money back.
Now I'm finding it all amusing, in its own numbingly inevitable way. My current estimated time of arrival into Reading is 12:30am, three hours late and eight hours after the train's scheduled departure time from Newcastle.
In that time the sheer number of trains - hypothetical and physical - involved in the operation has been staggering.
One train left Edinburgh bound for Southampton earlier this afternoon, and that's the one I got on at Newcastle.
A separate train left Manchester bound for Southampton slightly later on and, at Birmingham New Street, these two trains merged. Confusingly, the Edinburgh train on which I was sat became the Manchester to Southampton service.
Between Birmingham International and Coventry that train broke down. This was hardly unexpected - it was an hour late leaving Edinburgh because it wouldn't work properly, but Virgin seem to have taken a chance on a faulty train making it all the way to Southampton.
After twenty minutes dormant in a field it managed to limp to Coventry. Forty minutes or so later a replacement train arrived, and that's where I find myself. Add a taxi back to my car and the drive home, and I'll be lucky to get back before 1:30am. I mean it, this is it. No more Virgin for me. The Dodge can take me everywhere... its record is so much better...
Post title in honour of Andrew, the train manager for this service since New Street, who - while we were stopped in the middle of a field - used the word to describe the journey thus far.
I've been trying to refrain from writing this for over an hour but Virgin have now lobbed sufficient straw on this camel's back for me to get the hump.
Ultimately, the foul mood I'm in as we sit at Birmingham New Street is in some respects my fault. I booked the ticket for this train a couple of weeks in advance and, when I went to Newcastle, forgot my Young Persons' Railcard, which is lying on a bookshelf at home.
That's cost me £32 tonight, thanks to the conductress aboard this train, who saw no room for leniency and charged me the excess when I couldn't produce the railcard.
This means that, in total, the round trip has cost me over £100. The original fare was £66.40, plus a small booking fee, which I personally thought more than enough given I could probably get a cheaper flight. (And I will be doing, next time, even if the flight's more expensive, or I'll go with GNER. I've had it with these idiots.)
I would be holding my hands up and admitting fault over the railcard - indeed I already have done - but circumstances are starting to make me feel cheated of every single penny.
For a start we're now well over an hour late, and have been since just after my journey started. I won't get to my car in Reading until well after 11pm, a good 90 minutes later than scheduled. Frankly I hope it's more than two hours late so I can reclaim the entire bloody fare.
Secondly, we've just been held up at Birmingham New Street waiting for a connecting service from Manchester. This train has now officially become the Manchester Piccadilly to Southampton service, with all the folk from the Manchester train boarding this one.
This train is thus packed full once again, and furthermore - hilariously - the old reservations on this train have been replaced by ones from the Manchester service.
This has had the unbelievable effect of changing the display above my seat: where once it was reserved for me from Newcastle to Reading, it is now "available until Stockport"! We're going the other bloody way! These incompetent cretins have charged me a three-figure sum to take away my seat on a severely delayed train!
The final insult is the buffet, or lack thereof - not that I have the slightest intention of spending a penny in their toilet, let alone an extortionate sum in their shop. There was no hot food until Birmingham, a situation Virgin have rectified by refusing to offer any food or drink past New Street. That means nothing at all for the remaining two hours (at least) this service has to run. Is that even legal?
When the lady charged me the excess I handed over the money on the grounds it was a fair cop and she was just doing her job. But no. No, they haven't done their jobs on this train, they've provided a crummy service tantamount to no service at all. I want my money back and, in the immortal words of every wronged British consumer, they'll be hearing from me.
Yesterday evening I took the Newcastle Metro out to Callerton Parkway to see my friend Helen, who lives in Ponteland, up a bit and left from Newcastle itself.
At Monument station, waiting for the Metro, a man smelling of alcohol asked me if the next train was for the airport. It was, and it was the one I needed. On we got.
I've spent the last three days filiming, editing and doing various story-telling type things, so - if I'm honest - I haven't the energy to properly do justice to the next twenty-five minutes. Instead I reproduce, in bullet point format, the conversation in chronological order:
Time elapsed: Event
2 mins: He's off to the airport. He missed his last plane having turned up with 20 minutes to go. The girl at the check-in desk wouldn't let him on the plane (he referred to her in rather unpleasant terms). He went back into town, ventured into a pub, and is now turning up a couple of hours ahead of the 9pm flight to make sure he doesn't miss that.
4 mins: He lives in Scotland, but grew up near Newcastle. He's flying to Exeter to see a gentleman who owns a trout farm there. My man owns a number of trout fisheries in his own right, it transpires, and is trying to cure a trout disease threatening to put him out of business.
7 mins: Not only is my man flying to Exeter on trout business, he is also - and I hope your reaction to this is the same as mine - flying there to visit his birth mother for the very first time.
8 mins: No, he really is.
10 mins: His real mum lives near Barnstaple, apparently. He's in his forties at a guess, and always knew he was adopted (at the age of 4 weeks). His real mum first got in touch a few years ago but circumstances have prevented a meeting til now. He's having one day at the trout farm and one day with his mum. (Bloody hell.)
14 mins: He's on the phone to the man picking him up in Devon. The conversation is conducted in hushed whispers. When the call finishes, my man tells me his trout fishing colleague was out stalking deer for the duration of their conversation.
18 mins: We're back to his tale of woe at the airport earlier that day. Having been told he couldn't board his original flight, my man was asked to pay £25 to switch his ticket for the later departure. He grudgingly agreed and reached for his wallet - it wasn't there. He'd missed his plane and lost his wallet.
21 mins: On walking, distressed, back to his car, he discovered his wallet in the back seat. By now needing the toilet quite badly (having run to catch his original flight), he went to the loo in the car park, up against a bush. As he was doing this, a couple of air stewardesses drove past in a car. He finished the job then ran to catch up with them, to apologise for having been caught in the act, so to speak. They told him he had parked his car in the airline staff car park, and risked it being clamped if he left it there. His moral of the story: every cloud has a silver lining. If he'd caught his plane, he'd have been without his wallet and found his car clamped on his return.
25 mins: I left the train. My moral of the story: always, always carry your camera with you if up in Newcastle on a video journalism course. What an opportunity...
Whatever else I may have been expecting from my first stand-up comedy gig, I certainly didn't expect to wake up to an email entitled "debut highly amusing".
Okay, so it turned out to be a fantastically well timed piece of spam mail, ostensibly from a Polish woman with some fake Rolex watches to sell, but it's the thought that counts. I'm sure she was there in spirit.
I was even more touched by the reaction of the thirty or so people who turned out for last night's gig at Bar HaHa! in Reading (as much as it hurt, each of us avoided the obvious gag in our acts) - not the most suitable of venues for comedy, nor sadly, the most extensively publicised of events - but a fun night all the same.
The lack of publicity added an extra dimension to the night, not because the crowd turned out to be small, but because less than 50% of those present were sold on the idea that comedy would be playing any part in their evening. Each of the acts made a Herculean attempt to win the full attention of the crowd (which included a rowdy office party of suited 20 somethings), the compere even throwing out the odd abusive line to the "noisy people at the back". I'm no expert, but I'm sure it usually happens the other way round.
Whatever happened, and however good the act, the revellers' attention was not there for the taking. And, in fairness, they were just as surprised to be sharing the bar with us as we were with them. From my point of view, all this reduced the likelihood of being heckled, but likewise meant there were unlikely to be any big belly laughs from within the audience; but then, on my first gig, that was never really on the cards.
I did the act - well, those bits I didn't forget - and with the intimate little audience around the stage, it proved to be a reasonable hit. There were laughs in all the right places, and a couple more chortles besides. I even won the affection of a young lady in the front row, who confided in a fellow comic that she "quite fancied the little one in the tight jacket". I think it was pity.
The greatest of compliments came from one of the bar staff who, having been told that one of the acts was making its debut that evening, asked me afterwards which one it was. I owned up, and she seemed genuinely surprised; at least I'd managed to get away with it. Likewise, I was really humbled by feedback from the other acts - some quite new themselves, and delighted to be able to dispense advice to somebody with less experience - most of whom seemed to think I wasn't a complete lost cause in the world of stand-up.
I've been invited to do a repeat performance on Thursday, but much to the disappointment of the lady in the front row, I'm busy on a date. But, I've got a taste for this tight jacket clowning, and fingers crossed, there'll be more of it soon...
I'm posting under the category of 'Thinking Space' in the desperate hope that, somehow, I might buy myself some.
In a little under five hours time, the Reading Comedy Festival will launch tonight's instalment of frolics in a popular central Reading bar, and I'll be making up precisely one quarter of the acts.
'Making up' is very much the phrase of the day, I fear. I've never attempted stand-up comedy before (at least, not to an audience that doesn't consist entirely of mates and generally good people who are already on my side); but three weeks ago, I was set a challenge on-air to perform a slot at the Reading Comedy Festival.
In the great spirit of "never say no to anything new", I agreed, knowing that we'd record a few five minute features for Radio Berkshire following my training and preparation, but blissfully overlooking the fact that, some fateful night, I would actually be required to perform.
Three weeks later, I've just heard the penultimate piece being played on The Henry and Ollie Show, and finally it's struck home. Tonight is that night. And despite the many hours I've invested in putting those radio features together, and the many prompts I've had from listeners who are eagerly awaiting the final instalment on next weeks show (entitled "How Did He Get On?"), I've hardly put pen to paper on my act.
As every dying compere says, moments before the first rotten tomato comes his way, "anybody know any good jokes?"...
On Saturday, I revealed to you a childhood obsession with the Waterloo & City line which, through thick and thin, refurbishment and replacement, has accompanied me to adulthood.
Tonight, we revisit the world of Sheppard childhood culinary indulgence to extol the virtues of that simplest of pleasures, cottage cheese.
Since their time began, supermarket delicatessen counters have been plying provender which, however disappointing to the taste bud, appeals hugely to the eye. Take taramasalata, for example - the fishy, pink paste which always cries out to be bought by the tonne, but which actually tastes like raw salt mixed with all that's bad about life in the ocean - a favourite of those who will never actually get around to sampling what looks so great in the fridge.
At the other end of the spectrum (and, indeed, the counter), we have cottage cheese, the least visually appealing of dishes which, bizarrely, caught not only the eye but ultimately the heart of a young Mr Sheppard, who at seven years of age, refused to eat a meal unless it was accompanied by lashings of the stuff. Frustrated parents would try to devise menus that precluded the addition of the white, creamy, emulsion-like substance. But, somehow, it always ended up there, night after night, and the plate would be clean.
A recently rediscovered passion for cottage cheese has seen a return of clean plates, and indeed, dirty spoons at midnight, as the fridge is raided for the odd top-up from the hallowed tub. Ironic that my current physique should be a direct result of the only thing in my home which bears the legend "healthy eating". It's also great that, in a world of acidic, fatty offerings, a dose of alkaline cottage cheese becomes almost medicinal in its effect.
Could it be that I'm becoming a little too healthy?
(By the way, if you have a little time to pass, a Google Image search for cottage cheese currently brings up the most unlikely of results...)
Don't ask. I can't think of another title, and I happen to be sitting on my pink cushion. I am alive. News? Well, my Toshiba laptop has died. It took all of 8hrs of being in my good hands. Why did I get a Toshiba? However, I do have OJ to thank for the fact I still had the box, and all the packaging. He may have his anal moments, but he did drum it into me enough times never to get rid of packaging, and I didn't. Amazing.
Today at the BBC's Newcastle training centre has been all about sending us out to film. We weren't given stories, just locations - after a couple of hours with the cameras and a safety session, off we went.
My destination was another training centre, except this one's for budding builders, not junior journos. In a quiet corner of an industrial unit near the Tyne, a man who used to work for Barclays trains all comers in the basics of plastering, plumbing and tiling. And today is the beginning of his latest four-day tiling course, costing upwards of £350.
Some people on the course are craftsmen learning a new trade, like plumbers learning how to work with tiles so they can offer that service too. Others are unemployed and trying to get into the trade (on the wall is a pinboard with the business cards of successful graduates).
But some, like John, are just doing it because they want to do their house up, but don't have the skills and don't want to get someone else in. John's coming to the end of his 25-year stint in the military, including tours of duty in Bosnia and Northern Ireland, so it feels a bit odd to find him - in green army overalls - being taught how to tile a bathroom in a Newcastle industrial warehouse. Yet according to him this is a really popular option with people leaving the military. A fair few of his friends have already done the course, many of them with a view to a new career.
John's an interesting guy but even he'd be the first to admit he has nothing on the star of my colleague Laura's video.
She went to a miniature farm populated by goats, and met a young man whose job it is to feed the motley goat collection. His story is a harrowing tale of what could so easily happen to you... if you're trying to dose up a goat on antibiotics.
One day, as he was preparing the needle for his latest victim, a goat stood behind him appears to have taken umbrage to the treatment. Our man, steadily lowering the needle, was rear-ended with some force by this angry goat - thereby driving the needle, full to the brim of goat antibiotics, into his own arm.
Half an hour later he's stood in the hospital reception, trying to explain the precise circumstances in which he injected himself with goat drugs. Well, you know what these port towns are like for dodgy substances...
If your wife is eBay-savvy, don't cheat on her. If you do, the contents of that photo go up for auction online, with this accompanying description:
Some of these items might be slightly damp due to them being chucked out of the bedroom window and sitting on the garden for a bit, since the cheating scumbag hasn't dare show his face since I phoned him, despite his bull**** assurances that he would visit our two young sons.
I'm delighted to find wireless internet has made its way onto GNER's trains, but why does it have to cost so much? Granted, it's a convenient service, but you have to pay £10 for a three hour journey. Given the tickets just to get on the train are pushing three figures for a return to Newcastle, an extra £20 to use the net in either direction seems steep to say the least.
The US parent of British rail firm GNER has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US. Bermuda-based passenger and freight transport firm Sea Containers made the move on Monday, after deciding it could not repay its $630m (£339m) debts.
Welcome to Newcastle, or more precisely the seventh floor of the Jurys Inn (why have they so callously butchered their apostrophe?), overlooking a rather grand courtyard. There I am in the hotel room except, when I look at my own picture, my dodgy net access makes it look like I'm on videophone from Kabul.
It's certainly noisy enough in the background - a Chelsea fan is playing club theme tune "The Liquidator" from his nearby apartment, screaming "Cheeeelsea!" at appropriate moments. I expect devout Newcastle fans to terminate him within minutes.
Now I've not been on a GNER train for ages and certainly don't remember being packed in like sardines quite like we were this evening. When I got onto the train I saw just one person sat in the carriage in which my seat had been reserved. Then, to my horror, I discovered that my seat was on the window side of this same person. So, in a 50-odd seat carriage, I had to disturb the one other person sat in it to reach my allocated seat. That was a little silly but there were reservation tickets everywhere, and soon the train was crammed full.
As it happens that one other person was a lovely gentleman who had been to visit his wife in London. She has been admitted to hospital for plastic surgery. Last year she was diagnosed with a form of facial cancer - the resulting radiotherapy and operation has left her with what is tantamount to a hole in the side of her nose, which has been covered up with a triangle of bone cut from the forehead. This week, the surgeons will attempt to restore her appearance to something bordering on normal.
My companion even, unprompted, turned to discussion of local radio. I then asked him if he listened to BBC local radio and his response, quick as a flash: "Yeah, of course I do! BBC Radio York, all the time." He had many kind words for his local station - it's fantastic to meet people like that.
Meanwhile I'm delighted to find wireless internet has made its way onto GNER's trains, but why does it have to cost so much? Granted, it's a convenient service, but you have to pay £10 for a three hour journey. Given the tickets just to get on the train are pushing three figures for a return to Newcastle, an extra £20 to use the net in either direction seems steep to say the least. (Then again this simply extends the traditional British Rail concept of the fiver for a crap sandwich, packet of crisps and drink, which is precisely what I paid.)
My three-day training course starts tomorrow, including filming a story. As far I can tell there are a number of set venues us journalists are taken to for our stories: I'm told possible locations include a cake shop, a dry cleaners and a factory, none of which exactly inspire me, but then it's my job to make these things inspiring! Bring it on.
Let us, for a moment, discuss the word 'convention'.
David and I are sat in his blue VW Beetle, parked in TGI Fridays' car park in Reading, at what purported to be a VW Beetle convention.
In reality it's not a convention. It's a gathering. And a gathering is entirely different to a convention. Gatherings are intimate affairs, just like this one: a couple of rows of gorgeous Beetles, parked up opposite each other, smiling widely as their owners discuss intimate details.
Conventions are gaping, enormous row-upon-row events where you can get truly lost in the crowd. That's what we thought we were letting ourselves in for - having both had relatively taxing weeks (long hours, car on fire, etc), a chance to disappear into a gently throbbing mass of Beetle fans in the middle of nowhere.
TGI Fridays' car park is not the middle of nowhere. I think I had in mind a WOMAD of Beetles - flags, hippies, Beetles (obviously), stall after stall peddling tat you could probably find elsewhere but it's special because you found it here, that sort of thing. David, for example, wants a new VW badge for his car. We're sure the advert promised traders.
And indeed, maybe there are traders here! But if they are, the swines are masquerading as scary VW owners and we're worried that if we get too close, we'll get sucked into something from which we'll never recover. After all, I can barely get my own car home from the garage, let alone discuss the finer points of VW engineering.
A case in point: there's a Ford Focus being systematically gutted in front of a baying VW Beetle crowd for its precious innards, which we can only assume will be duly dispensed to a waiting Bug. It's horrifying! What did the Focus do wrong?
Not to knock this event: it's a beautiful celebration of Beetle culture, and there are some Beetles here I'd be very proud to own (not as proud as the Dodge, but proud). But we're feeling very self-conscious - David's worried his car simply doesn't live up to the standard on show (in a WOMAD-esque convention we'd have got away with that), and I just don't have any Beetle conversation in my armoury, other than, "My mum used to own a few of these!".
Maybe I could show them a photo of my last appearance at a Beetle gathering:
If you're not already an admirer of London's underground network and its finery, I may have difficulty in persuading you of the wonders of the Waterloo & City line. Known to its thousands of daily users as 'the drain', it's hardly the most obvious charmer on paper:
But for me, what links the eastern end of Waterloo station with the heart of our City is actually the eighth wonder of the world - and always will be, it seems.
Its appeal is partly one of anomaly. A freak of rail nationalisation in the 1940s saw the Waterloo & City become the only underground line to be operated by British Rail (rather than London Transport, as was then), so the feel has always been so different to any other tube line. It's also completely isolated from the rest, and the trains have to be hoisted above ground for non-routine maintenance by a crane. More on that coming up.
As a boy, the W&C was always top of my wish list for a visit whenever I was taken to London (wasn't it yours?), and I came to know the whole thing inside out: the quaint little purpose-built '40s trains, with their wooden panels and the warm glow of tungsten bulbs; every twist and turn of the two tunnels, which seemed to take you endlessly left then right as you made your way under the Thames; and even the most minute details of the two stations - the odd tiling on the wall of Bank station, and the little embossing of the Network SouthEast logo on the platform edges at Waterloo.
For an 8-year old, it was a journey made entirely for pleasure. I have photographs at home of a little David beaming from ear to ear, having been allowed to ride inside the driver's cab of one of the trains (number 58, if you really care). I remember it well.
The W&C charm even remained through the rail privatisation era (few lines can boast that, though many have since had a charm renaissance), when London Underground inevitably took over. Admittedly, a little of the magic had been lost with the scrapping of the older trains a year earlier, replacing them with new Central Line lookalikes that didn't quite win my favour initially. But they were still very different up close, and with little investment forthcoming for the line as a whole, things remained pretty much as they always had done.
So imagine my horror when, earlier this year, it was announced that the line was to close. Okay, so only for a few months while major rebuilding and modernisation work was carried out, but this would probably be the end of the line as I knew it. In case it should come back unrecognisable, I went along on the final day of the 'old' line, just to say my goodbyes.
Yesterday, I had my first opportunity to sample the newly reopened line, and how surprised I was. Tiles at Bank, platform edging at Waterloo, that wonderful, unique charm, all... still there!
There certainly is much evidence of modernisation; the trains have been newly painted (albeit in standard LU livery), the ride around those bends is now much less bumpy than I remembered, and finally the London Underground branding has made it to both trains and stations. But otherwise, Dr Progress has left well alone. The fabric of the line has been mercifully upgraded to ensure its future, but the character remains distinct. And long may it so do.
If you haven't yet ridden the Waterloo & City line, then do it - you might see what I mean.
But if all else fails, be sure to look at Metronet's fantastic videos of the trains being hoisted out of the line's own depot for refurbishment, and then dropped back in again with the job done.
Yep, my new car has arrived early! I skipped off from work at 1pm this afternoon to pick it up. But by 2pm, this had happened:
As I was driving my brand new Dodge home, I had to stop in traffic in the small village of Sonning, just east of Reading. That was when I noticed some smoke in front of me. Ten seconds later I noticed it was coming from my car.
But, you know what? I've told this story already - on air. I rang David, who has a Saturday afternoon show whenever there's no 3pm Reading FC match, and the topic on his programme just happened to be things that are new (his producer's new bed failed to turn up - not a good day all round). So, live on BBC radio, my smoking Dodge got its 15 minutes of fame:
To cut a two-hour long story short, a mechanic arrived who concluded he could find no reason for the smoking, which - to him - meant it was either excess oil (or paint) being burned away by the radiator. His solution was simple: carry on driving it, see what happens.
All the while, having been on the radio, I had the pleasant but disconcerting experience of passing drivers waving at me. One dad driving his family past the scene wound his window down, called out, "Are you Ollie?", then on receiving the answer gave me a thumbs up and drove off. It's certainly one way to find out who our listeners are.
So I eventually got back in my car and drove it back to the BBC, at exactly the moment our radio station began playing the Star Wars theme tune, which I will now forever associate with my car. As Star Wars reached its dramatic crescendo, my Dodge soared up Lowfield Road towards its new daytime home.
Now I've driven it home and it has still to erupt with any more smoke, so I think we might just have got away with it. And can I add that, for all the rigmarole it's put me through today, it's a great car and I think I made a really good decision getting it.
Typical bloody American though: 14 miles on the clock and it's already adopted a smoking habit! I'll get out to the driveway tomorrow morning and it'll offer me a Jim Beam and a Havana...
Few things compel me to stand, staring at another gentleman in the toilets at Paddington station. Other people pass by - staring in turn at me, wondering why I'm eyeing up another bloke using a urinal, and contemplating a quick phone call to the poilce when they're suitably relieved.
Wondering what was going on? Use the audio console below to hear me explain myself from the Paddington concourse a little later:
It's the done thing for many movies to paint a bleak future for humanity. After all, you only have to look at the news on any given day to realise it's not difficult to envisage things going horribly wrong. 
Even I'm surprised how long it's taken me to mention this:
Reuters has always had a strong reputation for financial reporting, so it's no surprise that their (inspired) coverage of Second Life is driven by similar motives.
Welcome to Newcastle, or more precisely the seventh floor of the Jurys Inn (why have they so callously butchered their apostrophe?), overlooking a rather grand courtyard. There I am in the hotel room except, when I look at my own picture, my dodgy net access makes it look like I'm on videophone from Kabul.
