What is journalism exactly?

Typical me. I naiively trot and skip and bounce along to the Reuter / Amplified 09’s unconference about Twitter and whether it can save the world or not and spectacularly miss the point.

I went along because they were discussing what the impact of Twitter is or will be or has been on the future of news.

News, I think. That’s journalism. There’s something to report there. I could shoot some video. I could tweet stuff. I could meet other people. I might get some ideas. I must go along.

At least that’s what I was thinking in my pseudo-journalistic brain last week when I booked my ticket. Then I posted a discussion post on the BBC’s College of Journalism networking thing (you’ll need to be a) a BBC journalist and b) working in the College of Journalism to get into that particular club – it’s very select, you won’t get in the back door) and my brain starts filling up with something else.

I’d moaned about a particular news story I’d seen on the internet and in so doing posed the question that there was a serious risk to journalistic values (ie make sure there’s an actual story there to report when you put your news story together) if headlines are written to optimise traffic. In other words, if you write your headlines to grab attention but the pay-off is there’s hardly anything there of substance, isn’t there a seriously negative impact to your audience?

I’d qualified all of this in my discussion post on the CoJo network by saying I was probably being unfairly critical, something I reckoned came easy given that I’d missed the journalist-boat a number of years ago and – frankly – even if I was given a chance to work in a newsroom I probably wouldn’t survive anyway. I’d probably stand in the corner crying into a hanky with some old-hack coming up to me and whispering in my ear how “it’s probably best you run along now Jacob – don’t think you can play with the big boys anymore”

Self-deprecating as the dismissal of how I reckoned I’d be working in a newsroom, the comment did reveal something I’d overlooked. For years now I’ve accomodated a stereotypical view of what kind of a person a journalist is, possibly as a way of explaining to myself why I wouldn’t have been any good at it anyway. It’s almost as though the dismissal of the profession using a stereotypical view was a way of making the disappointment I hadn’t followed up that teenage career aspiration seem less painful.

It was that which prompted me to ignore the main discussion point set by the BBC’s Director of Global News Richard Sambrook at the Reuters unconference. I did try discussing whether or not Twitter could curate journalism or merely fuel with @reutersjeremygaunt and @mrsbunz amongst others but instead wanted a few important questions answered instead: What is a journalist? What is journalism? And what sort of person do you have to be in order to be one?

The resulting piece isn’t want you’d call far-reaching journalism but it does answer the questions for me. Pursuing my original career aspirations doesn’t seem like such an impossible task really.

TV: Graham Norton Show (Episode 6.6 Mon 9 Nov 2009)

Shameless self-promotion, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Either I’m consistently wasted on cheap wine, or Mr Norton’s show is proving a reliable source of entertainment. I’m veering towards the latter but am prepared to concede the former in the event of having to sit through a duff episode in the next few weeks.

Tonight, beau-of-the-ball and soon to be ex-Time Lord David Tennant carried out what must now feel like tiresome process of winding up the contract he’s been in for the past few years by promoting a TV series he’s soon no longer to star in. The beginning of the end – the story is entitled The Waters of Mars – airs on BBC One on Sunday 15 November.

He was joined by an arrestingly honest Johnny Vegas and the strangely alluring Alison Moyet and equally gorgeous complexion and best-of album.

A giggle from beginning to end. Marvellous work.

• Watch Episode 6.6 of The Graham Norton Show via BBC iPlayer

Remembrance Sunday: It’s the very least we can do

“Did they mark 2 minutes silence here?” I asked the lady sat at the checkout in Lee Sainsburys.

“Yes. They always do. They’re good like that. Where were you?”

I hadn’t been at Sainsburys. Had it not have been for me getting lost on what I thought was the familiar journey from Lewisham to Landmann Way Reuse and Recylcing Centre I probably would have been home participating in the moment in the warmth of our central heated living room, watching proceedings on BBC HD.

As a piece of radio, the Ceremony of Remembrance from the Cenotaph was surprising. Nicholas Witchell annotated the solemn event in a reassuringly British way and yet hearing it on radio revealed the hour long broadcast for what it really was: a script whichreminds us about the military comittments this country is engaged in, with some interviews, ambient sounds and music played by a military band.

Careful thought before Christmas spend

It’s a rare thing me and Significant Other discuss the idea of doing as mundane a weekend chore as clearing the attic and then actually follow through by carrying out the task.

Forty-five minutes focussed attention on our near to capacity attic resulted in us collecting sufficient tat for one trip to the nearby dump.

More telling however was the predictable and tiresome guilty feeling experienced which I hope this year might act as the final reminder I need of how to confront the oncoming onslaught of Christmas.

I used to go mad at Christmas, spending ridiculous amounts of money on presents for other people convinced that personal happiness could only be assured if I was handing out a gift.

Tart remains

Tart Remains, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Mid-way through consuming my segment of the tart I did end up thinking that cooking dinner for four other people was something I always think would be a nice thing to do but always turns out to be a slightly stressful experience instead.

Not because of the warm potato salad which ended up being mashed near-cold mashed potato, nor the lack of salt in the filling.

In fact, I shouldn’t really complain. Everyone else seemed to like it. Everyone except me went back for seconds. There wasn’t very much left. That’s surely a good sign.

What’s stressful is the moment when you find yourself hoping like hell it’s turned out OK, hanging on the guests’ every word, analysing the feedback.

Cooking’s meant to be a relaxing experience. It is usually. Why should eating take all of that pleasure away?

Tart prepared

Tart, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

I can’t quite make out whether or not the leek and goat’s cheese tart is burnt or not. All of it’s homemade though, so on that basis I reckon it’s OK for tomorrow night’s big-meal-centre-piece to be rough around the edges.

(Leek and Goat’s Cheese Tart, Delia Smith, Rachel Allan)

On listening to the Moral Maze

Me and the Significant Other often take the mickey when we hear Michael Buerk deliver his opener to Radio 4’s Moral Maze. Our minds rush back to 999 on BBC One years ago. All that drama. All those emergencies. All that weight in Michael Buerk’s voice. We do rather laugh.

That’s mean I know. I shouldn’t really. It’s not fair on Michael Buerk who is a journalist and a broadcaster and someone from my youth. Someone I remember watching on television during snowy days when I was stranded at home revising for my GCSEs and wondering how many more days I’d have to myself getting my chemistry revision notes just up to scratch.

In writing that I’m reminded of one of the key tensions I feel writing a blog about the place I love, the things I watch on television and listen on the radio served up by the place I love and splashing around on the internet as I’ve become accustomed to in recent years.

I’m constantly wondering whether it’s really on to comment on BBC stuff when I watch it and I work there. Might there be someone out there who misconstrues what I say? Might there be someone within the organisation who takes umbrage at my comments and says “That man Jacob. He needs getting rid of”.

It’s the same with Twitter.

Yes, I know Twitter is a tiresome term. Everyone rolls their eyes when it’s talked about. I roll my eyes when I talk about it.

They were talking about Twitter on the Moral Maze this evening. I only knew that because someone outside the BBC (@abigailH) told me about it. She told me on Twitter.

You’d think I’d have known about it solely because I work at the BBC. The fact is I didn’t. I spent the day trying to get a problem fixed with a quiz on a website which frankly (had I documented the problem earlier when it occurred earlier in the year) I could have got done quicker.

So I sit down. I listen to the panelists discuss the rights and the wrongs of the social networking phenomenon. Inevitably I engage in a conversation online, using Twitter as I listen. As I do so, I’m struck by how invigorating the experience really is.

Significant Other is sat in the bath upstairs listening too. “Are you listening to this?” he asks,  ”It’s really interesting.”

I nod and snatch a gulp of red wine. I shy away from confessing I’m feeling a little looked down upon by the panelists. I carry on tweeting, conscious as I do so the editor of the @radio4blog is tweeting about the live broadcast as I indulge in reacting to what’s going on.

When the programme is over I shuffle to the lounge with my half drunk glass of wine and sigh. Significant Other looks at me gives me a withering look. I know what he’s thinking. I know exactly what he’s thinking. He was thinking the same when Norway won the Eurovision.

“Worrying you’ve overstepped the mark? Said too much? Upset the powers that be?”

Yes. Yes he’s right.

And therein lies the danger with publishing your thoughts on the internet. There’ll almost certainly be someone who could interpret what you say and use it as a weapon.

Which is why anyone who uses Twitter (or anything else on the internet for that matter) should remember one very important thing: speak from the heart. At the moment of writing whatever you’re thinking of feeling must be justifiable by you and you alone. If you can do that, you’ll be fine.

• Listen to the Moral Maze via the BBC Radio 4 website.

The World’s Strictest Parents / Episode 2.1 / BBC Three

I don’t normally watch much on BBC Three. I’ll occasionally drop in to Family Guy (Who wouldn’t? It’s painfully funny. And Stewy’s adorable) but the rest of the schedule I normally give a wide berth. Three years out of the target audience age range (16-34 year olds), I always look at the pink neon three in the top left hand corner of the screen and think “Nope, it’s just not for me.”

The words “seventeen year old homosexual” were what commanded my attention when I was flicking channels last night however. That teenager was Chezden Dundee, openly gay with a view of his heart disease-suffering mother amounting to little more than a master/slave relationship. He seemed quite happy to give instructions about how to use the washing machine even though his mother had no doubt been using it for considerably more years than he’d been alive.

Chezden joined equally troublesome (and equally troubled) teenager Bex Keene (pictured above) in a trip to Atlanta for eight days to be parented by Baptists David and Wanda Kimbrough in the latest episode of BBC Three’s The World’s Strictest Parents. Would the teenagers go about a significant change in attitude during those eight days? Would they return to the UK vowing to treat their own parents with considerably more respect than they had been prior to departure?

A more pressing question for me was whether I’d get to the end of the broadcast. At first the pseudo-documentary style was irritating. If noddies in interviews are generally sneered upon now, then surely the more generic cutaway (where edited coversations need to be papered over so everything looks a little smooth) must be on the way out. At times the editing felt a little clumsy. Sometimes I just wanted to hear complete exchanges between characters.

Despite that stylistic criticism, the hour long programme didn’t feel like an hour at all – usually an indication of a story taking longer than is absolutely necessary. There were pockets of seemingly genuine exchange between David Kimbrugh and Chez over a box of matches (the Kimbrughs weren’t keen on the teenagers smoking, let’s put it like that) which was surprising, ticking the “you’re in my personal space”  and “which one of you is the more angry at this point and over what exactly?” boxes.

Similarly, the Sister at the school the Kimbrughs run (they own and run a Baptist church too) who did singularly have the most significant effect on errant Bex at the point where the teenager expressed considerable reluctance to dissect a dead baby pig in the classroom. Frankly, I probably would have reacted in the same way as the the teenager and wouldn’t have taken too kindly to being advised on the right way to behave as a teenager. Certainly watching the entire programme I did find myself often on the side of Chez and Bex when I was rather expecting to be totally in support of the Kimbrughs given they’re adults.

What surprised me the most was how I remained with the programme to the end. I cared about the central characters and appreciated the final scenes. Bex and Wanda reconciled their differences whilst Chez and David did the same. This was the conclusion. There were tears. There was hold handing. This was what we were expecting. And yet it seemed genuine. And it was a definite relief. There was less cutting, less papering over audio edits and in general things felt like they’d slowed down. What a relief.

I had no idea that World’s Strictest Parents was now in it’s second series on BBC Three. Nor had I realised the American style reality TV show produced by ShedMedia (the same people who produce the US version of Who Do You Think You Are? donchyanow) had originated on BBC Three last year either. There are versions in the US (with a surprisingly groovy if slightly gaudy looking application website) and one in Australia too. This is a successful format it seems. Everyone wants a bit of it. Little wonder the visual language is the way it is. Time prevents production companies from making something which fits the style demanded by a vocal if slightly self-obsessed member of the minority audience.

If I did question the sincerity of the edits in places, there was one picture which reset the balance at the end. If I’d thought there were staged elements (and there must have been – some of the editing in the earlier discussions when the Kimburghs walked into the teenagers bedroom after they’d been out on the balcony must have been reshot – it was all too convenient and looked it) then the shot of both kids with their locum parents for the stills camera communicated immense warmth. In those pictures it seemed as though there was a genuine bond, one which had seemingly formed over a short space of time. That was important to see. It confirmed the content was there even if the style sometimes wasn’t.

• Watch World’s Strictest Parents / Episode 2.1 / Atlanta on BBC iPlayer

TV: Did Heston Change Little Chef?

Heston Blumenthal returned to the Little Chef in Popham recently to check on how his previous efforts to improve its output have been maintained.

If Little Chef’s percentage increase on sales after Heston’s previous visit to the chain are to believed, then the Liverpool Echo’s assessment of the programme being a glorified advert for the restaurant chain is in part correct. Mind you, the combined broadcast viewing figures on Channel 4 and Channel 4+1 proved Heston’s ongoing popularity (more to do with his obvious on-screen sincerity rather than a desire to see an old brand like Little Chef revitalised) up and against the brilliant Andrew Marr and his new series on BBC Two.

Mark Lawson argues in the Guardian that the jeopardy inherent in infotainment type programmes such as Did Heston Change Little Chef? is threatened by the pressure TV networks are under to secure viewing figures. Consequently the overriding question about whether or not Blumenthal succeeded in turning around the fortunes of the restaurant chain was already known before the programme was broadcast.It came out, he says, when the Good Food Guide was published.

I don’t pour over the Good Food Guide press releases – although my recent ‘Jonny On Tour’ in Cardiff, Newcastle and Belfast may now prompt me to at least buy the publication – consequently, I was unaware of the inclusion of Little Chef Popham in the directory. What was obvious however from the style of documentary was that there was always going to be a happy ending anyway. That is the way these programmes are made. We start knowing Heston’s going back. We figure there’ll probably be something he needs to sort out (after all – this is an hour’s worth of material) and there has to be some kind of redemption at the end of it.

Like reality TV, maybe there’s a call for this kind of formulaic docu-entertainment to be put down. There is nothing more boring than being able to visualise the storyboard and the shooting script when you’re watching a programme.

The food – even if fish and chips – didn’t look that amazing. If anything it looked like the kind of basic standard food I’d expect from a company who have a captive audience to satisfy in 170 properties nestling alongside the UK’s main roads.

What I rather hope is that it’s one small step along the way to improving this country’s appalling service industry culture with it’s long fringes, bottle blonde hair and alabaster attitude. Now that would make an interesting documentary. A twelve parter, I’d suggest.

Stephen Fry & @brumplum in the playground

Remember the school playground? Remember how someone would say something, then someone would react and then before you knew what was going on there was one group on one side of the playground backing the person who spoke first and then an even bigger group people on the other side of the playground backing the perceived victim?

The same thing has happened today. On the interweb. On Twitter. Today.

Caught in the middle are those of us who reckon we understand what the web is like, desperate to stake out our position by acting as judge and arbiter, if such a dual role can exist.

Something’s kicked off on the internet this afternoon. One tweeter – someone I’ve been in contact with on various occasions – @brumplum passed comment on Stephen Fry’s tweets, dismissing them as “boring”.

Stephen Fry didn’t exactly warm to this and as a result blocked @brumplum from his list of followers. This is his right. This is how Twitter works. I do it all the time. I usually do it with people I know from work when their unbearable smugness grinds me down. I’m in doubt there are plenty of people at work who do exactly the same to me.

No celebrity has done it to me (almost certainly because no celebrity follows me, or if they do they probably don’t take any notice of what I say). But I have done it to plenty of celebrities – including @wossy who’s frequent tweets became inextricably linked with the perception I had of him when he was on gardening leave after that Russell Brand-Andrew Sachs affair early this year.

I confess I also took the liberty of pointing out to Mr Ross why I was abandoning him. It probably wasn’t the best idea of all, but I figure in retrospect that the high profile celebrity he is and the willingness he demonstrated to place his head on the block by indulging in Twitter meant he was almost certainly able to handle the feedback.

I’ll also confess to unfollowing Mr Fry sometime ago. I didn’t tell him why on that occasion and have no desire to do so now. What I’m surprised to discover is that at some point I ended up refollowing him. That did come as a surprise. Clearly I receive so much Twitter spam I never hear from the man.

Unlike the people who are criticising @brumplum for voicing his opinions, the Brummy blogger isn’t wrong to have expressed his reasons for abandoning Mr Fry.

Twitter is about free speech. It’s a communication tool. It’s a massive playground. Children say all sorts of things in the playground especially when they’re using a communication tool which offers them distance from the recipient. Recall the last time you sent an email because you were angry knowing full well you were extremely unlikely to say the same words to the person’s face.

Stephen Fry earlier announced “Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around.”

This in response to an exchange with @brumplum, the most recent being a response to the “boring” accusation. Good comeback.

You can see where I’m going with this. Fry has already held up his hands and suggested he’s feeling very low and depressed. No one likes the thought of Stephen Fry feeling depressed. Even though I don’t know him at all, I remember feeling quite concerned for his welfare when he disappeared during a west-end run of a play. He returned and reasserted himself. If it is he’s hit one of those down moments then I’ve every faith he’ll bounce back in time.

@brumplum was well within his Twitter rights to reveal the fact he’d been blocked by Mr Fry and was also well within his rights to describe Fry’s tweets as ‘boring’. You can’t satisfy everyone all of the time. Some won’t get you. Others will. So long as you’re reasonably polite about stuff, saying ‘boring’ isn’t all that difficult a piece of feedback to take on board. I know I’ve received far worse.

But what would be really good is this. Could everyone just shut up about the spat? Could everyone quit churning messages of support for Stephen Fry and could the remainder on Twitter quit turning @brumplum into some kind of perahia?

If people don’t then pretty much everyone on the social networking tool will be guilty of the very thing Stephen Fry is claiming is putting him off Twitter. And if that’s the case it will be him who’ll need to hold out the olive branch.

So boys and girls – the hoards congregating behind the perpetraitor and the victim. All of you. Break time is over. Go back to your classrooms and get on with your work. @brumplum say sorry to @stephenfry. @stephenfry say sorry to @brumplum. And any journalists with a notebook, please move on. There’s nothing to see here.

Electric Proms 2009 / Robbie Williams

I missed the live broadcast of Robbie Williams’ Electric Proms gig. I heard about it though. People were raving about it to me whilst I was at Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival last weekend.

I must watch it, I thought. So I watched it online switching from the full screen version on my laptop to follow the set list (and avoid Scott Mills’ face – his appearance in both Attitude Magazine and Gay Times this month means the cutesy Radio 1 DJ may be in danger of jumping the shark if he’s not careful).

It was nice to see Williams back. It was nice too to hear songs given a thorough orchestration by producer Trevor Horn. The strings sounded iffy in places but the sound of a timpani underpinning some dramatic moments in various tracks made for a nice effect combined with the interestingly satisfying interior of The Roundhouse packed full of screaming girls. (I tried to overlook the appearance of James Corden and Dec from Ant and Dec fame.)

But there is a fly in the ointment I thought. I’m sure there’s a few places where Robbie’s not necessarily delivering 100% on the intonation front. There are moments, I’m sure of it, when the cheeky chappy whose swagger can be just a bit too much at times just can’t reach those top notes. Maybe it’s me being overcritical, I thought. Maybe I should give the boy I was once obsessed with (didn’t you see the Rock DJ video?) a second chance.

BBC HD re-ran the concert last night. Me and The Significant Other watched it this afternoon.

I can confirm that I wasn’t wrong. There are many times when Robbie illustrates to what extent he needs to work on his live performance. I was surprised to see him reading from his autocue, amazed to observe he had the obligatory ear-piece in just one ear. And yet at various points it was clear the massive orchestra behind him and the track played into his ear wasn’t helping. I grimaced a number of times. I’m sorry Mr Williams but I did. You need to work on this.

What’s infinitely more frustrating is the reviews from the mainstream press about the concert (Independent, Times Online, The Guardian). Not one other person picks up on the intonation troubles Williams suffered. It’s as though there’s a different quality threshold rehabilitated popstars must reach in order to get four out of five stars. It’s as though we’re happy to overlook that. It’s as though they were all given a free ticket, access to the VIP area and plenty of booze for the night. That does so make my blood boil.

Why is this important? Possibly because Williams has a story and, as a result, a place in our hearts. He did great stuff and we want him to do great stuff again. Perhaps we want him to acquire that much-desired ‘national treasure’ status. I do. He fits the bill. You’ve just got to turn in a consistently high standard of performance Robbie. I’m stickler for perfection.

>> Watch the live performance of Robbie Williams’ concert at the BBC Electric Proms

Ian Baynham vigil in Trafalgar Square

Thousands of people converged on Trafalgar Square on the night of Saturday 31 October in a peaceful protest against hate-crime.

They were there to remember the assault on 62 year old Ian Baynham who died of brain damage on 13 October. He was a gay man who stood up to people shouting homophobic abuse at him. Gordon Brown has sent a letter of support whilst Boris Johnson has signalled his support.

Lobbying is one thing. Looking to those with influence is important. But there’s another angle we shouldn’t lose sight of.

I have a friend whose tales of similar abuse and his boldness in tackling it head on in public spaces leave me breathless with pride. Like the Baynham friends and family described in the speech last night, my friend is not frightened about dealing with such abuse head on. There have been numerous occasions where the coda to his reports have always been a chorus of “Be careful, won’t you? It’s right you do what you do. But do be careful.”

It isn’t war on the streets. At least, I don’t think so. Instead, Baynham’s murder and the solidarity shown in the many thousands who turned up at Trafalgar Square remind us that such homophobia does still exist and we should all strive to eradicate it. Such action requires a loud voice from a united community.

I didn’t attend the vigil last night. I look at the pictures and read the tweets from it I end up feeling as though I’ve let the side down. Maybe that’s my inner-critic. The overriding aim of the vigil was to remember Ian Baynham, the Soho nail-bomb and James Parks. If I’m thinking about it now, should I have made the effort and gone last night?

Possibly. You might argue that. But something strikes me as even more important as I watch the moving speech delivered with Ian Baynham’s sister Jenny standing in the background. Vigils are one thing. Memories of vigils are something else. But what’s most important now is that the overwhelming statement made by that vigil and all who attended continues. The best place for that to continue is on the internet.

So, do this.

Your sexuality is of no consequence. Everyone should do this. Reserve a small part of your mind and file this event and the one which precipitated it in a folder marked “hate crime”. It doesn’t demand a great deal of thought. Nor does it require debate, proposals of how we might tackle it or a great long list of people you need to lobby to eradicate it. Just remember that this event happened and that thousands of people converged on Trafalgar Square (the majority of whom won’t have known Baynham) and remember that as sad as this tale is, the speech still raised a smile about someone you didn’t know.

That alone should be sufficient to motivate you into saying something the moment someone hurls abuse, or indeed leaping to someone’s aid if you see another individual being physically attacked in the street. You’re not telling me it was totally silent in Trafalgar Square that night. There would have been plenty of other people around. We all share a responsibility.

There’s a fine line between freedom of speech and all out homophobic abuse – some people haven’t found that line yet. But whilst we’re looking for where exactly the line can be drawn, we should continue to keep such issues uppermost in our mind, vowing to tackle any examples of abuse at a local level.

Be bold. Be safe. But for goodness sake, don’t let it slip.

Members of the London Gay Men’s Chorus sing “Something Inside So Strong” at the vigil

TV: Graham Norton Show (Episode 6.4 Mon 26 Oct 2009)

Unbearably cute with a firm grasp of camp, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Singer Michael Buble is a TV executive’s dream. Not only is the man unbearably cute, at home singing live and comes with a band who dress a set perfectly, the singer also has that rare talent of being able to engage in the perfect banter for a mainstream entertainment show.

Obviously, Michael Buble had something to sell. No guest goes on a chat show without a good reason. His reason is a new album, an album which accompanies a tour it seems. And yet, the 34 year old combined an endearing nervousness with boyish enthusiasm whilst sat alongside Lily Cole, Isabella Rossalini and Sue Perkins. Little wonder we wanted the anecdotes to keep coming.

Chat wasn’t relegated during this particular show, surprising given the crowd of guests Norton faced. Banter ensued instead, with just the right combination of giggling, put-downs and innuendo. Oh .. and of course there was a ginger joke. (I hope to God no-one starts saying that’s offensive. Catherine Tate did a series of sketches about that. She sets the precedent.)

Two and a half years ago, I stood in the Executive Producer’s office at So Television all green, naiive and lonely. I hadn’t really gelled with anyone during my work experience week. I’d made no-one laugh, embarrassed myself by doing research no-one asked for, succeeding only in making the production team certain I was a tabloid journalist desperate to find some dirt.

“When will Graham be on BBC One ?” I asked the exec, desperate to ingratiate myself, “Isn’t it time he got his 45 minutes on a Friday? He’s the perfect Friday-nighter.”

A few months after that I winced with embarrassment when I recalled that exchange. Experience has shown that anything I like on BBC Two (The Graham Norton Show started on BBC Two) normally seriously goes off the boil when it moves to BBC One. Yes, we might all be consuming our TV via BBC iPlayer, but still the audience profile and the material for each of those networks differs considerably.

When I heard The Graham Norton Show would move to BBC One I reckoned that would be the end of it, that I’d look back over my blogs about the show and realise the sad truth: the only reason I watched it was because of the rose-tinted memories which remained from those 13 days at So Television in March 2007.

Episode 4 of this new series – The Buble Show – proves me wrong. It holds up well as testament to how chat / entertainment shows really can work just so long as the right combination of people are producing it.

A successful show depends on the chemistry between the guests, the ideas of the producer and the effeciency of the production team. Episode 4 sits well on BBC One – better than quite a few originally aired on BBC Two and an illustration of how some things take a lot of finessing before the right combination of elements can be exploited for good TV.

I hope to God Episode 5 is just as good, otherwise I’m going to look like a complete twat.

• Watch Buble’s infectious Haven’t We Met Yet on YouTube

(remember to set your stopwatch running after the end to monitor exactly how long it will take before you realise this song will be played everywhere, accompanying all sorts of TV montages – it *will* happen)

• Watch The Graham Norton Show on BBC iPlayer

Journalists are human beings too

My two week jaunt around the country is coming to an end. I’m relieved. I’m getting tired of the hotel experience (although the central Belfast Holiday Inn more than makes up for the prison-like interior of Newcastle’s riverside Travelodge). I’m keen to see my cats and I’m longing to see the garden from the kitchen window. I’m a sucker for home-life.

Hotels aside, it’s not all been bad. My brief has been simple: to cover as much of a series of events titled “New Tools for a New Way of Working” in a social media capacity for the new BBC College of Journalism website (currently beta for BBC staff).

CoJo (get used to the BBC College of Journalism acronym) has filmed a few of the specifically journalism related events in Cardiff including a presentation given by Executive Editor Kevin Marsh on how audiences are sourcing their own background information on a given subject following a news “announcements”. It’s changing the nature of news consumption and necessarily what methods journalists employ to tell their stories.

Former Assistant Editor of the BBC Six O’Clock News Mark Georgiou also made a repeat appearance at BBC Northern Ireland today, sharing his thoughts on producing news stories for a variety of multiplatforms. Memory is fading of the time when a producer and his reporter could film one piece about one story for one news programme. Now they have to be across the whole thing.

Some do it better than others, it has to be said. Some people take to writing blog entries and web stories and look for new ways to share their stories online, on radio and on TV. Georgiou offered practical tips on how to meet the challenge some producers may face when embracing multi-platform production.

It is during events like this I find myself impatient and unforgiving. I subscribe completely to the need to produce the same story in a variety of different ways for a variety of different outlets be it radio, TV or the web. My style may need finessing in some areas and skills might need to be acquired but still I’m surprised and frustrated such an event is even deemed necessary.

This may be in a small part down to the realisation I made a few years of my original career aspirations when I approached the end of my GCSEs 20 years ago. If I wanted to be a journalist, I’d obviously need English, which in turn meant an English degree. A-Level studies were fine. One term at University however and I soon discovered I wasn’t going to be able to meet the one book a week requirement demanded of me. I switched courses soon after and stupidly dropped my journalism aspiration too. A career in music administration, IT support and website management followed.

It’s only now I find myself in the journalism world I once thought I’d want to be a part of, even if I’m not actually – in the strictest sense of the word – a journalist. But having embraced the internet and its technologies (whilst steadfastly maintaining a healthy distance from any accusations of geekdom) and insodoing finding an outlet for my creative juices, I’m surprised there might be those who find the web platform a bewildering affair.

In short, I work on the basis ‘if I get it, it really can’t be that difficult, so why can’t you?’ Of course, such a view is blinkered and unforgiving, but it is the truth, one no doubt fuelled by a spark in my head that maybe at some point I might just end up doing what I thought I’d wanted to do 20 years ago. Who knows.

My lack of patience for those who perhaps need a bit more time to become accustomed with new ways of sharing stories is tempered by the experience of BBC Wales Political Editor with the Welsh Politics blog she writes on the BBC. This is no small part because she’s a pleasure to talk to and (as you would expect from someone used to delivering 2 minutes on tv or radio) and an effortless interview. During her New Tools presentation in Cardiff last week she said “I have become accustomed to it [blogging]. It’s not my enemy now.”

So as I approach the end of our two weeks away from the London CoJo office, I’m reminded of the blinkered and unforgiving view I have of journalists and the kind of people they are. They aren’t all one kind of person and they’re not necessarily anything like me. No surprises there. If only I could remember that the next time I sense that frustration rising up like bile inside of me.

Beware the Kids / Drama on 3 / Radio 3

I didn’t get along to anywhere near as many events in Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival.

Me and video journalist Louise Water were there for the weekend shooting footage for the Radio 3 You Tube channel.

I was probably a little ambitious about the amount of material we could realistically produce during the weekend. We shot a lot and edited a great deal. But there’s still a good 45 minutes of material yet to go through the edit.

With only a few hours to go before the broadcast of some of the weekend’s events goes out on Radio 3 this evening and the memory of our budget hotel passes into the dim recesses of my brain, there’s one piece of work I’m watching back and feeling both relieved and proud of.

The Drama on 3 spot from the Free Thinking Festival is always a special affair. Radio 3’s drama is tough. It’s uncompromising. I could be found crying in the back of the studio when I watched last year’s recording of Tony Marchant’s play about abortion.

This year’s play entitled Beware the Kids was equally demanding on the senses when I watched the recording last night. Five monologues from characters in a fictional child abuse case isn’t necessarily what you’d first want to sit down and listen to. I may not have cried when I heard this one, but I still found the details in the script deeply disturbing to listen to.

Deeply disturbing isn’t always bad. When deeply disturbing is written and executed brilliantly the audience is taken on a journey, one where the talents of writers, actors and director Kate Rowland cannot be denied. Little wonder there was such a long pause before the audience began their rapturous applause, this appreciation in no small part an acknowledgement of the achievement of recording the entire piece in one go with a couple of retakes. That’s impressive drama from beginning to end.

I knew I was interviewing the writers of the play after the performance. I knew it was going to be a tough job (there’s no room for flippancy in this kind of thing). Thankfully, cameralady Louise was on hand to assist me through the process. The end product (unfortunately I underestimated how dark the location was – there was no time to reshoot) is something I’m reassured about. Flippancy has it’s place.

Listen to Beware the Kids (Drama on 3) as part of Radio 3’s Free Thinking coverage

Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time

If you’ve searched on the internet and hoped for a breakdown of what happened during *that* BBC Question Time with Nick Griffin, you will almost certainly be disappointed. I didn’t watch it as it was broadcast. Instead, I caught up on what happened on Twitter, via some twitter pals and reading accounts provided by The Guardian, The Daily Mail and the BBC website.

A reminder of what felt like the TV event of recent weeks or months was flagged up at the end of a busy few days filming some BBC College of Journalism (CoJo’s launch reported here) events in the leafy setting of the BBC’s Broadcasting House in Cardiff. Attention had been duly focussed on making sure we got the best shots for a series of videos which will with any luck make it onto the College’s learning-rich website when it goes public. It had been a demanding few days. When we all said goodbye at the end of it, it did rather feel like we’d delivered even if there’s some post-production to go through yet.

Being out of London for that relatively extended period of time probably explained the shock we all experienced when we stopped dead in front of the plasma screen outside the studio. There streamed live on the BBC News channel were shots of Television Centre seemingly under siege by protesters registering their disgust at the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on the BBC’s Question Time.

Not for the first time since signing that all important BBC contract, I left Cardiff’s Broadcasting House wondering whether the BBC was a hated institution. Was the BBC wrong for having Griffin on Question Time. Should they have refused him? Were they giving a voice to something fundamentally wrong? Had the BBC and all who worked for it and subscribed to it’s values, followed the wrong path? Was this another nail in the coffin? More importantly, in my pursuit of a dream job with a dream organisation, had I backed the wrong horse?

History will judge that fist full of questions. And, if it doesn’t, I’m not the person to provide an objective view on it. To do that I’d have to be working for someone entirely different, quite possibly in an entirely different field.

Instead, I took solace in the words of the taxi driver who submitted to my line of jovial questioning effortlessly executed during the short journey back to the miserable hotel I’ve been staying in these past few days.

“You’ll have missed Question Time tonight then?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“Oh yes. But I’ve been following it all day.”

“What do you make of it all?” I asked, keen not to make things appear too obvious.

“I don’t agree. I don’t agree with him but we’re about free speech. I don’t like that. I don’t like him having that time. But he had his time. He was voted in. We’re about free speech. He was allowed his time. “

“Do you think the BBC was right to have him on?”

(It was only a six or seven minute journey to the Copthorne Hotel. Time was of the essence.)

“Of course. I trust the BBC. I know what I hear from the BBC is the truth. And if they get it wrong they’ll tell me they’ve got it wrong. I appreciate that.”

What the taxi driver said isn’t important. (Technically speaking I should have provided you with an audio record of the conversation so this blog is fully backed up in terms of evidence. Sadly, the journey – including the 3 minutes spent at the cash machine getting the necessary £10 for the journey home – only amounted to 15 mintues and we spent 5 minutes of that talking about Radio 4.) What’s important to me is the sense of relief I felt when that one individual expressed appreciation of what the BBC does and the values it’s recently demonstrated.

I confessed my allegiance shortly before he pulled on the handbrake outside the front door of the hotel. “I wondered why you were asking,” he said handing me my change, “but don’t misunderstand me whatever you do lovely. I like the BBC. I trust the news I get from it. I don’t like Radio Football – there’s never any mention of the rugby scores from Wales on a Saturday evening and I can’t stand Strictly Come Dancing. But you lot who do the news. You lot get it right mostly. And when you don’t, you usually tell us you haven’t.”

Bless him.

Stephen Gately

There are at least two truths I can think of when it comes to unexpected deaths.

Truth number one: unexpected deaths will take an audience by surprise, focus attention and maintain that focus considerably longer than an ongoing story.

It’s happened plenty of times in the past. Think of where you and what you were doing when you learnt that Princess Diana had died or most recently when Michael Jackson dropped off his perch and if you search around in your memory you’re recall that fleeting moment when you thought to yourself: “that’s just weird, surely that’s a mistake”.

Then you’ll wonder why it could be a mistake. People die all the time after all. And, given that I didn’t know the person at all why would their death be noteworthy for me? Why am I listening to this story? Why am I still thinking about this person in death when I never thought about them when they were alive?

It’s the same with news of Boyzone member Stephen Gately’s death announced this morning. I’m not a fan of the band and even though all would agree the guy was cute, I wasn’t especially a fan of him either. And yet his death whilst on holiday with his partner Andy Cowles leaves me feeling sad.

On BBC Online, Stephen Fry’s comments about Gately’s death illustrated the performer’s popularity in the industry, whilst the singer’s most recent Twitter update provided a possible early indication that this wasn’t suicide. In these moments of relative shock when an unknown individual’s death grabs one’s attention, such individual comments can help shape your reaction to the news and insodoing secure the memory of his or her life and death.

Truth number two: people who use the internet see death as permission to leave downright unpleasant comments about the deceased merely to voice their own prejudices.

At the time of writing, Boyzone’s recent video Better had attracted all sorts of comments in light of Gately’s death, including the line ‘he choked to death on cock’ and ‘you fucking cunt, god hates you’.

Social media types often advise that “feeding the troll” is never good in these situations, preferring to rely on the community to self-regulate. Those experts are wrong. Ocassionally an opportunity arises to hold up such prejudices and ridicule them in a bid to reach a base-level of decent human behaviour.

Gately was a gay man who succeeded in the entertainment industry as a member of a product whose target audience was largely teenage girls. Boyzone succeeded in attracting that audience and maintaining it when Gately later came out as gay and subsequently entered into a civil partnership with his boyfriend. Boyzone didn’t ditch Gately because of his sexuality. Far from it. They didn’t exploit it either. Boyzone became the group which always prompted one predictable question: “Isn’t one of them gay?”

Embracing Gately’s gayness in a suitably well-balanced way was in industry terms a big step and although ultimately private, the low-key publicity of his civil partnership to long-term partner Andy Cowles did much to promote an air of positivity soon after it had been made possible for same-sex couples to marry in late 2006. Gately was to most gay men what they’d quite like to be themselves. Happy, loved and successful.

It’s a shame that younger gay men may well (I’ve seen one or two comments abound today closer to me than I would have expected which have left a sour taste in my mouth) dismiss Gately as unmemorable, questioning why news of his untimely death has warranted so much attention. To many younger than the singer he was just a popstar in a boyband. Shame on them.

Yet there is a shatteringly positive message his gay life has promoted – illustrated in the appearances he makes in this video. It’s vital gay men and women remember that at this moment in time. His life experience was unusually positive and one some people will continue to strive for.

Watch Watch ‘Better’.

Phillipa Ibbotson, conductors and career suicide

Philipa Ibbotson may – if her admission on Radio 4’s PM programme this afternoon (it’s 37 minutes in) that friends of hers have said ’she’ll never work again’ – seems defiant responding to criticism about her recent Guardian blog post.

If you’ve not read it, here’s a brief (and I hope) reasonably accurate summary.

Orchestral players get a raw deal because they’re not paid enough for their obvious talents. Conductors in the UK sometimes get as much as £25,000 per concert. She questions whether conductors really represent true value for money. And if they don’t represent value for money, couldn’t they take a pay cut like Bruce Forsyth has done over Strictly Come Dancing?

It’s an interesting point. It’s a reasonably interesting idea. But there’s something in her tone during this broadcast which leaves me cold.

She says that she’s paying far too close attention to the music she’s playing to pay due deference to the conductor whose paid so very much to stand up and beat time with his baton.

A surprising admission. I have heard enough badly performed works to appreciate finely nuanced performances both in the concert hall and on CD. The performances which are memorable aren’t those who have been arrived at because of a democratically agreed artistic interpretation amongst the players, but ultimately because of the artistic vision of the man who beats time (and in some cases during the live TV broadcasts during the Proms) sweats buckets. Sure, the orchestra could problably perform without the conductor, but it is the conductor who drives the machine. And an orchestra without a conductor would mean us bloggers wouldn’t have anyone to blame when it does go wrong. Singling out one player for shoddy intonation seems like bad form. (If you disagree, please let me know.)

There are plenty of conductors who perhaps don’t make the grade. If you can’t play professionally, then conduct. If you can’t conduct, then compose. If you can’t compose (or play professionally), you may want to consider teaching. But still, those conductors have their place. They’re vital to the machine. They’re also vital (sadly) to ticket sales. That concert-going public loves a big name. Audiences love celebrity. It is a fact of life. That’s why people flocked to see Yehudi Menuhin conduct concerts. The orchestral players felt differently – but still, there was a kick playing to a capacity audience.

Maybe there’s good reason for a conductor to take a pay cut. I can live with that idea. But don’t, whatever you do, think for a moment that a conductor taking a pay cut means the orchestral musicians will see their salaries rise. It doesn’t work like that. That would unstitch the very fabric of time.

That’s not to say orchestral musicians are not deserving of more money – and whilst we’re on the subject, you might want to stop and consider their working conditions. For some it’s playing gigs every night. For those single types that kind of schedule plays havoc with your social life making romantic liaisons almost entirely centred on the workplace (what a hideous prospect that could be if the eye-candy is poor?).

All I’m saying is, there are probably better ways to improve the situation. Nobody likes a whinger. And whilst I’m more than happy to accept that I’m not showing due gratitude for Ms Ibbotson’s efforts or those of my friends for their playing abilities, I just think there’s a better way of taking action.

Mykonos Grand Hotel

I’m a potential nightmare of a holiday guest. I need luxury. I deserve luxury. Hoteliers won’t realise it when they accept my booking, but I demand luxury.

This state of mind is a result of the self-flagellation I inflict for fifty weeks of the year. Guilt propels my motivation to fill every waking hour pursuing an ill-defined, largely elusive dream. I have to keep trying, I tell myself. If I just do this little bit extra that might be the magic bullet. That ‘little bit extra’ is usually the bit which tips me over the edge. It drives me and others around me mad. As a result, when me and The Significant Other holiday for the remaining two weeks of the year, everything has to be perfect. I allow myself to indulge.

It’s during those two weeks all my usual English preoccupations with value for money, customer satisfaction and recompense for mild inconveniences must vanish. I don’t want my escape from the tyranny of London life to be marred by niggles which chip away at perfection. If it does I’ll just ramp up the sarcasm. Any hotel which take a booking from me has a tough job ahead. (If I fail in the media industry, I’ll make a stab at being a hotel reviewer. I’m sure I’ll be very good at it.)

The staff at the Mykonos Grand hotel clearly take such high expectations in their stride, possibly because there’s little to complain about the basics at this five star hotel. (I came with two new notebooks and have spectacularly failed to make an impression on either.) Each spacious and tastfully decorated room has a view of the glistening Agean and the nearby island of Delos provides an electrifying backdrop at sunset. The mattresses are firm, the pillow selection never ending. Room service is so prompt you might be forgiven for thinking the staff are camped outside your bedroom door, providing a vital support network for guests for who disabled by the beauty visible from the balcony. Staff don’t hover for tips either – always a cast-iron gurantee of a five-star mindset.

And breakfast? A varied buffet – constantly restocked by the hotel director himself – cooked by a selection of chefs who not only understand the secret of perfect scrambled eggs but can also whip up fried eggs without the usual laissez-faire attitude to runny uncooked whites. For the British traveller abroad such small details are as welcome as a firm handshake or a reassuring pat on the back.

It’s clear. I should have been a hotel reviewer. It’s obvious, isn’t it. I could be a different kind of critic. One who’s positive instead of tiresomely negative about all and sundry.

Another bonus is the hotel’s location. Greece’s equivalent to St Tropez with it’s designer clothing and jewellery shops, eateries and art galleries nestle comfortably alongside the tacky souvenir shops in the narrow streets of the old town. Mykonos town is close enough from the hotel for a glamorous evening excursion and just far enough away to avoid the baseball caps and tossed sweaters from the visiting cruise ships.

Where the hotel steals a march on most of the competition is the high level of service it maintains. Guests at the Grand aren’t just sunseekers renting rooms, swiming in the pool and frequenting the bar. The sauna, jacuzzi and steam room are services expected from a five-star hotel anyway. As skin bronzes in the sun, the guests at the Mykonos Grand are also basking in the friendliness of the staff who seem tireless in their desire to make sure guests are happy.

Nothing is too much effort, especially sincerity. That’s why meal times provide an opportunity for interaction, not just guiding the guest to the breakfast table but to indulge in a spot of conversation. That same spirit permeates throughout the day. It’s no surprise check-out day feels like the end of school term saying goodbye to friends you’re not going to see for the whole of the summer holidays. In the space of two weeks this simple approach to customer service leaves a lasting impression on the guest and further enhances the brand of the hotel.

The disappointing truth is that I know of nowhere in the UK where the same level of personal attention is lavished on the guests. Some might argue that the higher the room rack rate the more chance there is of personal attention. My experience is that the higher the price the more aloof the hotel staff are.

No such problem at the Mykonos Grand. And it’s that fundamental reason we’ll be back here again.

David Mitchell’s mutliplatform success

Speaking personally, David Mitchell is a bit of a hero. The man can write, the man can speak and the man can act. He’s someone who exudes a reassuring level of intelligence when he’s introduced on any television programme. You know he won’t dumb you down. He is the perfect insurance policy for any broadcast.

He and comedy partner Robert Webb have pulled off something quite impressive in recent months. Whilst they seem to make regular appearances on TV at nearly every opportunity, they haven’t peaked and suffered the ignominity of over-exposure. Not only that they have just this week succeeded in launching a new series of Peep Show on Channel 4 whilst their newest series on BBC Radio 4 runs at the same time. They are busy people who make us laugh because they are good at what they do.

Part of their success must surely have something to do with their grasp of the mediums they like to work in. None more so than David Mitchell’s video podcasty things of which the one below is a particular favourite.

Clearly the gag relies on the simple display of various posters green-screened behind Mitchell. It’s simplicity goes further than that however when you consider that this video piece could just as easily work as an audio download. There aren’t many people who appear to be pulling off a mastery in the multiplatform world, but those who do remind us one of key fundamental rule in production: keep it simple.

David Mitchell’s web video thing written with John Finnemore entitled “Passion” is a shining example of both their abilities and a timely reminder that the traditional 3 or 4 minute radio talk isn’t dead. Thanks to the RandyMice blog for the heads up.

Pre-holiday indulgence

First Attempts, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Like Radio 3 Interactive Wotnot Bloke Roland Taylor, I’m feeling like I’m recovering post Proms season this year. Surprisingly really given that I was grumpy for most of it. You’d think I wouldn’t really recognise it’s passing.

I don’t really. This might be because I’ve spent weeks looking forward to a holiday I’m going on. Two weeks in the sun. Books, beer and podcasts. Can’t wait.

Yesterday’s flash of inspiration from a colleague prompted me to buy a book about how to draw. This evening I found it difficult not to break open the fresh pack of pencils and start “experimenting”.

I remain unconvinced about the success of the still “life”, although I did find the trying out of the various pencils a bit of a joy. So much so, I’m left wondering why on earth anyone would want to bother with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Final Cut Pro. Making videos seems like way too much effort. Why bother?

Finding a new interest

Drawing instructions, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

My work colleague doesn’t realise it, but it feels as though he’s set me on a bit of a change of tack.

Sometime this afternoon someone in the office asks me “Are you alright?” I say, “yes” and then proceed to tell her why.

I explain I’m off to Muji in Oxford Street to find myself a very special notebook.

“Why go there? It’s raining,” she says.

She wasn’t wrong. It was pissing it down. There’d been a power-cut and everything. The traffic lights on the A40 slip road at White City had gone down. Things like that don’t often happen.

I explained to her that Muji in Oxford Street was the only place I’d be able to get the notebook I especially wanted for our holiday. She looked at me blankly. I explained how I wanted to take two weeks in a far away (hot) country and not be connected to the internet in any way, shape or form. I wanted (as tweeter @leica) suggested earlier today “to go analogue” and write stuff every day. I wanted to be creative but I didn’t want the computer anywhere near me. And the only notebook I could even consider using in pursuit of that was one similar to the one I’d seen the lady sat next to me using during my birthday meal in Blackheath a few weeks back.

My colleague seemed a little overwhelmed by the strange particularness I was displaying. This, however, was in stark contrast to the person who sits next to me who unwittingly came up with a brilliant idea.

“You should do some drawing, you know. Take yourself off with a sketchpad and some paints and do some watercolours.”

Something inside clicked. It was a strange thing. Something rang out inside. ‘He’s right,’ I thought, ‘do something different. Learn something new. Get a book about drawing, a sketchpad and some pencils and draw stuff on holiday.’

I can’t draw. At least I don’t think I can. My Mum can. Her father did too. So there’s a gene there for sure, I just don’t have a proven track record.

So, spurred on by the unexpected idea of a colleague I took myself off to Waterstones at Trafalgar Square, London and found the most basic, most straightforward, most saccharinely positive book for a beginner I could find.

I’m selecting the sketchpad on Friday.

I … can’t … wait.

TV: Joanna Lumley: Catwoman (ITV)

ITV Director of Television Peter Fincham must be feeling a little pleased with himself. For most people who remember his departure from the BBC over that Queen documentary thing, Joanna Lumley’s lead in ITV’s Sunday night late-teatime documentary piece about cats will surely have secured a core demographic.

‘Everyone loves cats,’ the executives must have screamed across the table, ‘let’s make a documentary about cats.’

You’d think it might have been a bit mawkish. It might have been just that little bit ‘ITV’ (low on information, high on filler). You’d be wrong. Instead Joanna Lumley lit up the screen with her warmth and sincerity.

Fine. I may not have learnt much more about cats than I knew already but I did get to see cats on television on a Sunday night interspersed amongst interviews with cat-lovers and cat-carers who weren’t necessarily given an easy ride at every turn by this most famous of cat-fans.

Nice work Mr Fincham.

Proms 2009: Prom 76 – Last Night of the Proms

Having got to the end of the Proms season I think I can confidently confirm that I hate the Last Night. Little of what I heard or watched last night prompted me to think otherwise.

I should be clear. I am in no way averse to partying. More importantly, having attended considerably more Prom concerts last year and (perhaps) got myself more emotionally involved in last year’s season I could absolutely see how it was the Last Night was something difficult to avoid. I wanted the ‘full stop’ tradition and frivolity of the final concert. It was as though I owed it to myself.

Last year I had wanted to experience it too. I wanted to (and did) go through the hours of queuing and roll calls. I wanted to get myself a carnation. I wanted to sing triumphantly along to Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. It wasn’t because I was feeling all jingoistic, just that I felt as though I deserved that shameless indulgence in pointless tradition.

This year however, professional responsibilities influenced my decision not to attend in person. I couldn’t justify taking an afternoon off work to start queuing and whilst I know I could have slipped in at the back (and had an invite to the party afterwards) working all day made the prospect of traveling to the Albert Hall considerably less appealing.

We had HD television however with Dolby Digital stereo (when the signal didn’t drop out). The shot would be glorious I thought. I could enjoy from the sofa. We could have some kind of Mediterranean picnic food and a few glasses of wine instead. That would be nice.

Previous years have reminded me that the Last Night is very different from the usual concerts. The music is shorter for a start. No large scale symphonies to blow you away, no hefty concertos to get your teeth into. No ill-conceived commissions to judge. Instead it’s bite-sized renditions with strong melodies and tub-thumping beats. This isn’t mainstream. This is party music.

But as with nearly all parties I attend (and similar to the feelings I had the night of the Ukulele Prom) I couldn’t help watching the screen and feeling a little bit disconnected from the season. I’m not talking physically disconnected from the hall, more that a different crowd was there inside the hall. All the usual television signposts adhered in a usual concert (ironically the ones which nearly always antagonise me anyway) had been discarded in favour of snatched chats between Clive Anderson and his guests in the box. Cameras seemed to swoop all over the hall from every conceivable angle at nearly every conceivable moment (note to self – I should have been a television director).

Costumes were unfeasibly bold and brash, some pieces incongruous. As good as the Vila Lobos piece was, it wasn’t until the final thundering chords belted out by the chorus did it become clear why it had been included – because it would grab attention – and yet the work itself was strange in isolation. What was the point ? Why had Lobos written it? What was the context. Yes, I know I could read the programme notes – they’re on the website – but as a viewing experience it seemed strange not knowing at the time. The problem was there was no time. No time at all. We had to thunder through the programme.

In Alison Balsam’s Haydn Trumpet Concerto I did – I’m sorry to say – hear more split notes than I had expected (although I acknowledge the Last Night is hardly the best solo giving experience) and I’m almost certain I heard some evidence of strange ensemble playing.

But it’s a party Jacob! Lighten up. If the audience want a party then why should the players be held up to the same scrutiny they were during the season? Shouldn’t they be able to let their hair down too?

Maybe they should. Maybe I should stop being such a grumpy arsehole. Maybe I should remind myself that perhaps if I’d been a happy bunny during the season I would have overlooked all of those things and entered in to the spirit of things a little more.

I can only really explain how it seemed at that moment in time (and 24 hours later). I liked the Hoover piece. Loved it in fact. It sent up the pomposity of some modern music concerts in a fun way. It offered something memorable to proceedings. Jiri Beholaklavek’s obvious mastery of hamming it up with his hoover was amusing although I wasn’t entirely convinced that Jennifer Pike needed to be there or why Martha Kearny or Rory Bremner for that matter. Double Bassist Chi Chi’s role as riflemen was justified given that she’s a) gorgeous b) on Radio 3 and c) a Proms pundit. Her cohort Goldie behind her did, I’m afraid, look rather like he’d escaped from a nearby care home.

Strangely enough, it was the Henry Wood orchestrations of Henry Purcell’s music which were enjoyable – possibly the only way I’ll happily consume Baroque music is if it’s multi-layered with instrumentation to the point it sounds ridiculously overblown. So too, conductor David Robertson’s speech at the end of the concert. It may have been his firs Last Night Of the Proms, but his first address demonstrated he’s already mastered a dry sense of humour. He should settle in well.

But despite these things, what I realised was that the Last Night of the Proms with its links to everyone across the country, is primarily a TV event. An event which looks fantastic in HD and consequently needs to be produced as a TV show. That’s why it is such a bitty programme. That’s why hoping it will meet the same criteria other concerts in the season do is a pointless wish.

And because it’s a TV event – a TV party – it’s little wonder I didn’t connect with it (and wouldn’t have done if I’d been in the hall either). It felt different from the thing I love about the Proms. I’m there for the music. I’m there to hear something stunning and gripping. I’m after an emotional response to something I’ve heard or seen. The Last Night of the Proms will never do these things.

Proms 2009: Prom 74 – Brahms 4 \ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra \ Zubin Mehta

Seeing the Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Zubin Mehta for the penultimate night of the Proms season this was a bit of a treat.

There’s a special feeling about the penultimate night. It’s not the Last Night, for a start (no, I’m not a snob, I’ve been before, I just haven’t got the energy to queue for a place in the arena and I didn’t even enter in the ticket ballot this year either). The penultimate night really does see the final concert (or concerts) in the season before the party atmosphere and slightly throw away nature of the following night.

Tonight’s early evening Prom was interesting. Just a few minutes of hearing the sweet sound of the first violins and I couldn’t help thinking why it was or how it was that one orchestra like the Vienna Phil could sound so very different from the other orchestras of the season. How did they achieve that sound? Was it really as distinct as it seemed stood in the fourth row of the arena?

How was it that an orchestra could still get away with not having any more than a token gesture of women in it’s personnel list and how was it their mere presence on the stage made me feel comfortable that whatever it was they played it would be good?

Is it marketing? Is the sound of their name? Is it the idea that something foreign will somehow be of higher quality? Was it the glass of merlot I queued ten minutes for and guzzled in three which skewed my perception?

The Vienna Philharmonic is brilliant. And the performance of Brahms Fourth Symphony was brilliant too. It seemed like an effortless performance from the very beginning. It felt at times as though Brahms’ music was its very lifeblood.

Of course, a far more experienced and well-read critic would raise questions Mehta’s interpretation in one of the movements. There would be something which was played too fast, a chord which demonstrated a momentary lapse of judgement or the sequences when questionable ensemble in the strings revealed the egos of some of the first violins for the soloists they were when they weren’t doing their day jobs.

But you can’t concentrate on those piddly little points when the audience is carried along on the kind of triumphant journey Brahms penned in his final symphony.

There may have been a late night Prom (and it’s probably worth listening to on iPlayer) and of course there’s that party to watch on TV the night after, but as penultimate nights go this was yet another fantastic end to the season. A memorable one. One which yielded it’s own party atmosphere at the end in the form of two throwaway polkas. Perfect.