I don’t get paid for it, you know

Today has been a strangely (though not unusually) introspective day.

Conscious that I haven’t blogged as much as I have done in recent months, the prospect of writing a blog posting felt a little like occupying a room in a house I haven’t been in for a long time. It must have been a long time. The password had expired in my browser and I couldn’t remember the password to log on to the damn blog.

Part of the problem, I’m happy to confess, is the dependency I’ve acquired for things like Twitter and Facebook. In both those social networks I satisfy my genuine if at times unrealistic desire for human contact. I can pass comment on stuff which matters to me, seek opinion from others, engage in banter and from time to time (more rather than less) obtain reassurance on personal matters. The communication network is there. Why not use it?

But the pay of is that, if you can communicate what you’re thinking in 140 characters or a punchy Facebook status, then why bother committing 700 words (or often more) to a blog post? Where’s the time? And, assuming you’ve found the time, who really cares? Who’s reading it? Who gives a damn?

That’s the same argument that a blokey in the Technology Guardian newspaper wotnot was saying in his piece today about the “tail of the blog dying”.

It’s not the first time the point has been made. In fact I seem to recall reacting quite badly when BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said the same. It seemed so unfair. Quit announcing to the world you considered the blog was dead. Some of us (admittedly, some of us who perhaps don’t write as regularly as you do – although come on, you’re paid to do it) quite like blogging. It would be nice if you didn’t say such things. It’s really annoying.

So now the point is being made again. Not only is it now backed up by personal experience gained as a result of over-dependence on the upstart alternative that is Twitter, but it’s also rammed home by someone who has a significant interest in the definition of the term “blog” at work.

What’s the rule? Don’t mix business with pleasure? Of course it is. Both my parents emphasised that piece of advice extensively when I was younger. This had absolutely no effect in the brief but largely effecient meeting I had with the said colleague earlier on today.

If there’s one thing I’ll probably (inaccurately) take from the meeting was the line “blogging will be for specialists and experts” when the question was asked how the pastime will develop alongside Twitter.

I saw an opportunity. I saw inspiration for a blog. “Could you just say that again?” I asked, “would you mind?”

He’d said just what I thought he’d said. “Well I’m a blogger. What am I specialist or an expert in?”

“You seem to know a lot about the Eurovision.” he replied.

It wasn’t necessarily the reassurance I was hoping for. Was that all I was considered expert in to blog about? A subject which by own admission I don’t consider I’m an expert in let alone a specialist? There are plenty of others who are specialist in the subject. Not me. Where does that leave me? Should I give up? Not bother? Should I leave it to the self-proclaimed experts or specialists?

The answer’s no. It’s an emphatic no. Of course it’s a no.

Once again, I’m trotting out the same line. Blogging is a pleasure. It’s an opportunity to create. It’s the chance to search for inspiration. To tap into something deep down and construct a sentence or two which reflects how I’m feeling in response to events around at a particular moment in time.

That’s what true blogging is about. Anything else isn’t blogging. Not in my book, anyway.

I didn’t say that, obviously. I merely thought it. But there must have been something pretty obvious written all over my face when I communicated what I’ve now forgotten because it was the question which followed which really stuck in my head.

“So how does your day job feel about you doing stuff for the Proms?”

“It’s extra-curricular stuff, after-school club stuff,” I retorted grabbing my pen and paper, sitting up straight and pinning back my shoulders. “I don’t get paid for it you know.”

“That’s OK then,” he replied.

Proms 2009: A Chocolate Distraction

Signage, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Most people do ruin Sundays worrying about work on Monday. I have been known to ruin entire weekends from the moment I return home late from work on a Friday evening thinking about the pressures I’ll face in the office the folllowing.

I always discover that Mondays are nowhere near as bad as I feared. It’s not long before I fall back into the rhythm of the week and those cares are a distant memory.

I can’t see that happening this time around however. At least I don’t think so.

Tomorrow is a day off. I’ve deliberately taken a day’s leave from my normal duties at White City, to spend six hours in Broadcasting House doing something I’ve never done before with a handful of people I’ve never met before. I’m recording another video for the BBC Proms website which, I am told, should be published some time around the beginning of the Proms season in July.

Six weeks before then however there’s filming to be done. (In fact, if I’m being wholly transparent, then five weeks too – as we’re repeating tomorrow’s process a week later).

Midday tomorrow is basically the point of no return. That’s when four cameras will be set up, sound checked and angles double-checked. It’s around about then I’ll be recording something to camera about a piece of music written by Faure.

There is no script (I always run out of time to write a script and hope like hell I can remember the words on the day) and I have to film sequences with other people. We only have three and half hours in the studio and we have a very tight schedule.

Up until now I’ve done most video stuff on my own. It’s easier that way. I can go over things to my heart’s content. There’s no pressure of subsequent booking of resources threatening the apparent creative process. I am my own boss in those situations. I can take as long or as little time as I like.

But when you introduce other people into the equation like cameramen or interviewees or musicians then things start getting a bit worrisome. That’s when interview requests have to be submitted, arms need twisting and schedules drawn up (and in some case re-drawn up). Long before the actual day there’s equipment to source, microphones to test, colour balances to get right and rehearsals to go through.

Normally there are production teams for these kind of things, but there is a direct correlation between the amount of joy experienced and the number of people involved I find. So for this particular effort, there’s just me and a cameraman – a mate I’ve known for a few years now – who even though he doesn’t know it yet be doing quite a lot of checking of cameras and sound levels. Let’s hope he doesn’t phone in sick tomorrow, ey?

Both of us working on this particular project rehearsed the process about 10 days ago for this. I can tell you now, it didn’t go terribly well. In truth I was a little tired but there was more than a little daunting about the prospect of filming a short video in Studio 80a at Broadcasting House in London.

When I wasn’t thinking to myself “How exactly did I end up in here?” I was making a mental note that I really had to put my best paw forward for this one, anything less and I’d feel as dirty as I did when the UK came last again in the Eurovision last year.

There’s one other thing about tomorrow which I might as well lay bare here and now. I’ve never done anything like I’m doing tomorrow before. It is, for me at least, an unknown quantity. Theoretically it’s just getting a collection of people together at certain times and getting them to answer questions on camera. That’s all it is. Nothing more.

Yet the scale of it seems larger than I’ve ever done before. And that is a daunting thought. It’s the same with any project you have a vested interest in. You look at the deadline and think “How in God’s name are we going to reach that point?” You always do, of course, but the goal seems so very unattainable as to be laughably ridiculous.

Not only that, in the interests of constantly blogging about nearly everything in the vain hope that someone might find it interesting, I figure committing my thoughts on the matter before and (if I have the energy) at the end of the event too.

Naturally, I have done *some* planning. As much as I like things to be relaxed and spontaneous, I have quite appropriately typed up a shooting script, a task list and a schedule. All of this is being done with no costs incurred by anyone, but that’s no reason not to make sure everything is as well-organised as anyone charmingly conscientious individual aspires to be.

And that goes some way to explain why I’ve been cooking chocolate muffins this evening (cooking relaxes me I find). Well, that and finding a way to use up some of the nervous energy charging around my body. If the inevitable sense of smug self-satisfaction doesn’t prepare me well for tomorrow, then I’m in no doubt that a late afternoon of Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music on Sky HD should hit the spot.

Blog refreshes aren’t such a bad thing

The BBC Internet Blog has refreshed its page templates. Hardly breaking news really. They completed the rollout of their shiny new stretchy template on Friday afternoon (as far as I could make out).

I knew it was coming. Only a week or so ago I chaired a meeting attended by a variety of self-confessed geeks, one of whom bashed out the URL for the BBC Comedy Blog on the computer in front of us. “What do you think of that?” he beamed as numerous pairs of eyes focussed in on the image projected on the wall. “This is the standard template we’ll be rolling out across the entire blogs network. Look at those lovely widgets at the bottom of the page!”

They were lovely widgets, it couldn’t be denied. “And when will you be rolling out the new template for the BBC Internet blog?” I asked.

“Soon.” came the reply.

I smiled politely and turned to my notebook, quickly scribbling down an aide memoire. I needed to create an alert in my Google Calendar. The day would be noteworthy.

It was noteworthy, or rather, the weekend was as a result. Not since my exit from last week’s mid-week school reunion (yet to be written up but worthy of a read when it has been), have I felt more a palpable sense of smug self-satisfaction. The rollout of the new BBC Internet blog template has been a wonderful thing.

Why? My name has come of the links to BBC staff bloggers, that’s why.

Even I find it bizarre that I’m actually saying that out loud.

Links are, after all, the key to the internet. I was reminded of that at Blogging College last week. The more links you get the higher your Google ranking. Not only that, to get your name in a list of a BBC staff bloggers on a page with a BBC logo on it is the kind of free PR noone should really sniff at.

And I haven’t really. I was rather touched when I was on holiday in Turkey, looking at the blog and noticing some unexpected incoming links from the BBC. When I discovered my name listed a weird sense of compulsion kicked in. I had shifted up a gear. I had to think a bit more carefully about what I was writing. There was another outlet. There was a substation. I was being “relayed”.

I wasn’t being relayed, of course. It was just a link. The internet is full of links. And just because I go to the BBC Internet Blog homepage every single day to check my name still appears on that list (and to read the occasional blog posting) doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world does. Quite a lot of other people have quite a lot of other things they need to get done during their working day, after all.

But now that’s all changed. The new stretchier templates have been rolled out and the BBC staff bloggers are no more. At least, they’re not at the time of writing.

I bet you’re thinking I’m pissed off about it, that I’ve been tossing or turning all night, certain this is all part of one great masterplan to silence me and in so doing proving yet again that I still think the world revolves around me.

Actually no. You’d be wrong. I’ve had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages. I’m ready to face the week with renewed vigour. Why? Because I’m not linked on that page.

Sometimes knowing that your name doesn’t appear on a page on the BBC reclaims a bit more freedom. Even with a disclaimer on your blog you can’t get away from the fact that you are who are you and you work for who you do. And sometimes when the more obvious link is removed, you get a little bit of your own personality back. And for those who struggle with personality from time to time, that can be quite a good thing.

Steve Bowbrick’s “open BBC”

    It was an event, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Steve Bowbrick – the BBC’s first and quite possibly only ‘blogger in residence’ – spoke to a select crowd of geeks, journalists and people pursuing free beer last about his experiences over the past seven months evangelising one simple message at the BBC: the corporation needs to be more ‘open’.

He tried to described his status as a pseudo-BBC employee as a “critical friend”, maintaining a neutral position whilst inside the BBC as he spoke to various individuals about what kind of “openness” he was talking about. He blogged about his thoughts, his meetings and the reactions he met with on his external non-BBC Common Platform blog.

The majority of attendees could be found nodding sagely at Steve’s findings while some others struggled to grasp exactly what the problem was, what methods had been employed to overcome them and what solutions might be used in the future.

Had I looked at the piece of paper attached to the wall behind me before the session began I may not have struggled myself.

Openness in Bowbrick-land equates to sharing all of the BBC’s assets be it technical or editorial to those who ultimately pay for it.

That in itself represents a seismic shift in attitude, a shot across the bows to those who have worked to the traditional broadcast model. In that scenario the audience is served up what we believe they want or we think they should know. Once that content has passed its window its stored away in the archive.

But the vista has changed with the ascendancy of the digital era – iPlayer demonstrates that. Now audiences get what they want, when they want it, where they want it (pretty much). And they want to share it. It’s with good reason Bowbrick opened his presentation with the ominous words “the broadcast era is dying”. The digital era is nothing like broadcasting era.

It’s nothing new. Don’t think for a moment I think I’m saying something new. Loads of other people have said the same. Being reminded of it however is what helps explain why “openness” is key.

Changing the mindset from broadcast to network is central. Persuading people who hold the keys to the vault that the vault now needs to be unlocked. On paper it’s a change which seems almost unachievable.

Just as Lord Reith ominously looks down on the occupants of the Council Chamber at Broadcasting House, so too the ogre of rights looms large. If we share content what happens to the rights?

The first people to persuade are those whose creative and technical skills the BBC relies on as a publisher. Without the talent the BBC can’t compete. How do you keep the talent if the BBC needs to rethink its position on rights in the brave new “open” world?

Somewhere behind them is a similarly large globular mass of people who need to be convinced the BBC’s competitive advantage won’t be diminished by the kind of airy-fairy thinking some might accuse Steve Bowbrick of promoting.

Then there are the people who look across the rim of their glasses, casting a disapproving eye on anyone who dares even propose the idea of openness: the lawyers. Nobody likes dealing with lawyers. No-one at all. How do we convince them?

Was seven months really enough time to visit all the different divisions and successful persuade people to come around to his way of thinking? “It probably would have taken seven or eight years,” he replied to the question during last night’s session.

But if there was a downward inflection in the seven months he spent as blogger in residence, there was a clarification from Michael Walsh – a member of the audience – who suggested a call to arms for the BBC. “Instead of blocking content, the BBC needs to find ways of establishing relationships.”

What he means is this. Blocking “stuff” is seen as a way of keeping your customers coming back for more. If they know the only way they’ll get is by coming back to the BBC then you’ve kept a grip on your customer base.

But with everyone in the world now having the ability to get at the stuff in different ways, blocking “stuff” is not only seen as archaic but also counter-productive too. It’s like the parent letting the kids leave home : let them run free because then they’ll come back when they want to.

I appreciate twenty-fours on that introducing this kind of thinking to the casual reader or to someone who’s never heard of the idea before prompt, in some people’s eyes, ample justification for being sectioned immediately. I’m sure any lawyer involved in rights would be happy to sign the forms.

And yet, the more I edit this particular post the more it makes perfect sense.

Maybe seven months wasn’t enough for Steve Bowbrick to crack the nut. Frankly, it would have been a tall order for anyone. But maybe the real point of the process was to demonstrate to a core number of followers and one or two casual observers that the idea of entertaining the notion of an “open BBC” is a sound one.

Maybe what it needs now is a spot more evangelising by a group of people intent on bringing new blood into the fold, or at least a handful of people with laptops and mo biles who are attracted to evening events in Broadcasting House with free alcohol.

Learning how to blog better

 

Why go on training courses exactly?

One main reason is to get out of the office, to wile away the afternoon writing notes you know you’ll never read again in a room you wouldn’t normally go in and you probably will never go in again.

Thus I’ve shamelessly confessed most of my motivation for going along to the BBC’s Future Now presentation on “Better Blogging” given by Nick Reynolds and Jem Stone.

In truth, I was also there because I knew I had to get some direction on how to blog. I needed to go with an open mind and see what I could pick up. Just being addicted to blogging isn’t anywhere near enough.

You’ve got to be able to knuckle-down, focus and be a bit more grown-up about this malarkey, I kept telling myself as I sidled up to Broadcasting House unwittingly arriving fifty minutes early, certain I was arriving ten minutes late.

Blogging best practice?

I return home six hours later and think about the work I have to catch up on and the ideas about blogging ideas I need to cement in my head. Here’s what I took away with me:

1. Establish your idea in one sentence. When PR people dangle the idea of a story in front of a correspondent’s eyes they need to make sure they’ve conveyed exactly what that story is about in the first line of the email. True, it’s not specifically about blogging, but I couldn’t help thinking I needed to adopt the same approach in my writing.
 
2. What blogging is good for. It provides an outlet for wasted journalism. Where TV and radio editors may well be the most difficult people to convince to take a story, blogs provide a catch-all area for those stories not picked up. When I find myself in the unlikely setting of a newsroom I shall remind myself of this advice.

3. Need to link to stuff. The more people I link to, the more people will link to me. The more people link to me, the more traffic I get. The more people I link to makes me look live I’ve done loads of research and that I know the marketplace and (most importantly of all) I’ll be able to tailor my writing thus presenting a more informed piece. Yes. I keep forgetting that. I do. Bad Jon.

4. Use your blog to do all sorts of things. Be transparent, respond to the audience use comments to create further blog posting (ie recycle stuff wherever possible), apologise for mistakes, reveal your thoughts, correct errors in the press, respond quickly to complaints and to explain sensitive decisions. Naturally, I don’t make mistakes, I don’t find myself written about in the press and I don’t make sensitive decisions. I’m always revealing myself and to the best of my knowledge I’ve never given anyone any cause to complain because I’m lovely.

5. Make sense of the noise. In other words, do your research, sum up stuff thus providing yourself with plenty of links to pepper your content with. OK. I get that.

6. Keep level-headed. Audience participation is great but don’t let it swamp your sense of creativity or (fundamentally) your self-belief. I have fallen foul of this in the past. I shut down my Yahoo 360 blog because I thought a commenter was getting way too sneery. I set up another blog three months later. I really should have hung on in there instead of abandoning my then favourite platform.

7. Don’t lose your sense of humour.

8. Be regular. Blogs don’t get traffic unless they’re regularly updated. Apparently, Iain Dale blogs 5-10 times day. If Iain Dale can blog 5-10 times a day, I won’t hesitate from doing a spot more. Watch out. You’ll all be sick of me if you’re not already. 

9. Get out there. I do this all the time much to the irritation of most people I know.

10. Pictures and video and audio are good. Use them. Sweet. That’s an easy thing to do.

11. Adopt a personal tone but don’t be personal. Always. I rely on it. I’ve always considered it a weakness but think otherwise now.

12. Be interesting not partisan.  I confess having to do a Google search on my phone to confirm the definition of partisan. I kept thinking of “artisan” and was a little confused. Now I know, I’m happy to confirm I’m not partisan. Modestly, I do consider myself interesting from time to time.  

13. Write concisely. Blogs shouldn’t be thousands and thousands of words long. Oops. This is fast approaching 1000 words. And anyway .. I really like the sound of my own voice whether it’s written or recorded.

You may not be surprised to learn I didn’t read any of these notes shortly before I started the group exercise (consisting of writing a blog entry on a story about David Beckham’s AC Milan / LA Galaxy thing) and this combined with my team members similarly low-level of interest in the story resulted in a typical irreverent effort yielding little more than a confirmation that I’ll probably only ever write a personal blog.

That said, keen to ensure I take away something from what has been an insightful afternoon spent in the glamorous interior of the BBC’s Council Chamber in Broadcasting House, I offer the following as an example of a blog I’ve recently stumbled on.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Blog

The Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment have an incredibly difficult name to say quickly. Tack the word “blog” on the end and it’s even more difficult to say without some kind of hideous tongue-related injury occurring.

However, the OAE’s recently launched WordPress blog ticks all the right boxes for me. It’s about an orchestra which plays music I like listening to and provides some behind-the-scenes stuff you wouldn’t normally associate with an orchestra.

Their latest blog is about a photo shoot they’re doing. It’s quite interesting. More importantly is the tone they’ve adopted for it. Here’s something which most people might consider is an enormously stuffy subject and yet whoever’s decided on the tone has ensured that everything’s written in such a way that every time I read it I want to reach for a pair of slippers, a mug of hot tea and a digestive biscuit. Oh .. and I might add, this recommendation has absolutely nothing with me being linked to from their blog.

So as you see … aside from the fact that this blog post is an astonishing 1090 words, I must have learnt something in the Council Chamber this afternoon.

First night in Plymouth

My two day work trip to Plymouth has kicked off on the wrong foot. The night before a two day conference on all things multimedia and I can think of nothing else to write other than how desperately blue I’m feeling.

“Have you visited us before?” said the perky receptionist as I stood dazed at the check-in desk.

I recounted my previous trip to Plymouth and how, when the sun rose, a park attendant had poked his head inside my tent, pointing out in an undeniably assertive tone to both me and my three other university friends that camping was not permitted on Plymouth Hoe.

“I meant the hotel, sir.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well,” she continued, “you’ll find the gym down that corridor there and the bar and restaurant on the ground floor. Breakfast starts at 6.45 in the morning.”

I grabbed my many bags and made off for the third floor.

Half an hour later, having complained about the stench of stale tobacco smoke in the room the receptionist had allocated me, I found myself in an almost identical alternative room with a slightly fresher smell. I called my colleague, also in town for the same conference and staying in a room on the floor below me.

“What’s your room like?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling fan above me.

“It’s not great,” she replied nervously, “I’m looking at the ceiling fan and ..”

I found it difficult not to finish off her sentence. “.. wondering whether it will fall off the ceiling?”

I privately dismissed my fussiness over the room. I was tired. The three and a half hour train journey must have been tiring even if I hadn’t actually been doing very much. I must eat, I told myself. Take yourself off to the restaurant.

It closed at 9.45pm. I signed in at 9.10pm and settled myself down with my newspaper a minute after. Two minutes after that I’d decided on both a pint of Kronenberg and the roasted wrapped chicken with fondant of potato and wild mushroom jus.

I casually flicked through my copy of G2, marvelling once again at the Guardian’s ongoing success at creating daily content which not only engaged me but reassured me all at the same time. How was it they got it so right so often? Whose was the brain behind this particular machine, I wondered as I skimmed over the article on anger management.

Twenty-five minutes later and I noted that unlike the other two people in the restaurant, I still hadn’t received my food. Was I being impatient ? Did twenty-five minutes justify me complaining? Or, if absolutely necessary, was it OK for me to start foaming at the mouth? I texted my husband back in South East London for advice.

Predictably, he suggested I check-in with the waitress, advice I followed with almost immediate effect.

“Well, it does take 20 minutes to cook the chicken, sir.”

“But surely if you’re cooking the chicken for 20 minutes, the chicken will be dry, won’t it?” I said as I glanced over towards the other people making use of the restaurant.

“We do advise customers to have a starter so they’re not kept waiting for the main course. You didn’t order a starter, sir. But it won’t be dry sir, I can assure you of that. He knows what he’s doing. I don’t argue with the chef. ”

“That’s fine, I will.”

I was an idiot to complain. As soon as I’d dealt what I thought was my death blow, out came the chicken on a plate, with its potato and its wild mushrooms and its jus.

“There we go sir,” said the waitress. “Enjoy your meal.”

I stared down at the plate. An ample breast, a roasted potato, a splattering of stock and a handful of mushrooms. The only thing wild about the whole thing was me. I guzzled the meal and made for a swift exit.

“Did you enjoy your meal sir?” asked the waitress handing me the receipt to sign.

I looked at her and paused.

“Not especially no,” I frowned. “I ordered it at 9.15pm and it arrived at 9.40pm. That seems quite a long time. The other thing is, it said on the menu it comes with fondant potato. It’s not like I’m a big fan of fondant potato especially, but when the meal arrived it had a roast potato clearly not cooked between 9.15 and 9.45.”

“I am sorry sir,” squeaked the waitress, “Would you like me to get the chef so that you can talk to him?”

“Not really, no.” I replied. “I’m a coward really.”

Maybe I should have hesitated before complaining. Maybe my complaint wasn’t water-tight. Maybe, in fact, if I was so bold to say that I would argue with the chef before the food arrived, that I should have been equally as bold to face up to after I’d eaten the food. After all, I do have to eat breakfast in the morning.

That aside, I’m reminded how the seemingly insignificant things can have the biggest impact when I’m staying outside of my comfort zone. Sure, I may not be picking up the reduced-rate accommodation bill, but still I can’t help getting over the simple emotional response that a slightly unfortunate experience in an hotel on the south coast has left me feeling that maybe Plymouth isn’t my kind of place.

Let’s hope it looks better in the morning.

No longer a top tweeter?

I’m a sucker for a bit of flattery. From time to time at work I’ll receive emails from people who are quite important. Seeing their name in my inbox – and seeing the other names the email has been sent to as well – always sets my heart racing. 

One such recent email from the website producer of the BBC’s Working Lunch opened with a line which did much to massage my ego explaining that “as [one of] the beeb’s top tweeters I’d really like to include your thoughts”  in response to her questions.

Like I say. I’m a sucker for flattery. I immediately dropped everything I was doing and emailed a (fairly lengthy) response. 

Today the article (originally printed in staff newspaper Ariel) appears on the BBC Internet Blog and – true to form – I start scouring the piece for anything I might have said. 

Nothing.  Absolutely zippo. Obviously I appreciate that just because a journalist asks me a question and I respond, I’m not guaranteed an appearance in the resulting posting. And yes, obviously, the world doesn’t revolve around me and it’s not like I haven’t had any previous exposure before. Still,  I am bereft.  I am beside myself.  My days as one of the BBC’s “top tweeters” are over, clearly. I am a nobody. 

I would stop to write more, but I need to leave my desk and go and find the website producer of the BBC’s Working Lunch to complain in the strongest terms. I will of course be charming at all times.

Review: 2008

When I draw back the curtains to reveal a dull grey south-east London on 1 January with the New Year’s Day concert live from the Musikverein in Vienna on in the background, it always feels like the start of something new, something exciting. I’ve got the opportunity for a new start. Everything from the previous year can, should and will be forgotten. At least that’s what I hope every 1 January.

In anticipation of that (and in a desperate bid to find something to write about two days before the end of 2008) I took myself off to our new hideaway and made a few notes. What were the things which I would remember 2008 for? Scribbling my answers down didn’t take long.

1. Jimmy Mizen
2. Eurovision
3. The BBC Proms

The list is both short and uncomfortable. The small handful of people who read this will, no doubt, note with interest the weird yet predictable juxtapositioning of a serious news event, alongside fundamentally inconsequential fluff and inevitable self-indulgence.

Truth is, I don’t have any other stuff on my list. Those three things really do sum-up 2008 for me.

Jimmy Mizen

Jimmy Mizen’s murder in May 2008 wasn’t the first teenage stabbing in east London this year. It was in fact the 13th.

There were 27 other teenage stabbings in East London this year. There have been plenty of others in previous years. Stabbings and murder and attacks were normally the stories which failed to grab my attention. So what makes 2008 so different from the rest?

Proximity was the most potent factor. Mizen died in Lee, an area in south-east London I often pass through on my way to the supermarket. Many people say it and a lot of us gloss over it, but it’s true when I say that 16 year old Mizen’s senseless death in the Lee bakery seemed all the more tragic because it was so painfully local. He worked there to get some extra cash. He was 16. The murder happened just a few miles away. That kind of thing isn’t meant to happen.  

Get a grip. This is London, after all. Surely a stabbing shouldn’t really be that incongruous against the backdrop of a supposedly violent capital?

Mizen’s mother delivered a clear message to all, something which I had forgotten about until I viewed the video clip on this page. Now I watch it again I’m struck by her strength. Her message is unusually inspiring. She isn’t angry (or if she is she’s avoiding it spectacularly) and doesn’t want others to be angry with the perpetrator’s parents. She even goes as far as to say “leave them alone”. That is admirable. There’s much to be drawn from the strength she displays only seven days after the death of her 16 year old son, a week after his birthday. She is to be applauded.

Eurovision collides

Around about this time, I was mid-way through a project at work which I’d always wanted to work on.

I’d followed the Eurovision for years. I’d even gone to Latvia to do a spot of naiive investigation during the 2003 contest. I rather like the Eurovision, you see. And I’d quite like us to win. 

As a result of finally getting a job at the Beeb in October of 2007 and (in precisely the right department) I shamelessly locked all of my self-promoting skills in gear and ended up working on the Eurovision website.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think it was plain sailing, or that everyone was necessarily as excited and relieved as I was to work on it. In retrospect, enthusiasm and passion isn’t necessarily something everyone applauds. One or two people hated me. There were one or two heated conversations/steaming arguments in corridors as a result of it. One fairly senior person accused me of being of a maverick as I stood in the corridor with a coffee in my hand. I was a little taken aback, to say the least. No-one has ever described me as a maverick before. Most deliver their assessment with an air of indifference.

I’d been working on the Eurovision site since late February. I delivered a smallish effort in early March (I did stamp my foot quite a few times) and following a series of false starts and one or two agonising nights failing to get to sleep, I ended up working on the main site during the run up to the main even in mid-May.

It was a hideous time.

A week before the Eurovision final (which happened to be the end of the Eurovision website project) I took myself off to Suffolk to see my parents. Work had become way too much for me to handle. I needed a break. I needed comfort food. I needed my teddy bear.

I was working harder than I’d worked in a long time (if ever there was a justification for the line “careful what you wish for” it was then) and it showed. My mother was quite worried about the colour of my skin. Now I come to look at the picture, I think she was right. 

I drove up to Suffolk to see my Mum on Saturday 17 May 2008. The journey started in south-east London. I headed towards Kidbrooke roundabout for the Blackwall tunnel. Lining the roads on the South Circular close to where I live in Hither Green, south-east London people walking solemnly in the same direction, all of them dressed in black.

Where were they going? They were heading towards Jimmy Mizen’s memorial service in nearby Lee High Road.

BBC Proms

The Eurovision came crashing to the ignominous end we’ve all grown accustomed to here in the UK around about 2am on Sunday 26 May 2008. It was then the website producer said “Yes, OK. We’ve got the finals scores up on the website. Everything’s done. We’re finished. Are you happy Jon?”

No. The answer was no. Not only had we come last but I’d had to code up a page which detailed exactly which country had come in which place. Typing the UK’s pitiful result last seemed like such a mean thing to have to do. Both of my friends who had accompanied me through the hell they knew it would be were now asleep on the sofa downstairs. The night was a right-off.

You’d think I’d have been happy to have finished something I’d always wanted to work on, wouldn’t you? You’ve done that Jon .. now sit back and feel proud.

The problem with me is that when I’ve been ridiculously busy for a couple of months, the resulting lack of something to do is the very worst thing for me. I start thinking when I don’t have enough to do and when I start thinking I start moaning. And when I start moaning everyone else around me starts thinking (and in some cases saying) “Would you be good enough to stop being so bloody morose about everything?”

It was Monday 27 May 2008 when I fired off an email to Radio 3 Interactive asking them if they were interested in some more Proms related videos.

With Eurovision 2008 a dim and distant memory, I was keen to look forward to the next big event and to see whether I might crowbar my way into that too. The response was favourable and despite one or two scary moments warranting enormous amounts of wine, charm and reassurances on my part, all turned out well. Everything turned out very well. In fact, it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that it turned out to be the best summer ever.

You need to be aware of the people who made it the best summer ever – or at least those people who were involved need to know I’m thinking of them – them lovely people being Andi, David, Ashley, Dean, James, Roland, Roger, Simon and, of course, myself. It’s a team effort this.

Far from a hard-hitting news review, is it? It’s not meant to be. These are the things which, as 2008 draws to a close, are flagged up as the most important. I only hope that when 2009 draws to a close any review I might choose to do will see me feature considerably less, if not at all.

Happy New Year.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, the UK’s 2009 hunt for someone game and able to represent us in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow – Eurovision: Your Country Needs You – starts on Saturday 3 January (yes really, that soon). Or at least the first installment is the sort of “this is what we’ve done so far” programme before the main event begins the following week.

This is visualising radio

Radio was the reason I wanted to work at the BBC. That was my “way in”. At least that’s what I thought when I came out of the second session of my radio production training course.

I enrolled myself. It was an evening course at Morley College. Three former World Service types ran the course for a knock-down rate.

They evangelised. They inspired. They charged very little money.

Aside from a tricky beginning where it appeared that neither the college hosting the course nor the tutors actually knew when the course began – something us students were a little put out by initially – those ten weeks spent discovering the fundamentals of making a radio package and “producing” a live radio programme were a real joy.

Something clicked, you see. As soon as I sat down in the studio and peered down at the script below the foam head of the microphone I suddenly felt at home. Radio was for me.

The key to breaking into the radio industry was, according to the lead tutor, in persuading various radio producers at the BBC that your radio package was the one they absolutely needed for their programme. An entire lesson was devoted to the art of pitching to producers, the art of persuading BBC producers. There was even special attention given to how to navigate one’s way around that very special type of producer who refused to answer emails and loathed picking up the telephone. Pity they didn’t prepare me for the ones who – apparently – had absolutely no concept of what to do when faced with an MP3 file.

In my confident if misguided eagerness I did frequently come up against some quite bizarre responses from those who I thought were the ones who held the keys to my future success in radioland. Some had no idea what a podcast was. Some didn’t know where to put a CD into a computer. Some, shamefully, didn’t possess a pair of headphones.

You won’t be surprised to learn that aside from a brief stint working with Sandi Toksvig on LBC, radio has remained an unrealised dream.

Part of the problem has been what I had believed was the death of the radio package. Shortly after I started work at the BBC I noted with a slight amount of irritation a conversation between two people on the work message boards mourning the passing of this much treasured audio format.

I was doomed. I’d spent £100+ on learning an art form which I felt really comfortable with and reckoned I could do quite well with if only I could have a break. Here I was, on the periphery of the BBC and it turned out that my skills wouldn’t be required especially as some reckoned it was on its way out.

Only today however, I stumbled on this, an audio slideshow featuring audio from a woman who hasn’t worked ever – nor anyone who lives in the house with her – accompanied by photographs of a lady who, in the business, is callously referred to as “the contributor”.

Why am I blogging about it? Well, there are a number of reasons.

First, is the joy that seeing this on the BBC website provides me with. Listening to the audio (even without the photographs) reminds me that far from the negative comments conveyed by those message board postings back in 2005, the radio package isn’t dead. This is high quality audio, mysterious, robust and engaging. It doesn’t need a commentary because the person speaking is engaging. I end the oh-so-brief 1 minute 47 seconds wanting more. That is the mark of brilliant radio.

Second, is that this is another example of a new development of what I think I’m right in referring to as “visualising radio”, that dangerous development where radio producers dare to join pictures with audio.

Thirdly (and perhaps most importantly), it means that contrary to what some people think, sticking images with audio isn’t bad TV. It isn’t radio trying to be TV either or, worse, radio trying to be bad video on the web.

Instead, it’s a series of thought-provoking images accompanying an already punchy piece of audio, leading the listener into an interesting journey.

This stuff is great. And, thankfully, it means that maybe that training course wasn’t the waste of money I thought it was three and a half years ago.

Sausages with Onion Gravy *

6 sausages
2 medium onions
brown sugar
salt
butter
some green beans to serve

 

Put the sausages in the pan with some oil. Fry them. Keep an eye on them. Don’t let the skins burn before the “meat” inside has cooked through.

Slice the onions roughly – be quite cavalier – and add to the pan. (I put some butter in at this point because I do rather like to see it bubble and foam.)  Sprinkle some brown sugar on top. Stir, stare and marvel. If necessary, add salt repeating the stir,stare and marvel cycle.

When the sausages are cooked (just poke them), start blanching a packet of green beans. When the water’s boiling, remove the sausages and onions from the pan and serve them in dishes.

Pour some already mixed instant gravy into the frying pan. Mix it all together. Pour the resulting onion gravy over the sausages and onions and serve with the beans.

We really enjoyed making and eating this and thus ended up feeling quite smug.

* Assuming my colleague Tom isn’t a vegetarian, I think he really ought to make this tonight. He absolutely deserves the comfort food.

Drama in W12

John Sergeant’s departure from Strictly Come Dancing wasn’t the only drama at the BBC today. In the spirit of transparency, I figure it’s vital to explain what happened to me this afternoon..

I’ve started a new job just recently. It’s been in the BBC newspaper and everything. It explained exactly where I was leaving and what I was moving on to do (so why did a former colleague still ask me if I still remained a member of staff at the BBC now that I’d left the department we used to work in together? Goodness only knows.)

This new job has seen some changes for me. First are my efforts – on the whole successful – trying to get into work for 10.00am. Second, my attempts to be a little more professional in my dealings with people. Some people have commented on how much smarter I look and how much better I look clean shaven. One even commented on how much younger I look.  How very flattering. I’m sure it wasn’t a come on. He’s married, after all.

The most challenging aspect of this new role however, has been grappling with the new toilet arrangements.

Back where I used to work big, plush and modern Media Centre the toilet experience is a secluded one. Each cubicle is cut off from the rest of the world behind a heavy door, the perfect location to shut out the rest of the world and ponder on the day’s trials, tribulations and resulting personal insecurities.

In stark contrast – and like the very worst kind of time-travelling adventure – my new job sees me working in the impenetrable fortress known as the White City building. The lifts aren’t regular, the staircases difficult to locate and get the wrong floor and you’ll spend the rest of the day wandering around looking like an idiot. I know this because I have.

But worst of all are the toilets, reminiscent of old-school cubicles with a gap at the top and the bottom of the doors and partitions. They’re a nightmare. If I’m in need of using the facilities, the prospect of using the White City toilets fills me with fear and dread. On the few ocassions I’ve used them, I’ve sat in one of the narrow cubicles and waited for an opportune moment to do what I have to do. It’s so annoying, so tiresome .. so very humiliating. In short – as expertly summed up by a friend who also works in White City – I suffer from severe performance anxiety.

That’s why, a little after six this evening having spent a great deal of time thinking over potential solutions to the day’s challenges, I shut down my computer and took myself off back to the Media Centre – in the opposite direction to my journey home – in order to use the toilets there. Even at the end of the day the prospect of using the nearby toilets made me feel quite nervous.

I leapt across the square in W12 and settled myself down. The door was shut. Here was an opportunity to have a spot of me time, ponder on the day’s events. Was John Sergeant right to quit or should he have stuck it out? Had the judges pushed him too far? Could he have made more of an effort? Was it important he read the Guardian?

Mid-way through my effort, I became aware of a number of ladies standing outside. “Are you waiting too?” said one to another. “Yes,” she replied, “How long have they been occupied?” asked the other, “No idea,” came the reply.

There was I, sat on the toilet bowl keen to complete the operation I’d started and flush, painfully aware that the secluded cubicle lacked a throughput of air and probably wouldn’t be in a fit usable state if I was to vacate it immediately. There was no way I was going to finish proceedings, flush, wash my hands and then leave risking seeing the faces of people who could well make use of the same cubicle earlier than advised.

I needed a delaying tactic and opted – for some utterly bizarre reason – to start running a sinkful of soapy water with the intention of washing my face. This I did almost convinced that one of the other cubicles would become free or maybe they’d make the effort and climb the few short steps to the first floor and use the toilets there.

No such luck.

I adopted a second measure washing my face again and then my hands and then face once more, before spending considerably more time than I anticipated drying my face with a paper towel.

Still no joy.

I rolled a cigarette. And then another. The voices were gone now. I was certain I could hear just one pair of feet pacing up and down the corridor.

It was a good ten minutes after I’d entered the cubicle and finished my business that one of the other cubicles finally became vacant and my not-unjustifiable embarrassment was avoided.

Note to self: make sure all ablutions are carried out fully before the end-of-day rush hour. I’ve run out of plausible delaying tactics. Probably best not to blog about it either. I bet John Sergeant doesn’t have that problem.

Slideshow: Children in Need 2008

Also available at Flickr

Me and a Celeb

Me and a Celeb, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Pudsey agreed to have his picture taken at Children In Need 2008.

I didn’t spend very much time in his company. He was very busy.

Still, he did agree to have his picture taken. And I can confirm he did seem like a nice bear.

Helping out Pudsey

Proudly worn, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

I have a spring in my step at the moment. Not only have I finally managed to get into work on time on three consecutive days (something of a rariety for me) but I’ve cracked on with a recently self-appointed task.

Progress has been slow but sure. There’s been a lot of mouse clicks, tutting, puffing and moaning on my part, not to mention innumerable windows alerts ringing in my headphones whenever I click on the wrong thing.

Even so, I am sniffing the very real smell of nearby smug self-satisfaction. The task is nearing completion. I feel like awarding myself my very own certificate, framing it and attaching it to my desk divider. Although, on second thoughts, it’s probably “cooler” to dream about Friday evening instead.

Friday evening, you see, sees quite an exciting event for me. I was reminded about it when I received an email from a colleague inviting me to a meeting to discuss the “Children in Need Backstage Photography Schedule”.

It’s a simple and relatively uninspiring task – certainly not one you’d immediately imagine would inspire a blog posting. Me and a bunch of similarly helpful and charming volunteers will be documenting backstage goings on at this year’s Children in Need fundraiser. I’m told that the good shots will appear on the website. I advise you here and now that I’m doing this for charidee.

It’s not, as you might be thinking, the opportunity to meet celebrities. Whilst there will be a number around – although at present noone’s telling me who exactly as everything’s strictly embargoed – I always find myself over-compensating when I see them. Treat them normally, I reassure myself. They’re not that special. It’s not like they’re gods or anything. They’re just human beings who, when prodded, will turn to the camera, plaster on a smile and wait for the shutter to clunk open and shut.

What gives me the buzz is the prospect of hanging around a live television event. There’s something inexplicably exciting about being present in and around

the vicinity of something occuring in a studio. The opportunity to witness people running around in an organised panic, with earphones clamped to their ears,walky-talkies hanging out of their back-pocket is something too good to miss.

And then there’s Television Centre on a Friday night. The audience arrives, queuing up in the chilly air on Wood Lane. You start recognising people whose names are a complete mystery. There’s an urgency in the air. Areas of the building previously accessible by anyone with a pass are unexpectedly roped off.

Portable TV lights are set up in weird and seemingly unnattractive places. In short, Television Centre and its environs is turned into one massive TV set.

There’s a buzz about the place in all its weird, grey iconic sixties-designed madness. It’s the place to be to feel a part of things during a live event. It is perhaps the time and place when the BBC truly comes alive, when it’s raison d’etre becomes obvious to even the most hard-hearted individual.

“Helping out” at Children in Need is something of a perk working for the BBC. For most people I suspect that White City is the last place they’d want to be late on a Friday night. I’m rather looking forward to it myself. I shall wear my Team Pudsey t-shirt with pride, even if I will end up blending seamlessly into the background amongst the hoards of other people decked out the same. I do hope the kiddies appreciate it.

Heavy rain in W12

I bought a layered prawn salad (or is it a prawn layered salad?) today from the supermarket inside the White City compound. And, as I made my way out through the exit intent on leaping back to my desk for an early lunch, I came face to face with the today’s big event in W12.

It was raining. Heavily.

“I’m not going out in that,” I said to a lady with her BBC pass hanging around her neck.

“No. Neither am I.”

I would normally have stopped and engaged with her. Never one to miss an opportunity to network (or rather, make mindless small talk in the hope that I might make a new pal), I always look on such chance happenings as being laden with future possibilities.

The truth was, I wasn’t in the mood to chat. I figured I’d make do with peering at the name on her pass. Could I work out her name and what job she did ?

I always play that game, you see. Sometimes I’ll stand in the lift and let my eyes wander to people’s waists. I’ll usually try in vain to focus on the name printed on the card. Sometimes I’ll question whether the person in the picture actually bears any resemblance to the owner in real life. Sometimes the lift journey offers insufficient time to be as thorough as I’d like to be.

It never works, of course. If former-colleague George was right, it was Greg Dyke who brought in the “we’re names not numbers” edict on the work pass. The only problem was, of course, that he insisted the first name was larger than the surname. What good is it knowing the person standing behind you in the queue at the canteen is a “Jon” when I can’t make out the surname and thus won’t be able to search for them on the email address list?

I know I could just ask even if I do risk being considered a little nosey. Perhaps I could just stop thinking about everyone else and just get on with the job in hand. Perhaps … it’s actually quite a good thing I can’t make out people’s surnames. I probably save myself quite a lot of embarrassment.

Free Thinking Festival: Is Privacy Dead?

Is it wrong to be blogging about an event which has been recorded for radio not intended to be broadcast until Monday 3 November at 9.15pm? Am I revealing something I shouldn’t be even though I know it will happen because I sat in a room and listened to a man tell me and one hundred or so other people ?

It’s a question I’m thinking about having come out of a debate at the Free Thinking Festival which posed the question “Is Privacy Dead?”

In an age of online communities, blogging, micro-blogging and picture sharing, I find myself thinking intensely about my personal activities online. It’s scary. I can’t get it out of my head.

What should I reveal about myself? What do I reveal about myself online? Do I reveal too much? Am I revealing my true self or, a convenient skewed image of myself? Should I be more private? Should I reveal more? Would anybody read anything I wrote if I did?

And if it is I have an online persona and a real one (and personally, I would argue that they are one and the same otherwise both pursuits would be absolutely agony day to day) are there times when I don’t want to participate online ? Are there times when my mood, my insecurities and fears curtail my online activities? Thinking about those specific things, should I in fact be more careful about how I conduct myself online in an act of much-needed self-preservation?

Don’t you loathe people who ask too many questions and can’t/won’t/can’t be bothered to provide any answers? Well, the truth I feel the pressure of time on me. There’s no time to answer the questions even if I knew the answers. It’s a fast moving world. The bar here at the Free Thinking Festival is buzzing – the “Speed Date a Thinker” crowd are busy preparing for their hour of fun and there’s a competition going on between me and another other chap sat across from me busily tapping away at his laptop.

What I’m struck by – yet again – is how a relatively brief session listening to the likes of Bill Thompson, psychologist Sonia Livingstone, Cultural Historian Jonathan Sawday and Geoffrey Rosen has set my mind buzzing with excitement.

The most pointed example raised in the hour long debate hosted by Philip Dodd was this. Geoffrey Rosen explained how some students he knew of would take to live-blogging lectures and seminars. Was this a use of technology which was to be welcomed?

The fact is it’s here. We all do it. Those of us who use the internet rely on opportunities like these. There’s a buzz. A desire to provide a personal response to events as we witness them. We want to share where we are at any given moment in time even if the majority of the audience don’t care or would rather prefer it if we didn’t clog up the internet with our ill-considered babble.

The answer is impossible to arrive at. My interviews kick off in around fifteen minutes time and the speed daters are about to start their speed dating session.

I also have to get this blog published as quickly as possible. I have to beat the bloke sitting opposite me. I know he’s blogging about it. I just know. Why would he look so intently at his laptop in the way he does? I must beat him to it. Seeing as he’s Bill Thompson, the need seems inexplicably even greater.  

Disappointingly it appears I’ve failed. Mind you, it might have helped if I’d been a little less verbose.

You can hear the Free Thinking Debate “Is Privacy Dead?” on Monday 3 November at 9.15pm on BBC Radio 3.

Up to Liverpool

I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t a four and a half hour journey from London to Liverpool. It was in fact two and a half hours. Not only that, the thought of upgrading to first class was quickly dismissed when a very smart looking attendant standing outside the train advised me that no, on weekdays upgrades to first class were in fact £130 and not £18. I shuffled off feeling a little disappointed.

During the journey there was time to get some footage together for a short clip. Not having a cameraman makes the process more time consuming but still a challenging kind of fun. I’m nearly always surprised about how many more cutaways I need to break up the script. This usually means looking for different ways of shooting what might otherwise be regarded as a fairly dull interior. Bear in mind that rapid moving subjects don’t translate well on the web and very quickly the options are fewer and fewer.

Still, if there’s one thing I’m rather relieved about it’s the brevity of the thing. The Proms videos were over five minutes long nearly every time. Short form content is all about the piece being as short as it possibly can be. For someone who rather likes the sound of his own voice, such a demand can sometimes be a little difficult to meet.

Read up on the opening lecture given by Will Self at the 2008 Free Thinking Festival.

Free Thinking Festival 2008

“You’re a 90 year old man stuck in a 40 year old’s body,” said a new found friend with a wry smile on her face. I corrected her only on the “40 year old” bit. As it happens I am 36 and I also go to the gym three times a week. I may not have the body of twenty-something gym bunny, but I figure I’m doing OK for my age.

Having said that, she’s not entirely incorrect. I was explaining to her how I was looking forward to my weekend jaunt in Liverpool. I’ve got my train booked – a nice four and a half hour journey to the European City of Culture to attend Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival. I’ll be taking my flask for the journey (yes, really), some sandwiches, and a small weekend suitcase. I love the travel. I love the ocassional weekend away in a hotel. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve been to the Free Thinking Festival before and loved it. Initially the prospect of listening to lectures, seminars and debates about a broad range of topics delivered by thinkers, scientists and authors didn’t seem appealing. And yet, only a few hours in Liverpool and I found myself lapping it up.

Attending is one of the many benefits of working at the BBC. You can be working in one division doing your day to day work and then find yourself doing something completely different for an entirely different part of the Corporation. I like that. I value that. It’s something I’m very grateful for.

This year’s event is a little different for me. There’s a personal challenge afoot. Armed with my camera, my laptop and a (hopefully) free internet connection, I’m producing a series of short video reports about various events. There’s a drama being produced over weekend for broadcast on Sunday night, a key note speech from Will Self, a debate about whether computers make us stupid and a discussion about whether our idea of privacy is now redundant in light of social networking tools.

The challenge for me is two-fold. First is the editorial and technical challenge presented by attending a series of events and providing responses to camera immediately afterwards. This is “free thinking” after all. It’s about engaging in the debate, identifying your personal response to a series of ideas proposed by various speakers. That response then needs editing, encoding, checking over and then uploading to the web (all the videos will be at www.youtube.com/thoroughlygood and on this blog).

The second challenge is primarily an editorial one. In comparison to the Proms – where I’ll happily admit I relish the opportunity to be a little tongue-in-cheek - the Free Thinking festival is an entirely different animal. Tongue-in-cheek just doesn’t work at this kind of event. It’s small – intimate in some respects – and it’s a genuine educational experience too. The opportunity to go is a bit like being told I could go back to University and do my degree all over again and not have to pay. The idea of that is a luxury. The opportunity to reflect that using a slightly different language is appealing and also quite a challenge.

Can I pull it off? I’ve absolutely no idea. But I will have a good stab at it. Keep up with what’s going on via Twitter if you fancy or perhaps even check the blog if you’re so inclined. Failing that you could always listen on the radio.

Me, Rory Cellan-Jones & Blogging

Some people outside the BBC may be surprised to learn that even though I work at the BBC I don’t have access to the BBC newsroom.

There is a good reason for this. If I did have access I suspect there would be an outcry. I’d be creating havoc wherever I went. I’d inadvertently antagonise busy journalists. “Get him out of here!” they’d cry. Who knows, they might even stage a walkout.
As of 7.15am this morning however (when I read Rory Cellan-Jones’ blog posing the question ‘Is blogging dead?‘) I suspect there could be another reason I can’t get into the newsroom. If I did and I saw Rory Cellan-Jones I think we’d have to have a bit of a fight.

Obviously, Mr Cellan-Jones can’t be thinking blogging is dead otherwise he wouldn’t be writing about it. But still posing the question leaves me seething.

It’s true the blogosphere is now overrun with voices. Someone in the media was saying that to me two years ago. I took it badly then. It can only be a whole lot worse now.

Blogging works for news and it works for opinion. It also works for those of us who like to write (even if we’re pretty certain only a handful of people actually read it).

But as someone who feels as though he’s come to the party relatively late, I can’t help feeling a little irritated by how the amateur, small-time bloggers have been eclipsed by “the big boys” hijacking attention.

But even though my irritation with “the big boys” masks nothing but deep-seated jealousy when I look at my own blog statistics, I have to admit that I do rather rely on blogs. They feed inspiration as well as provide an outlet.

It’s a delicate ecosystem. If blogging is about conversation then bloggers need other bloggers. Bloggers also need other bloggers in relatively high places whose words can provide inspiration for their own relentless waffle. We all need sources of information and targets. Writing is about tension. Without tension there’d be precious little to write about.

We all need each other, you see. Which is why reading the seeing the question being posed “Is Blogging Dead?” would make any first meeting I might stumble on with Mr Cellan-Jones quite a fraught affair.

If we were to fight, I suspect Mr Cellan-Jones would have the upper-hand. After all, he has considerable more journalistic experience, does considerably more research than I do and, quite justifiably, has considerably more fans than I do. This combined with the fact that I bite my nails would mean that us scratching each other’s eyes out could result in me being the miserable loser.

On the other hand, I would use strength of personality and what ever quick-witted retorts I could find from a Google search before I delivered my final, much-hyped death blow:

“Rory – dahling, sweety – I know you have to ask difficult questions, that’s what journalists do. That’s what they should be encouraged to do. This is the BBC after all.

But Rory – dahling, sweety – please don’t ask questions like “is blogging dead?”
You know what will happen. People will just read the title, skim read your perfectly crafted words, pour over the responses and then jump to the inevitable conclusions and us struggling creatives will be completely and utterly doomed.

The one thing I don’t want to see happening is for people to be put off from consuming blogs, especially mine.”

At some point during this self-indulgent diatribe I anticipate that Mr Cellan-Jones will either have walked off and called security, or he’ll have started editing me or pointing where I might use basic grammar to help reduce verbosity. In short, I don’t think I’d win the fight.

But the point still stands. You might think the blog is dead, but it isn’t. And if you are someone who does think it’s dead, would you be good enough to keep that thought to yourself until such time as I’ve found a different creative outlet?

Christmas: Research

Baking, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Since returning from holiday, I’ve set my sights on one very important goal.

It may seem to early to be thinking about it, but as much as people want to deny it Christmas is coming.

With such an important celebration coming up, some individuals find shameless self-gratification in the creation of a whole variety of foodstuffs we wouldn’t otherwise eat ourselves or offer up as gifts to friends of family.

Those same people suddenly start poring over recipe books in a bid to find the formula for the perfect Christmas. If we can only find the perfect recipe we could, potentially, give the perfect gift.

According to Delia Smith, I should technically be starting the prep for the stalwart Christmas cake on Thursday night. Brilliant. I rub my hands together with glee. I get to start the cooking process on Thursday night. I can’t wait.

Then there’s the preserves (apparently, again according to Delia, these have to be left in a cupboard for three months before consumption) and sundry sweet titbits.

All of this adds up hours of baking joy to be had in the run up to the main event.

Normally I’m foaming at the mouth when I clap eyes on wrapping paper or gift catalogues or big expensive gifts showcased in high street stores and internet websites. But where food is concerned, forward planning is not only fun and acceptable but advisable to.

Such a shame that work is getting in the way.

The BBC and Yammer

Lucy Hooberman writes about the BBC’s new use of messaging/micro-blogging platform Yammer to improve communication across the organisation outside of email.

She’s absolutely right. It is very useful. It appeals to my inner-Utopian view of the BBC: All BBC staff are equal; you never know who could be the next radio/TV/web producer.

Those of us in need of radio/TV/web producers rely on such social networking tools. We are shameless. We leave no stone unturned and insodoing annoy all and sundry in pursuit of our dreams.

Given that reasonably mediocre confession, it should come as no surprise that whenever I interact with Yammer on the BBC network I’m nearly always convinced that I’ve missed the point of it.

I use it to shamelessly pedal my poor attempt at fluff and so-called wit in the hope that people across the organisation might feasibly see a potential use for my skills.

There’s a simple analogy: throw as much paint at the wall and you’re sure to see that some of it sticks.

Only last week, a copy of BBC rag Ariel in my hands, chortling uncontrollably to myself, I penned a posting for my BBC network blog dedicated to gently ridiculing an associate who had appeared in the publication talking through his favourite wardrobe.

Typically smug at the resulting how-ever-many-hundred-words which shared my recent successes in finding the best supporting underwear I’ve worn in a long time, I immediately went to Yammer and fired off a smarmy “call-to-action” *.

“Who wants to read about my pants?” was the submission. I was certain people would flock to the resulting missive as a result.

Feedback was mixed, all of it concise.

The subject of the ridiculing blog post (not left as a comment, I hasten to add) was flattering: “I *really* enjoyed that blog posting”, he messaged me.

The online editor of said BBC rag was predictable after which came an anonymous posting: “Why do we have to waste our time reading this?” **

If ever there was a timely reminder about the BBC it’s how the Corporation is embracing it’s new communication tool.

Don’t get me wrong. Yammer is a very useful tool. It brings people together in a way which can only be to the benefit of the various different disciplines who adopt it.

But like any playground or pub or trendy wine bar, there are rules of engagement. Advice is simple: Be sure to familiarise yourself with them before you jump in without a care. Don’t do what I always do and assume that the way to people’s hearts is to make them snigger. It’s a sure fire way of guaranteeing a frosty response.

 
* That’s what they’re called in the multiplatform business.

** Or words to that effect.

BBC Philharmonic at the Bridgewater

Post-concert drinkies, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

What better way to listen to Beethoven 9 than splayed out on a sun lounger on the edge of an infinity pool at a German run hotel overlooking the Aegean? Think blue skies, a gentle breeze and no queue at the poolside bar for post-concert drinkies.

I was listening to a recording of a live concert the BBC Philharmonic gave at the Bridgewater Hall on Friday 26 September, the Friday before I came away on holiday.

Whilst I have been able to meet two of the BBC’s criteria for it’s content (finding and playing) I am, sadly, unable to meet the third – sharing it. The performance has missed it’s seven day window on the iPlay-It-Again thingy. Consequently you have only my word to go on.

It was the first concert I’d listened to since the Proms, around about a month after I stood in the arena of the Royal Albert Hall listening to the Proms rendition. I was fighting to maintain my stamina in the last week of the season back then, conscious of some lower-back pain and irritated at the proximity of other concert goers. (It was late in the season.) I finished the performance that night hating Beethoven, the length of his final symphony and certain I’d never listen to any more Beethoven for as long as I could. I certainly wouldn’t be listening to any on holiday.

Not so today. I sat on the toilet this morning browsing BBC Music Magazine and was reminded about the gig. I had a satellite recording of it on my laptop (it had taken quite a lot of fart-arsing around to get it from the Sky+ box to my laptop I might add). I’d listen to it this morning and see if I still felt the same way.

Inevitably, the combination of seering heat and the stunning view added something to Beethoven’s monumental symphony. Not only that, the chance to listen to what sounded like an entirely different acoustic – Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall – was a bit of a treat too.

The performance restored my faith in the 9th symphony. The third movement was especially glorious. It always takes me by surprise. I always think it should start slower than it invariably does. “Bloody hell, that’s cracking on a pace. Should it really be that fast?” The answer is clearly yes. It isn’t long before the third movement is underway that you’re lulled into it’s beauty.

It set me thinking about something I’d quite like to see made available from the iPlayer thingyamy.

How good would it be, I thought to myself as I sipped on my cool beer, if I could download radio content via iPlayer in the same way I can TV shows. That way, I wouldn’t be tied to my laptop to listen to stuff. I could listen at leisure. I could listen in the bath, or on the tube or as I wandered aimlessly through Hyde Park or something…

In fact, if I could have a download manager installed on my portable media player then wouldn’t it be possible to impose some digital rights management on a WMA file thereby preventing me from distributing it and thus keeping all those legal types from going to an early grave? That way I’d be able to to it when I wanted, write yet another tiresome blog about what I’ve just listened to and (if it was available for say .. 14 days?) then share it?

Four hours away from London and with only 48 hours left before I get home, I can’t help wondering whether all these “brilliant” ideas I’m having about iPlayer (let’s be honest – they’ve probably already been explored) may well have provoked some people at the Beeb to look a little more closely at the contract I have. Will I be finding a slim looking envelope on my doorstep when I push the front door open on my return?

No! Of course not. That would never happen.

Best prepare myself for the worst, just in case.

Stress

It’s taken me just over two years to work this one out. I don’t have a therapist anymore. I put the length of time it’s taken me to arrive at this conclusion down to that.

Every so often my job demands I work what’s known as an “on-call week”. Armed with a mobile phone and my trusty laptop (the one which had to be serviced due to excessive amounts of cat fur caught in the ventilation thingamy) I psyche myself up for the possibility that I may be called upon to do something unexpected and to carry it out in a reasonable professional way.

I do get calls like that and I do handle them like that too – I’m bound to say it.

In addition to this potentially random way of having to do work between the hours of 6pm and 9am (sleeping is allowed) I also have to do something of a regular publishing task.

It seems a little crass to say what exactly, but I can tell you that I find it really quite high pressure stuff even though I’m painfully aware some might consider this to be incredibly small-fry.

The task itself only takes 15 minutes (20 if things are bad) but every time I find my heart suddenly shifts gear. Despite the fact that I’ve done the same task five nights on the trot around about once every month (give or take) I still feel the pressure.

It hits me like a sledgehammer, the moment when I remember that actually this really is stress I’m feeling. In the thick of it I’ll wonder why on earth I’m still doing this when it affects me like it does. Then I reach that moment when I realise all is well and the task is over. Done. Completed. That’s like doing the 100 metre sprint and winning it. That’s when I remember I’d be more than happy to do it the next night and every night, weirdly.

I’m not really sure how that compares with other people’s work.

What I do

“What do you do?” is a question I frequently fear being asked. The timing of my response is critical, so too the terminology. If you want to guarantee an impact when you’re meeting new people it’s probably best to avoid these questions at all costs.

It was worse three years ago. Back then I worked in IT support and had done for sever before then. Replying with the stock, simplest phrase “I work in IT” or “I work in IT support,” left me feeling cold. If I was feeling cold then it was a pretty safe bet that whoever was expecting a response was going to be disappointed.

The problems came in how to explain the finer points of my role. My job title back then (Senior Network Analyst) gave no real indication of what it was I worked in. Referring to some generic description of the kind of work I did only led on to the most irritating of questions. “What’s the best laptop to buy in your opinion?” Like I give a fuck what the best laptop is or trying to assist you with a stress-free laptop. I don’t know what the best laptop is to buy. “I usually ask someone in the desktop support team. Do you have someone in your desktop support team you can ask?”

What it reveals is that I am (and I suspect a considerable number of other people) are essentially defined by the jobs I do. If it is that your job doesn’t necessarily reflect your true, core personality then it could well be the case that talking about it is nothing more but an irritation. That’s not an indication of my ability to do the job, I hasten to add.

Three years later things are a little different although, surprisingly the definitions still present some difficulties. If I tell people my job title now I am, rather disappointingly, greeted with guffaws of laughter. “No, a webmaster doesn’t wear a cloak like Harry Potter. No, I don’t wear round John Lennon glasses and no I don’t have a big floppy wizards hat.”

A webmaster, in case you’re not up to speed, is someone who manages either a website or manages the systems which allow others to manage their website. That’s it in a nutshell. To be a webmaster I need to know about websitey-stuff, I need to be able to server-type things from time to time and, from time to time, I have to do pesky admin. Don’t be misled. I’m not complaining. I can feel the grotty world of IT support long behind me. Things are easier on the mind now.

There’s still an etiquette challenge though. And for this you need to know one small fact. As a webmaster, I provide a service which supports the BBC website. The most widely website in the world (which also happens to be part of an insitution I’ve wanted to work for since I was a small boy) is the one, in a sense, I “work” on.

Anyone who works for the BBC-proper will back me up when I say that if you mention you are in any way connected with the BBC the most predictable questions then start flowing?

“Oh .. do you know ’such and such’? He works on News 24″

“No,” I reply, “the BBC is staffed by 20,000 people and I can’t get into the newsroom.”

OR

“I really hate the fact that the BBC’s Listen Again function keeps failing whenever I’m listening to the Archers.”

“I can’t do anything about that I’m afraid. I don’t work in that department.”

OR

“I really love the BBC website. I use it all the time. I think it’s fantastic. I really love the CBeebies website”

“That’s great. I use it to. It’s terribly good.”

It’s all quite ironic really. For years I’d wanted to work for the BBC and now, for the past couple of years, I’ve been working the closest to the corporation than ever before. Now I find I don’t want to reveal my association with it for fear a string of predictable questions will start flowing. It is, perhaps with justifiable reasons, BBC people tend to keep their cards close to their chest about their employer.

If that wasn’t enough of a problem, the company I work for isn’t part of the BBC. It used to be but now its a separate entity staking its claim in the commercial sector. Explaining who actually pays my salary leaves the listener as cold as when I used to explain I work in IT support. What, exactly, am I to do?

The answer is to be found in the things which many people have said to me over the past few days, completely unprompted I hasten to add. Based on their comments, I offer up the following explanation as to what I do ..

I am a writer who can do techie things with websites and computers. I have an eye for design although I don’t really consider myself a designer. I’m told I’m a good communicator. I’m fiercely loyal, team-driven and yet, ultimately goal-orientated. I’m a creative individual who has a dream and, wherever possible, I try to follow it. I work for a company who provides services to the BBC and am fortunate enough to work at the BBC, in amongst wonderfully creative and supportive individuals across a variety of different departments and disciplines.

You know now. If we ever meet each other at a party please don’t ask me the question, OK?