On the telly

Watched the transmission tonight. Ye gods but I sound posh cum estuarine! And what was with all the blinking? Must have been the contact lenses playing up. Actually, I was quite happy with the broadcast edited version. (Must be going soft in my old age, but shsh don't tell anyone!) I think I acquitted myself reasonably well. Now I just need to get myself up on YouTube, which will undoubtedly take me the entire weekend to figure out.

Apart from the health issues, it's been a good week, even though I've only earned about a tenner (and a reputation for being a studio rottweiler).

A grand day out plus illness

It's been an odd week.

On Tuesday, my legs decided to swell up to unusual and grotesque proportions. A trip to the GP was required next day. The net result was an evening trip to A&E on suspicion of a DVT. Long story short - no DVT but possibly kidney problems.

Despite my crap health, I jumped on a train today as planned and headed to London to do telly. The OH was outraged, as he'd been expecting me to go for a kidney scan today. But you can't keep a good hack down - even though I felt like I might puke at any moment, looked like shit and could barely waddle let alone walk, the story was more important. And this time I was part of it.

Thus it was that I entered the hallowed doors of TV Centre at midday. Only one thing could have excited me more - walking on to the EastEnders set at Elstree. The place is massive - a veritable rabbit warren of corridors populated by blokes with goatees, jeans and trainers. I drank some of the legendary BBC tea, which was bright orange and tasted fucking awful. I heard some very scurrilous gossip about a couple of household names and was disappointed not to spot Jonathan Ross or any other slebs in the bar after filming.

But, I did get to see how news programmes are made, which was interesting although how anyone can watch 30 screens at once in the director's gallery is beyond me. I did the green room for about 10 seconds before filming, had my make-up done and generally managed not to fluff my rant to camera. Afterwards, we retired to the bar for an "editorial meeting" (for which read several rounds of alcohol). As a hack who's only ever worked in print or online, my eyes were seriously opened to TV - the politicking I heard of is unbelievable (it makes print look like a walk in the park), not to mention all the petty budget squabbles and fights over job titles. So - now you know how your licence fee gets spent. To be fair, there are good people employed there who are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances and I was pleased to meet some of them today. The whole experience was a real eye-opener.

After the "hospitality" (cough), it was time to head home. Tomorrow means proper work again (I can't believe I gave up a whole day's work for 4 minutes' airtime, but needs must!). I arrived back to 139 emails, 66 RSS feeds demanding to be read and (eep!) over 200 posts on my favourite forum. And I haven't looked at Facebook yet!

Aunty needs a minder

Yesterday's Observer carried the following story: Mind your language, critics warn BBC.

About flaming time...

As a child, I can actually remember being told that the BBC was the arbiter of the Queen's English (we lack the equivalent of an Academie Francaise, you see). My English has always been extremely good, hence why I ended up in this trade, but even up until recently if I was unsure of something I could rely on the BBC to point me in the right direction on matters of language. Sadly, this is no longer true. And we certainly can't rely on the government to set standards - standards in English are what have been falling in schools for the last 30 years.

Tot take one example, the BBC website is a disgrace, from the language point of view. Most news reports on it carry at least one spelling error, not to mention poor punctuation and distinctly dodgy grammar. For a while I took a perverse pleasure in finding the errors then emailing BBC News Online to complain and see how long it took them to correct the page. But no more, because the errors are so many and widespread I'd never get any work done. It does make for an amusing read, though.

I hope the BBC does appoint a language chief. It certainly needs one. This may also be the only time I will ever agree with Ann Widdecombe on anything.

Wildcard Brown

As usual, yesterday morning consisted of a frantic rush to get some work done by lunchtime so I could laze in front of the telly in the afternoon. I'd already had a look at the hallowed order of play and decided I could probably survive without watching Andy Roddick's second-round match, but that Henin and Henman were both essential viewing.

I switched on BBC1 at noon to get the latest from SW19, watched Tim arrive and be interviewed, then strolled back to my desk to deal with emails. About an hour later, I discovered Sue Barker and John McEnroe had been replaced by two new sports reporters called Hugh Edwards and Nicholas Witchell. They were discussing a live match between Anthony Blair, who has been champion for the last decade, and the unseeded wildcard, Gordon Brown, who was challenging him for the title. Interesting player, Brown - he has no record on grass and prefers hard courts. He had spent most of yesterday afternoon in the royal box instead of warming up on the practice courts over the road.

I flicked over to BBC2, where the only match showing was a very sweaty and out-of-breath Serena Williams struggling against Alicia Molik. I returned to the coverage on BBC1, where I discovered Blair had thrown in the towel. I expected Sue Barker to opine on this dramatic development in the tournament but there was still no sign of her. Hmm...

Obviously, a power handover is headline news, but News 24 was already providing full, streaming, live coverage. I was disgruntled enough to complain to Aunty about the unscheduled extra 2 hours of news on BBC1. I was even more fed up when the rain came. I didn't see a single full match yesterday. This WILL be rectified today, otherwise I might actually be forced to do some work...