Hit The North

I don't know if you've heard, but some parts of the BBC have moved up north.  There hasn't been a great deal of media coverage and the whole thing has passed off without much comment so it's possible the whole thing has passed you by.  Oh no, hang on - that was in a parallel universe where common sense prevails.  Yep, it's not been a good week to be from the north and resident in London.  Tuesday saw BBC Breakfast's first broadcast from their new home at Media City in Salford, marking the end of "phase one" of the migration of staff to the north and arguably the highest profile move yet, certainly in terms of airtime.  And it's driven the media insane. 

There's been an awful lot of very vocal negative chatter about the relocation of the services, including Radio 5 Live, CBBC and BBC Sport as well as the aforementioned morning news programme.  I realised I don't say often enough how much of a wonderful initiative BBC North is - so here goes.  I don't think anyone can really have missed the main argument in favour that has already been much talked about - that the move will put the corporation closer to more of the people that pay for it, better reflect their lives and represent their interests more than is done at present.  Predictably though the controversy has mainly centred around whether Breakfast will be able to attract guests to the sofa in Salford as easily as they did in London.  This in itself is quite a frustrating debate, given that Breakfast is a news programme for over three and a half hours, with just over half an hour at the end devoted to fluffy showbiz stuff (mainly as a spoiler to stop viewers switching over to ITV1's Lorraine and then potentially staying there throughout daytime).  Perhaps the freelance journos doing much of the harping over the move only wake up towards the end of the programme and presume the rest of it pre-8.40 is much the same?

The jury's still out on whether there will be a drop in quality of the guests in this segment (although it perhaps wasn't a wise move to wheel out Shaun Ryder on day two - presumably Peter Kay will follow next week) but it's typical of the tone of the debate that it has been framed by such largely unimportant issues.  Although Breakfast was a late addition to the list of areas moving north, it's arguably the best-placed out of the news output to be broadcast from somewhere else, having as it does a much greater emphasis on domestic human-interest stories.  It'll come as a shock to my neighbours but some of these stories happen outside London and the south east.  For every C-list comedian promoting yet another panel show that can't be bothered to make the trip anymore, the team will be much closer to the heart of so many news stories and their makers that were previously out of reach.

This week also saw a focus on the safety of the area that BBC North is based in, particularly in a Telegraph article that heavily hinted that, basically, Salford is pretty rough, and those relocating from London W12 were in for a bit of a shock.  In fact, those who have spent any time in that delightful area of London will know how dodgy the White City estate that borders much of the BBC's property is.  The idea that "the north" is by definition grim and crime-ridden - presumably in contrast to London - is laughable.  I do love the capital but since moving to London it's never failed to amaze me quite how many shitty areas with not much going for them are crammed into this city, and the punchline is that most of them are ridiculously overpriced too, so it's a little ironic for a city like this to hold this perception.

There's also the story of the staff moving up to Media City.  It's no doubt a very difficult personal situation for those in departments moving north, especially those with partners and children also based in the capital, and I fully understand and sympathise with the decisions of those who have decided not to make the move.  What doesn't get talked about so much in the rush to dramatise the relocation of many staff to the new site is how the project will change the way in which many people end up working in television.  Every year, so many people are required to move to London in order to have any chance of working in their chosen area of the media.  I did it, my fiancée did it, many of my friends from university did it.  Unlike many professions it just isn't possible to remain in your local area to work in TV or radio, unless you're one of the few in the dwindling local TV and radio operations.  The demise of regional ITV companies is a case in point.  Had I been born twenty years earlier I or anyone else would have been able to work in a presentation department in a dozen cities across the UK, rather than the handful that remain now.  So the requirement of staff to move for their job - many of whom were born in London and have always worked in London - doesn't seem too much of a strain to those of us who already have, the family committments excepted (for the record, my job was re-sited in Leeds last year, and had there not been alternative positions offered I would have been tempted to relocate).

Whilst BBC North won't reverse the situation overnight, it will in future mean that those looking to work in TV and radio have the option to look to the north west as well as the south east.  In a small but significant way it will help to counterbalance the unfortunate huge bias towards the capital.  The initial relocations involved may have costs attached, but that's the same for any job that requires you to move location.  And don't listen to those who ask what the point of a new northern operation filled full of southerners is.  Over time, as people move on, the services based in Salford will recruit those from surrounding areas - perhaps even those who would otherwise not have considered relocating to London - and so represent the north of England far better than is done currently.  It will save money in the long term by not having to pay them London-weighted wages, and avoid the relatively huge cost of doing anything in the south east.  And on the subject of the staff moving north, there are bizarre double standards being attached by the press to this process.  Every "total number of staff agreeing to move north" story was accompanied by a chorus of crowing saying that the fact it wasn't 100% meant the strategy was a flop.  The same papers were then incredulous that the new complex didn't employ that many people from the north west - i.e. it had given most roles to their existing staff from London!

The issue of travelling from London brings us back to the thorny issue of getting the guests.  It's actually pretty recent for there not to be a regular networked show airing from outside London.  Through the 70s, 80s and early 90s, Pebble Mill managed to pull in what passed as "showbiz" turns in those days - admittedly Birmingham being not as far from London as Salford is but still, way outside zone 6.  Saturday morning TV on the BBC and ITV has managed to air from Southhampton, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle and not end up short of talent.  The oft-quoted example of This Morning moving from Liverpool to London was in fact not entirely driven by the quest for guests.  It was as much a result of Richard and Judy's desire to relocate and the fact that Granada had just acquired LWT and so now had a London riverside studio complex they could use.  Today, there are three trains an hour from London Euston to Manchester Picadilly each taking a little over two hours - a length of time that some (slightly barmy) people take to commute into or across London every day.  Media City is also closer to Manchester Airport than Television Centre is to Heathrow.  If the guests want the publicity, they will come.  If they don't, it's hardly Parkinson.  The programme will not suffer.

What hasn't helped is a number of examples of senior managers not practicing what they preach by relocating from London along with their staff (Peter Salmon, I'm looking at you).  One of Breakfast's anchors hasn't helped the issue by not only remaining in London but announcing that, somewhat bizarrely, they intends to commute every single day, rather than managing to spend a whole three nights a week in the north.  It's hardly helped the cause of the project and gives rise to the impression that the whole thing will be rolled back in a year or two.  It won't - because it's legacy is the key to the success of the project.  In time, the difficulties and controversies will be forgotten and everyone will realise that yes, funnily enough it is possible to run output from outside of London.  Not only that but the output might just get out of the mindset of the London bubble that is happy to mention Oxford Street, Covent Garden and Ealing but largely sticks to generic names such as "North Yorkshire" and "East Lincolnshire" when covering stories from outside the capital. 

I love it here in London - I really do - but I also love the northern cities which I grew up with and they have only improved in the interim.  As the operation beds in over time, and the workforce becomes predominantly local (and Virgin Trains and Manchester landlords stop being the main winners) we'll wonder what all the fuss was about.  Perhaps it should even go further - Radio 1 would be a particularly good fit for moving outside London.  It's not often you look to Nicky Campbell as a beacon of reason and good sense but in an interview with The Guardian three years ago he said  "When people say such and such a programme can't be done in Manchester we just look like arses...it's not as if I am going to Helmand province."  There's a risk of us in London looking very silly if we don't stop harping on about it and patronising everyone who lives outside the south east.  When the name "Capital" is seen as a suitable name for a national radio network and the petty squabbling in the London mayoral campaign is reported in the national media you do wonder if the battle has already been lost.  The BBC deserve credit for attempting to do something about this, and I'm happy to give it to them.

12 Again

Wowser - has it really been two months since I last wrote anything here?  I'd like to have a good reason - being exceedingly busy or doing something life-changing, but I think I simply couldn't really be bothered.  So the summarise, we had a lovely Christmas, Kate had a great birthday and then a fun weekend in Aberdeen. You know what they say about happy people and diaries...

What prompted me to put fingers to keyboard was a great little show I caught purely by chance this week after seeing a trailer.  12 Again is a series on CBBC that takes celebrities back the age of 12 to talk about their favourite music, TV and fashion at that age, and in general how they felt at that transitional age.  The age of 12 is, according to the Big BBC Book of Rules, the point at which children now stop watching CBBC and move onto The Internet and Stuff (after abandoning attempts to provide programming for them a few years ago after the scrapping of the dire BBC Switch) so it's interesting to see a programme being produced that is aimed squarely at one end of the audience.  At it's heart it's a fairly cheap talking heads affair, but it's pretty endearing in it's own way, especially if (like me) you love the opportunity to see the old clips again in context.

It's this that makes the show appealing to those of us who are - how can I put this - in the "upper-upper end" of the CBBC demographic.  This week's shows have featured a number of my favourite programmes from my own childhood.  Mark Rhodes of Sam and Mark fame nominated Live and Kicking as his 12-year-old self's TV favourite, and this provided an opportunity to dig out lots of old clips of John Barrowman dressed like an early 90s fool (i.e. lots of waistcoats).  Barrowman has an interesting position in Live and Kicking's history, having gone from being written out as "the yank who didn''t really fit in" for a decade to having his role actively built-up since 2005 following his success in Doctor Who and Torchwood.  Rav Wilding from Crimewatch chose Maid Marian and her Merry Men and instantly went up in my estimation, as this was one of the best children's shows of all time.  I know of only one person in my age group who didn't adore it as a child.  That person however is my fiancée, but as she has few flaws we'll let this one pass.  Finally Alesha Dixon revealed an unexpected appreciation of the oft-forgotten 1990s revival of Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game which provided an opportunity to screen that wonderful title sequence that hasn't aged at all (snigger), and reminded me how much I used to love watching this show as a child.  Let's face it, it's still the best thing Bruce has ever done, made all the more clear by how Jim Davidson managed to completely bugger it up in the years following.

Two giants of early-90s Children's BBC

This was far from the only archive content in 12 Again - there were more musical clips than I've time to mention, and plenty of classic context-setting Newsround if you like that sort of thing.  One thing that was fairly amusing was Alexandra Burke's reeling-off of the complete roster of Nickleodeon output of the period...none of which the BBC has the rights to show anymore, so was represented by a few still images.  It also is worth wondering how much of an impact the first series of Live and Kicking had on Russell T Davies, providing not only thirty weeks' exposure of John Barrowman but also the computerised talking-head-cat-thing "Ratz", which later provided inspiration for the look of Ardal O'Hanlon's character in Gridlock, a 2007 episode of Doctor Who.  And that's absolutely true!

Call the lawyers!

What would be my 12 Again choices?  My favourite TV shows of the time won't come as a great surprise.  Live and Kicking, Red Dwarf, Shooting Stars and Noel's House Party were all must-sees at this point.  Also at the age of 12 I watched the Doctor Who TV Movie and, unlike almost everyone else who saw it, rather liked it, and it was what got me into the programme and kicked off my interest that lasts to this day (apart from a few years in the early noughties when sixth form and uni got in the way).  I think it was when I was twelve that I somehow fell into watching EastEnders having never previously been that interested, and I've been watching that ever since too.  It was around this age when I got the first inklings that I would quite like to work in TV...mainly by thinking that my obsession with it could possibly be put to good use!  I can't really remember much about what music I was into - much like now I can't claim I was into a particular band or genre of music but I was definitely an avid viewer of Top of the Pops and listened to the Official Top 40 on Radio 1 every week.

Bruce does his thing whilst a stage-hand hauls the set into position

In terms of news, 1996 was the year of the Dunblane massacre which given I was at school at the time should really have had quite an impact on me.  However my main memory of that was Wirral Grammar's "tightening" of security, which meant combination locks on the front door that only teachers were allowed to enter via.  All the pupil entrances, however, remained open to all.  John Major's government were on their knees at this point (politically, cheeky!).  I remember them being universally loathed and Tony Blair being talked of as a latter-day saint.  The general election seemed to be forever imminent and so every poll was lept upon in the meantime.  As luck would have it, Wirral South's Conservative MP died in November 1996 and so the consituency became the location of the final by-election of the 1992 parliament.  The state grammar school I attended became a bit of a political football, with the local Tories claiming that if elected Labour would scrap selective education (ha!) so we had all sorts of campaigning around us including one giant poster in a house opposite depicting Tony Blair as a "school bully".  Breakfast News filmed one of our French lessons as part of the coverage, which somehow managed to cut me off in every shot, although they did unwittingly screen a young lad making the universal gesture for "wanker" at the camera in the background of some playground footage.  Naturally Labour won the seat on a massive swing which rather set the tone for the General Election that followed four months later.

Shepherd's Bush hasn't changed a bit

And as for me...by fluke I did rather well in my first year of secondary school, but not so well in my second, the novelty fading somewhat.  I managed to get in the top set in maths - completely ridiculously as that was never something I should have been any good at, and indeed spent the following four years desperately trying to keep up as my true lack-of-ability in that subject became clear.  Still, it got that GCSE out of the way a year early.  Having been quite a skinny child, as I entered teenage years I started to put on a bit of weight, and it wouldn't be until my uni years that I managed to shift any of it (in fact it's only in the last three years that I've been back to a weight that I'm happy with).  And as for girls...we'd best not go there.  There were obviously girls that I liked, but going to an all-boys' school I was never with them for long enough to do anything about it, or indeed know how to do anything about it.  That's my excuse anyway! (if you want a laugh, here's two pages of unadulterated bullshit from my old school about the benefits of single sex education.  Former WGS pupils, try not to snigger when they claim that lack of girls will mean no "macho culture")

Another former Wirral Grammar pupil! "The Wirral, near Liverpool", near Carlisle judging by the map

12 Again is a cracking little series so I'd urge you to take a look if you can, although it does feel a bit weird to see things from your childhood described as if they were ancient (which of course they are to today's kids).  For the aspect-ratio geeks amongst us it also can be congratulated on not cropping a single piece of archive.  As the celebrities are of a variety of ages there's something for everyone in there.  Having scored the author of Tracy Beaker you do sense they struggled a bit with Jacqueline Wilson, 12 in the mid-50s, although it can't have exactly required a degree in archeology to research the childhoods of the likes of One Direction, Tom Daley and - most ridiculously - Ronan Park from Britain's Got Talent, who was born waaaaay back in August 1998.  It's worth a watch, but if you do miss it then it'll no doubt be repeated for another twelve years...

Christmas is coming...the aardvark's getting fat!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Or so they say.  Welcome to my Christmas blog, I'd like to thank you for the year.  I'm feeling particularly festive this year and there is a very simple reason why.  For the first time since my uni days  (seven years, if I must spell it out) I'll be on holiday for the whole Christmas period.  My old job would be horrendously busy over Christmas, so just at the point when everyone else was slowing down and chilling out, we'd be busier than at any point churning out the schedules for the festive period at a rate that would ensure we could all take the weekends and Bank Holidays off. 

Typically I'd then race up north to see family, hurtle back down again as soon as the trains started up again and then the whole process would start again, we could get ahead enough to have the New Year days off.  I don't want to go OTT - after all, we never had to work on the big days themselves - but when you involved the travelling too you'd end up starting January feeling absolutely exhausted just as everyone came back into the office, asking you if you'd had a nice holiday.  So this year I've been enjoying the lunches, drinks and parties that little bit more than usual.

Christmas work drinks at the London Transport Museum!

As my new role involves working in advance, our busy period was at the end of November, involving the finalising of the content inside the double-issue behemoth that you all started using on Saturday.  This does somewhat take the shine off reading the Christmas Radio Times when it's published at the start of December, which for me as a young telegeek was always the "cue" to start feeling festive.  The same can be said of the debut of Christmas idents on television - as with the magazine, earlier than it used to be and less of a mysery than it once was.  This year's it's fair to say that the big boys have disappointed somewhat - what with lack of effort on one side and possibly the most irritating promo of all time on the other (who on earth thought that would be endearing?).  Who would have thought BBC Two and ITV2 would come out top?

All of which got me thinking.  You probably wondered what the smell of smoke was.  What's the best Christmas ident of all time?  It was a close-run thing, but this is my winner. 

I think this is not only the best Christmas ident of all time, but quite possibly the best Christmas-related thing to ever be committed to film. A bold assertion, but here's why:

• A complete story is told in fifteen seconds.
• That story is wonderfully ridiculous.  Why on earth can't the TARDIS get out of snow without the help of reindeers?  But somehow it seems right for this much-missed era of the show.
• It's perfectly executed.  You know exactly what's going on and why.  You can almost see the storyboard.
• It's amazingly Christmassy.
• The composer has seemingly done the impossible and managed to cram some Christmassy twinkles, the BBC One sting and the Doctor Who theme coherently into fifteen seconds.
• It captures David Tennant at the height of his pomp as the tenth Doctor.
• It's quite possible the final words Tennant recorded in character were "daaaa! wohhhh...woo hoo!" which can only be a good thing.
• To anyone who remembers the years when the series was off air, the idea of this sequence being shown before every programme on BBC One for three weeks is....insane.
• In a clever bit of planning, the ident was switched for the Tennant-less "news edit" after his regeneration has been screened on New Year's Day 2010.  Obvious when you think about it.
• I can honestly say those fifteen seconds are better plotted than most of series six.

I'll leave it there or I may be here all night.  Let me know if you agree or disagree.  Come Friday I'll be off for eleven whole days, and will be cramming in visits to my wonderful in-laws to be for Christmas, Kate's birthday, then over to my family and finally back down to London to host our annual festive bash for uni friends, this time on New Year's Eve.  Bring it on!

As a final thought I'll leave you with this incredibly random clip from Children's BBC at Christmas nineteen (nineteen!) years ago.

"Shall we have a bit of a rave?" Kids won't get that with Iain and Hacker.

Whatever you're up to this Christmas, make sure it's a bloody good one. 

Covering Campus Completely...

I don't often do "here's what I've been doing this week" blogs but thought I'd do one about this weekend as it ties in with one of the first ones I wrote back in April.  Inspired by a nostalgic perhaps-not-entirely-sober Facebook status update a few weeks ago Tom, Kate and I decided to make our more-or-less annual trip back to York last weekend.  I admit it doesn't normally take much to send us on the two hour trip up the east coast mainline but for some reason we were really in the mood for a trip north.  East Coast trains were even running a £25 flat fare first class offer - what more encouragement did we need? 

Living it up, student-style (not)

It ended up being quite a different trip to most of our other ones too.  In response to a random tweet from me musing that it was probably ten years since I'd first visited YSTV (on a University of York open day in October 2001) I'd been told I was welcome to pop back in at some point, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so.  The three of us have been back there a number of times since we graduated (doing the big events for a couple of years, bowing out after the YSTV 40 broadcast), but after all of our friends and friends-of-friends graduated we've not been back to the station at all.  So it was really rather lovely to go back inside the place again.  It holds so many happy memories, especially so in light of Kate and I getting engaged.  We owe a big thank you to Mike and Sam for showing us round, telling us about how the place works now and generally putting up with us in the station and afterwards in Langwith Bar - sorry, The Courtyard (old habits die hard).  YSTV is in good hands!

We're back!

It's really interesting to see what's changed and what hasn't.  Technology is the major thing.  When I arrived it was taking us 15 minutes to render a caption on YSTV's (admittedly ageing) Mac.  Now we can record and edit HD video on our iPhones.  Suddenly everyone is a TV producer - and not only that but there's a Film and TV department on the new campus.  Thankfully so far the effect on YSTV seems to be positive - when it was announced during my time we'd fearer it would result in us losing members and ultimately the studio.  However your eyes are naturally drawn to the things that haven't changed at all.  Although a few of our old sets have been junked recently the "coffee bar" is still going strong nearly nine years on, and Kate might just have got a little bit excited at finding a surviving splash of YSTV Week purple on the back of one board.  They have done some quite impressive work with their sets recently too.  Our early days of "dreaded black drape" seem light years away.

"So when's my next Eurovision live link?"

After we'd all had a couple of drinks we wandered up towards URY and (again thanks to Mike and Sam) ended up being shown around by a couple of current members there.  The changes there are even more dramatic than over the other side of the lake at YSTV.  Earlier this year Studio 1 and 2 were completely refitted for the first time since 1997 and now look completely and totally different from our time there.  Gone are the CDs and Mini Discs - it's all hard drives and touch screens now.  I honestly would not have a clue where to start.  However - it still smells EXACTLY the same.  Yep that's right - the smell instantly took me back to walking through the doors nearly nine years ago for my first show and feeling more than a bit nervous!

The all-new URY Studio 1

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I hadn't returned to URY since I left in 2005 so it was really nice to be back - thanks to the current members who gave us a quick tour and let us have a play with the new kit.  I spent more hours than I care to remember in that orange studio (which is no longer orange, fact fans), often at the crack of dawn with only my own voice for company.  After writing earlier this year about how it was a shame I had completely left that part of my uni life behind, it's funny that in the past six weeks I've met up with a load of fellow ex-URYers (and had such a good time that I couldn't remember getting home) and revisited the studio itself.

Is this one SBN?

So what else is new?

Central Hall goes "undercover"

• Goodricke Bar/McQ's is a completely gutted concrete shell.  That weird wooden building next to YUSU is gone and apparently the whole area is being re-jigged to provide a more impressive "campus south" entrance.  But most importantly - the bar has moved to a new location: a Starbucks/cafe-style area in the Roger Kirk Centre called...The Studio.  Which is a bit of an insult to good old Pauline.
• Central Hall is completely covered in white plastic...something to do with asbestos apparently.  The plan is to take advantage of this for projections should it still be there come Woodstock!  My theory is that once uncovered it will finally be an actual spaceship, just to satisfy the campus humourists who have claimed this since the year dot.
• Campus is covered in brand new widescreen plasma TVs.  The YSTV network up to date?  Nope, that's now history after the uni finally bulldozed all the old Rediffusion network.  It's YUSU's own initiative, and all they seem to show is a single static caption advertising the union's activities.  Now, Inform used to get criticised but congrats to YUSU for putting these all over the place, not screening any YSTV on them at all, and being even less use than ours were.  Trebles all round.
• Heslington East, erm, exists.  It seems to have taken Halfax's role of the place you could quite easily go your entire degree without visiting.
• The Courtyard is rather good, in fact it's rather bizarre to see Langwith Bar so busy, or in fact any campus bar so busy at the weekend.  But as expected it does seem to have had a detrimental effect on the other bars around campus.  JJ's is long gone and B Henry's is said to be pretty much out of us as a regular bar.    
• York's nightlife is much changed.  The change in licensing laws has meant that now anywhere can stay open late, install a dancefloor the size of a beermat and pretend to be a club.  Two of YUSU's official student nights are in "pretend" clubs - Vodka Revolution and Salvation (the old Nexus on the row of hell that is Rougier Street).  Meanwhile of the old "big four" (well, the only four), Ikon and Diva closed in our final year; Toffs became Tru and then was sold on becoming Tokyo on which the verdict is still out; Ziggy's is apparently only called Ziggy's on Wednesday's student night and hosts all kinds of dubious fare the rest of the week; and Gallery is faced with closure as Luminar are in financial trouble. 

The sad state of Goodricke Bar

All in all we had a great afternoon hurtling down memory lane.  Then it was off to Toto's, an old favourite, with Rick and Sarah, another two old favourites, followed by Henry J Bean's, whose DJ once uttered the immortal words "big shout out to YTSTV" a few years back.  I used to find that place really expensive - funnily enough after six years in London it's a bit of a bargain now!

Finally as inevitable as day turning to night was the Sunday morning 9.30am hungover check-out from Alcuin.  We always stay on campus as, apart from being nice to go back, the prices are unlikely to be beaten anywhere else in York on a Saturday night (around £40 for a single, £70 for a double and 10% off if you manage to use the elusive alumni discount which never seems applicable when you're there).  However the sting in the tail is the stupidly early 9.30am checkout which, as far as we can gather, is so one poor cleaner can work their way around the entire block in time for check-in at 2pm.  

Since most of our friends left York we've settled into a pattern of going back about once a year, which is more than most but we do have a real soft spot for the place, and especially YSTV.  It gave me friends for life, a career and the best bit of all...who I'm sure you already know about.  Next year will be ten (TEN!) years since we started there so surely is reason enough for another (perhaps slightly longer) return!

"This is the BBC Television Service"

Those words will be instantly recognisable to anyone from my age up to around 40 as the start of the title sequence of Going Live! (don't forget the exclamation mark - very important).  Those black-and-white clips of men in white coats waving their hands about and turning knobs form some of my earliest TV memories, but it was only many years later I discovered that it was footage of the very first television broadcasts from Alexandra Palace.  Last weekend Kate and I visited the very studios where it all began as part of the 75th anniversary of those first broadcasts.

I've always had a soft spot for Ally Pally.  I love the way it towers over north London, the way you see it from the train when heading north and the fact it seems to keep catching fire or being threatened with closure only to survive (in fact the pub at the side of the palace was until recently called "The Phoenix").  One of my first visits to London - for some MHP drinks - was at the palace, coinciding with the traditional Guy Fawkes Night firework display (we'd been due to to the same thing the previous year but after Miss World was moved to Ally Pally at short notice we went to a Wetherspoons in Wood Green instead.  And there are few more depressing phrases than "Wetherspoons in Wood Green").  Three years later and Kate and I were back at the fireworks after moving into nearby Highgate, and the following year saw more MHP drinks there. Finally in 2008 we moved into our current flat from which you can see the mast from our balcony.  I swear the place is following us around.

Naturally we jumped at the chance to have a look around the original studio.  Despite continuing attempts to turn it into a kind of "museum of television" it is closed to the public most of the time, with only occasional tours available to small groups.  This weekend's tours were booked up within a day or two of being advertised online but being locals we decided to head up to Ally Pally anyway to see the exhibition part of the event.  When we got there we were surprised to hear there were spaces on a tour the following afternoon, which we duly snapped up.

So come the following day we were taken through the "BBC Tower Reception" entrance, up some windy, narrow stairs (obviously no health and safety in those days) and into Studio A - where it all began.  The BBC stopped making programmes there in 1981 (yes, that late!) so it's just a shell today, but it's impossible not to be slightly humbled at the weight of history that the place contains when you walk in.  The Alexandra Palace Television Society have done a good job of displaying a few items to look at when you're there.  There's a mock-set for "Picture Page" at one end, lots of information on the walls about the history of the place, a couple of period cameras and a presentation area (surrounded by TVs from over the years) at the other end of the studio.

I have to admit it was bigger than I was expecting - apparently the rooms were originally banquet halls.  Certainly it's tiny by the standards of much that can be found at White City, Waterloo and Wembley but I guess what you have to remember is that, in conjunction with Studio B next door, this was where everything happened - production, transmission, and everything in between - for the formative years of the BBC Television Service.  When considering the amount of meetings, committees, working parties, consultants and general faffing about it takes to put anything on air in TV today, it's a sobering and humbling thought that these studios and the handful of offices nearby were responsible for a few hours of mostly live television a day, every day, for many years. You can read memories of these pioneering days from someone who was there at the time on Arthur Dungate's website, and the broader picture over at Transdiffusion.

Following BBC TV's expansion into other buildings, Ally Pally's studios became the home first of BBC Television News and then to the Open University, before finally closing in 1981.  You can see a picture of Studio A when it closed here.  It actually looks quite respectable on the final day of operation so has clearly been stripped of anything of any worth in the intervening thirty years.  It's a real shame that the studios sit, if not unloved, then unappreciated and hidden away from view.  They deserve better than that.

You can see a panorama of Studio A that I took on my Generic Mobile Phone Device here.

Generic iPhone 4S blog

Another blog about a bloody phone.  Why can't I think of something interesting to write about?  Well to be truthful I did start one about how disappointing the most recent series of Doctor Who was, but I chickened out.  It's still sitting in my drafts, I just can't be bothered as it seems that anyone who doesn't like the show this year is apparently just incorrect.  Probably no great loss though.  My piece was incoherent and didn't explain itself properly, but it was quite pleased with itself throughout.  Insert your own joke here.

So following on from my previous piece our new iPhones arrived last weekend.  Because we had the temerity to wait until the evening of the first day of pre-order, we had to wait a whole week after release date until they arrived.  Shocking I know, but somehow we survived.  In order to future-proof myself I was tempted to buy the 64GB version but went for 32GB in the end, as Kate did too.  £699 just seemed a stupid price to pay for a phone.  £599 on the other hand - not a problem...!

So, thoughts - in bullet point form as it's not worth the effort to write a proper article.  There are plenty of them out there, just google the words "awesome" and "shiny" (probably).

• Camera - rather good.  I may start leaving my actual camera at home.  Although from the iPhone 3G you'd expect to see a bit of a jump.  You do however learn quickly to turn the thing on it's side when shooting video unless you want your videos to look like those curious narrow-vision clips of people's kids you see all the time on Facebook
• WiFi.  Probably my favourite new feature, Apple dropped support around July 2010 for this particular user (see my previous blog if you don't get the "joke")
• The general speed of the phone is incredible.  The 3G model had slowed down considerably over the years (probably due to the software upgrades that it couldn't really support) so the general zippiness of the new phone is pretty impressive. 
• Equally I'm not sure if this is just the 4S's new features or if it was like this on the 4, but the speed of 3G internet is amazing.
• iCloud is a mess.  Although I personally understand the concept there is precious little attempt to explain what it actually is to the uninitiated, instead featuring general "USE THIS" vibes all over the phone.  I'm now getting prompts to turn on automatic downloads on my phone every time I buy something on my computer.  Again, why?  If I want to, I will!  The same kind of assumption about the audience can be seen in the top headline of the new phone's features.  "Dual-core A5 chip".  Huh?  Oh, one of them.  Mum's always said she'd get an iPhone if they put a dual-core A5 chip in it...
• Random observation - the new "silent" switch as introduced on the iPhone 4 is much less easy to switch by accident.  This is a good thing.
• Multi-tasking is great.  Finally you can press a link without having to abandon what you were doing in the original programme.
• Siri...oh dear.  We got off on a bad start when I said my name and it replied "I don't understand 'I'm jealous' ".  Some people seem convinced this is the future.  Me, I feel like a dick shouting at my phone at home and look like one barking instructions out on the street.  It'd be easier if the thing worked - I seem to spent half of my time trying to get it to understand what I've said, and then it would have been quicker to do it myself.  It's also a faux pas to launch it in the UK with the message below popping up with alarming regularity.  Tsk at us all using "English English", we're so awkward...

• Retina display is pretty "wow".
• Although truth be told I'm not a big fan of notifications, the new notifications centre is great and long overdue, as is the ability to choose whether they pop up in the centre of the screen, subtley at the top or not at all.  One thing they could do with sorting though is the pay-as-you-go balance alert, which has remain the same screen-grey-out since launch three years ago and seems to have been forgotten about.  It looks particularly bad in landscape mode:

• iMessage is another good innovation, especially with regards to saving money on sending an MMS.  There is a bit of a bug though in that if you're on a rubbishy public wifi connection, and try to send a text to an iMessage phone, it just won't send as it can't get it through the wifi.  It would be good to have a quick way of reverting to classic SMS functionality (other than turning off wifi).
• The battery isn't great.  Looking at the forums it seems to be this year's antenna - the bit everyone complains about.  You can tell there's something up from this spec comparison chart - 100 hours less standby time than previous models.  As a former 3G owner I'm seeing an improvement but not as much as I'd liked. 

So what's the verdict?  Apple have clearly settled into a pattern of launching an upgrade of the previous phone one year and a newer model the next, and this isn't a bad thing in itself.  It was however bad timing for this year to be the year with a longer wait as they shifted the release pattern to the Christmas-friendly spot that the iPods used to occupy, as expectations were understandably high.  For the most-hyped aspect to be one that was previously available as an app on all models is a bit of a disappointment.  To me, Siri is this year's FaceTime.  Nice feature, but can't see myself using it much.   Although I hope the battery situation improves either through use or a software upgrade, it's still a superb phone.  Despite the gripes I wouldn't use anything else, something I'm pretty sure of after being given a Blackberry for work a few weeks back and it being a completely bloody nightmare to use!

Room 101.3

I've always loved Room 101.  The Nick Hancock series on BBC2 in the mid-90s was often hysterically funny - I remember one edition in particular with Alan Davies that I must have re-watched the VHS of dozens of times. I don't remember the radio series that spawned it on the original Radio 5, mainly because I was only 7 when it first aired but partly because no-one listened to the original Radio 5 (there's a whole book in why the format for that station didn't work.  Sport, children's, school's, youth, comedy, World Service and Radio 3 simulcasts - WTF?).

After three series Hancock moved on and his replacement was Paul Merton.  Although his take on the show was consistently entertaining, I found it rather less so than the Hancock years, although perhaps that's only because of the high expectations that Merton encourages.  He seemed a lot less discerning on Room 101 than he does on Have I Got News For You, with a more laid-back style than Hancock had displayed.  The title sequence seemed to be assembled by someone who had no idea what the format of the show was about (a bucket and spade? some grapes? ice cream? really?) and Merton was far too easily swayed when deciding whether items would be let into the titular room, all too often changing his mind for no particular reason when his hand was on the lever.

That said the show seemed to be popular enough and somewhat incredibly lasted another eight series under Merton.  When he moved on in 2007, rather than return with a new host, the show simply disappeared.  Which was a shame.  It always seemed to have a lot of mileage in it for such a simple formula.  So I was quite excited to hear in the summer that it was coming back, this time presented by Frank Skinner, who is a very good choice indeed.  Less exciting was the news that the format had been changed to a (whisper) panel show, with (shudder) audience interaction, so with some trepidation last night the wife-to-be and I went to the recording of the first episode of the third incarnation of Room 101.  Surprisingly the show has been commissioned for BBC One, which is a bit of a risk considering the changes to the format and the fact it has been off-air for five years.

As we were sternly told not to take photographs at any point before we went in, I didn't, although that didn't stop other people, meaning I can link you to this picture of the new set.  Frank sits on the right of the set at a desk with three levers.  The three panellists, for want of a better word, sit opposite each next to a small cabinet out of which rises their choice for Room 101 when Frank pulls the appropriate lever.  When an item is chosen for entry to the room, Frank pulls their lever again, the item descends back into their cabinet and, er, that's it.  There's a slight contradiction in this set-up as it implies that the items were all inside Room 101 in the first place.  It's also a lot less satisfying conclusion that the Hancock years' conveyor belt and Merton's trapdoor.

In the new format, Frank kicks off the show with a couple of example choices of his own, and one will almost certainly be dropped or heavily re-edited from our session as it was captioned "The Seven Dwarfs" on-screen, to which Frank commented he would have used a "v" himself.  This was bad timing as a later choice, tattoos, was illustrated with a misspelt example.  Pot, kettle anyone?  There are then three rounds, in which each guest tries to get an item inducted into Room 101.  The first two are themed ("people" and "going out" were our two examples).  Each panellist has an item they'd like to put into the room, and makes their case to Frank (often with interaction from the other guests), and at the end of the sequence Frank decides which one he will put in.  Then there's some audience choices, which were solicited via email beforehand.  I'll be surprised if these make it in the final cut as Frank seemed too keen to banter with nervous audience members who clearly weren't expecting to have to say much.  Then there's a wildcard round where the guests can choose anything, and finally Frank chooses an overall winner who gets to put in an additional bonus item of their own choice.

Presumably it's only a new format as no-one wanted to commission the old one any more, so let's not be too harsh.  It certainly wasn't a disaster and it brought back elements of the original Hancock series, with more of a structure and a competitive element put into the reasoning because the guests were competing against others.  The part where Frank decides also allows him to make jokes about why items stay out and why they will go in, which wasn't possible before.  Also, having three guests means that there will normally be someone the viewer likes, and hopefully not making them switch off if the guest was someone who simply wasn't very funny as before (Ron Atkinson anyone?).  The title sequence is also reminiscent of the Hancock series, whizzing around a vault with lot of items already in Room 101 - including, which amused us greatly, a tweet containing the words "om nom nom".  The theme music, whilst new, is similar to that used in the Merton opening.

Although I can see the format working, the edition we saw being recorded wasn't vintage.  The panellists were Alistair McGowan (admittedly dropping too many impressions in but as they're so good and that's what he does, fine), singer Josh Groban (who as anyone who saw him on Buzzcocks will know is very good value) and Someone From Dragon's Den.  I'm reliable informed it's the new, plasticy looking one who looks like she should be stealing dalmatians, but I really can't be arsed looking her up because to be honest she was the problem with the whole show.  She didn't know when to shut up (interrupting a McGowan anecdote about not liking beer with the revelation "I grew up in a pub and didn't like the smell of beer"), crashed people's punchlines and came across as completely unlikeable.  At one point she managed to crow-bar a  random reference to her many homes into a segment about pets, and when Groban referred back to this later on ticked him off saying she'd worked very hard for her property.  Kudos to Skinner for commenting, when her weighty bracelet dropped off loudly mid-segment, said "thank god it was your bracelet, that could have been anything".

Hopefully they were just getting used to the new format because there were also a couple of blunders where Skinner forgot to introduce a guest standing backstage and moved straight onto the next item.  There was no reference to it being the first show so I expect they'll launch with a really good episode and put this one out later on, as there were clearly nerves.  There were also some unexplained elements - both Frank and the guests sat in front of giant safe/vault doors.  Frank's was naturally labelled "101" but the guests' door was labelled "104" - eh?  Full marks to our warm-up man Chris Martin (not that one) who effortlessly kept us entertained all night.  We often find that the quality of the warm-up is inverse proportion to how funny the show is.  We had a dire warm-up for Harry Hill's TV Burp, but a superb up-and coming comedian for BBC3's Grownups back in 2005.  His name was Jason Manford!

I really hope it works ultimately.  After all, for all that it is derivative of Orwell, Room 101's origin is at the BBC, bringing us full circle.  The series is due for transmission in January.