Edinburgh Fringe Blog

This week Kate and I have been at the Fringe in Edinburgh, and as I've got a long train journey to kill I thought I'd write a piece about what sort of things we've been seeing this week.  It's the blog equivalent of showing someone your holiday snaps, except you now have the opportunity to go and look at something more interesting as opposed to having to sit with a fixed grin looking at about 400 photos of Tenerife.  Incidentally, that's something that wouldn't have been a problem last time we came to the Fringe.  Kate has a special talent that means she perhaps sometimes doesn't take entirely representative photos of events.  This is her complete "Edinburgh 2010" collection:

 

 

 

I think the thing about those pictures is it really makes you feel like you were there.

 

Comedy was one of the first thing that we found we had in common - Kate still talks misty-eyed of the time she noticed the DVD of Look Around You in my student bedroom - so it surprising in a way that we didn't visit the Fringe until six years into our relationship.  We had an amazing time once we did make the journey though.  It's the sort of thing I'd love to be able to do every year but the cost would make it a bit excessive.  This year we were lucky enough to have a travel voucher Kate had won in her previous job (for being, like, generally ace) and enough East Coast reward points to cover a return first class train ticket.  As such we could tell ourselves that we were paying very little to get there and stay over so we were still "saving money for the wedding" (yeah right...).

Hello Edinburgh!

 

As a rule of thumb we tried to book two or three shows a day, and leave the rest to what took our fancy while we were up there.  We ended up seeing a total of 18 shows in our four days at the Fringe, if anything a little too many but you can hardly say we didn't make the most of it...!  On our first trip we were glad we booked so many shows in advance given the amount of sell-outs we were at.  The hoary old cliche of "just seeing where the buzz was around" didn't really work then, but this year the Olympics effect has seen audiences down across the board, and tickets for most of the shows we saw could have been bought on the day. In fact in one case a late two-for-one offer meant we actually lost money by booking ahead.  Anyway - with the proviso that everyone was far more talented than I'll ever be, here's a few thoughts on each of the shows we saw.

 

Monday

 

1. Josie Long: Romance and Adventure

 

 

I'm not a huge fan of Josie but Kate was keen to see her. I find a lot of the "aren't Tories twats?" school of comedy a bit cringey, as although I largely agree that yes, most of them are, coming from such a tribal Labour supporter as Josie it's a bit rich to ignore everything that went seriously wrong under that fairly right wing government before 2010. I thought the sections of the show that worked best, ironically, were the less political bits, such as talking about turning thirty (and specifically MSN Live's piss-poor list of things to do before that landmark birthday, one of which was "have sex") and the end of her relationship.  Still, she's hugely likeable and it was good for the first show we saw to be nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award.

2. Richard Herring: Talking Cock - The Second Coming

 

When we started going out Kate and I realised that we, along with my sister, were among the rather select group that had avidly watched Lee and Herring's This Morning With Richard Not Judy in the late 1990s.  We've continued to follow their solo careers, so naturally we went to see Richard Herring's latest offering, a revival of his Fringe show from exactly ten years ago (in fact I remember one of York's student papers running an interview with Herring about the show in the first issue after I arrived).  As ever Herring is nothing if not consistent and this was one of our favourite shows of the week. We now know all we ever need to know about the purple-headed womb broom.

 

3. Iain Stirling: Happy To Be The Clown

Iain and Hacker are the new Ed and Oucho, who in turn were the modern day Andi and Edd, who were the new Phillip and Gordon (keep up). In recent years CBBC have employed a number of stand-up comedians as continuity presenters to good effect including Ed Petrie, Holly Walsh and now Iain Stirling.  We both quite like Iain's style of presenting in the broom cupboard - I mean office, so looked forward to seeing his show, which was in the smallest venue yet (a cunningly disguised "seminar room 2" going by the signs), so at least he must have felt at home.  Although Stirling makes references to his day job it's an adult show, and quite a confident, funny one too.  We look forward to seeing more!

Tuesday

4. Harry Hill: My Hobby 

 

Actually part of the Art Festival rather than the Fringe, this was a display of Hill's paintings over the years, drawn whilst starring in Channel 4's Harry Hill and ITV1's TV Burp.  Most are related to celebrity in some way, from "You All Missed Me" (a drawing of the London whale surrounded by the 2006 contestants of Celebrity Big Brother) to "Schofield's Dream" (a visualisation of what must run through Pippy's mind having to cover so many topics for This Morning).  It's superb stuff, and it's great seeing him explore other areas now that the equally superb TV Burp has finally come to an end.

 

5. Free Fringe

We went to see a free "musical comedy" show on the basis of a nice chat the performer had with us in the queue for something else.  I haven't named it as the guy was really lovely and I don't want him Googling himself and finding this, and as a free show it's not really fair to criticise as with paid shows, but it did fall fairly flat.  An important lesson that this sort of thing is not as easy as it might look!

 

6. David O'Doherty: Seize The David O'Doherty

Although by no means a newcomer O'Doherty stuck out for Kate and I last year through his appearances on the BBC's Fringe highlights with his hilarious "party" song and protestations that he is "not Chris O'Dowd, no matter how much you may think I am".  It's another superb show, this time dealing with the end of his relationship (yep, another one) and Ireland's financial crisis, which has apparently resulted in the appearances of shops in Dublin called "Value Bastard".

7. Chris Martin - Spot The Difference

 

We knew of Chris through his warm-up act on the episode of Room 101 we went to see last year.  He was effortlessly entertaining and quite a warm and friendly compere, which is always nice to see.  As is often the case with great MCs it didn't transfer with total ease into an hour of material, so a little disappointing.  Unsurprisingly the funniest bits were the unplanned sections - such as chastising someone for clicking a pen before backing off quickly after realising it was a reviewer.

8. Set List: Standup Without A Net

 

Set List is a bit of an Edinburgh institution, assembling a lineup of comics and getting them to perform a late-night set on the fly based on random subjects that appear on the screen behind them, all in the impressive "Caves" venue of Just The Tonic. We saw this one by chance, after hearing of the lineup whilst queuing for something else, and somehow they'd managed to get Phill Jupitus, Al Murray and Greg Proops on same night.  Equally amazingly we managed to get a couple of returns.  It's a scary sight, witnessing comics at the top of their game scrabbling around for ideas, but most pull it off.  Entertaining stuff!
 

The amazing "caves" venue inside Just The Tonic

Wednesday

9. The Richard Bacon Show
 

Bacon/Hasselhoff

Um, yeah.  Whilst taking a look at the BBC area of the Fringe a clipboard-sporting member of Auntie's top team asked if we'd like to see Richard Bacon interview David Hasselhoff.  Er...why not? So within moments we were inside the BBC tent watching Bacon's 5 Live show go out, with The Hoff himself in attendance.  Bizarre.

 

10. Toby Hadoke: My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver

I'm not sure there's anyone who hasn't seen Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, such was the frequency of performance of Hadoke's predecessor show to this one, but it's an entertaining sequel dealing with the end of his relationship (another one?!) and his attempts to form a relationship with his deaf stepson.  Hadoke's "Now I Know My BBC" in 2010 was a real disappointment, amounting to little more than "wasn't Bagpuss great?", so this was a great return to form.  You could however sense his slight astonishment at teenage girl Doctor Who fans in the audience hanging on his every word, something he and indeed I could have done with back in our adolescent years.

Pleasance venues

 

11. Wit Tank

OK, we had a gap in our evening schedule so thought we'd see some sketch comedy for a change, cleverly scheduled before our existing pre-booked sketch comedy straight afterwards.  But despite the "LOL?!" name Wit Tank are a confident, slick outfit who effortlessly fill an hour, although some of the material later on in the show didn't fly too well.  Although maybe that's what happens when you have the immediate comparison of Pappy's strait after.

Arthur's Seat

 

12. Pappy's: Last Show Ever!

Wow.  Maybe it was the news that they'd been nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award, confirmed earlier that day, but even given that the trio are acknowledged to be at the peak of their abilities this was a triumph of a show.  Highlights included a song about gloves, a real-life Choose Your Own Adventure and an on-stage relationship.  They make it look so, so bloody easy.

13. BBC Rapper Bloke

 

Not strictly a show but Kate said I should put it in anyway.  Whilst waiting at the BBC bar there was a performance by a freestyle vocalist on the nearby stage who specialised in recording his own voice and building it up into a song of it's own.  The sort of thing that you've seen many times before but done really, really well.  I don't know his name though, so this is a bit of a crap review.  It's to the Beeb's credit that they've really gone to town with the Fringe coverage the last couple of years, although in a reliably BBC way.  Clearly there aren't enough venues already in Edinburgh so they've had to build one of their own, and there appeared to actually be someone going round making sure the tables were the regulated space apart from each other.

 14. BBC Comedy Presents

 

An interesting one this. Thanks to Kate's contacts in the world of You Tube/the BBC/comedy in tents (oh, I don't know), we got into this one for free, but given the somewhat broad title didn't really know what to expect.  It turned out to be an incredible one-off show by Jarred Christmas and a full choir, basically creating a religious act of worship towards the musical output of 1992. So you had Sleeping Satellite, House of Love, Would I Lie To You and more.  All the more amazing was that it was a Fringe exclusive, with the aim apparently being to have a full run in London.  We're exactly the right age for that kind of show but it became apparent that many of the people around us were clearly either too old or too young.  "I was only two in 1992" moaned one guy right at the front.  Well, you missed out then.  Unfortunately quite a few older members of the audience left well before the end, odd given they paid £12 to be there.  Given the BBC involvement no doubt they were expecting a cosy panel of Radio 4 regulars attempting to decipher regional accents.

 

Thursday

15. Richard Herring's Edinburgh Fringe Podcast

Not that the title really needs much more explanation but this was a daily chat show featuring Mr Herring and a different guest every day, usually another fringe performer, which is available to download for free after it is recorded.  It takes place at the legendary Stand comedy club, one of the few venues we visited which is actually home to comedy in the other eleven months of the year.  Rich seemed to think the show wasn't going down very well but it seemed fine from where we were sitting, and Kate even managed to interject when she found out the fiancée of guest Nick Doody grew up in Hebden Bridge and now lives in Crouch End.  As Rich said: slightly stalker-ish.

Typical Edinburgh weather

 

16. Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World

It's slightly unusual for a show to have its final run in Edinburgh after a nationwide tour, but this is the case with Carpet Remnant World.  Although better than his most recent pieces,  I have to confess (with a bit of guilt...) I'm start to tire a little of Lee's output.  Considering he is someone who holds such strong views on what comedy should entail, it feels a little like we've been seeing the same show annually for the last few years.  Whilst I can see his point on the commercialisation of the Fringe, there is a huge middle ground between the massive venues charging £30 a show and the dingy cellars showing newcomers.  Plus, he can rail against the "big four" Fringe companies all he likes, but once you're playing an enormous room yourself with a show that's over a year old there's an argument you aren't really keeping to the spirit of the Fringe yourself.  Or maybe we were just annoyed he overran and we nearly didn't make our next show...

Edinburgh Castle

 

17. Claudia O'Doherty: The Telescope

One we saw purely on David O'Doherty's recommendation (no relation), and the fact it was nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award while we were there.  I hate to sound like a pleb but it didn't really work for me.  I can see exactly what it's trying to do - the classic "show goes wrong and performer tries to get it back on track" setup, but for me it didn't hang together too well, and I got the feeling a lot of the audience (perhaps also there on the strength of the nomination) were similarly baffled.  We saw the concept done much better Johnny Sweet (interestingly a show also from Invisible Dot) but the ambition of the show both in the staging and the concept was impressive.

 

Friday

18. Bridget Christie: War Donkey

Our final show, and one we saw on the strength of her turn at her husband's "Silver Stewbilee" gala show two years ago as "A. Ant", a brilliant piece of work on the criticisms sometime levelled at female comedians.  We were a bit disappointed that this show initially  appeared to be using the war donkey to make exactly the same joke, but thankfully the show moved on from the point quite quickly.  It's another Josie Long for me unfortunately.  Despite agreeing with the political and feminist points made, for me the lurch from jokes to genuine anger that we're expected to cheer in the same way sits somewhat awkwardly in a comedy show, and as a man it was sometimes a little difficult not to feel as if some of the fire was being directed at me, such were the various misdemeanours my sex has been responsible for.  It's a very awkward position for me to express so I apologise for it not coming across very well, as I feel bad for even appearing to criticise a comic of Christie's talents (and, for me at least, she is far superior to Long), but it's the general tone I find a bit awkward to process at times.

 

 

And that was that! More by accident than design we managed to see three shows nominated for the Fosters Comedy Award, and this weekend it's been announced that the winner is...Doctor Brown.  Ah well, the old Buf-worth curse strikes again.  We have absolutely no doubt however that it should have gone to Pappy's.  Calling it a sketch show is a bit of an insult really as they've taken the genre and turned it into the most incredible mix of comedy - standup, sketch, music and even theatre all in the space of an hour.  One can only presume the Fosters judges wanted to push the boundaries a little but you do wonder when the trio will hit the big time.  By the nature of their act they haven't managed to break into the Live at the Apollo/Comedy Roadshow type of national exposure, although perhaps this is no bad thing. 

 

When there was a power cut during the all-night BBC Red Button Comedy Marathon earlier in August, host Chris Ramsay said "this is what comedy's really like! Forget Michael Mcintyre in a shiny suit chatting to Gok Wan, we're in a tent in the dark!". And that for me sums up the problems with those mainstream comedy shows.  When I was younger I thought it would be great to have more standup on mainstream TV, but now there is it seems to be the same dozen or so faces performing to the same enormous theatres seemingly on a loop.  It is far from perfect but the wonderful thing about the Fringe is staggering in off the street to see someone on the basis of a what you've heard that day, and sitting in a converted cellar holding a pint in a plastic glass.  And as I finish this I'm now back at home on the sofa watching a Will.i.bloody.am video on the TV as I write this, I'd love to be back in those tiny dingy rooms again!

London 2012: Right Here, Right Now

What a week!  I wrote my previous blog just after the Olympic torch had arrived in London and the final countdown to the start of the games was beginning.  I don't think even by my stupidly overexcited standards I could have guessed just how much the UK and in particular London would have been gripped by Olympic fever in the subsequent days as people finally swung around in support of the games after years of, let's face it, moaning about it.  If there was a medal awarded for complaining then the Great British Public (TM) would win every time (lame joke copyright every newspaper ever).

Torch-bearers at Islington Town Hall

The credit for much of that has to go to the torch relay that ran for seventy days in advance of the start of the games, and apparently travelled within ten miles of 95% of the population.  The relay really helped spread some of the Olympic fever around the country and answer the criticism that it was a London-only event.  The BBC offered pioneering coverage of the entire relay using 3G to relay the pictures to be watched online and occasionally the red button.  The tactic of awarding people the chance to carry the torch based on their contribution to the community also brought some positive coverage, although the amount of celebrities who got to carry it was a little excessive.  I'll forgive Matt Smith in Cardiff and Bruce Forsyth in White City, but Will.i.am carrying it through Taunton extracted the urine somewhat.  His local links are as yet unconfirmed and the timing seemed more to promote the climax of the piss-poor talent show he was appearing than anything to do with the Olympics.

The Olympic Torch on Upper Street

The final week saw it touring London and I was lucky enough to see the flaming thing twice (see what I did there?).  On Wednesday evening it reached Haringey and the people of Crouch End downed their hummus and focaccia in order to see it run past the edge of the area on the final leg of that day, on the route from Turnpike Lane to Alexandra Palace.  What's been less reported is the array of corporate crap that proceeds the torch itself - Coca Cola, Samsung and Lloyds TSB all have their own floats that precede the main event, the latter sadly not booed by the crowd who were in high spirits.  I consume rather a lot of Diet Coke so I couldn't really boo them, and unlike Apple I have no real issues with Samsung.  Tom and I witnessed the torch being passed to a young woman in a wheelchair, who was announced with unfortunate timing as the Coke float blared out the timeless LMFAO lyrics "hey look at that body....I work out".  Early on Thursday I went to see it with Kate in Angel, getting a much better view this time and hearing big cheers for the next torch-bearer (who we later found out was David Walliams).  By that evening excitement had reached fever-pitch at an event in Hyde Park, and - credit where it's due - Boris Johnson gave a terrific speech to the crowd.



And then....the opening ceremony.  There's not a lot that hasn't been said about it so it's perhaps difficult to know where to start, but...wasn't it just the most brilliant thing, ever?  The real genius of it was all the pre-publicity focussing on the "green and pleasant land" bit at the start (represented by the scene that plays out in John Major's head as real life) which was then promptly ripped up within the first fifteen minutes of the show proper.  So many moments sprung out as superb.  The brilliant opening going up the Thames, with the best bits undoubtedly the theme to The South Bank Show ringing out as the shot lurched over the Waterloo area and the sudden swoop-out to show the whole of east London accompanied by the EastEnders drum beat.  The frankly astonishing "industrial revolution" segement, and the poppy-framed pause in the middle to remember casulaties of war.  The Queen and James Bond - whatever your opinion of her, a few years ago that bit would have been inconceivable.  The touching tributes to the NHS and Tim Berners-Lee.  Rowan Atkinson turning a potential loo-break into unmissable TV.  The bit with Beckham and the speedboat - he may not be an Olympian, but his appeal and sportsmanship undoubtedly helped bring the games to these shores, and I hope John Terry was watching to see what he'll never be. 



And, of course, the lighting of the torch.  After all the speculation of who would light it, with the focus on the legacy of the event of course it was always going to be the young sporting stars of the future.  Coupled with the cauldron being made up of "petals" brought into the stadium by each of the participating nations, the moment where it was lit and brought together - representing the uniting power of the Olympics - was perhaps one of the most moving things we'll ever see, at least on this scale.  I have to admit there might have been "something in my eye" at that point, and it wasn't the first time that night.



After years of getting bigger and louder and brasher, Danny Boyle has redefined the art of the opening ceremony.  In truth there was little else we could do after Sydney's party, Athens' heritage and Beijing's spectacle, but few expected it to be executed so flawlessly, and to be such a love letter to our history, culture and humour.  He managed to get us hand-wringing lefties to finally feel comfortable with a form of patriotism by linking it to the UK as it stands in the world now, rather than trumpeting past military glories.  Much of the credit should also go to Underworld, who arranged the music used throughout the ceremony.  The soundtrack album is required listening and has been number 1 in the iTunes album chart for much of the last week, with the two standout track undoubtedly And I Will Kiss (from the industrial revolution sequence) and Caliban's Dream (from the lighting of the flame).  Other than by insane Tory MPs and the Daily Mail (always a tough crowd to please) the show was universally acclaimed. Perhaps unsurprisingly the broadcast is the highest rated programme of the century so far, silencing all but the most miserable of Olympic moaners. 

At St. Pancras International Station

Kate and I were lucky enough to have got tickets to see some swimming heats in the infamous first draw of tickets, but the sting in the tail was the time on our alarm clock.  A start time of 10am, being advised to get there two hours before for security checks, and then having to get there in the first place resulted in it waking us up at 5.45am on the morning of Sunday 29th.  Shortly after 7am we were at St. Pancras station to catch the infamous "Javelin" train that transports you to Stratford in just seven minutes (and Ebbsfleet International, should you so wish).  Upon arriving at the Olympic Park we were immediately bowled over by the enthusiasm and friendliness of the volunteers, cheerfully pointing us in the right direction.  Some spotted some foreign visitors, asked what country they were from and asked for a cheer for that nation - which of course was obliged by the crowd.  It's at this point you finally get the whole "people's games" schtick.  Security was fairly painless but again, friendly, with even the controversial military prescence taking time to chat to excited children in the queue.

We're in!

Once we were in the park there was such an incredible atmosphere, like nothing I've experienced before.  I found myself speaking to strangers next to us at the swimming and in the queue for food, everyone equally excited.  We were lucky enough to Rebecca Adlington's 400m heats, and she actually won her heat to everyone's delight, although obviously this successs didn't translate to gold later in the day.  Following our session in the Aquatics Centre we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the Olympic Park.  It's an impressive development and is much-lauded, with previous groups of venues apparently not landscaped as extensively. 

The Orbit (left)

There's naturally a great feel to the place and it was undoubtedly a good experience to visit it, but one thing that's pleased me about the games is the use of venues across the capital.  I initially thought that it was a bit of a cop-out, with the focus naturally on Stratford, but using the landmarks in events such as the marathon and the beach volleyball has provided the most wonderful backdrop and global advertisement for London. 

In the Aquatics Centre

Of course, it's not over till it's over.  The expected boost to London's economy hasn't come yet (unless you have a unit in Westfield Stratford City) and there may yet be recriminations if it's judged TFL has been over-zealous with their advice.  But as an experience it's been unparalleled.  I've lost count of the number of people I know who normally wouldn't give sport the time of day who've been gripped by the coverage, which incidentally the Beeb has excelled at.  It also looks like giving the Paralympics a huge boost at the end of August.  Tickets to that have been selling well following the success of the main event and following the opening ceremony and our trip to the Olympic Park, we've bought tickets to the Paralympics closing ceremony on September 9th.

Personally - and to be monumentally slushy for a moment - it's cemented my love for the capital.  When I first visited here, aged 17 or 18, I was put off by the size, how busy it was and of course the cost of living.  I wasn't entirely convinced when I moved down a few years later but figured it'd be worth it just to be with Kate (and of course for my career).  But the following seven years have changed my opinion of the place completely.  I adore the north but I also love London in an entirely different way, and the Olympics has really confirmed that by proving that we can stage such a massive event, we can welcome the world to our city and we can put on a bloody good party.

And we're not too bad at the actual sport either.

Going For Gold

"The heat is....the time is right...it's time for you...for you to play the game...cos people are coming, everyone's trying, trying to be the best that they can....to reach for the sky cos the stake's are so high when they're going for going for gold!"

So sang the theme tune of the seminal late 80s/early 90s programme Going For Gold, and although it does seem a tad over the top for a daytime gameshow the sentiments are undoubtedly heartfelt.  The later lyrics in the obligatory slightly-mental extended version (here juxtaposed, entirely appropriately, with clips from Thomas the Tank Engine) include the lines "all we need is a little more sacrifice" and "go for it - only the best survive!", so I must have missed the episode where Henry Kelly despatched failed contestants with the death penalty.  For those of a certain age, Going For Gold represents being off school ill.  It's wider legacy is the British public's antipathy towards Europe.  Challenge TV recently began repeating the first series, and in the first episode Henry Kelly genuinely asks the Dutch contestant if he wears clogs. 

But I'm not rattling on about an ancient TV programme for no reason.  You know me - I'd never do that.  The Challenge repeats have emerged with surely deliberate timing as the London 2012 Olympic Games are almost upon us, and it amused me no-end to hear that at the Team GB football friendlies last Friday the crowd, in an attempt to find a chant for a team that hadn't played for over 50 years, at one point settled on singing the Going For Gold theme tune. 

I make no apology for being more than a little excited about the Olympics.  As with so much in life it's quite easy to sit sniping and criticising something as huge as this, with so much that could go wrong.  Pretty much since the off I've been genuinely thrilled to have the Olympics in the UK because....it's the Olympics!!  The biggest show on earth, on our doorstep, with the eyes of the world watching.  Amongst all the shite that we're supposed to be patriotic about, it would seem churlish not to take such a great opportunity to show the world how wonderful London and the UK as a whole is by inviting them all over to see it.

I do confess to having a bit of a personal side to this excitement though.  When the 2012 games were awarded to London, Kate was in London for a job interview for a documentary researcher role.  I was with three of my York Uni friends - Rowan, Tom and Dave, and we'd just been to the York Dungeon (as you do) as part of the 2005 YSTV Summer Expedition to, erm, York (it's a long story...).  As the announcement was due at lunchtime we wandered around the city centre trying to find a TV we could watch the announcement on.  Dixons was shut for refurbishment so we eventually ended up in HSBC, where a few people had had the same idea.  Shortly after the announcement the York town crier announced the news to everyone in Parliament Street!  Despite being in London Kate had no idea of the news until I texted it to her.  Shortly afterwards she found out she'd got the job, and the following month moved down to the capital, and I joined her in September.  So the announcement of the success of the London 2012 bid pretty much coincides with us somewhat unexpectedly moving to the city, and it feels like the end of a very long journey with all the associated jobs, flats and changes along the way.  I don't think either of us knew whether we'd still be living here when it finally happened, or that we'd be planning our wedding at the same time!  The video below is from my own VHS recording of the BBC programme - note the BBC North East & Cumbria headlines towards the end, as we were still in York, and the second at the very end of the next item on the VHS, something that happened the following morning, which we'd all rather forget.

I've just bought the Olympic Radio Times, at the bumper cost of £2, seemingly to finance a pull-out that repeats the sport listings from the main pages, in case you wanted to read it twice.  OK, it's not quite that pointless - there are the 24 HD Olympic channel listings too, a quite incredible technological achievement never done before and, thanks to the current government, unlikely to be seen again.  It's all a far cry from the last Olympics in London in 1948 when three and a half hours of coverage a day were provided, which they felt the need to point out they expected no-one to watch continuously!   The first games I remember were the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.  Me and my sister had a branded "scatch" game, which seems hilariously dated and forgotten about now - so much so there's barely anything online when you search about it.  It was good though.  And on the broadcast side, only BBC1 and 2 back then - 1988 being the final games to be covered by ITV also - and also had the heart-breaking side effect of displacing Andi Peters from the broom cupboard onto BBC2.  Saturday morning kids' TV (remember that?) was cancelled entirely, with my favourite programme of the time that no-one else remembers Parallel 9 having to come up with a storyline to explain disappearing for the next fortnight. 

1993 brought the disappointment of Manchester not getting the 2000 games, although they would host the 2002 Commonwealth Games instead.  All I remember about Atlanta 1996 is the theme tune, the bomb and the poor Team GB performance.  2000 brought a complete reversal in fortunes and a superb games in Sydney, accompanied by a terrific BBC opening sequence (although that ending transition into the studio looked bad even then).  Other than the race to complete the venues, I have to admit I don't recall a great deal about Athens 2004 itself - being rather more occupied with a girl I'd just started seeing - although I do remember editing a feature for BBC Radio Merseyside, where I was on work experience at the time, called the "household Olympics".  The legendary Tony Snell got people to ring in and do things like dusting and hoovering in return for medals.  We jokingly disqualified one woman when we found out she was a cleaner, as after all this was an amateur competiton.  She rang in later on, furious, having to be calmed down by the producer.  What a farce.  And 2008 can be summed up in one word: MONKEY.

Back to 2012 and Kate and I were lucky enough to get tickets in the original draw for some swimming heats at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park on the morning of Sunday 29th.  They start at 10am, and we need to get to security by 8am, so I'm really looking forward to my alarm going off that morning.  But it should be an amazing experience.  Despite the efforts of G4S it looks like it will be an incredible fortnight.  If you're one of those people boasting how you're going to on holiday to get away from the Olympics, or saying you're glad you're not in London...so be it.  The rest of us are looking forward to the biggest peacetime event the UK has ever hosted and the celeberation of a lifetime to go with it.  This epic editorial from last weekend's Observer puts it far better than I ever could.

The BBC looks set to do an amazing job in covering the event, which brings me back to where I started.  As amazing as the Elbow promotional film is, I think it works better with a slight change to the soundtrack.  This version, from everyone's second favourite video-sharing site Vimeo, is the icing on the cake.  I can't think who would have taken the time to re-edit the whole thing.  It must have taken, perhaps, his whole Saturday afternoon.  What a loser.


Going For Olympic Gold from crunchend on Vimeo.

Enjoy the games!

Digital Love

Last night Kate and I went to see the Arqiva Switch Over Night light show from the Crystal Palace transmitter.  The previous night had seen the analogue signal switched off in the London area and to mark the final relay transmitters being switched onto the new digital signal, Arqiva had decided to hold a publicity stunt - I mean a celebration to mark this historic occasion, by lighting up the mast.  As a confirmed TV geek I was keen to go.  Kate went along with it all...although she's as much of a geek as me and tends to keep it hidden!

Crystal Palace transmitter before night desceneded

It wasn't the best night for the light show. Pretty horrendous weather all week meant it was cold and wet, and reports indicated that the visibility was such that the show wouldn't be able to be seen from across south London as had orignally been the intention. Still, the locals were getting in on the act with most of the surrounding pubs unusually busy for a Wednesday night, and some even putting on special celebrations themselves. Arqiva had orignally advised spectators to head to local pubs to watch the show, as Crystal Palace Park is usually shut from the early evening onwards. They even went to the effort of publicising a "tweetup" on their website - perhaps not entirely understanding how tweetups tend to be organised - and held in a pub...round the back of the Crystal Palace triangle with no visibility of the mast at all.

Along with hundreds of others we headed into the park at about 9pm. Eventually we found a good viewing spot and as the clock ticked up to 9.15pm we waited. And waited. By 9.25pm it was clear something had either gone very wrong, or the "VIP event" was overrunning badly. A quick check of Twitter revealed that it was the latter - but most of the public waiting in the wet were none the wiser. Holding a heavily publicised celebration that the public could not attend was a slightly odd decision, especially when the thing overran and left all the plebs like ourselves standing outside the marquee waiting for things to start. We noticed a few people give up and leave, and general sarcasm rippled through those that remained ("when they said it was switch-off time, we didn't think they meant the power").

Kate in position and waiting!

Switch-off itself has gone incredibly well across the UK - far better than most had imagined. In fact, it's been reported today that nearly half of the money earmarked for helping people switch will be handed back by the BBC to the government. As well as my aforementioned geekery it's a process which I can claim a very small part in. Arqiva's engineering work requests all need to be approved by broadcasters, and this very glamorous role has been held by yours truly for a few years now. Numerous transmitters have been shutdown for periods to enable the work to convert them to be ready for the switch, and when particularly large numbers of people have been hit I've needed to contact the relavent local news programme and ask them to mention it to give viewers a bit of warning. I swear the head of news at Meridian must hate me as they've had an awful lot of shutdowns. Finally I schedule regional continuity annoucements to warn viewers to expect disruption. Basically I've been the bringer of bad news for the last three years.

Digit Al switches off analogue.  This is actually how it happened.

Thirsty work, ending eras.

I'd previously seen the Winter Hill analogue switch-off in December 2009 back home in the Wirral. To most normal people it's not a process that looks particularly interesting (although BBC Wales and S4C made a bit of a fuss when Wales went) but there is something quite final and rather sad about the plug being pulled on a method of broadcast that has brought so much television to us over the decades. And lest we forget, television is what brought Kate and I together and for the time being is helping me pay the rent, so it's something quite close to my heart. So two and a bit years later it was London's turn. Predictably there was a lot of media interest in this one, some of it with the usual London-bias (as was pointed out, this isn't the end of analogue - Northern Ireland has that honour in October) but some of it justifiable, given that this is the largest number of people to be switched in one go, and also the birthplace of television. What was less obvious was the sudden outpouring of Ceefax and Teletext nostalgia ("remember bamboozle, lol") when this had been disappearing for years anyway and still has sometime to run in yet-to-switch areas and overnight on BBC Two. 

Here in London, with BBC Two having switched off on 4th April, Channel 4 was the first to go just after midnight with a reappearance of what I'm told was their original testcard, meaning it was the first and last thing to be shown on C4 analogue in London. BBC One followed shortly after with a mention from the continuity announcer that Mark Thompson was flicking the switch - notably making it the first thing he's shut down successfully in his time as Director General. ITV1 was the next to go twenty minutes later after Ladette To Lady, which I don't think I've ever paid so much attention to before. Insiders on one forum claimed a caption was due on ITV1 marking the end of analogue from Crystal Palace but in the heat of the moment didn't happen. Finally Channel 5 - which has always been transmitted from Croydon - disappeared in the middle of a programme at about 0045. And with that slightly abrupt end, analogue was gone in the capital.

The following night, at 9.30pm the suits in the tent started to move outside to watch the lighting of the transmitter. The Arqiva party had assembled a number of people to help mark the historic moment that the capital switched to digital, including legendary broadcaster David Attenborough, legendary scientist Brian Cox, legendary children's TV host Floella Benjamin, legendary executives Greg Dyke and Peter Bazalgette, and presenter Chris Evans. The job of hitting the switch was appropriately given to Attenborough, who had begun his career at the birthplace of television, Alexandra Palace, which was the original London transmitter from 1936.

A countdown was held - 3, 2, 1.....and nothing. The tower remained in darkness. That ripple of sarcasm became general hilarity amongst the public as we wondered whether we were witnessing one of the biggest screw-ups in public relations history. But then the light show began and, to be fair, it was pretty cool to watch. The mist and rain actually added to the effect of the light beams pulsating through the sky. It was just over very quickly, and didn't really merit the description "show", as it was basically an elaborate switch-on routine, followed by leaving the lights on for 90 minutes. They did however miss a trick by not using the opportunity to project the Thundercats logo into the sky.

All in all it was a curiously British occasion. Having made a huge fuss it as an event for people to come along to, visitors were left standing in the rain outside a tent full of people on a corporate jolly. When the show finally began fifteen minutes late it was over pretty quick. As we moved forward to get a better picture of the lit-up mast, someone leant forward over the barriers and shouted "EVANS, YOU WANKER", which rather summed up the evening. The new age of digital broadcasting had arrived in the capital - and somewhat appropriately for this there was a repeat of the light show scheduled the following evening.

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.