My visit to New York was not all high culture. In Central Park a rat ran across my foot
Published 11 October 1999
Getting up at three in the morning is bad enough. Choosing something to wear at that moment is impossible. So what I usually do, Jeeves-like, is lay out something the night before, hoping the weather hasn't done a dramatic about-turn by morning. I suppose it doesn't really matter what you wear on the radio. In fact I once interviewed Sir Patrick Mayhew, when he was Northern Ireland secretary, in my nightie. I should quickly explain that he was on the telephone in Chicago, I was at home in bed, it was 11 o'clock at night and it was the only time we could do the recording before air time the next morning.
But it did make me wonder whether modern technology, including the possibility of ISDN lines at home, couldn't allow Today presenters to do the whole programme without getting out of bed. No dangers, then, of visits from the scruff police at White City, who have apparently decreed that some (male) correspondents need to smarten up - shave off beards, wear suits and ties, that sort of thing. Meanwhile wild horses wouldn't drag from me which of us on Today occasionally has paint stains on his trousers, or who once forgot her eye makeup.
In New York for a quick break, I got in to a rehearsal of New York City Opera's new production of Handel's Ariodante, which has since opened and is, according to the New York Times, a "triumph for the Brits". It's directed by a Brit - John Copley; conducted by one - Jane Glover; and stars a wonderful young mezzo from the English National Opera, Sarah Connolly. But I was interested to discover there's a debate there, as there is here, about enhanced stage acoustic. I should declare an interest, as I'm on the board of the National Theatre in London. A few months ago it was revealed, shock horror, that the National has installed in the Olivier theatre a new system of amplification. It's to overcome some of the notoriously difficult patches on that stage from which actors can be less than fully audible in some parts of the house.
Careful amplification is not at all the same as putting microphones on actors as if they were in a musical, but it started an argument about whether this is "cheating", and whether indeed actors can "project" their natural voices like they used to. They've just installed an electronic sound enhancement system at the New York City Opera, whose stage also had the reputation as an occasionally unfriendly space for voices. The NYCO prefers to call it "electronic architecture", but as with operatic surtitles, it's meant much grumbling in the arts press about unnecessary newfangled devices.
Personally I'm all for surtitles, and have nothing against a bit of subtle amplification if it means we can hear actors better on a huge barn of a stage. It's the relentless blasting out of sound from the popular musical stage on both sides of the Atlantic that's so tiresome. My ears still haven't quite recovered from Fosse on Broadway, though the dancing was brilliant.
In case you think my New York visit was all high culture, I should reveal that I had a very close encounter with a rat. It ran across my foot in Central Park. It was not at all like an English rat - in fact it was quite a pretty pale brown - but brushing off a rodent on a brisk early morning walk round the reservoir was not what I had in mind. Once it had skittered off into the undergrowth I could continue my observation of the joggers who swept past, round and round on the cinder track. Though most of them were enviably trim and quick, no one is too old, too slow or too fat to jog in Central Park. Some take the dog on a lead, others bowl along with specially adapted baby buggies. Many go in talkative pairs, yuppies with yuppies, the grey with the grizzled, the large with the tubby. It was rather encouraging. In my local park we are a solitary lot, each taking our different routes. So far, I've not seen a rat. But I did see a squirrel who thought nothing of climbing up a girl's leg to nick a bit of bread.
Portable satellite dishes allow people to talk to us on the Today programme on a good-quality link from just about anywhere. (Radio car links from south-west London can be something else again - and sometimes "Thought for the Day" has to be done on a crackly telephone line when a local studio won't work.) It still slightly unnerves me to chat to a correspondent from the safety of the studio in perfect audio when he or she is sheltering somewhere in East Timor or in an earthquake-shattered village in Turkey. The trouble is that the sound quality is usually so good that a casual listener might think the correspondent was sitting with us. So it's nice when there's some obliging gunfire in the background, or a jungle parrot shrieks.
One of the most evocative radio sounds I can remember came when I was talking (this was at the beginning of glasnost) to the Soviet foreign affairs man Georgy Arbatov, just after Chernobyl. We had difficulty in getting through to the Moscow studio. Then I heard the tinkling sound of jam being stirred into a glass of Russian tea. We were in touch. It was a sweet moment, almost as good as getting the first public comment on that Soviet tragedy.
That memory is sharp. But after what over the years must, for me, amount to tens of thousands of radio interviews, too many have blurred into the background. But hope is at hand. A scientist in Boston says that a cup of blueberries a day sharpens balance, co-ordination and memory. Note, please, to BBC caterers: a measure of blueberry juice in the Today breakfast order. All I'll have to do is remember to take it.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
