On the Today website, our listeners can see me sticking up two fingers at the production team
Published 27 November 2000
Big Brother is watching us. Or rather, in the corner of our studio, a tiny webcam is: a small, beady eye that shows you what goes on each morning in the Today studio. You can see Jim Naughtie biting a frill round the edge of his Styrofoam coffee cup; John Humphrys rushing out after one of the guests for a private conversation; or me sticking up two fingers at the production team - strictly to find out, needless to say, if I have two guests next or just one.
It's rather unnerving to think that the nation, and even the great wide cyber- connected world out there, can watch us broadcasting. Whatever happened to those two great ingredients of radio, mystery and imagination? Admittedly the image, although it is in colour, is rather small and jerky - more early silent film than state of the cinematic art; but you can certainly see us working away, warts and all.
Already, there have been e-mailed objections to rumpled clothes and to our animated reaction to some (unseen) interviewees. The pictures can be found on the Today website, which has been extraordinarily popular. In its first week, it had almost 600,000 "hits", which is by far the greatest number of any programme on Radio 4. It also boasts something called "live chat". This means that listeners can e-mail guests, or presenters, and ask them questions, which will get an (almost) instant reply.
Last Friday, it was my turn to submit myself. One query that didn't make it on to the site, through lack of time, was from a woman police officer, who asked if I think men are uncomfortable being questioned by a woman, as she has sometimes found. Not as much as they used to be, I e-mailed back. Captains of industry no longer call me "my dear", or say my listeners wouldn't be interested in the balance sheet, as I was told on Woman's Hour in the 1970s.
Regular readers of the NS may recall that, a couple of years ago, I complained bitterly about the move of Today from Broadcasting House to the wilds of White City in west London. It was all about cohabiting with our cousins in television, and had some logic on paper, but none at all in practice. It has just been announced that we are to move back again. Not till 2008 or some such date - which will be long after I've been wheeled away in a bath chair - but, all the same, a very loud cheer rang out in our office. Fewer and fewer people have been coming in to talk to us, face to face. And why should they? As we predicted, busy people don't want to be thrown out of our studios and on to the Westway, one of London's busiest commuter roads, in the middle of the rush hour. Hence the large number of interviews that we have to conduct "down the line" - which means a greater possibility of technical error and poor-quality links.
I have noticed a curious thing, however. Since the webcam arrived, the number of guests actually coming in has suddenly increased dramatically. Can this be because it was thought viewers would tire of endless shots of Jim, John and me talking to empty chairs? Are we bribing guests with promises of real coffee and scrambled eggs? Or is it pure coincidence?
This week, I've had a chance to participate in two of television's longest-running entertainment programmes. One of them was Call My Bluff, with the opposing teams hosted by the brilliant Sandi Toksvig and Alan Coren, where the guests have as good a time gossiping in the hospitality room as they do when they're playing the game. It's all filmed in advance, in front of a studio audience, and as with most studio audiences, this lot were mostly in their senior years. But they cackled appreciatively at all the jokes, and shrieked with joy at the warm-up man's routine. He even had them singing the Ovaltiney song, and they knew all the words - although anyone under 60 looked quite baffled.
The other programme in which I played a bit part was Michael Aspel's This Is Your Life. It's no secret that it, too, is recorded in advance, and I mustn't reveal the name of the victim, because it's not being aired until the New Year. A good number of this person's friends were flown in from around the world. It was all impressively well organised. We told our stories - affectionate, teasing, sharp - about the person. And then something that the producers hadn't bargained for happened - a loud and angry cry of pain from behind the scenes. Who was it? How did we cope? You'll have to watch the programme to find out . . .
The sudden drop in temperature made mid-November seem more like February. My local park turned white, with heavy mist lying in dips in the ground like great saucers of milk. Regent's Park is one of the finest parks in London, but the developers on the fringes keep a constant watch for opportunities. Lottery money helped create the hideous "Web of Life" building at the back of London Zoo. The rusty-looking roof and its ugly, thrusting chimneys are a terrible blot on what was once a peaceful vista. Now there are rumours that the park authorities are thinking of building a commercial garden centre near the entrance to Queen Mary's Gardens.
It would be right next to what I call the "secret garden", a little walled-in spot, hidden away off the main thoroughfare. This is one of the most tranquil places it is possible to find in London on a hot summer's day. All this would be ruined if they started selling plants for profit.
Please, park people, think again.
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