I have a clip on my desktop today, sent by a colleague, of Charlotte Green saying "Satan's homosexual lover". It must have been from earlier on Radio 4. Sadly there are no grown-ups around or I would post it here for your enjoyment. I need their help to make that happen. Remind me tomorrow.
Fiona, today's "number 2" is singing, badly, the theme to The Sopranos all day. Right words, we believe, but the tune is way off. We're thinking of having her whacked.
The story of the CNN anchor who left her mike on in the loo and talked all over a live address by President Bush reminds me of a (perhaps apocryphal) story about a well known TV and radio presenter. Older woman. Butter wouldn't melt sort of image. Lovely woman by all accounts.
The story goes that in the "mixed" toilets (of which there are a few at Broadcasting House), the said TV star was seen entering a cubicle. Several others were occupied. Presently, from one of them came the most almighty, appalling, shocking stream of noises. You know. Just awful, apparently. Endless rasping and associated parps. It went on and on for what seemed like an age, according to the witness. What must the poor person have eaten? Was he or she OK? Who could survive such an outpouring??? On and on it went, sounding like something from the depths of hell.
When it finally, finally stopped there was a ghastly hush. An eerie, becalmed silence.
After a moment, the TV star could clearly be heard enquiring: "is that you, Maureen?"
Quietish day.
Things I saw out of the window a short time ago:
12.23: no-one.
12.24: woman, mousey hair, petite, going left to right.
Blonde woman with mobile phone, left to right across road.
Short balding man carrying, improbably, a stripey yellow and black sign. Left to
right
12.25: Man in suit, pin stripe, right to left. Oh, three men at once there, right to left all
at once. Only noticed a white shirt.
12.26: Anxious looking woman in specs clutching a folder. Nice blue jumper. Left to
right.
Man with the sign has walked back, on this side of the road.
12.27:Man in stripey t shirt right to left. Oh and a flurry of others right to left. This is
more tricky than it seems. Had better stop. People are suggesting bits of work
to do.
The historian Francis Beckett has concluded that the two best British Prime Ministers of the 20th century were Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher.
But who was the best DEPUTY prime minister? It's so tricky.
You would think, after three days off, I would have something to write about.
At 17.54 last night, during our item on wine, I had to make Malcolm Gluck swallow his words mid sentence. He was just about to ask our Lebanese winemaker a question and I cut him off! The trouble is, if an item runs past 17.54, the shipping forecast doesn't get on on Long Wave...important information is lost, ships run aground and people die.
So I had to stop him. But in response to the numerous queries, we called Malcolm this afternoon to ask what he was going to ask. And he told me (I paraphrase) that it was a bit of a wine buff question, but he wanted to know what Serge Hochar changed, around 1985/86 to change the taste of Château Musar. Malcolm did put it much better than that, of course.
If we were journalists of any merit we'd phone Serge to get the answer. Don't hold your breath.
Who annoyed Lissa yesterday? In the midst of what was rather a busy afternoon, my colleague wailed - literally - several times. She mumbled something about moderating the Blog and I ran in the opposite direction*. For goodness sake don't upset her, as we all suffer. She gets angrier than Mel Gibson with a drink in him, though thankfully she believes all the wars in the world are caused by tight underpants.
The highlight of the show last night, for me, was the always marvellous Tom Symonds discussing what size hand baggage you're allowed on planes. Tom is bi-media so we can forgive him for gesticulating to indicate a bag's dimensions. Oh how we laughed. Hahahahaha. But of course you had to be there. Literally.
*I walked, of course.
Would you do me a favour? Would you listen and look out in future for politicians calling for a "debate" on an issue? It's sometimes an "honest debate" or an "open debate" or sometimes and "open and honest debate".
All of that is fine. But what we often find in the radio game, is that when we telephone the said politicians and ask them to come on the air and debate the issues (in an open and/or honest way) they won't engage with other politicians. This is not always the case, but very often. I wonder why?
By the way, I'm told it will soon be possible for me to update this Blog when I'm not in the office.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahaha.
In these times of heightened security and anxiety to match (current official threat level: "Yikes") there are some things that cheer.
There was an incident - it passed of peacefully - at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport this morning. Speaking on behalf of the airport is someone called Mirjam Snoerwang.
At the risk of going on and on, we've finally perfected - we hope - the technology to allow you to hear the montage of Radio 4 voices saying "crap". It started last week when one of the big stories was a comment allegedly made by the Deputy Prime Minister about the President of the United States of America. One of my colleagues - I cannot mention her name - scoured the airwaves and compiled the following. Obviously, if you don't want to be offended by reading the word crap, it's too late. If you want to avoid creating further offence by hearing it, repeatedly, then in the name of humanity don't click on this link. Now where is Ofcom's number....?
/radio4/news/pm/audio/crap_obsession.ram
Ball tampering.
There, I've said it again. Or if you're reading this from the top, for the first time.
I'm very excited that the quality of my blog is being matched and sometimes exceeded by that of the comments. Yes, it's all that poor.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, looks like someone. I was considering whether Woody Allen could play him in the movie but having looked again at his pictures (the president that is), I no longer see it. Maybe it's more how he dresses. No, scrub that: I've just looked again at his outfits. He has that brown jacket, and a long untucked shirt and in one shot on his website he appears to be dressed only in flowers.
Oh - here's the page, you'll see what I mean.
Ball-tampering.
There, I've said it.
Things that shouldn't be said: the judge in the Saddam trial appears to be wearing comedy specs and moustache. John Mark Karr didn't appear to be flying "coach". Could we have expected fellow passengers to gang up and demand he be turfed off the flight for looking a bit guilty?
On Friday's programme, we tried hard to bring you an interview with the Ministry of Defence, which had released figures about army recruitment. We first requested an interview at 09.30 and the bid was repeated several times during the day. We were told that the minister was "unavailable" - but (and we pointed this out on air) he did pop up on other media outlets.
No sooner were the words in the ether, it seems, but the MoD were on the telephone reassuring us we were loved and it was all just rather unfortunate.
I couldn't possibly comment. I DO find though that everyone in politics, even the perennially unavailable, is suddenly much more available for interview in the weeks before a general election.
Oh and while I'm on - most importantly - I am hopeful that I can bring you the "crap" montage this week. Maybe we'll do a "guess the voice" competition. Or maybe not.
Eric Edmonds
See the pearl of wisdom at the top of the page? It came from an actual PM listener - one of many suggestions we got when we asked people to sum up the programme in a few words. We'll try to change it every day. If you have a suggestion of your own...you know what you can do with it. That's right, shove it right where the comments go.
In the Independent today, it says David Dimbleby will present Any Questions on Radio 4 tonight. And there's a photo of said David to prove it. Jonathan, if you're reading this, take them for every penny they've got.
A colleague has sent me an audio mix of various Radio 4 voices saying "crap" yesterday. I've no idea whether I can post that sort of thing here or how it might work but I'll ask an adult and maybe we'll try something next week?
By the way, I've noted some concern in the comment columns that some people think bloggers have nothing to say and that this will be a waste of everyone's time. Let me make this quite clear. I have nothing to say and this will be a waste of everyone's time. Really.
Eric Doherty
Testing, testing.
If this works I'll think about actually writing something tomorrow.
Thanks for dropping by.
Eric Muir
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