48 posts tagged “bbc”
Pudsey agreed to have his picture taken at Children In Need 2008.
I didn't spend very much time in his company. He was very busy.
Still, he did agree to have his picture taken.
He seemed like a nice bear, it has to be said.
Robin Williams was the only guest on the Graham Norton Show this week - any other guest would have been sidelined - in what often felt like a treat of a show, not least because we don't see the man on screen anywhere near enough.
Sure, his voice-overs in various Disney films has kept the man gainfully employed, but there's absolutely no substitute for seeing him do his usual shtick in person.
Nice music from Estelle at the end of the show too. If there's one thing Mr Norton's show can be relied on, it's the quality of the musical contributions.
More here.
I have a spring in my step at the moment. Not only have I finally managed to get into work on time on three consecutive days (something of a rariety for me) but I've cracked on with a recently self-appointed task.
Progress has been slow but sure. There's been a lot of mouse clicks, tutting, puffing and moaning on my part, not to mention innumerable windows alerts ringing in my headphones whenever I click on the wrong thing.
Even so, I am sniffing the very real smell of nearby smug self-satisfaction. The task is nearing completion. I feel like awarding myself my very own certificate, framing it and attaching it to my desk divider. Although, on second thoughts, it's probably "cooler" to dream about Friday evening instead.
Friday evening, you see, sees quite an exciting event for me. I was reminded about it when I received an email from a colleague inviting me to a meeting to discuss the "Children in Need Backstage Photography Schedule".
It's a simple and relatively uninspiring task - certainly not one you'd immediately imagine would inspire a blog posting. Me and a bunch of similarly helpful and charming volunteers will be documenting backstage goings on at this year's Children in Need fundraiser. I'm told that the good shots will appear on the website. I advise you here and now that I'm doing this for charidee.
It's hardly a big thing, is it? I know freelance photographers who consider this kind of work as paid work. Why get excited about taking pictures?
It's not, as you might be thinking, the opportunity to meet celebrities. Whilst there will be a number around - although at present noone's telling me who exactly as everything's strictly embargoed - I always find myself over-compensating when I see them. Treat them normally, I reassure myself. They're not that special. It's not like they're gods or anything. They're just human beings who, when prodded, will turn to the camera, plaster on a smile and wait for the shutter to clunk open and shut.
What gives me the buzz is the prospect of hanging around a live television event. There's something inexplicably exciting about being present in and around the vicinity of something occuring in a studio. The opportunity to witness people running around in an organised panic, with earphones clamped to their ears,
walky-talkies hanging out of their back-pocket is something too good to miss.
And then there's Television Centre on a Friday night. The audience arrives, queuing up in the chilly air on Wood Lane. You start recognising people whose names are a complete mystery. There's an urgency in the air. Areas of the building previously accessible by anyone with a pass are unexpectedly roped off.
Portable TV lights are set up in weird and seemingly unnattractive places. In short, Television Centre and its environs is turned into one massive TV set.
There's a buzz about the place in all its weird, grey iconic sixties-designed madness. It's the place to be to feel a part of things during a live event. It is perhaps the time and place when the BBC truly comes alive, when it's raison d'etre becomes obvious to even the most hard-hearted individual.
"Helping out" at Children in Need is something of a perk working for the BBC. For most people I suspect that White City is the last place they'd want to be late on a Friday night. I'm rather looking forward to it myself. I shall wear my Team Pudsey t-shirt with pride, even if I will end up blending seamlessly into the background amongst the hoards of other people decked out the same. I do hope the kiddies appreciate it.
What better way to listen to Beethoven 9 than splayed out on a sun lounger on the edge of an infinity pool at a German run hotel overlooking the Aegean? Think blue skies, a gentle breeze and no queue at the poolside bar for post-concert drinkies.
I was listening to a recording of a live concert the BBC Philharmonic gave at the Bridgewater Hall on Friday 26 September, the before I came away on holiday.
Whilst I have been able to meet two of the BBC's criteria for it's content (finding and playing) I am, sadly, unable to meet the third - sharing it. The performance has missed it's seven day window on the iPlay-It-Again thingy. Consequently you have only my word to go on.
It was the first concert I'd listened to since the Proms, around about a month after I stood in the arena of the Royal Albert Hall listening to the Proms rendition. I was fighting to maintain my stamina in the last week of the season back then, conscious of some lower-back pain and irritated at the proximity of other concert goers. (It was late in the season.) I finished the performance that night hating Beethoven, the length of his final symphony and certain I'd never listen to any more Beethoven for as long as I could. I certainly wouldn't be listening to any on holiday.
Not so today. I sat on the toilet this morning browsing BBC Music Magazine and was reminded about the gig. I had a satellite recording of it on my laptop (it had taken quite a lot of fart-arsing around to get it from the Sky+ box to my laptop I might add). I'd listen to it this morning and see if I still felt the same way.
Inevitably, the combination of seering heat and the stunning view added something to Beethoven's monumental symphony. Not only that, the chance to listen to what sounded like an entirely different acoustic - Manchester's Bridgewater Hall - was a bit of a treat too.
The performance restored my faith in the 9th symphony. The third movement was especially glorious. It always takes me by surprise. I always think it should start slower than it invariably does. "Bloody hell, that's cracking on a pace. Should it really be that fast?" The answer is clearly yes. It isn't long before the third movement is underway that you're lulled into it's beauty.
It set me thinking about something I'd quite like to see made available from the iPlayer thingyamy.
How good would it be, I thought to myself as I sipped on my cool beer, if I could download radio content via iPlayer in the same way I can TV shows. That way, I wouldn't be tied to my laptop to listen to stuff. I could listen at leisure. I could listen in the bath, or on the tube or as I wandered aimlessly through Hyde Park or something...
In fact, if I could have a download manager installed on my portable media player then wouldn't it be possible to impose some digital rights management on a WMA file thereby preventing me from distributing it and thus keeping all those legal types from going to an early grave? That way I'd be able to to it when I wanted, write yet another tiresome blog about what I've just listened to and (if it was available for say .. 14 days?) then share it?
Four hours away from London and with only 48 hours left before I get home, I can't help wondering whether all these "brilliant" ideas I'm having about iPlayer (let's be honest - they've probably already been explored) may well have provoked some people at the Beeb to look a little more closely at the contract I have. Will I be finding a slim looking envelope on my doorstep when I push the front door open on my return?
No! Of course not. That would never happen.
Best prepare myself for the worst, just in case.
Shortly before I left the UK I made the tactical error of saying to a colleague how much I was looking forward to spending two weeks away from all things BBC. "If I so much as glance at a BBC logo anywhere in Turkey, I'll be livid."
It's never great to be reminded of work when one's on holiday.
I tried to overlook the first sighting. I hadn't slept very well yesterday morning; woke early; went to the gym; used the ski-machine with the embedded TV screen; the only usable channel was BBC World.
But this afternoon's reference was a little more difficult to avoid. Sat next to Simon and I as we tucked into some fantastic fried calamari at Sunger Pizza in Bodrum was a smashing lady called Kim.
Former UK-resident Kim now worked for a yacht charter business, the offices of which were situated conveniently above Sunger Pizza hence the fact she was sat at the table next to ours enjoying a post-work beer.
Kim hadn't been back to the UK for 9 years and had lived and worked in Bodrum for nearly twenty. "Oh, well you can always dip in to what's going on back home via satellite TV, can't you?"
"We get BBC World and BBC Prime. The choice is limited."
"Well there's always the iPlayer," said Simon.
"No, she can't," I corrected Simon, "she's outside the UK, remember?"
"Oh," replied Simon. "Well .. "
"What's the BBC iPlayer exactly?" asked Kim looking slightly confused.
It seemed almost impossible to believe that a British citizen wouldn't know about the BBC iPlayer. I resisted the temptation to quip "it makes the unmissable unmissable." If she didn't know what the product was she was hardly going to know what the advert was.
Simon and I did some explaining, selling a totally objective view of the system. Kim didn't seem especially disappointed to hear she couldn't get access to the catch-up system. "My friends send me DVDs of all the BBC stuff they reckon I'd enjoy watching. I'm especially liking Torchwood. John Barrowman is gorgeous."
Had I not finished eating I almost certainly would have choked when I heard this.
So, keen to draw the conversation about the BBC to a close (and thus avoid any attention being drawn to the fact that I work there - people do always assume that you're able to sort out any problem with the corporation be it something on the Archers or the colour of Huw Edwards' tie), we paid our bill and got up to leave.
I made a mental note to kick-start another discussion about British ex-pats having the opportunity to subscribe to BBC iPlayer content.
At this stage I don't know of anyone I can pester at BBC Worldwide to get it sorted out. Give me time though, give me time.
It's not often I feel the need to write an email to Russell T Davies, outgoing bigwig from Doctor Who but reading the latest Doctor Who related story I'm feeling suitably motivated.
According to the story, Russell T Davies has expressed who he feels would be good to be the next time-lordy chappy in Doctor Who. The man Davies speaks of is Russell Tovey.
I could email Davies to express my thoughts and feelings about Tovey (although I figure Davies is probably a little overrun with emails at the present time), so I'll just express my gut reactions here and now in an absolutely-not-gushing-or-sycophantic kind of way.
In short ... we like Tovey we do. Get Tovey to do the role. Go on. Get him to do the role.
“It’s one of the highlights of the season,” said one Prommer in the Lanson Arena Bar shortly before the concert. At least, I think that’s what she said. The quote may not be word for word, but you get the picture I’m sure.
“Bernard Haitink, Murray Perrahia, Mozart twenty-four and Shostakovich four,” she continued.
Amid the predictable cries of elitism on my part, I have to confess that I love the shorthand way of referring to concert works. I’ve always loved the shorthand. Why bother wasting precious time saying the word “symphony” or “concerto” when those you’re talking to know exactly what you’re referring to by virtue of having read the programme before the conversation began.
Pretensions aside (and I’m full of them) and the first half underway, I was relieved to hear that my previous concerns about any prevalence of misjudged applause during my favourite piano concerto on my self-nominated official birthday had been allayed.
Bernard Haitink, on the other hand, did have some concerns about extended coughing in between movements and a door slamming in between movements from the side the choir seats. This seemed obvious by the way he held his conductor’s baton and refused to continue until a suitably sombre silence had again descended over the auditorium.
I don’t think I would have seen all of this had me and significant other Simon not been occupying seats one and two in the Grand Tier box number three, overlooking the stage. These were purchased seats I might add.
Lots of people reckon they know where the best place is to listen to concerts in the Royal Albert Hall and to a certain extent I find it difficult not to agree that promming in the first three rows of the arena offers the best for sound, especially in loud works.
But nothing prepared me for the seats in the Grand Tier. During Shostakovich’s predictably highly orchestrated and cinematic lesser-known symphony, we got to see a 100 strong band working in teams. Shostakovich’s string writing would drag my eyes to the violins and then my ears would distract me over the percussion section whenever an unexpected crash or snare drum roll was inserted.
This was the work which Shostakovich “withdrew” from performance after the “writers” at Pravda denounced his opera Lady Macbeth as “muddle rather than music”. It was his fifth symphony which was penned as a result and, although powerful, engaging and ultimately as satisfying to listen to as the fifth is to play, I’m a shameless convert to his fourth symphony based solely on one listen.
That’s powerful for me, considering I knew nothing of the fourth symphony before Prom 72 and engaged with the work as a result of getting a fresh visual perspective on orchestral playing. Hurrah for seats in the Grand Tier. Now all I have to do is find enough disposable income to afford a seat there every single night.
Some of the regulars in the arena looked me confused when I said I was moving to the gallery to listen to the second half of the Prom 65. Why on earth would an arena season ticket holder choose to hear the finest orchestra in the world play a Shostakovich symphony up where the sound is muddy?
It’s not muddy at all. Most of us just assume it’s muddy when we stare up at the rows of people leaning over the railings at the top of the Royal Albert Hall. From the arena, the gallery looks so distant and removed from the action that the idea of going up there to hear a piece of music seems like a risk not worth taking. Nothing, surely, could be better than be being as close to what’s going on on stage as it is in the arena?
There’s more space up in the gallery, considerably more space in fact. In comparison to the Arena last night with prommers (some of whom were still queuing half way down Prince Consort Road at seven o’clock), the gallery has a far more relaxed feel. There’s space to stretch out. People lounge around, slumped against the back wall, blankets spread out on the floor while others lay flat out on the floor. Some read books, others do crosswords. Only a handful actually stand at the railings looking down on the auditorium below.
I gingerly emptied the entire contents of my bag during the first movement of the Shostakovich, only to repack the items in a slightly more organised way (I wanted to avoid the panic I’d had the night before at South Ken tube when I couldn’t find my Oyster card).
The sight of one man wandering around the gallery barefoot towards the end of the first movement prompted me to kick off my shoes and do the same during the second. It felt like the most fitting thing to do for the orchestrated venom Shostakovich had so skilfully orchestrated in the second movement.
Earlier on in the day I’d found the Simon Bolivier Youth Orchestra’s performance from 2007 of the same work on YouTube and got ridiculously excited about hearing the dramatics again. This time I was wandering around the gallery listening to the drama unfold somewhere below me. Not seeing the orchestra playing only added to inevitable imagery.
There is something refreshing and reassuring about Shostakovich’s orchestral works. I can’t work out whether it’s the chuntering rhythms, the signature woodwind flourishes or the symptomatic warmth resulting from the definitely Russian-sounding string writing. It seems odd that the sound of the string harmonies can be both warm and cold at the same time but it just is. That was Shostakovich is. I wonder whether it’s a mixture of pity and admiration for what the man had to suffer in his life.
These are the thoughts which I can have up in the gallery. Up here I get the ambient mix minus the visual indulgence of being within only a few metres of seeing a professional band play. Up in the gallery I don’t have the nagging pain of my back. Neither do I find myself keeping a beady eye on my personal space to make sure no-one invades it or, worse, barges in front of it.
A change is as good as a rest, after all. And the marvellous thing about this particular change is that I get to see it all on TV on BBC Four on Sunday night.
Brilliant.
Messiaen was one composer which was flagged up pretty early on in my Proms experience this year. In truth, I probably made a bee-line for all of the concerts in which his works featured heavily because I knew it was an easy hit. Pick out the ones you're least comfortable with and they're guaranteed to be thought-provoking. I'm always up for being challenged. I'm not generally someone who will only listen to the stuff he knows. I do rather like being taken out of my comfort zone .. for the most part.
I wasn't anxious about attending tonight's concert. My only thought had been whether or not I'd be able to stand for the 78 minutes the Turangalila Symphony was supposed to last for. As it was I didn't stand for the entiriety preferring instead to sit for three movements somewhere in the middle. Sitting is OK, by the way. It's allowed.
The man stood next to me summed everything I was feeling up when he licked his lips and cracked his knuckles shortly after Sir Simon Rattle stepped up on to his podium. This was a major work and perhaps one not for the faint-hearted. At least, that's what I assumed to begin with. The man beside me was obviously getting himself psyched-up for the ocassion. I had to admire that.
Of course I was wrong. There was nothing to get psyched up for. Nearly every concert I've initially assumed would be heavy weather hasn't been. The one's I've not given a second thought too have, conversely, thrown unexpected spanners in the works. The Turangalila however was nothing short of pure indulgence.
There are discernible melodies. There are sections you'll come away from remembering even if you can't initially whistle them. What's important - at least to me - is how Messiaen paints and enormous picture orchestrating his ideas with such deft precision that I wonder why we bother listening to any composer in existence before him.
I hadn't anticipated to what extent it would be such a physical experience either. Sure, you can listen to it and possibly enjoy it on CD, but there's nothing better than hearing the strange yet reassuring textures Messiaen conjurs up say by combining piccolo trumpet with unison strings wtih the ocassional ondnes martinot thrown in with an ocassional sprinkling of triangle for good measure. There are moments which straddle both the grotesque and the beautiful all at the same time, moments when the orchestra I saw on stage played seemingly disparate melodic, rhythmic and harmonic ideas and yet executed it in such a way that I never thought to question it.
Tonight was an event. If you were listening on the radio you may not have got that although I'd wager the cheers at the end might possibly have given an indication. For those of us there - and really, there wasn't much room for anyone else - we all rose to the ocassion. It was the Berlin Phil playing after all. It's not often you get a chance to stand this close to the first violins of the Berlin Phil and marvel at their cool exterior and equally cool yet accomplished dexterity and musicality.
To watch the much-touted finest orchestra in the world conductor by Rattle only served to reinforce something in my mind I could now finally say that after years of assuming that Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony was impenetrable rubbish, it was Rattle conducting the Berlin Phil who convinced me otherwise is really quite a special thing, if a little pretentious. (Give me a wide berth at parties just in case I use that line, won't you?)
But there was one other thing which occurred this evening which will make the performance memorable. Part way through the interval, intent on writing something inspired by the first half of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde Prelude and Liebestod that I ended up being unexpectedly flattered by someone sat behind me.
"Excuse me," he said, "I'm sorry to interrupt but you're writing. Do you write for anyone in particular?"
I hesitated at first before getting a grip. "I write a blog," I replied beaming.
"Oh, really? What's it called?"
"The Thoroughly Good Blog."
"Good name," he smiled back at me.
"Isn't it."
I fear I'm beginning to flag just a bit when it comes to promming. I'm still as committed as I was to begin with (even if some other people I know may question this given my comparatively poor attendance - Prom 62 brings my personal best to 23, I think) but having stood for three hours at the concert in a packed arena my back is telling me what my thighs and feet have been feeling for ages. I'm getting tired.
This might be why I spent a great deal of time concentrating on other things during the Beethoven Violin Concerto. At first I was struck by how people weren't coughing that much. I started trying to work out what the reason might be. Was it that the audience - a full house - were on the whole quite a healthy bunch? Had people watched the video? Had they taken notes ? Was the message getting through?
(Self-obsesion is a nasty trait. I must do more to stamp it out.)
I suspect the real reason was that Beethoven's Violin Concerto is unusual in its' dynamic range. Orchestra and soloist have to get to grips with what might at first seems like a fairly straightforward score. But factor in the pianissimos daubed all over the score and the idea of breathing let alone coughing during the performance is would guarantee embarrassment. There was no way anyone wanted to disturb the atmosphere in this one and risk drawing attention to any ills or stubborn medical conditions.
Personally, I want to listen to this back if only to give the entire concert a second go. Assessing why everyone was so unusually quiet had taken up quite a lot of my attention not to mention the sight of one man in front of me in the arena who'd missed a loop with his belt when he dressed himself in the morning. This and a definite case of broken wind emanating from the second row (I was on the fourth row, I hasten to add) towards the end of the first movement of Sibelius' second symphony made this evening's concert quite an arduous task.
Still, at least there's iPlayer and a modest sound system at home to go some way to recreate the experience.
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