Monday Moan 55

Never work with children or Dads?

Roberto Perrone broadcasts on BBC Three Counties Radio every weekday afternoon for four hours.   That’s a lot of air time to fill each day and it must be a huge challenge to make it fresh and interesting.  Like all presenters of such programmes though, there must be times when he must wonder how he’s going to keep an interview going when the person on air is either not very interesting or seems reluctant to talk.

 

Most people being interviewed seem quite happy to talk, of course, but it’s a gamble when you have children as your guests.  Last Wednesday afternoon Roberto dipped his toes in the water with an interview with a couple of young cricketers who had been part of a school team that had won a national competition.  As you might expect with 11 year-olds, they were full of ‘amazing’, ‘great’, ‘yeah, really nice’, and the like.  Slightly hard work but it worked pretty well.  

 

However, Roberto might have wondered why his producers had then lined up another young sporting star to be interviewed shortly afterwards.  This time it was a budding long-distance runner who was being interviewed with his Dad.  Good old Dad was quite happy to talk about his son, his son’s school and athletics club and the charity he was supporting.  However, Roberto struggled manfully to get the young runner to say much beyond ‘yep’ to any question.  I felt for him as he tried different ways of framing his questions to try to avoid those that invited a response of ‘yep’; compelling radio but I was left feeling sorry for all involved.

 

It will take 5 minutes, but do have a listen here.

 

Sainsbury’s – customer service?

I love to shop in my local Sainsbury’s.  One of the reasons is that there are so few customers that you can walk round freely without the usual stress levels associated with busy stores.

 

But why so few customers?  I think I know why.  The shop is run for the convenience of staff and not of customers. Shopping there yesterday I heard an announcement that the store was going to close in five minutes and I should make my way to the checkout.  Obedient as ever I did exactly as they wanted and then made my way out of the shop. Unfortunately, the staff, presumably eager to get home, had decided to lock all the exits bar one – which meant every customer had to walk all round the premises in order to find the one remaining open door and, having found it (with no help from any of the employees) this then entailed walking out through the car park.

 

Must try harder.

  

No test required

Here’s the scene.  A mother is in charge of two young children.  One of her children, probably no more than 5 or 6 years old, has already crossed the busy road they are trying to negotiate.  The mother is holding onto the other one, probably two years old, with one hand.  In her other hand is her mobile phone, pressed to her ear so she can continue her conversation with whoever was on the other end.  There is a break in the traffic so mother and child prepare to cross the road – mobile phone still in use.  The child’s hat falls to the ground.  

 

So, does the mother;-

1.  Leave the hat where it is and continue to cross the road?
2.  Put her phone down, pick up the hat and continue across the road?
3.  Let go of the child, keep talking on the phone and pick up the hat?

 

Unbelievably, she chooses option 3 - to let go of the child.  At the same time, the other child, perhaps seeing the fallen hat and wanting to help, runs back across the road, apparently oblivious to the approaching traffic and without a word from her mother to stop her.  Fortunately for all concerned, she made it across the road and the whole party was reunited.

 

You don’t have to take a test before you become a parent – but maybe you should?

 

 

More than a colour

Watching Dan Cruickshank’s BBC 4 documentary about the growth of London in the 17^th century was an interesting way to spend an hour on a Sunday evening.  But I had to wonder what it would be that a casual viewer might remember most about the programme.  Would it be something about the Great Fire of London, or perhaps about the Plague?  Would it be about the history behind Covent Garden perhaps?  

 

Sadly, it occurs to me that people might remember most that the House of Orange was named after the colour of the carrot.  At least, that is the impression I think you would get from listening to this extract from the programme.

 

No doubt when editing the programme Dan Cruickshank must have realised that this was what seemed to have been said, so why wasn’t this given some kind of voice-over to avoid this historical nonsense being perpetuated?  

 

Sloppy work chaps.