29October1997

29 October 1997
My dear folks,

It’s just the loveliest London autumn afternoon. And it follows the kind of sunrise that would look garish on a postcard. I stopped on the 7th floor stairwell at TV Centre to gaze at it as I neared the end of my overnight shift. The skyline was a jagged black beneath a radiant orange sky paling into Michelangelan hues of yellow & deep blue. And high above, like the final dab of bad taste, hung a luminous crescent moon. It was nature gloriously parodying art. The first jumbo of the day was tipping over to begin its final approach into Heathrow. Temps had fallen to zero when I drove home (& deep into the minus belt further inland).

I was grateful that I’d been able to coax the Rocket into life the previous evening. Its elderly battery has been growing steadily weaker on an extended diet of long rests & short trips. Fearing the worst, I drove up the VW garage yest. p.m. to see if they’d got in my back-windscreen wiper yet (no!) & to get a new battery. Fortuitously, they were doing a special on batteries. Since the old one coughed more easily into life last night, I’ve not yet installed the replacement. The Rocket had a distinctly autumnal look itself, covered in a fortnight’s grime & mire. I stopped off at the local garage to wash it down but the car wash was closed.

The two nights have been tough ones as we were tipped helter-skelter into the wretchedly complex new schedules that began with the switch back to GMT at the weekend. These involve a whole lot of additional programming plus frequent regional opt ins & outs, as well as joint bulletins with the BBC’s new 24-hour domestic news channel that’s planning to launch into two weeks’ time. The changes are radical & stressful, catching us somewhere between information overload & crisis management. Many of our experienced journalists have gone to the new channel, making us heavily reliant on free-lancers. And to make things worse, the changes took place as the world’s stock markets seesawed dizzily, catching us with real news dramas to cover. So, lots of grumpy, stressed out people!

My own duties the past two nights have been to look after the London side of the launch of a new 24-minute bulletin (USA Direct) which is satellited into us from New York and Washington in segments an hour before it is due for broadcast. The first night was wretched. I had the company of a senior editor who was overseeing the changeover & we spent two hours after the first (horrible) transmission jointly restructuring things to make it workable. Night two was merely stressful.

In-between our own crises, we’ve been watching the efforts of the new 24-hour channel as they gear up for D-Day. Hoo boy! They’ll require more than good luck to be “right on the night”. Their overnight producer, devastated by the chaos of an overnight dry run, apparently collapsed & had to be taxied home in the early hours. It’s all being done with the “latest” (for which read “untried”) technology & minimal staffing. Multi-skilling is the byword as the journalists take over the picture & sound-editing functions previously carried out by tape editors who are now (like the printers of Fleet Street) a dying breed. The same fate awaits us next summer when we’re due to move to an adjacent newsroom.

Other than the above, I have merely eaten, slept & gone for several walks. I bought myself 2 books, Sophie’s Choice & Don Cupitt’s “After God”. Meanwhile I’m doing my second trawl through Stephen Hawking’s essays. They have the additional merit of working like sleeping pills. Mavis has tried to spread himself in a sunny spot on the bed beside me but given up after failing to make himself comfortable among the files & junk littering it. He was clearly stuffed by his admirers in the house during my absence & is beginning to look a bit like a feline beach ball. After waking this p.m. I trotted over to His & Hers to get Elaine to trim my beard. She’s getting over her holiday on Crete, a vacation that seemed to begin & end with night clubs & hangovers. But she liked it & I guess that’s what counts. Enough unto the day.

Blessings
T