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From Sarah Montague
Was it something I said? One minute I was interviewing the culture secretary Tessa Jowell, the next there was nothing. And I mean absolutely nothing. The kind of nothing that makes you realise how noisy a sound-proofed studio normally is. Every piece of kit in there must give off some electronic hum: microphones, computers, lights, even the clocks. And when they go off, the silence is awesome. And in radio, unnatural. As a presenter there's nothing you can do, but sit, wait, and prepare your apology for when everything fires back up again. As it must surely do any second. But on Friday the seconds stretched into minutes, minutes that felt like hours. We needed a Plan B.
Ed Stourton and half the production team hared off to look for another studio that might work. The rest of us stayed in case the power returned. It didn't, so we followed the advance team to the depths of television centre and a studio not best equipped to deal with the demands of a news programme but one that at least had some power.
And that's when we thanked god for sex and origami. At 4am both items had seemed questionable radio, now they were our saviours. When you cannot run any recorded items you rely on live guests. And Mark Bolitho was our star. The thirty-something year old accountant with a passion for origami seemed totally unphased by what was going on around him. In whichever studio we put him, he sat in the corner folding newspaper into recognisable shapes. So as Virginia Ironside, on one side of our unfamiliar studio table, discussed sex and the older woman with Fay Weldon and quoted Kinsley Amis, who when his libido finally went, said, "Thank god I no longer feel as though I'm shackled to an idiot," I watched as Mark, on the other side of the table, folded his tabloid version of the Times into first a turban and then a Kangaroo.
Hear the inteviews again:
Mark Bolitho:
Listen to his first interview and his second interview...
Listen to Virginia Ironside discussing sex.
And what of Tessa Jowell who was sitting in our radio car when the plug was pulled on her? When we finally regained contact, she said she had thought it was odd not to be interrupted on the Today programme. I wonder how long it was before she realised.
All I would say as someone in the final months of pregnancy, please, no more labour-inducing moments like that.
It's important to get on well with your editor but there's only so much a girl can take. Which is why Mr Marsh, the gloves are now off... the marigolds that is.
The Christmas pudding was the final straw. The editor of Country Life had brought in an alternative to Christmas pudding to illustrate their survey, which
showed most people dislike the traditional version. It was a sort of sponge with marmalade on top - not a patch on the real thing but still very nice and
we're always grateful when people throw food through the bars of the Today programme studio.
(See the report)
But then what happened when we were released at nine o'clock? Just as I guessed, there was the editor bearing down on me with a pair of rubber gloves. Who do you think was expected to wash the pudding dishes?
Typical male excuses... No of course you couldn't put them on. Yes I do believe you when you say you're allergic to rubber.
Typical male attitudes.... of which I had been warned before I came to the Today programme. Oh well, a woman's work is never done. It'll only take a jiffy.
Perhaps I shouldn't complain, at least I was given the most macho interview of the day - the ten past eight. And on that morning it was the 91热爆 Secretary David Blunkett on his plans to take the children of failed asylum seekers into care. It was as I tried to get in a question that Mr Blunkett said, "Now Sarah let me finish, you're getting a reputation for interrupting too much". I nearly choked on my pudding. Surely he was confusing me with someone else?
Listen again.
Actually anyone else? I like to think of myself as the calm voice of reason among all the male hotheads here. Even Edward Stourton - usually so urbane and civilised - has come in each morning this week telling us about his bizarre dreams. The previous night he had started a nuclear war by accident. When we asked what he did about it, he said he pretended it wasn't his fault. Perhaps it was a premonition - after all how often, if ever, does the Today programme go off air.
Sarah
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