The holidays are over... It's time to return to work.
The big event in the diary is the Making Britain seminar and exhibition at the British Library, September 13 and 14. SALIDAA, of which I'm Chair, is one of the partners in this amazing project that has taken three years to reach fruition with the building of a unique database charting events and reproducing the narratives mapping the movements of the Asian diaspora in Britain from 1850-1950. Believe it or not, there was an active exchange of domicile and cultures - it wasn't all one way. You only have to think back to the Brits glorious welcome for Mahatma Gandhi who studied law at UCL and came back to demand, passively, indpendence for India. Nehru was a Harrow boy who went to Cambridge and visualised Indian and European 'selves'. The Making Britain database goes live the week of the conference: look for links in the press.
The other big event that's taking all my energies is a personal one - the gutting and rebuilding of our new home in Kensal Rise. My daughters have decided it's edgy enough to meet their social needs and I've decided it's warm, friendly and safe, despite recent bleatings by dispossessed Somalis whose complaints led to them being re-homed in Kensington...
Friday, 27 August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Glorious Returns
Silly season: that time of year when people and stories are short on the ground and journalists start pecking at each other in a desperate bit to fill pages and airtime. For freelances, it's down-time; the opportunity to reconsider and reconfigure goals.
On Thursday, lunch in town with Gloria Abramoff who has started a production company with the celebrated documentary maker and generally brilliant broadcaster, Tim Samuels. Tonic Productions has already been re-commissioned to make a second series of Men's Hour on Five Live, and is sitting on a pile of contracts after less than a year of trading. Gloria is an old friend - I met her when she was a producer on Radio London and I was a regular stand-in presenter. She went on to far greater glory running whole departments within the Beeb and entered the private sector a couple of years ago, since when she's been a major force in pushing new ideas on her own behalf and that of others. That's where the lunch came in...
It was an invigorating two hours. We came away dizzy with advice and possibilities - it's odd, isn't it, that no matter how well one knows - or thinks one knows - an industry, the gaze of a third party can reveal ideas and advances (and potholes) that one has missed? Last week's meeting helped us re-evaluate and reshape the idea in line with what is demanded by the commissioners. It has morphed into something far more fun and interesting and sellable. This week's meeting has helped us structure the idea, and to think in terms of our own skills and needs. Where is the point where the two sides start working together for optimum effect? Yikes!
On Thursday, lunch in town with Gloria Abramoff who has started a production company with the celebrated documentary maker and generally brilliant broadcaster, Tim Samuels. Tonic Productions has already been re-commissioned to make a second series of Men's Hour on Five Live, and is sitting on a pile of contracts after less than a year of trading. Gloria is an old friend - I met her when she was a producer on Radio London and I was a regular stand-in presenter. She went on to far greater glory running whole departments within the Beeb and entered the private sector a couple of years ago, since when she's been a major force in pushing new ideas on her own behalf and that of others. That's where the lunch came in...
It was an invigorating two hours. We came away dizzy with advice and possibilities - it's odd, isn't it, that no matter how well one knows - or thinks one knows - an industry, the gaze of a third party can reveal ideas and advances (and potholes) that one has missed? Last week's meeting helped us re-evaluate and reshape the idea in line with what is demanded by the commissioners. It has morphed into something far more fun and interesting and sellable. This week's meeting has helped us structure the idea, and to think in terms of our own skills and needs. Where is the point where the two sides start working together for optimum effect? Yikes!
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Handbag Creativity
The home office has been more of a cotching space than a hive of intellectual rigour this week. My youngest, full of carefree joy on reaching 16, created a diary of energetic entertainments including three hours rehearsing Lady Gaga's Paparazzi to a classical guitar accompaniment. She and her friend, Katie then headed to the South Bank and earned £12 busking. I am considering a career change...
The biggest challenge has been project-managing the new house - decisions around Build Over Notices, steels v wooden joists, a bracing correspondence with the Church Army over the party wall, several conversations with Brent's planning and building inspectorate about the bureaucratic process, and a decision during full rewiring that there should be TV points in every room and a wi-fi station under the stairs. It's taken hours out of every day.
But... That hasn't prevented development of the TV idea, which is starting to sing. My partner in this crime points out that it took five years for the Who Wants to be a Millionaire format took five years to perfect. Indeed, it started life as Cash Mountain . The truth is, ideas are easy: it's making them work - and finding the evidence to show how and why they'll work - that's difficult. That and the 'talent' as presenters are now known. So much of how a show develops rests on the person who's given studio control and the personalities chosen to sit alongside. Think about the recent One Show kerfuffle...
We sit there obsessing, seeking refuge in regular girly segues, comparing handbags or discussing irritating pets (hers). Thomas Edison's view that "Genius is one per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration" often comes to mind with 'creativity' substituted for genius. The BBC has just posted up its requirements in the new commissioning round and we can see a number of slots where our show might fit. Fingers crossed.
The biggest challenge has been project-managing the new house - decisions around Build Over Notices, steels v wooden joists, a bracing correspondence with the Church Army over the party wall, several conversations with Brent's planning and building inspectorate about the bureaucratic process, and a decision during full rewiring that there should be TV points in every room and a wi-fi station under the stairs. It's taken hours out of every day.
But... That hasn't prevented development of the TV idea, which is starting to sing. My partner in this crime points out that it took five years for the Who Wants to be a Millionaire format took five years to perfect. Indeed, it started life as Cash Mountain . The truth is, ideas are easy: it's making them work - and finding the evidence to show how and why they'll work - that's difficult. That and the 'talent' as presenters are now known. So much of how a show develops rests on the person who's given studio control and the personalities chosen to sit alongside. Think about the recent One Show kerfuffle...
We sit there obsessing, seeking refuge in regular girly segues, comparing handbags or discussing irritating pets (hers). Thomas Edison's view that "Genius is one per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration" often comes to mind with 'creativity' substituted for genius. The BBC has just posted up its requirements in the new commissioning round and we can see a number of slots where our show might fit. Fingers crossed.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Game For a Laugh
Friday morning, Toynbee Hall: seven boxes of priceless work by artists, writers and photographers from the UK's South Asian diaspora, demanding a safe house in Uxbridge. With the help of playwright, Judith Johnson, who oversees the SALIDAA office, I loaded up the car and took the latest material from our collection to their new home at the Special Collections room at Brunel. The room is big and airy, unlike the poky little space that previously hosted the archive. At the moment, there are just four collections there, one of which is ours, beautifully displayed against a side wall:) The improved conditions still fail to meet the standards set by the National Archives, but each step takes us closer to the ideal.
The drive to Uxbridge gave me time to ruminate on the TV idea, which during the course of a lunch earlier in the week had morphed into a game show. How does that happen? How does a conversation started many weeks ago about making a programme for women over 45 who are returning to, or retraining for, work, morph into a family game show with the suggestion that Jonathan Ross might like to present? This is an interesting thread and one I may have alluded to before. The creative process is so non-linear that even when one is a part of it, it doesn't make sense!
The drive to Uxbridge gave me time to ruminate on the TV idea, which during the course of a lunch earlier in the week had morphed into a game show. How does that happen? How does a conversation started many weeks ago about making a programme for women over 45 who are returning to, or retraining for, work, morph into a family game show with the suggestion that Jonathan Ross might like to present? This is an interesting thread and one I may have alluded to before. The creative process is so non-linear that even when one is a part of it, it doesn't make sense!
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Professional Schizophrenia
There is a schizophrenic quality to life when one day you're a journalist and the next a teacher, or one day a B2B trouble-shooter and the next the executive chair of an archive, debating with librarians the storage of a priceless costume. That last one is still unsolved: we have the original Ram Gopal 'Garuda'costume safely in our collection at Brunel, but we don't have the £10k to conserve and display it in the way advised by specialist costumiers:(
This week, I've been a programme maker, every hour of the current and previous days has gone on honing the BBC Daytime idea that we unexpectedly stumbled on during our ruminations a while back. Tomorrow we have a meeting with Jamie Oliver's producer, Nicola Gooch, at 15, his brilliant restaurant in Old Street. Nicola is an old friend from Six O'Clock Show days, and has been part of the Beeb's commissioning group as well as the brilliant brains behind series like General Hospital. I'm hoping that it will take just one cast of her expert eye over our synopsis, programme format, guest research and costings to spot both the jewels and the dross!
This week, I've been a programme maker, every hour of the current and previous days has gone on honing the BBC Daytime idea that we unexpectedly stumbled on during our ruminations a while back. Tomorrow we have a meeting with Jamie Oliver's producer, Nicola Gooch, at 15, his brilliant restaurant in Old Street. Nicola is an old friend from Six O'Clock Show days, and has been part of the Beeb's commissioning group as well as the brilliant brains behind series like General Hospital. I'm hoping that it will take just one cast of her expert eye over our synopsis, programme format, guest research and costings to spot both the jewels and the dross!
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Screen Servers
In April, a friend and I launched Wisebetty, a website aimed at women over 45 who were returning to, or retraining for work. We set up a pre-election questionnaire with Survey Monkey. The responses told us that a fifth of women questioned intended voting LibDem and that 80 per cent wanted the site to include a jobsboard. This meant having a site custom-built at great cost. And taking on staff who understood recruitment, had contacts with employers and could generate ads. As we sat despondently playing with figures, a TV idea presented itself...
Initially, we devised a programme that would target the Betties: our over-45s. That morphed into a talk show idea. We spent two weeks mapping it out and shot a pilot - half an hour with the formidable Marjorie Thompson, former Chair of CND, now a political lobbyist who's joined the Tories. Why? The shoot went well and pilot looked good. But.. it felt too highbrow for today's daytime audience which lives on a diet of Cash in the Attic.
We played with the format. It morphed into a magazine show idea. We spent two weeks mapping it out. Then it morphed into a game show idea. We spent one week mapping it out. And then we had our Eureka moment..... This morning we worked out the format of a show that could run and run. We've already mapped the first ten programmes and fixed up a meeting next week with a daytime producer who knows about pitching. Watch this space.
Late afternoon, I had lunch with an old friend, my former news editor at The Guardian, Melanie Phillips. Melanie's newspaper and magazine columns can make some people's hair stand on end. You may have heard her on the Moral Maze. In my view, the most challenging commentators don't prevaricate in a constant ideological dither, they tear around the edges battling with extremes and forcing us into battle either for or against.
Initially, we devised a programme that would target the Betties: our over-45s. That morphed into a talk show idea. We spent two weeks mapping it out and shot a pilot - half an hour with the formidable Marjorie Thompson, former Chair of CND, now a political lobbyist who's joined the Tories. Why? The shoot went well and pilot looked good. But.. it felt too highbrow for today's daytime audience which lives on a diet of Cash in the Attic.
We played with the format. It morphed into a magazine show idea. We spent two weeks mapping it out. Then it morphed into a game show idea. We spent one week mapping it out. And then we had our Eureka moment..... This morning we worked out the format of a show that could run and run. We've already mapped the first ten programmes and fixed up a meeting next week with a daytime producer who knows about pitching. Watch this space.
Late afternoon, I had lunch with an old friend, my former news editor at The Guardian, Melanie Phillips. Melanie's newspaper and magazine columns can make some people's hair stand on end. You may have heard her on the Moral Maze. In my view, the most challenging commentators don't prevaricate in a constant ideological dither, they tear around the edges battling with extremes and forcing us into battle either for or against.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Catch Up
A week where work impacted on pleasure and vice versa. The good thing about freelancing is that you can take time out to do other 'stuff' so Tuesday was a hedonism fest - the celebration of a 19th birthday with brunch and, later, a barbeque for twenty. No time to catch up on sleep as Wednesday was wall-to-wall meetings. It started at the National Liberal Club off Whitehall. The Strategy Committee of the VLV (Voice of the Listener and Viewer - not to be confused with the NLVA, Mrs Whitehouse's crew) has so much to deal with that extra-curricular meetings are a must. So much is happening that impacts on public service broadcasting. Jeremy Hunt is grunting all over the place and threatening to reduce the licence fee; Sky is harrumphing and unwieldy as Murdoch attempts world domination; the fracas over seven figure salaries at the Beeb has placed everyone under scrutiny. At the heart of the equation, it's the programming that suffers. Next, Lambs Conduit Street for lunch with my partner in crime who was off to talk to TV bods about a programme idea we've got. As we sat chewing the fat on an overcast afternoon, two of her old TV friends sauntered past, did a double-take and joined us: a portent perhaps? Late afternoon, a meeting of the Corporation of Westminster Kingsway College. It was a sad meeting: one of our brilliant VPs is retiring and the student governors are off into the real world after two years sitting with old codgers arguing about quality and standards and the application of policy to resources. I crept home at 9.30, happy to hit the sack... The next two days passed in a blur: conversations with solicitors and upping the ante with estate agents. The girls and I completed on our new house first thing on Friday. I got the keys at 10 and the builders started off loading a truck of equipment at twenty past. Work begins in earnest on Monday with the instruction that the place must be habitable by mid October: I work best to deadlines, even when delegating:)
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