London Trip – Day 1
Set off from Cardiff at 12.30pm on the megabus, everyone arrived on time and prepared for the journey ahead. We arrived into London at around 3.50pm and then walked to Victoria Station to get the tube to Hammersmith, after a slight wait and a small mishap with loosing one of our members of the group, we went to go and get an oyster card to commence our travel to the hostel.
After arriving in Hammersmith we mistook the blatant ‘St. Christopher’s Inns’ sign on the building in front of us, and proceeded to wa
lk in the directions our phones told us, before realising that the place we were actually staying was indeed the building with the big sign on!
We checked in, and after dropping our luggage in the rooms we made our way down to the bar for some drink and food and to chill out and plan what we were going to do that evening.
After a short discussion, we were going to go to the Imax cinema or to see Wicked, but shows had sold out, the group parted ways and some went off on their own and the rest of us stayed drinking in the bar downstairs, eventually we decided to go for a wander and ended up in a weatherspoons down the road.
Today has been a good start to the trip, with a lot of laughs and banter, and I’m happy and pleased that everyone is getting on well with each other.
London Trip – Day 2
After getting up early this morning in an attempt to go to the Dr. Who Experience, we were sadly turned away due to it being sold out for the week, we had an extremely gutted member of the group, and as a massive Dr. Who fan had dressed for the occasion.
Non-the-less we proceeded to travel to Oxford Street and Regents Street where we took a wonder around Hamley’s and the shops, before going in search for BBC Radio 1, we met the guys who were meant to be coming to Radio 1, and attempted to find the building.
After searching for the building we eventually found it, and made the 12.45pm newsbeat bulletin, where they were broadcasting a special programme from Pakistan, their presenter Tulip was out in the field, the producer Stephen was only 23 years old (which was a shock to us all), but he was very knowledgeable and provided us with a good round explanation and talk about what goes on and how things work. Before the broadcast Fearne Cotton was finishing her show, and we saw her on the screen in the production room and afterwards she was dancing around in front of the camera, which was rather funny! We were given a script of the broadcast, and it was just interesting to see something that a few of us were familiar with in a professional context.
After Radio 1, we proceeded to get food, and saw 3 of the group that were meant to come to Radio 1 but didn’t make it, they were told to go back at 5pm for the next bulletin, which meant that they would now be missing House of Commons and Bush House, which annoyed me slightly as these were hard to arrange, but what can you do.
We travelled to meet everyone at the London Eye, and made our way to the House of Commons for the tour. During the security checks our Dr. Who Fanatic was searched and through the x-ray machines there was a strange object revealed in his coat pocket. The infamous Sonic Screwdriver, the security guards were questioning and one came over exclaiming that “he’s the doctor”, then a police guard coming over saying “my 10 year old son has one of those” (statement of the day!). We were all cracked up with laughter, and I’m sure that’s not something that they will be forgetting in a hurry!
The tour of the House of Commons was really good, unfortunately we weren’t allowed to photograph in the building (which sucks), but the rooms are extremely grand and amazing, I’d recommend the tour, it’s fantastic! There is a lot of history behind the building that I didn’t know as well, which is interesting to know.
After the House of Commons it was a quick dash to BBC Bush House for the world service talk, where we were split into two groups, 1 was sent to watch a live broadcast at 5pm and the other sent to a talk with one of the Regional Directors of the World Trust.
The talk was really interesting; we learnt about the BBC World Service Trust – “Its declared mission is to use media to enable people to have access to life-changing information”. They specialise in showing to 29 countries worldwide (Africa, Asia, Middle East, FSU and Europe) – Health, Governance and Human Rights, Livelihoods, Humanitarian Response and Climate Change – having a strong emphasis on research and impact evaluation. It reaches audiences of 233 million people through BBC World Service, and 78 million through BBC World TV in 28 different languages. The WST’s approach is to engage audiences and make it distinctive and innovative and entertaining. We were then told about Shankaboot, which is Arabic’s first web-based drama on www.shankaboot.com, which is a drama tinged with comedy, it’s sharp, funny and social. The website attracts up to 2,000 hits a day, and it’s YouTube episodes have been viewed more than 450,000 times. It also has over 20,000 fans on Facebook with strong followings in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the US and France. The BBC world trust has successfully managed to achieve their targets in educating countries, and it was really interesting to see a different side of the BBC.
After we were sent down to the Radio station to see the World Service Africa Broadcast at 7pm. The programme reaches around 40 million unique listeners a week, which is a HUGE amount of people, and the breakfast Network Africa show has the largest audience per week which is 33 million listeners. It’s amazing what they can produce and the impact that they have on people.
After Bush House we went to get food in The Wellington Pub (next to the ‘Lion King’) and then returned to Hammersmith where we spent the remainder of the evening in the pub. A successful day 2 I feel.
London Trip – Day 3
An early start this morning with a trip to ‘Bayswater’ and the Whitley’s shopping centre to see ‘The Wright Stuff’ which was live on Channel 5. We were seen into the studio, which was a lot smaller than we expected it to be, after being greeted by Eric Johnson who is one of the co-presenters of the show. We were part of the audience and saw how a live programme went on air and was set up and staged. We were an active part in the show and created the atmosphere, and the whole show was generally really interesting!
With a lot of topics, and discussions between everyone, we were talking about a number of topics including interracial adoption, the Ipswich murders musical, Libya and more. Lyndon also appeared on the show, with a small interview about his ‘greasy hair’, national humiliation? I don’t know, but we’ve got a running competition for the most embarrassing moment on the trip!
After the show we managed to have a Q&A with Matthew Wright the presenter of the show. That was amazing, and very useful with a lot of information. He was very friendly and offered us support and advice and his experience of getting into the business, his favourite moments and how he got into presenting after being a child actor turned journalism.
After the Q&A we were given a small tour around the studio, where T4 and Vanessa is also filmed, being shown the editing suite, sound suite and where the sets are kept.
I’d like to thank Eric Johnson and Matthew Wright and the team for their time this morning, we had a great morning and it’s really made a highlight of the trip!
Watch the show:
After the show had ended we decided to split ways with some of the group going to the ‘Horne Section on Radio 4, and the rest of us going to the Guardian.
Reports from the group have said that the ‘Horne Selection’ was amazing; they managed to get an interview with Alex Horne and then met up with them in the pub unplanned afterwards! I’m looking forward to seeing the footage, and hearing the show! The show air’s 14/3/2011, Radio 4 at 11pm!
The Guardian talk was really interesting and useful to the Journalism students. We were met by Jo Confino – Executive Editor of the Guardian, and we were taken to the conference room where he talked to us about what life is like in the Guardian and the future it holds into the digital world. It was a really useful and interesting insight into the print side of media, we were also told about the film and video side of the Guardian with his hopes of a growing TV podcast which they can produce with a lot more freedom than the BBC and ITV as they don’t hold any pressures or contracts and can produce a more free-witted and quirky news programme. We were then taken on a small tour around the building before leaving, going for a coffee and then coming back to the hostel to get ready for the evening.
It’s been a really successful day 3 of the trip, with Niamh managing to create her own salon in the room and straightening 3 of the boy’s hairs! It shows that tonight is going to be an interesting night!
London Trip – Day 4
After a really heavy night last night, with lots of laughs, drunken dancing to songs such as the ‘all saints’ and ‘grease’ we all met in the bar slightly later than I had hoped and planned. We left for Teddington studios at around half ten, and being an idiot I managed to find the longest route too! Instead of catching the train to Richmond and then to Teddington (which I found was the quickest and easiest route…) we got the tube to Waterloo and then to Teddington…. which was the slowest train ever!
When we arrived in Teddington, we had to find the studios, and again I managed to take the longest route! By this point we were already nearly an hour late… but I had phoned ahead! Found the studios and waited for Ray to come and get us to take us on a speed tour.
The tour was awesome, we went into the main studios as well as were told about all the stuff that is put on there at Teddington the latest two being Dick and Dom and Alan Carr’s Chatty Man. unfortunately we missed the set of Chatty Man being moved out of the studio…. damn! We were shown studios 1, 2 and 3 all different sizes and all really interesting to see…. huge! We were also shown the quarter of a million studio cameras, and the galleries where the magic happens. I was so happy with the short but sweet tour, and the receptionists were lovely enough to help us back to the station and find us the best train back to Hammersmith. =)
After arriving back in Hammersmith we collected our belongings and headed to Victoria station, we got some food and got the 4pm megabus back home. Trip is over, but its been a learning curve, interesting and fun!
Overall, I am really happy with the trip, I’d like to thank all the people who helped me with the trip, and to the people who agreed to have us and show us around the facilities – Froncoise Solaman for arranging Bush House and Radio 1, Carrie Daniels for letting us into Radio 1 Newsbeat, Simon Perry – for giving us a really interesting talk about the World Trust, Stephen McInnes – for giving us a really interesting insight to Radio 1, Eric Johnson for letting us in The Wright Stuff, Matthew Wright for giving us a fantastic Q & A , Ray Gearing for giving us a fab tour of Teddington studios and Jo Confilo – for giving us a really interesting talk in the Guardian.
=)
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