Staring at a computer screen all day, well, it's what modern research is all about. I wonder how many of us develop a hunch from crouching in front of the pixellated eye all day. Perhaps we'll evolve to a shape more fit to office chairs.
Second day and the gambling addiction suggestion I nicked from Doreen (who's visiting from The World Today) nearly, oh so nearly made it but was trounced by a debate on whether calling Shilpa from Celebrity Big Brother 'The Indian' was racist or not. The other topics were Is Africa portrayed fairly and accurately in films (a resounding no), opinions on Barack Obama and my job, which was to cold call a bunch of contacts all round the world to find out who they think should have a historic epic made of their life.
BLogging the show went a lot better than yesterday, having had some brief but adriot training from Ros and also having some help on the emails and comments. I'm still not sure how it all works but there seems to be a shift system happening with the whole floor. Half the people here today weren't here yesterday and everyone seems to do everything, in a number of different locations as the WHYS office is small and once editor Mark Sandell recovers from 'flu I made find myself parachuting in early to secure a desk.
A very lively show today thanks to some brilliant people working on it and getting some excellent guests. The World Service seems to operate on love not money. Two I particularly enjoyed (while blogging furiously) were Anant Singh and Sorious Samura talking about films about Africa. Films like Black Hawk Down, Hotel Rwanda and The Last King of Scotland have been criticised for showing only the worst side of Africa, while films like Out of Africa are colonial nostalgia and the less said about Coming To America the better. Thinking hard about it, and considering my connections there might be a documentary subject in there.
Finally I was pleased to hear that the Somali radio stations that had been banned were back on air. While governments can implement more security/privacy laws than ever before I really think that it's harder for people to be shut up due to the global conversation we are now able to have and this is all we have to combat it.
The whole story has been so heart rending and inevitable - another proxy battleground for Islamists and U.S. backed forces that I know I'm being naive when I dare to see a bright side. We get a lot of callers from Somalia and they're intensely proud and very considered on the whole.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
We are becoming hunchbacks thanks to 'evolving' technology. We had a guets on LBC talking about standing up straight - interesting to see my producer bossed around by this little woman like she was his grandmother - sit up straight! You'll get a stoop. I think we're evolving backwards. We'll all be going around like Orangutans soon (and no, i can't spell it). Or maybe, we'll end up like this old sixties song: http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/intheyea.htm
best wishes with your placement
Post a Comment