Stunning and devastating opening from Newsnight tonight.
Harsh, yes. Media students (and current broadcast journalists!) take note: your edit is nothing without the right choice of music. And oh boy this is quite the choice.
Walked past Harry Styles doing autographs and selfies with fans today. Walked past the same spot again just after he left, 20 mins later. It was absolute chaos. People screaming. Weeping. Calling loved ones. Huddled in groups on the floor hugging and sobbing. That man is popular.
Dear all call centres: if you are experiencing a "higher than normal volume of calls" and have been for months on end, you are in fact "experiencing a normal number of calls" and you just have a really long queue.
I just showed Evelyn Glennie, the famous percussionist, the footage of Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons. She's deaf and can lip read.
She wasn't aware of the story and her interpretation of what he said was "stupid woman". She says she's very certain.
@theJeremyVine
@BBCPolitics
The person who started the
#clapforcarers
movement in the UK, Annemarie Plas, has just told
@theJeremyVine
she believes next Thursday's clap - the 10th one - would be a nice place to end it.
Can I just give a shoutout to whoever decided that lateral flow test kits should include one of these. I feel their contribution to the pandemic is underrated.
Washing your hands is all very well but I want to see the official guidance on how you then exit the toilet without touching anything else.
(Something like this perhaps?)
Is it weird than when a guy accosted me in a rural car park last night to ask for a lift to the nearest town because he'd lost his car keys out walking I said "yes but do you mind if I take a picture of you to send to my wife first just in case you murder me"?
Remember the extraordinary time Rage Against the Machine made Christmas
#1
in 2009?
I'm just re-living the moment when 5Live booked them for an interview/performance (HUGE CREDIT) & expected them not to swear (LESS CREDIT) and this incredible broadcasting moment happened:
The wonderful moment Sir Rod Stewart phoned in to Radio 2 to tell
@theJeremyVine
that he built his giant model railway himself.
He said “a lot of people laugh at it” but “I’m so proud of it”.
🔊😁😁😁
(
@Priyapas
)
What a radio moment -
@ChrisMasonBBC
explaining live on Radio 4 how it’s odd he hasn’t heard from Downing Street in a while - when his phone rings…
(ps. love the title of the programme Today is gatecrashing)
Had a meeting today. Someone booked a meeting room. Spent 30 mins touring entire London BBC HQ trying to find it. Turns out booked room was in Cardiff.
#W1A
Spot the problem.
I just disconnected the u-bend under the sink.
Then I poured the water from the u-bend down the sink.
If you need any DIY jobs doing just let me know.
Loaaaaddddssss of people outside work today all beaming and smiling at me as arrived then I realised I was walking through the doors with Harry Styles.
I've spent years working on radio phone-ins.
- people actually think hands-free sounds ok. It doesn't.
- people actually think speakerphone sounds ok. It doesn't.
- you *think* your mobile signal is reliable but it isn't.
- iPhones are awful for phone calls.
1/5
Apparently
@theJeremyVine
went a bit viral on TikTok today for all the wrong reasons thanks to this video which many younger and cooler colleagues sent me today
That graph showing BBC is 'most trusted'. Some from The Sun complain it's skewed because it's an 'either or' question and BBC has largest reach. Perhaps they'd prefer this one:
Perhaps the biggest question for many without a definitive answer:
“Can I see my mum?”*
(*/dad/children/grandchildren/loved ones etc - assuming social distancing is observed, no public transport etc)
Greatly saddened by the news about Michael Mosley. He was just as excited about everything off air as on air! I once told him my mum was a big fan and minutes later I sent her this picture, which is now awfully bittersweet. He was only ever a pleasure to deal with and chat to. ❤️
This is the best montage of the 2019 general election I’ve seen.
Editing geeks take note: the music choice and the way it’s cut to the track is brilliant. The final second is the winner. Brilliant
@BBCNewsnight
Tricky messages for worried parents.
Gavin Williamson in August: “there is little evidence that the virus is transmitted at school”.
Boris Johnson in September: "It is, alas, a fact of the disease that it is readily transmissible between children and adults".
Our radio phone-in switchboard is jammed with people who are completely torn over who to vote for in the election. SO complicated. Many lifelong voters to one party switching away.
Going to be incredibly hard to predict. Simple polling questions will struggle to capture the mood.
Monumental congrats to
@vernonkay
for raising a jaw-dropping sum for BBC Children in Need. Extraordinary effort. And big up my colleagues - I hope it wins awards for the epic, emotional, invested, joined up, wholesome and heartwarming week of radio that it was.
(
@ThePatrickT
👀)
When I was about 13 years old I wrote to my radio hero
#KennyEverett
to ask him if he would make me some jingles. I was utterly amazed when a few months later this reel to reel arrived in the post!!! Here are a few of them
#radiogold
This is sad news not just for Iain and Kath but for the wider radio industry. Something truly distinctive, personal and creative is coming to an end. And that’s precisely the thing we need more of.
I LOVE that many people outside of the UK have seen this tweet and taken it at face value. So many replies about 'Alan' being an awful co-worker. Terribly rude. 'How dare he'. 🤣
*waves a flag for satire*
As a very special treat and because Jeremy's on leave this week, I'm excited that we've asked the one and only
@ChrisMasonBBC
to keep the chair warm (and he said yes)!
On Radio 2 at 12. If you're lucky he'll start with Madonna.
ps. Radio producers take note: if a rebellious band has the lyric "F**k you I won't do what you tell me" and you tell them not to swear on air, you're in for a bumpy ride.
An hour ago
@theJeremyVine
spoke to 8-year-old Polly who's been walking/running a mile a day to raise money for the zebras at her local farm zoo. Her target was £100. She was really pleased to have actually raised £300+.
However since then...
As a radio geek I get a slight thrill from calling guests on my smartphone, plugging a cable in, and the next minute they're being broadcast across the UK on Radio 2.
eg. Currently this is my phone bringing Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti live to the nation!
The brill thing about
@lewismacleod
pretending to be
@theJeremyVine
doing the daily trail with
@RealKenBruce
today was that Jeremy had absolutely zero idea about it right up to the moment he fully expected to be speaking on air as usual!
Thanks to some tricksy work by
@PipMcGyver
Huge response on
@BBCRadio2
when we played the speech by 15y/o climate activist Greta Thunberg yesterday. She says: 'do more to help the environment'.
In a moment
@RHarrabin
tells
@theJeremyVine
about the govt's new waste policy.
After a long and busy day in the office in London I hopped on the train home to Bedford with visions of a walk in the park in the sunshine.
Except it was the wrong train. And the first stop is LEICESTER. 🤦♂️
Everyone’s focussed on the pro-Trump bloke and the screaming lady.
But look at the poor police woman! What an awful thing to try and marshal. All credit to her.
This screenshot from the BBC News website suggests that a colleague in Dorset never misses the opportunity to keep readers up to date with this particular local event
Don't you just love it when you're trying to book a shepherd to shear a sheep live on Radio 2 and you phone someone who says "I've got a flock of 650 and we've sheared 649 of them but I'll happily do the last one for you on air"?
I've just been reliving the time Ed Miliband met the lead singer of Napalm Death on Radio 2. Wow.
It may or may not have made it to our 'review of the year' this Christmas...
@Ed_Miliband
@officialND
@theJeremyVine
The Radio 2 breakfast show team have been chatting to Adele and hanging with Chris Martin.
I, meanwhile, am in a highly detailed email conversation with a listener called Nigel about the wattage of his heat pump.
#showbiz
The person who started this petition complains of Jeremy's 'pro vaccine' outlook, calls for him to do more research, and says he's a 'menace'.
May I politely suggest that she has a lot more research to do, and that anti-vaxxers are a far greater menace to public health than he is
Don't you just love it when you call George Monbiot and ask him to discuss polluted rivers on Radio 2 and he not only says "yes, I'll be on a river at that time" but also "I'll be with Feargal Sharkey who's campaigning on this issue and can also talk to you".
Normal air con broken at work + studio equipment must not overheat = emergency air con.
Emergency air con = very cold.
Very cold =
@theJeremyVine
wraps up in old shawl we find on coathanger even during an interview with Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson.
= THIS PHOTOGRAPH
Phoned HMRC today with a question about my student loan deductions. Guy I spoke to said “I’ve no idea” and “your guess is as good as mine”. When I said the HMRC seemed a mess he said “yeah you should try working here” and “don’t ask for a letter or it’ll take three months!”.
ps. Let's not get started on why Facetime/Luci/Skype would be better in the first place!
Final thought - when I put a caller on air I ask them to turn their radio off first. It's really noticeable how many more people (especially since Christmas 2018) now yell "ALEXA STOP!".
5/5
I've been watching
#imaceleb
this year.
And I'm a fully signed up
#teamiain
member. Anyone else? Basically he's brilliant and they're mean to him.
#teamiainlee
He’s not on social media so probably won’t see this. I’ll tell him to his face too…but just to say my boss Phil Jones retired today and he’s a legend. And I don’t even like the word legend!
I want to thank him for everything he’s done for me. Which is a LOT!
Indulge me…
1/