The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:10am on Friday, 11th November, 2005:
Weird
The other day, I mentioned that Anglia TV local news has switched from using two cameras in the morning to using one camera. I posited that this was to avoid the juxtaposition of a friendly, welcoming hello with news of the latest horror to afflict the Eastern counties.
Actually, it turns out that there's a more mundane explanation. The plasma screen behind the presenters had been playing up, and the first camera angle would have put it in shot. Hence, they just went with the second camera angle. They're moving to new studios in three weeks, and new everything is being installed there. The dodgy plasma screen will be replaced anyway, so at the moment the engineers are just holding it together with sticky tape and string until they can scrap it at the end of the month.
How do I know all this? Yes, well...
OK, if you re-read that earlier QBlog posting, you'll notice that it ended with a quote from one of the presenters, Stephen Lee. He emailed me about it.
Yes, this is the same Stephen Lee whom I described as "I-dye-my-hair-to-appear-interesting".
AAAAAgh!
It's getting so you can't talk behind someone's back nowadays without their finding out...
It turns out that Stephen has a pretty good sense of humour, which I had long suspected after observing his reactions on those few occasions when he fluffs his lines. He assures me that his hair highlights are indeed among the new things that will be in place for the studio move. It looks, therefore, as if I won't be having Anglia TV reporters snooping into my nefarious past as an act of revenge (well, not unless Sascha Williams, whom I also teased, takes a dimmer view of such matters).
Actually, I'm really chuffed to get an email from a TV local news presenter. It's all very well listening to reports of happenings in Colchester and what the weather will be like, but you don't get more local than personal contact. It makes Anglia news seem far less remote than it did; no longer distant aliens reporting on local events, but local people reporting on them. I have to hand it to Stephen for taking the time to email members of the public who pass comment on his news-reading; it makes him and the Anglia TV news staff in general seem, well, human!
I wonder if other newsreaders take rude comments about their appearance with such grace?
6:30 ITN presenter Mark Austin, your head is too small for your body, and co-presenter Mary Nightingale, your body is too small for your head. Please, wear jackets with narrower/wider shoulders, it's unnerving.
Referenced by Oh, the Shame.
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Copyright © 2005 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).