Cock-ups of our time

Oh dear it really hasn't been Radio 4's week.  The wrong shipping forecast went out, last weeks edition of the topical news based Now Show got played instead of the current episode, much to the chagrin of my showbiz mate Jon Holmes who writes and performs on it. And now to add salt into the wound a bit of 6music got faded up at the front of the Archers last night.

It does remind me of all the cock-ups I have made, - well we are all human after-all.  Here are two of my favourites; the first I fell sound asleep one night shift during a recorded show.  I woke up to a strange ticking noise - it was the relay of the ExD phone light that was flashing away.  I answered the phone to be greeted by a rather irate man from NTL (Now Arqiva) who said. "Aye up it's Elmley Moor here, you appeared to be off the air?" "Er yes I know." I lied and said "We are just sorting it out right now." I whacked in a commercial.  By the way not a single soul complained. And we'd been off for over 15 minutes!

The second was a recorded show that in those days we played out on tape.  Recorded at 7 1/2 ips I played it out by mistake at 15ips (twice the speed) so it went off at a rate of knots.  The show was called Advertising World presented by Torin Douglas.  As soon it shot off I bashed the button back to the slower speed the tape slowed and wowed a bit and phew everything was ok.

Now introduce the sales department who decided to send that particular episode out to EVERY major advertiser and agency.  Did they bother to listen to the recording before they sent it off to the tape duplication house?  I think you have guessed the answer.  So a few seconds on the radio turned into a major embarrassment for the radio station.

So let's be kind to Radio 4, they were just having a bad week, I am sure things will be better next week?