The House Husband

Today we went to Reading. As far as I’m aware, I’ve never been before today. Mirinda thinks she may have attended a conference there once a while ago, though it clearly didn’t really impact on her to any great degree. So, to all intents and purposes, we’ve not been to Reading before.

Getting there with Linda’s help, was a snap, though, like me, she tends to make each trip circular. We (Linda & I) share a dislike for travelling on the same road to and from a destination. So we had a lovely tour of most of Berkshire on the way out to Reading.

Our opinion of the countryside may be somewhat blinkered given that we only saw it from the main road and the weather was glum…not wet, just glum. Still, we were driving through a forest (or so the sign said) and it didn’t look particularly appealing.

The outskirts of Reading looked very much like the outskirts of Aldershot to us. Which is a bit odd because Reading has been around for a lot longer. There may have been a Roman settlement there in the years of the occupation. However, where once there may have been a lovely straight bit of Roman road, there’s now lane after lane of traffic choked bitumen and concrete. They circle Reading like a loosely hurled noose, which is slowly being tightened around the necks of its inhabitants.

We had decided to visit Reading because a particular store which Mirinda likes is getting harder and harder to find as the recession closes most branches down. She discovered there was one in Reading and she figured we had little to lose by motoring over there to check it out. So we did today.

I hate shopping so my job was to wait at Starbucks while Mirinda did battle with her greatest nemesis: the shop assistant. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her almost pathological horror of shop assistants. Unfortunately, shop assistants in Reading seemed far too friendly for Mirinda’s Surrey reserve.

I noticed this as well. The staff in the wrong Starbucks were all very friendly and overly concerned about my wrist. I say the wrong Starbucks because there are two in Reading and, naturally, I waited in the wrong one. Anyway, they were all very concerned.

The same can be said for the people going to and from the music shop as well. While I waited outside for Mirinda to buy some guitar strings a chap asked me if I’d had an accident playing football. Before I could answer he took up a typical stance and suggested it happened while boxing. Seriously? Do I even remotely look like a boxer?

I told him I’d fallen off a ladder, just as a woman in a wheelchair appeared between us announcing that she liked my hat (she actually said “I like your titfa!“). Before I could thank her for her clearly good sense of style, she spotted my arm and her face instantly looked saddened. When asked how it had happened, I was tempted to say I’d been boxing.

We then had the rather comical scene of me stepping to the double glass doors, trying to open the other side so she could drive through while the crazy man who thought I was Mike Tyson, arranged the staff to get the key to unlock it. When he told the woman they’d gone for the key she remarked that they didn’t always have one, which was very irritating.

Mirinda suddenly appeared and rescued me.

We just as suddenly decided to have Italian for lunch and went into the conveniently located across the alley from the right Starbucks, Bella Italia. We’d never been to one (it’s a chain of very Italian restaurants…like Cafe Rouge only not French) and rather enjoyed it. The pizza Lombardy was delish.

After lunch we couldn’t really get out of Reading fast enough. Mirinda didn’t like it at all. I wasn’t keen but then I didn’t get to visit the church or the museum so I can’t be sure.

Broad Street, Reading

Something that struck us on the way home was how much more appealing the woods in Hampshire are.

On a completely different subject…I thought I’d include a photo of my bruise. It’s looking pretty extreme! It’s all show though. Not in the least sore.

The bruise on my arm looks worse than it is

I had another FATN recording today. I covered for another presenter who couldn’t do it, otherwise I wouldn’t generally have them two weeks in a row. It was the Alton one again, worst luck. Still, it was (sort of) fun.

The readers before us consisted of one of my readers from last week who told me that his wife, on hearing me read last week commented that I could make anything sounds interesting. I know I love making people laugh and my shallow nature dictates that this is more than enough…this really made my day. I’m not sure which section she was listening to (either the What’s On or Sport, I imagine) but, whichever, it was a wonderful compliment.

Judge for yourselves: here are the two tracks from last week.

What’s On
Sport

The problem with my session, slight though it was, happened for one of two reasons. Either I did something wrong or one of my readers did. Naturally I took the blame but I’m not so sure. The facts of the matter are these:

When presenters prepare the newspaper, they have two copies. The first one has all the odd pages marked ‘O’ in the top right hand corner and the second copy has the even pages marked ‘E’. The papers are then cut in half and stacked so only marked pages are uppermost. This is to prevent stories being repeated and/or missed in a particular edition.

The Alton paper, unusually, has two papers and so the whole thing needs to be done twice. Annoyingly, a lot of the same news stories appear in both papers. But, as long as you’re aware of it, it’s not that big a problem.

Anyway, last week, I managed to get into a big mess with the odds and evens and had to call on my reserve copy (which we get just for such accidents) and so this week, I was extra careful. I went through the piles of stories a few times, just to make sure there wasn’t any duplicates.

Halfway through editing, two of the readers spotted identical stories in their piles. We then had to go through all the stories and filter out these doubles. It wasn’t a huge problem and we sorted it all out without much to do. Except I think the two readers figured I was a moron for getting it wrong.

However, I’m not so sure it was me because if a reader turns a page over, the flip side of the page will have the identical stories of another reader. For this reason it is drummed into us NOT to turn the pages over. And this is what I think happened.

Not to worry, though. We went into the studio and read and all was fine.

Something I read about reading the newspaper is how it is important to make sound as if you are talking to someone you know. Make it sound personal; as if they are sitting in front of you. I think this is excellent advice and I try and do it each week. It’s annoying how the stories still sound read to me but I think I’m getting better. Anyway, it’s still great fun and I’d miss it if I didn’t do it.

I was a tad early for the recording so I stopped off in Farnham cemetery (it’s just across the road) and took a few photographs. Here are a couple:

Farnham cemetery, West Street

Farnham cemetery, West Street

It doesn’t look very pretty and, to be fair, it’s not really! But it is a huge area and maybe I didn’t get to the pretty bit. It’s also on a very busy road. Not that you can hear that.

Then, on my way home, the light was lovely so I took a couple of photographs off West Street.

The first one is a private road. You can always tell a private road because it’s not surfaced. This one looks quite sweet. Though big hedges always start alarm bells in my head. They are usually planted because of the noise!

West End Grove, Farnham

And, finally, our lovely Georgian museum. Actually, the building is Georgian…the museum stretches right across known time.

Farnham Museum, West Street

You can see from that shot what a lovely day it was today.

Today I had an unexpected Talking Newspaper stint. Poor George fell down his stairs and was so bruised he couldn’t get out of his chair. He rang me and asked if I could swap with him. Seeing as I was free (apart from writing my proposal) I agreed and trotted off this morning for the early shift.

There are three shifts on a Thursday. 10-2 is for the Farnham Herald, 12-4 is the Haslemere Herald and 2-6 for Alton. We generally edit for about an hour and a half then start recording. Generally it finishes half an hour early. This is the buffer that is built in for any emergency that may crop up.

This morning I was up for the 10-2. I generally manage to turn up 15 minutes before the off, which gives me a chance to get a good start on the edit. This morning was no different.

I walked up to the door and turned the handle. It was locked. This isn’t that unusual. When anyone is there alone they tend to lock the front door given the area. I rang the bell. I waited. I rang the bell again.

I peered through the windows of the edit room. Everything was black. This was odd. I took out my Dawkins and read.

The next reader then turned up. She was as confused as I was. She rang the bell as well. We were waiting for the presenter, who is responsible for picking up the newspapers and unlocking the studio.

At 10, Scottish Liz turned up, the third reader. She resisted the urge to ring the bell and we chatted about what could have happened. We rang the presenter but he wasn’t home so we figured he was stuck in traffic or something.

By 10:20, it was getting ridiculous so we rang Tony, the boss, and explained the situation. He said he’d pick up the papers and be with us asap.

He arrived at 10:30 and said he’d called the presenter’s mobile and was told he was on his way to London and he’d forgotten!

We poured into the edit room and started cutting and pasting. It was a rush job. The presenter for the next session turned up and we explained the situation. When we told him where and who the presenter was, he laughed, looked at Tony and said “Again?”

It all turned out ok. We read and recorded. I made a few fluffs (which will be cut out by the sound engineer, thank goodness) but overall it went quite well. I made them laugh a few times (always good) and fed Scottish Liz a few good lines as well. All in all, a fun morning, really. I love the Talking Newspaper!