Grade Runner

Overheard the following bleat today from editor to director while installing a routine piece of kit that said team were too important to do themselves........

"It’s time to put something back into this industry and spread my genius around a bit. I never thought I would say this but I’m getting a bit tired of the big city, there was a time when I couldn’t live without 70 hour coke fuelled edit sessions followed by a three day bender around Soho, waking up with my cock in some sixteen year olds work experience girls mouth and then onto the next project. But now I’m thinking of settling down a bit and getting out of London as my partner has our first child on the way. Maybe after selling up our Stoke Newington town house we can buy a run down farm in Somerset like Hugh's. Tab’s can make organic chutney, I might even take up grouse shooting like my uncle used to. Or perhaps we could move to Cornwall, they love city people down there as we have so much more money than them. I could go surfing every morning before hitting the edit suite.

(pauses while takes sip of purdeys)

I feel a reel sense of duty as even though you can get a Starbucks most places these days the provinces are really lagging behind on decent post-production. Every one knows you cant get a decent grade outside of W1. So all I have to do is move to somewhere outside of London and my skills will blow these bumpkins minds. Set up shop in one of these provincial towns where they just make wildlife programs or daytime TV and my big city skills will clean up. Even better somewhere rural so remote that you cant even find it on sat nav. I'll get tabs to work her Grand Designs magic on a old barn and start a rural facilities house called The Barn or the Farmyard, something like that. Because I’ll be the only one offering a serious London grade outside of Soho all the semi retired execs living out in the sticks will beat a path to my door!"

Serial Killers

Some people are so self important. They walk through the door and expect you to wait on them hand and foot, like they are the next messiah. Series producers fit this category. Now most of them are actually nice, but when the shit starts hitting the fan then you really start to see their true colours and the inner cunt comes out to play.

Now there are few categories you can fit these people in. The ones that are extremely posh and are a fully paid up member of the oxford alumni. They also use old terminology and probably wonder why the camera is not handcranked anymore. Then theres the ones that even though it isn't necessary, always like to work 16 hour days 7 days a week and probably sleep in a coffin. To round off this rogues gallery, the fucking miserable ones who have a air of 'I'm pissed off with everyone' to ensure you do anything they request at breakneck speed so as not to invoke the rage virus they've contracted from a zombie rat monkey while filming a tribe on a remote South American island, which probably explains why they've got a face like they've just licked a cats ass.

These people don't seem to understand the concept of time, which is quite strange considering that its been around since the dawn of eternity. The immortal words 'I need a playout' will venomously hiss from their lips, and then they will proceed to call every five minutes asking where it is, conveniently forgetting the fact that their programs a hour long and refusing to understand that it has to be done in real time (how people without any grasp of technology manage to get employed in a industry where its essential in every single stage of production angers and baffles me in equal measure).

Then lunchtime rolls around. Far too busy shopping on the internet and using the facilities telephone to call Botswana even though their own mobile is sat on the desk, they of course have a very specific diet that needs a combination of ingredients available on each far corner of the known world. I know I'll get you a roast dodo, with a salad hand picked from the garden of eden and washed in the tears of Jesus, and you'll take two bites of this glorious feast that takes me half the afternoon to source for your delicate stomach (of course also complaining that its cold and forgetting that would be fucking obvious considering what I've been through to get it for you), before tossing it in the bin (and I also have to note that you will wait until I come to your room once and then ask me for a napkin, and then when I bring you a fucking napkin you suddenly remember you want a spoon, and then when I bring you that you want a perrier like I'm employed solely to wipe your fucking ass all day).

These people really do test my patience, especially as you have to kiss their ass constantly upon fear that they could strike your career down so you never work again (and they also think their position gives them the right to perve over staff members which makes me want to be violently sick into their Fairtrade Latte). I can't wait till the Summer when they're all off planning there next stupendous series of shit in Provence. Until next time......

The Rise of the Chefs

A few years back in the dawn of reality television, while big brother was just a twinkling in endemol's eye and Wife Swap was making a name for RDF television, so began the nightmare we live in today. The first fashion to begin was DIY shows. DIY SOS, Changing Rooms, that crap one on ITV where they decorated a house in a hour (if you can't remember it its as shit as it sounds) and the more hi-brow Grand Designs for the Telegraph readers of the world. Slowly these petered out, Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen left our screens and Nick Knowles has hiked his undeserved fame onto the pointless National Lottery crap on a Saturday night (Why can't we just have the numbers, ALL WE NEED IS THE NUMBERS!!). Poor old Anna Ryder-Richardson has had to resort to resurrecting her falling star on the annual twat-fest I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! My heart bleeds for her. It really, really does.

What they should have done is become Chefs! Chefs and food in general are in fashion. The rise of the Chefs is plain for all to see. Now Oliver I can handle. Ramsay to an extent. Masterchef passible. But then they dropped saturday morning kids shows to have a chef off on ITV and BBC1. Overkill begins. But I could handle it. Until now. Just take a look at the schedule today: BBC1 09.15 Whats Really in our food? BBC2 1630 Food Poker, 2000 Oz and James Big Wine Adventure, 2030 Uncharasmatic food robot Heston Blumenthal slow cooking a curry for five years, Cooking The Books at 1830 on Channel Five (with some talking piece of wood from Hollybollocks presenting) and to round off this feast of television Old Leatherface gets his potty mouth out at 2100 on Channel 4 to whip some kitchen into shape in his inimitable style. With my calculations thats 5 hours of TX time across the terrestrial channels dedicated to the same fucking show in different wrapping.

Food poker - FOOD FUCKING POKER! This is quite possibly the straw that broke the camels back. Up pops that bloke who gets in the disguises on Rogue Traders to deal the cards to the best chefs in the country, I shit you not they've replaced the standard playing cards we've been used too since time began in favour of cards with a different ingredient. The chefs are dealt a hand and then have to come up with a dish from this. Where have we heard this before I wander?? Just look at the time slot and get your green peppers and red tomatoes out.

Do people actually enjoy making this toss? Is this the creative outlet they desire? If I want to cook I'll stick to books, where I have a choice about how many recipes I ram into my head every day. So when this runs its course whats next? God help us all.

The Fall of Television

Hello, and let me introduce myself. I am a runner for a major post-production company and I'm hear to give the dirt, first hand on the making of television. A behind the scenes look at the overpaid nhs style glasses wearing posh fuckwits, who are greedily chomping away at the innards of the once great establishment of British television like a pack of underfed hyenas, and washing it all down with an 'organic' cola from fresh and wild. I will also try and add my impartial views to what is good and bad about the weeks broadcasts - and sticking it into my most hated medium, so called 'reality' tv. We used to produce quality television, that reflected social movements and offered us an insight into real people with real tragic and interesting stories.

Now I'm stuck with 'Can fat kids hunt' (BBC3 Monday, 10.30pm)? What are they hunting for, a pound down the back of the sofa so they can buy another round of donuts? Why do we have to fabricate documentary's when there are plenty of interesting people in the world? This and many other challenging debates will appear right here, so as they say in the industry stay tuned.