Welcome home (again)

Happy 1st Birthday Little Kiera! It's easy to see how you make me doubley cool just because I am your aunt!

Second children always want to check parity of esteem between them and their older sibling. I'm no psychologist (heck, I have problems even spelling the word) but I think it's a way of trying to make yourself feel better for getting his bike and stuff second hand rather than getting your own new.

So just like I wrote Kiera's brother a blog the day I met him for the first time, I wrote Kiera one too (well, in two parts). And just like I made that into a movie for his 1st birthday, I made hers into a video too.

See, equal love.

I can tell by your big smiles I see when I come to visit you like your home! I knew you would.

Drama drama drama

Last weekend I watched all of series one of Downton Abbey. In fact, I watched in a day, well essentially an afternoon. I started at about 12.00pm and finished by YF. Not bad going eh?! Well it was easy, it's very good. Maggie Smith is her standard self, that is to say she is absolutely fantastic and kills it with her lines. I like Hugh Bonneville too, and the history part is quite interesting, although probably not as good as Mad Men's if I'm honest, but comparing the two isn't fair.

I would say I don't know why I missed it first time round, but I know exactly why. The reasons are two fold.

1. It's on a Sunday night. That's YF time and has been since about 1992.
2. I don't really like costume dramas.

This second one needs further explanation, for a history geek like myself should be all about them. Well, I blame my mother. Now wait, let me explain.

When I was young she had on video Pride and Prejudice and watched it. All. The. Time. And I don't mean the (apparently) cool 1995 Colin Firth one. Oh no! I mean the 1980s one which had Raquel from Only Fools in. (I was giving it the benefit of the doubt there when I said 1980s, I just looked it up, 1980. It's as old as I am. A classic indeed.) They'd all just sit around in bad light with their bonnets on and talk in riddles while eating with an occasional set dance. Well that's how it seemed to me anyway.

You see my problem, it started with adaptations of great books you're supposed to have read. At age seven or eight I hadn't read Pride and Prejudice. What am I talking about? At age 31 I still haven't read Pride and Prejudice. I'm not likely to either. I not fussed on reading, but that's a whole other post. But you see, you're supposed to have a clue about Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth. I don't. I don't know about Bleak House; I don't know about Jane Eyre; I don't know about Tess of the d'Urbervilles. You name a classic book by a literary 'great' and I won't know about it. Well except for A Christmas Carol, but that's because of The Muppets.

Maybe it's because of my English classes at school. In GCSE we did Pygmalion and Animal Farm. Well that's just My Fair Lady and talking animals. The only Shakespeare I ever did in school was in third year (Romeo and Juliet). I've seen Macbeth since, in the theatre, but I only went because I had to, a colleague was in it. Actually now that I've said that I can't be absolutely sure it wasn't Hamlet. See what I mean? I'm just not interested.

The problem is compounded by the fact people go on about them and make them sound so worthy. Not people people, but like the Radio Times falls over itself when there's a new adaptation of something. There's behind the scenes, interviews, comparisons...yawn. Like I said, I don't know how the character was written, I'm not bothered by some new director or producer's take on him. Or how (s)he's more evil/better looking/smarter than  (s)he is in the book.

So it's from all this that I got my aversion to costume dramas. For I discovered it's better to avoid anything remotely in the costume drama genre. You might only become one of those luvvy types.

All that said, if you're like me and haven't seen Downton Abbey and have no apparent interest, please enjoy these spoofs that were shown as part of Comic Relief this year. They make fun of the style of show and are actually a good way in to the story.

If you love Downton Abbey, you'll still enjoy these - even if you've seen them before!

Question Time (Part 2 - the big match and Twitter analysis)

So we made our way to the studio and few lazy keenos now decided this was the time to squeeze past us. The cheek! Once seated, the floor manager came on and explained a bit more, like when to clap and when not. It's a complicated intro - Dimbley does his bit to camera and you'll want to clap we were told. The music starts and you'll want to clap. Dimbleby will introduce each panellist and you'll want to clap. But no, you must wait until you get nod. He ran through the end and instructed us not to be reaching for our coats and putting them on as there'd be audience shots all the way behind the credits. And then he asked for a few volunteers to do the mock panel. Once again, it was a nice mix of normoes and weirdoes. I had read on the other blog that everyone who volunteered for the panel featured in some point during the programme, and aside from one woman, that was true in this show too.

There’s a camera in the middle, you can nearly make it out against the black. I felt like it was on me the whole night.

It wasn't.

We ran through (quite a long) rehearsal of questions and debate on two subjects completely unrelated to what was going to come up: the Peace Bridge and the three miles to school controversy and childhood obesity. They do something completely different so that you don’t back reference yourself in the actual recording “Well, I said earlier” kind of thing. It was fairly lively debate and something everyone had a view one. For my part, even though I had things to say (like it being a mindset thing about the bridge, or more impolitely you were outside the three mile cut off, now you're not, tough luck. The same rule applies across NI, of course it's bloody fair.) I practically sat on my hands for fear I'd be drawn in to the debate and then later, forget about the national TV bit. No likely, but you never can tell.

After the mini debate, the head of audience (ok, I don't know what her title was) came out and read out the names of the people that'd be asking the question. It was mine and Richard's view before I went that they can't make you ask a question. That's probably still true, they can't make you, but they can make it really difficult for you to get out of it. As each name was read out I stuck my fingernails into my hand. I really didn’t want to ask a question.

The woman called the camera and sound people to the front to mark on their studio plans where the people are sitting. The first name was read out, and she had to stand up while they marked it down, then she had to come out to get her typed out question. Then the second and so on. There was no chance for you to say quietly to someone in charge 'actually, I'd really rather not/my voice has gone/I can't be on TV as per the court injunction'. Thankfully as we went through the list my name wasn't there. Breakdown on national TV averted!

There were six questioners and one warm up. The questions weren't announced to us so they were as much a surprise to us when they were read as they were to the panel. When Dimbleby came out he said that we weren't doing the warm up question anymore, he'd just do a general warm up. He introduced the panel and they came into applause and then once they had their microphones on (which was somewhat of an ordeal for Martina Anderson in her green dress - she had to go off stage to get the wire underneath it. Awkward.) Dimbleby asked what their big news stories of the week were. Martina Anderson said the celibacy thing, Owen Paterson said the economy, Nicola Horlick said the euro and Nigel Dodds said the boundary changes. We never heard Diane Abbott's because Dimbleby led the discussion along those lines. Dodds gave a politician's answer of 'we're looking at the situation closely'. Abbott was a bit more candid, saying that she didn't believe she was in trouble from MPs  from slated constituencies but would wait and see. There was discussion with the audience about Gregory Campbell and the East Londonderry seat and boom, we were ready for the off.

Apparently it was Owen Paterson's first time on Question Time. Bless him, it showed.

Dimbleby did his intro and we waited to clap. And waited. And waited. And then we clapped. And sure enough the first question came from the first questioner, the warm-up questioner was cut. It's a cut-throat business, this TV malarky.

Like I said before, I was quite aware of the cameras and, based on the other blog that I had read, I was conscious of making any vigorous head movements or massive facial expressions lest they be picked up. But I was also aware of what I applauded for. This is actually quite difficult because you’re so used to joining in with applause because everyone else is clapping and not actually thinking about it.

During the recording I kind of lost the order of who was asking what, but by the end it was clear that warm-up lady wasn't the only one to be cut. There was guy in front of me and one behind who were to ask questions but nada. It was only when I saw it go out that night I realised the warm-up lady did get to ask a question, the one about priest celibacy (or someone wussed out backstage and she was happy to read their question). I thought it probably was the weakest question of the night, not really anything to do with politicians (or investment bankers in Horlick's case) and had all the potential to descend into the abuse scandals which isn't wholly related to celibacy. On the way out I asked the guy who had had the last question what it was going to be on - the Orange Order and the disciplinary action facing Kennedy and Eliot because of Ronan Kerr's funeral. What? Firstly no 'funny' question?! Secondly, I'm not sure that's exactly what I understood when the woman on the phone said my question had to be main stream and of interest to everyone in the UK.

After it was over we had to watch the panel leave before we could. Incase we accosted them in corridor I expect.

Afterwards I read the tweets on the #bbcqt hashtag. It seems the general feeling of the night was the audience challenged the panel and came off the victors, with great tweets including “Again, it needs repeating – the Northern Irish are definitely brighter than the panel” and “Entire panel (especially the rabbit-eyed Tory) outgunned by informed and eloquent audience”. I don't really think I can take any credit for that. Some people didn’t like the celibacy question and there were a few that made comment of the fact that the questions were generally not NI centric questions. There were a lot that didn’t like the fact that the audience seemed to be liberally minded. I don’t know about that, like I said earlier, we had to declare who we voted for (and who we would vote for in GB). There were people that were allowed to watch from behind the official audience seats (don’t really know how they snuck in), but they weren’t allowed to clap or respond in any way because it would only skew the response.

The real hits of the night on Twitter were Paterson’s ‘rinky-dink’ description which had someone tweeting “Thanks to Paterson’s “rinky-dink”, I now have the Pink Panther theme song stuck in my head”. There was also his rather unconvincing appeal during the first question on public service strikes to remember "We're all in this together". Twitter was all over that. And course there was Martina Anderson’s hair, I’m surprised it wasn’t trending on Twitter. My favourite tweet of the night was “Everyone on #bbcqt is talking…very…slowly. It’s the debating equivalent of doing big writing to make an essay look bigger”. 

Seriously, if you don’t watch Question Time with the commentary of the hashtag running alongside, it’s like you’re only getting half the experience. There were lots of funny (and sometimes quite rude and mean) comments on there.

When I watched the show back I was pleasantly surprised at how little you saw me. Like I said above, I really did feel like the cameras were right in front of me. But these shots were about the best you saw of me all night.

Look! There I am, right up at the top there.

No, I don't think a 'hello mum' sign would go down too well with the producers. Or the security people for that matter. They're not known for being big fans of a comedy sign.

Jeez Nicolai, way steal my limelight there. 

Oh and that bit Dimbledore said at the start about running straight through turned out to be a lie. At one point during the Libya question he called on someone whose hand was raised 'on the gangway' and on TV we saw a young man in a red check shirt speak. Well I can exclusively reveal that actually it was the guy beside him who was being called on. But he said he'd pass to his friend whose hand had been up longer. Dimbleby said it was very polite or kind or something and then his friend spoke. None of that exchange made the programme. Not surprising, it wasn't wildly entertaining, and I suppose they want to stop other people from doing it in other recordings. Pretty much everything else he said was true, especially when he said the hour would go really quickly. 

Oh and looking silly talking while your hand is still up. But we probably knew that already.

Question Time (Part 1 - the pre-match build-up)

I know what you're thinking. And you're right, that was my forehead you saw on BBC Question Time on Thursday night!

This man seems to have forgotten his hand puppet.

I love a bit of Question Time. So when at the end of the stand out edition (about phone hacking when we wanted Hugh Grant for actual PM, not acting PM) in July David Dimbleby said that second one back after the summer break was coming from Derry I thought I'd apply for tickets. Well what have you got to lose?!

The form online is more complex than standard audience forms, I suppose trying to be all balanced and what not. I had forgotten all about it until I opened up Twitter on my phone last Monday and saw someone I follow getting a phonecall from the QT people. The missed phonecall and voicemail that I had ignored when I first unlocked my phone (I must have had important news to tweet to ignore this) made sense, it must have been from the audience people!

I listened to the voicemail and sure enough it was from Question Time. I panicked, naturally. Afterall, it's not everyday you get a phonecall to appear on national TV. The girl on Twitter who also had been invited wussed out because she discovered during her conversation with the TV people that they actually want you to participate and not just be there in a 'hello mum capacity'. I swithered as to whether to accept or not. I really didn't want to be on TV asking a question, but would you ever get the opportunity to go again? Probably not.

So I called back and said I could come, thinking in my head that if I changed my mind I could just not show up. The woman on the other end of the phone was quite intimidating. She asked me the same questions I had filled out on the form, I suppose to test me, make sure I really did vote for who I said I did. Then she asked me what my question would be.

Eh...right...question?

She tried to help me out by saying what in the main UK news would I want to talk about.

Eh...right...news?

I reverted to my form (I had filled out the week more women had been rescued from a human trafficking ring). But before I could even get the words 'human trafficking' out she had cut me off to say it had to be current and in the news this week. [It turned out the next day slaves were found in some part of England. Ha! In your face phone lady. Although I'm not sure I should be celebrating that just to be proved right.]

Eh...right...news this week?

I said something about the economy and public sector jobs. That stuff's always in the news and it must have been what she wanted to hear. I was told I'd get an email and to reply to it with the wording of my question by the next day.

I still dithered as to what my question should be about. I wanted it to be good enough for them not to withdraw the invitation, but crap enough for them not to make me ask it. It was a fine line. Something like 'what's your favourite type of pasta?' would have me bumped across, but something like 'Is Libya in danger of becoming the new Iraq?' might stand you a chance. It's provocative, snappy and current, the things they ask you for in the email. But also, if it was just a bit out there you might get the 'funny' question at the end. It was a minefield for a Hello Mum spectator like myself.

I did a bit of research and came across a blog of someone who had been to one after the leadership debate last year. That was useful information and calmed me a bit. I watched the news and researched current news stories on tinternet. Heck, I even watched The Daily Politics.

If you've ever seen Question Time you'll know there's sometimes a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and Dimbleby will often bounce it back to the questioner and get their views. For that reason I stayed away from the economy, the euro and the strikes. What if I did get picked and what if Dimbleby asked me something really really hard? On national television! Oh die! So instead I went for the electoral boundary changes that had just been announced that day. That's topical, (relatively) interesting and affects the whole country (or will once Scotland and Wales have their new constituencies announced). But again I was back to the words in the email about being provocative. I tried to make my question as unprovocative as possible: who are the real winners and losers of the proposed electoral boundary changes?

I could have asked something implying the Liberal Democrats shot themselves in the foot or something about the boundary commission effectively gerrymandering Conservative wins. That's fairly provocative. I emailed it off. And then practised the wording every so often before Thursday. Well, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. So they say.

I arrived up in Derry that afternoon. Turns out Richard and Rebecca live just around the corner from where it was filmed so got to hang out with them and even walk across the Peace Bridge. Twice.

We were told to be there between 6.00pm and 6.30pm and as I arrived I saw what can only be described as a cross-section of society standing outside the doors. There was every type of person imaginable. Old, young, student, professional, weirdo, normoe. You name it, they were there. (For reference, I fall under the young normoe category.)

We were taken through our security checks and what not and then given a card to write our second question on. The woman reassured me that you would know before the programme began if you were one of the chosen ones. They even had it printed on the card; clearly I wasn't the only one who’s ever had a panic.

I sat down with the people in front of me in the queue. More of their people arrived and as they hadn't been much craic up to that point, I left them room and switched seats. The new people were lovely and were going through the same sort of anguish I was as to whether your question might be picked out. We sat there for the guts of an hour, and they were really good craic while we waited.

It soon became apparent heads were turning to the door we came in and sure enough, there he was, the man himself, His Right Honourable Sir Lord David Dimbleby of Televisionland! He made his way through the room and came to a microphone at the front. He ran through what would happen next (we'd be taken through and with a mock panel made up from audience members do a mini QT), the panel (who's who) and how the recording actually works (no stopping, no editing and no retakes - not the complexities of satellites and who actually gets to press 'record'). Also, if you want to speak, raise your hand and keep it there until you are called on, otherwise he’ll assume you don’t want to speak anymore. He also said that it helps the look of the whole thing if you don’t keep your hand up while speaking. Something our audience didn’t always manage.

He was very charming and personable in the preamble.

The cards for the second question were collected and from what I gathered, they choose the questions based on the popularity of the topics people ask about. Then from each of those topics a question is picked out, presumably based on the snappiness factor, but also checked for balance against other potential questioners. After hearing about six questions would be picked for the programme, I looked round the room. We guestimated there were 150 there so you'd have to be really unlucky to have yours chosen. Or you know, lucky if you’re that way inclined.

We were told they'd seat people from the front row, so if you wanted a front row seat get to the door. All the keenos charged. Me and my new friends hung back and bit and got mid-queue. Perfect we decided. Not back row uninvolved, not front row eager beaver.

Part 2, the actual programme, tomorrow. You can watch the programme still on iPlayer here if you're keen. If not...well I'm still going to tell you about it tomorrow.

Bit quiet

I didn't deliberately stop blogging there, I just couldn't get to my desk.

#TinaLostInSpace took on a new twist. I started tidying the shelves under my desk. I didn't tweet about it, partly because #TinaUnderTheDesk doesn't really sound right. And partly because it was quite dull stuff. There were all my university files. I mean all my university files, first year through and most every draft of every essay for five years. There were university and school textbooks, exam marking files, a collection of notebooks (unwritten in because, you know, they're too nice) and empty ringbinders and lever arch files (incase of a filing emergency, of course).

I still haven't quite finished the tidy up to end all tidy ups, but I have reclaimed my desk and most of my floor. I think the next part might be to sort through my wardrobe(s) and have a clear out there too. It's quite cleansing, all this tidying. Becomes a bit addictive. But I tell you what, it is quite amazing I haven't developed asthma from all the dust I was living in.

In other news, I got hooked on Mad Men. Quite a brilliant show. It does take a while to get into it, but you do it won't let you go. I watched season 1 about a year ago, and was encouraged by Jill not to skip ahead and watch season 4 even though it was on TV. Now having watched them in order, I am glad I didn't. The costumes, the writing, the character development is just brilliant. Plus, a drama set in the 1960s and referring to the events of it is brilliant for a history geek like me. There are some cracking lines, mostly from Roger Sterling, so it's funny too, but in a more subtle kind of way. Actually the whole show is subtle. So much so you might be mistaken for thinking nothing ever happens. But you'd be wrong.

I even went as far as to 'mad men myself' on the AMC website. So here I am hanging out with my pals at Sterling Cooper.

I don't condone smoking. But it seems that's all they do. Well that and drink.

Now, I don't think it'll overtake The West Wing as my favourite show ever, but, as you can tell from my enthusiasm, it's made a cracking effort up the charts.

Emmys this weekend. I have my fingers crossed for Mad Men nominees. Most especially Mrs. Blankenship.

You'd never belief that was The Karate Kid's mum. The first one. I mean the make-up's good, but that's not Jada Pickett Smith under there.