Can I Take That Again? - Part 5

Yesterday broadcaster Steve Martin tweeted "BBC colleagues - recreate the NBH experience at home by randomly changing the thermometer (thermostat) and releasing some pet mice".

A mouse you say? In the studio? Yes, unexpected rodent sightings did seem to be commonplace around the BBC and I've dug out audio evidence of a couple of incidences.

First, the now infamous mouse-related episode up at Media City in January 2013 during Shelagh Fogarty's 5 live show. As guest Mike Linnell spots the unwelcome intruder there are girlie screams from Shelagh as she hops onto her chair in a scene reminiscent of an old Tom and Jerry cartoon. "It's on the bloody table," she exclaims.

This all happened just a month after another mouse had popped up during Kate Kinsella's weather forecast, presumably from a London weather studio, during Iain Lee's BBC Three Counties morning show. This one is "quite sweet actually" as Kate rejects Iain's suggestion to despatch it with a book or a block of wood.   

Can I Take That Again? - Part 4

This post should be subtitled The Sound of Silence. When this week's Jamie Cullum's Radio 2 show was unexpectedly truncated - a beginning and an end but seemingly the middle section had dropped down a digital black hole - and the 'emergency tape' kicked in it didn't go unnoticed; social media and the fact that it's the biggest station in the UK saw to that. [The full pre-recorded version of Jamie's show is no online]  

The use of playout automation and voice-tracking have long been a feature of radio station output and, for the most part, work seamlessly so listeners shouldn't be able to spot the difference. But when Radio 2 adopted the VCS Autoplayer in September 2012 for a while it was a case of 'mind the gap'.

Radio 2 was aiming to make efficiencies and the use of automation was noticeable in the evening and weekend programming when, one assumes, technical staff were thin on the ground. Most of the early teething problems involved the junctions out of news bulletins with the next programmes fired off at exactly three minutes past the hour cutting off newsreaders in their prime. 

The network's problems were compounded when in January 2013 two programmes played out at the same time with Michael Ball and Russell Davies's show both simultaneously competing for about 15 minutes of airtime. Later that year, in October, we got two Bob Harris's for the price of one when the end of BST seemed to send the system haywire.

Here are a few example I collected at the time.

Note the jokey but rather pointed comment from Richard Allinson "normal service ... well that went out the window ages ago" was made around the time in 2012 when the old team of newsreaders was phased out and the automation came in.

The news at 1:10 is very odd. This is Susan Rae, on 23 September 2012, presumably reading the 2-minute 11.00 pm Radio 4 bulletin but on Radio 2! Hence we get a full minute of silence before the trailer kicks in.     

At 6:19 we get part of the infamous Bob Harris show from 27 October 2013 with two parts being played out at once.

At 8:24 it's the Ball/Davies cock-up.

And finally at 12:49 from 22 June 2015 Jeremy Vine signing off and Steve Wright loving a technical fault.

Needless to say Feedback picked up on all the drop -outs. On 28 September 2012 they dealt with one minute silence the previous Sunday night which was blamed on an "internal broadcast circuit" plus other losses of lines on Any Questions? and Today.  The 1 February 2013 edition called Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan to account who puts it down to 'human error'.  

Can I Take That Again? - Part 3

Imagine playing the unexpurgated version of a record rather than the radio edit. And on Radio 2 daytime too! Poor old Stewpot got some stick when the explicit version of The Beautiful South's Don't Marry Her slipped through the net.

Not sure of the exact date of this incident though I'm guessing it was the year of release 1996. You'll hear Ed fade down the track and then the following day Ken Bruce and Jimmy Young have some fun at Ed's expense.

Thank you to whoever sent me this audio earlier in the year. Apologies but I've lost your name and email address.

Can I Take That Again? - Part 2

Radio's equivalent of It'll Be Alright on the Night was Can I Take That Again? but in place of Denis Norden and his clipboard was Jonathan Hewat armed, presumably, with a chinagraph pencil and a razor blade.

Hewat had already been broadcasting on BBC Radio Bristol and gradually accumulating tapes of out-takes and mistakes (hence the large number of local radio shows that feature in the clips) before he took the idea to Radio 2. Six series of Can I Take That Again? ran between 1982 and 1989. After that there were occasional programmes on Radio 4 titled Bloopers and he put together short features for Radio 2's late night shows presented by Ken Bruce (1990) and Chris Stuart (1991).  

In 1986, ahead of the fourth series, he spoke to David Gillard of the Radio Times who reported: "Whether it's a fouled-up weather forecast, a fluffed song, a bungled sports commentary or a tongue-twisted news item, Jonathan iis likely to have it in his personal collection of more than 2,000 bloopers from all over the world. This time he's delving back as far as 1935 for classic clangers, as well as including some of his own on-air slip-ups. 

"I'm not in the business of putting people down, and I avoid naming them whenever possible. But bloopers have become a very popular new kind of humour and most people take their mistakes in good part. I've only been asked once not to use a clip again and, no, I'm not naming the person." 

Whilst continuing to appear on BBC radio Jonathan was a senior lecturer in communications at Bristol University before taking up the post of Head of Radio at the University of the West of England to lecture in Broadcast Journalism. From 1990 he taught at the Ashbridge Management College and went on to run his own media training business 46 Design.

Jonathan died in 2014 aged 75.

I'll be uploading 21 editions of Can I Take That Again? as and when I get the opportunity. But the first series of five is online now under this YouTube playlist.     

Series details, and my recordings, are as follows:

Series 1: 5 programmes 6 October to 3 November 1982

All five programmes available.

Series 2: 4 programmes 20 September to 11 October 1983

I have no recordings of this series.

Series 3: 6 programmes 13 December 1983 to 17 January 1984

I recorded five programmes, episode 5 is missing. Sound quality is variable.

Series 4: 6 programmes 8 October to 12 November 1986

First three programmes only.

Series 5: 8 programmes 17 August to 5 October 1988

All 8 programmes recorded.

Series 6: 6 programmes 4 October to 8 November 1989

Nothing of this series was retained.

Can I Take That Again? - Part 1

Bloopers. Cock-ups. Radio fails. Call them what you will, with so much live radio things can, and do, go wrong. In this short series of posts I'll be recalling the times when broadcasters really wished thay could take that again.

For many years the principle archivist of radio gaffs was Jonathan Hewat (pictured above). He collated compilations initially for BBC Radio Bristol and then on Radio 2 (Can I Take That Again?) and Radio 4 (Bloopers) as well as a series of tapes and CDs for the British Wireless for the Blind.  

I'll be posting editions of Can I Take That Again? in the coming weeks but in the meantime he's a one-off programme from 1991 titled New Year's Resolutions for Broadcasters. Heard on Radio 2 on 30 December 1991 it features some well-known examples of the genre including the infamous 'leg over' incident.