"Due to technical problems..." - Stuart Pinfold's Blog

My first full day at BBC Persian TV yesterday. The channel, normally on-air for eight hours from 13:30 GMT (17:00 in Tehran), was extended in order to cover the news of the death of Hosein-Ali Montezari, a Grand Ayotallah who led the 1979 Iranian Revolution and has since been an outspoken critic of the republic’s policies, and an advocate of human and women’s rights.

Following a late call for the shift (called at 10:00 for an 11:30 start), combined with the ongoing failures with First Capital Connect, I eventually arrived just 10 minutes before transmission of the specially-extended news bulletin.

The newsroom, studio and gallery were more hectic than normal as we covered the news and preparations for the funeral and as a result of starting an hour early.

However, it was possibly mostly in vain: reports surfaced that the satellite signal is once again being jammed, meaning viewers in the region are unable to view the channel.

This has happened before, during the elections and subsequent protests in Iran during July 2009, when it was blamed on “heavy electronic jamming” from inside Iran itself.

I get expenses. Not for duck houses, moats or cleaners. But an extra £68.22 for every nightshift that starts before midnight and ends after 0600. I have to manually make a claim for this and it appears in my payslip.

Now, you might expect that it would be logical for me to fill in one of these claim forms by, say, the first of the month for HR to process in time for me being paid on the 15th. Not so. The form details six weeks’ worth of expense claims for night-shifts and overtime payments, meaning that sometimes we get these expenses in our monthly pay, and sometimes we don’t, depending on how the dates fall.

Slightly more complicated than it needs to be, but a relatively simple system nonetheless.

Enter BBC Payroll Steria (outsourced, of course – what else?) implementing new rules this month. Apparently there’s a new form out (although our manager wasn’t told, nor was their manager) which everyone must now be using. It requests the same information as the old form with one difference – it’s now displayed in five-week periods.

So, we now need to submit expenses every five weeks, yes?

Well, no.

Apparently what we need to do is to fill in five weeks’ worth of expenses on one form, and the final week of the six-week period on a separate copy of the form, and submit them both at the same time.

Yet another stupid idea concocted up by someone employed to create bureaucracy who’s probably never done a night-shift or overtime day in their lives. Yet their decision, and whoever’s responsible for not “cascading down” the information about the new forms to everyone who needed to know, means my colleagues will miss out on expenses before Christmas, just for supplying the correct department with the correct information at the correct time, but in the wrong format.

As you may have heard (and if you haven’t, where’s the rock you’ve been living under?), Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party (BNP) is tonight appearing as a panellist on Question Time.

This has upset some people, who obviously don’t believe in freedom of speech or the BBC’s legal requirement to be impartial and allow all opposing voices to be heard, with the result of big protests outside Television Centre where the recording is due to take place sometime this evening.

At the moment I’m watching live pictures on the BBC News Channel and Sky News, where it appears that a small number of protestors have breached the police and security cordon and have been evicted from the main car park and even Stage Door reception. A large group of protestors have just swarmed across Wood Lane, blocking both the busy road and the vehicle entrance to the building. Nick Griffin himself is speaking live on Sky News, saying that he’s not already in the building and wondering how the police will guarantee him safe passage to the studio. He has just said:

“If the Metropolitan Police cannot maintain law and order on the streets of London, I will have to pull out of tonight’s broadcast and arrange with the BBC to do it at another time.”

I’m sure that this is what the protestors want, but the only effect would be to deny free speech on a public-service broadcaster.

I’m all for peaceful protest, and have attended a number of anti-war and anti-tuition fees demos myself – but Television Centre is a working building, with thousands of staff carrying out varying roles. Denying the ability of one man whose party won 6% of recent European elections (admittedly only on roughly one-third turnout) by disrupting a major workplace seems, to me, insane.

I recently had the need to kill a day in Reading. My other better half was in town for a college workshop, and I volunteered to take her.

My plan was to park up to the north of town near the train station, walk through (and take photos of) Forbury Gardens and the old abbey ruins (that be them, right) and make my way into town, where I would find the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) and state my simple purpose and request: “I’m here for the next seven hours, what should I do?” As representatives of the town, they should know the best parts to see and things to do there, right?

I headed off into the centre and looked at the street signage pointing towards the VIC, past a number of churches and the market. Eventually I came across a sign which was pointing back the way I had come. Thinking I must have walked right past it, I retraced my steps, and came back to the last sign, pointing away from me again. Someone must have twisted round the sign, naughty person!

I walk back on myself again, past the twisted sign, and headed towards the civic centre. Maybe it was inside there? I walked through the glass sliding doors, to find an unmanned reception desk and a barracade against the only internal door with a sign reading ‘Civic Centre Closed’. A big, burly security guard came up to me and I asked him where the VIC was. “Closed down” was his response, before shuffling me out of the door.

Beaten, and now wondering how I was going to survive the next six-and-a-half hours inevitably wandering around the shopping centre (those who know me know what I think of shopping, especially in shopping centres…), I headed back into town, walking past the Town Hall. Aha! Maybe they would be able to answer my simple, if rather direct, question.

I walked up to the reception desk, to a middle-aged man with a name-tag reading Bob, and told him my quest for something to do in Reading. He offered me a paper copy of the map I had seen as part of the street furniture around the town centre, but couldn’t advise me further because he had only been living and working in Reading himself for a month.

Deflated, but with my new map in my back pocket, I walked out of the town hall in search of photo opportunities (see all photos in the Reading gallery). More snaps of Forbury Gardens (the sun had come out), the old watermill, various town centre buildings and a pub next to the station later, I was on the look-out for lunch.

Not wanting the bog-standard chain food, but forgetting I wasn’t in London, I rejected Starbucks, Costa, another Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC, yet another Starbucks and all the full-meal restaurants around the pretty canalside area. My stomach growled and I was resigning myself to one of the Starbucks, until I suddenly came across Tutu’s. This Ethiopian cafe smelt great, had people constantly going in and out (always the sign of a good establishment!) and had an interesting-looking menu.

Tentatively stepping over the threshold, the first thing that grabbed my various senses were the burning incense sticks (+10 points on the StuartScale™) and comfy couches (+50 points), closely followed by hearing Zero 7 playing on the stereo (+3000 points), and then the sight of Fentiman’s Curiosity Cola chilling in the fridge (+infinity points). I settled myself in, book in hand and spicy beef in belly, for the afternoon.

Who needs a non-existant VIC and an unhelpful Bob, anyway?

Photos:

1. Forbury Gardens, Reading
2. Duck by Reading Bridge
3. The Old Mill, Reading
(All taken by me, more in the Reading photo gallery)

I’m strongly against paying for healthcare on a need-to-use basis: as has been proven in the United States and other countries which don’t pay for healthcare centrally but at the point of use, the poorest people (arguably the people who need access to healthcare more regularly than higher earners anyway) miss out while the people who can afford to pay get all the best treatment. This is something that Barack Obama is battling to change.

The NHS (the state-run, centrally-funded healthcare system here in the UK) is nowhere near perfect but has to balance taking care of a growing and ageing population vs the reality of its finances.

It’s interesting to compare these two personal experiences though, both of which happened to me over the last two weeks over the telephone:

Doctors Surgery (centrally-funded by the NHS)

Me: “Can I have an appointment with a doctor to have a look at my ear which I can’t hear anything out of except a high-pitched squeaking noise for the second time in a fortnight?”
Surgery: “The next appointment with a doctor is in 9 weeks’ time. Is that OK?”
Me: “It will have healed and probably returned three times by then! Can I have an emergency appointment?”
Surgery: “I’m afraid not, not for ear problems.”

Opticians (run by a private company under license, and subsidy, by the NHS, with a £20 charge to the user for an eye test)

Me, calling at 13:45: “I’ve just received a reminder letter for a 2-year eye check-up, can I make an appointment?”
Opticians: “We have an appointment available at 15:20 today. Would you be able to come in for that time?”
Me: “In an hour-and-a-half? Sure, see you then!”

(Image: Glasses by wokka from Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons License.)